You Don''t Have to Say You Love Me

  After she’d texted Celia to say that she’d bring down her dinner in ten minutes, Neve went into the living room to wake up Max. She’d been planning to poke him in the ribs with her oven-gloved hand, but he looked so sweet and defenceless for once that she found herself dropping a gentle kiss on his mouth.

  By the time he opened bleary eyes, she was standing in the doorway. ‘Dinner will be ready in five,’ she said, just as there was a peremptory rap on the door. ‘That’s probably Celia demanding food.’

  It was Celia, and standing behind her was Douglas who held a Tesco’s carrier bag aloft. ‘Hurry up and let us in,’ Celia said, trying to barge past Neve who stood her ground. ‘I’m so hungry that my stomach thinks my throat’s been cut.’

  ‘You all right, sis?’ Douglas grunted, giving Celia an almighty shove so Neve had no choice but to stand aside and let them in.

  ‘Hey, Neve, tell your sister to piss off,’ Max said as he entered the fray, and her tiny hall was suddenly full of three very tall people and one stocky dog who kept banging against everyone’s shins.

  ‘I’m Douglas, Neve’s older brother,’ Douglas said, completely ignoring Neve so he could step round her and give Max and Keith the once-over. ‘I guess you’re the boyfriend and that’s the devil dog.’

  Max didn’t say anything at first and he would be well within his rights as both alleged boyfriend and owner of the alleged devil dog to shut Douglas right down – and the perfect birthday Sunday that Neve had diligently planned would be completely derailed.

  Neve let out the breath she was holding when Max mustered up a friendly smile and held out his hand so Douglas had no choice but to shake it. ‘I’m Max, this is Keith, but I’m sure Celia’s already told you that.’

  Neve didn’t think she’d ever glared so hard as she was glaring at Celia at that moment. ‘I said I’d make you up a plate and bring it down to you. What part of that didn’t you understand?’

  ‘Well, yeah, but Max said if I had presents then I could come for tea …’

  ‘That wasn’t exactly what I said!’

  ‘And then I bumped into Dougie, and Charlotte’s away and he’s been tormented by the smell of your chicken for the last hour,’ Celia babbled.

  ‘Come on, Neve, it’s been ages since we had a family dinner,’ Douglas said. ‘And I chipped in with the present.’

  ‘It had better be a fantastic present,’ Neve grumbled, herding her siblings into the kitchen. She caught hold of the back of Max’s jumper as he passed her. ‘I’m so sorry about this,’ she hissed in his ear. ‘I’m going to make them up two really small plates and send them packing.’

  ‘It’s cool. I can pump them for embarrassing stories about when you were little,’ Max said, brushing his lips against her cheek. ‘And I get more presents so it’s all good.’

  It wasn’t all good, it was very, very bad, Neve thought as she tried to put the finishing touches to the dinner with everyone getting in her way. Max had to shut Keith in the lounge because he wouldn’t stop growling and Douglas had to go down to his flat for another chair, which Neve wanted to disinfect with her anti-bacterial gel because it probably had Charlotte germs all over it, but finally the three of them were sitting elbow-to-elbow, knee-to-knee round her tiny kitchen table.

  Neve plonked the chicken down on the table, then stood there with arms folded. ‘Give Max his presents, then I’ll feed you,’ she commanded.

  The Tesco’s bag was handed over and Max pulled out two bottles of Cava (which Neve knew were in a two for five pounds promotion), a small box of Quality Street and a pair of Homer Simpson socks.

  ‘My God, have you no shame?’

  ‘Look, it was four o’clock on a Sunday afternoon, so our present-buying options were severely limited.’ Celia held her hands up like little paws. ‘Food. Now? Please?’

  ‘OK, OK,’ Neve sighed, picking up the bread-knife, which was going to have to do time as a carving-knife too. ‘But I’m really annoyed with the pair of you.’ She wasn’t even continuing her snit for comedic effect, either – she was going to have to sacrifice her three roast potatoes for the greater good, and there was still barely enough to go round. Plus she’d spent more on the organic chicken than she usually paid for a pair of shoes, and she’d wanted to eke it out for at least a couple of lunches and an evening meal.

  Neve flopped down on her chair, a sibling on either side of her and Max sitting opposite, and began to dish up the vegetables, ignoring Celia’s protests that she was allergic to broccoli and carrots.

  It wasn’t the Sunday dinner Neve had planned, and she hadn’t even bothered to light the candles she’d bought and she was damned if she was opening the bottle of champagne that was chilling in the fridge. Everything had been ruined.

  Neve half-heartedly speared a carrot with her fork and pretended to listen as Celia over-shared about the tattoo artist she’d hooked up with in Berlin, but mostly she tried to eavesdrop on Max and Douglas’s conversation in case Dougie started questioning Max’s intentions towards his sister. Not that Neve thought that was likely. Douglas was never that concerned about what she did and didn’t get up to.

  It was astonishing even to see Douglas sitting at her kitchen table eating off her mis-matched crockery, because usually they just passed each other in the hall and he’d say, ‘You all right, sis?’ and be on his way before she could answer. When Neve really thought about it, the only serious conversation they’d ever had was when he’d got back from Vegas, after being married to Charlotte by an Elvis impersonator.

  ‘For fuck’s sakes, all that stuff happened years ago,’ Douglas had shouted after Neve had spent ten rambling minutes explaining how hurt she was that he’d decided to make Charlotte his bride. ‘Your problem is that you dwell on stuff too much. You wanna put down the books once in a while and get out of the house.’

  But it was easy enough for Douglas to say. He’d always been popular, always been smiley and happy and so good-looking that when they’d been little, people had always stopped her mother on the street to exclaim over his angelic features. Celia’s pointy features were echoed on Douglas’s face in a killer pair of cheekbones but he had the blunter Slater nose and chin to offset them. He’d also inherited the height from their mother’s side of the family and his hair was such a dark auburn that no one could ever taunt him with ginger jokes, and even if they had, Douglas would have just laughed and joined in because he was like that, Neve thought, inwardly squirming at just how mean she was being.

  On the plus side, he’d never, ever, ever said anything derogatory to her face about her weight, and when they were little and her dad had shouted, and she’d cried (which had happened a lot because her father had a quick temper and she’d been a real cry-baby), Douglas had always gone and stolen chocolate digestives out of the biscuit tin to cheer her up. Besides, it couldn’t be easy being married to Charlotte and being responsible for the London office of Slater & Son, General Builders. According to her dad, who’d told her mum, who’d passed it on to Celia, who couldn’t wait to tell Neve, Douglas was making a complete mess of it and they’d asked Uncle George to come down from Sheffield to keep an eye on things.

  He really wasn’t so bad, Neve decided, and as if Douglas could read her mind, he stopped banging on about his predictions for Arsenal in the FA Cup, so he could catch her eye and give her the thumbs-up. ‘Fantastic grub. I suppose your bloke isn’t too bad either.’

  ‘Well, I like him,’ Neve said mildly, and Max smiled at her as if it was a private joke and only they knew the punch-line.

  ‘You’re very quiet,’ he said to her. ‘You OK?’

  ‘Oh, Neve can never get a word in edgeways with me and Dougie,’ Celia said. ‘It’s even worse when Mum’s here too – that woman does not stop talking. Dad says he needs earplugs when the three of us are together.’

  ‘Yeah, but Dad can go days without saying more than ten words. Do you remember the time we went to Morecambe?’ Douglas asked Celia.

  She rolled her ey
es. ‘God, yes! I still think we should have reported him to ChildLine.’

  ‘What happened when you went to Morecambe?’ Max asked and now it was Neve’s turn to roll her eyes.

  ‘It’s one of those stories that’s really boring unless you were there. And actually, I was there and it wasn’t that funny.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s because Dad let you stay in the car,’ Douglas reminded her, as he turned to Max. ‘So, we’re going on holiday to Morecambe, all packed into the Ford Mondeo, all really excited. Neve’s sat between me and Seels with about fifty books …’

  ‘She was deep into her Chalet School phase at the time …’

  ‘And Celia and I are doing kid stuff in the back, like playing I Spy and counting up all the black and white cars and …’

  ‘You two fought from the minute you got in the car,’ Neve said, interrupting this little trip down memory lane, which was losing a lot in translation. ‘And Mum kept turning around every five seconds to scream, “If you two don’t stop right now, I’m coming back there and knocking …”’

  ‘“ … your bloody heads together”,’ the three of them said in unison.

  ‘And what were you doing while all this was going on?’ Max asked, nudging Neve’s foot with his toe.

  ‘I was trying to read Eustacia Goes to the Chalet School even though Celia kept smacking me in the face with her ballet Barbie.’

  Celia tried to look repentant as she gnawed on a chicken bone. ‘In my defence, I was only six but anyway, Dad was so fed up with us that when we made him stop at a service station …’

  ‘Though he’d had to stop at every service station because as soon as our mum gets in the car and the engine starts running, she says she feels it right in her bladder,’ Douglas explained, though Neve was certain that their mother didn’t want that kind of information revealed over Sunday roast – or at any other time. ‘So me and Seels get out the car because anything’s better than staying in the car but Neve won’t budge because she’s all up in the Chalet School – and when we get back to the car it isn’t there! What do you think about that, then?’

  ‘Um, I don’t know,’ Max said. ‘Did you get turned round when you left the service station?’

  ‘Not even!’ Celia sniffed. ‘Dad only drove off without us. We had to wait there for an hour and it was in the prehistoric era before mobile phones so we couldn’t call and Mum was just about to dial 999 from a payphone because she thought they’d been kidnapped, when Dad pulled up and said that he wasn’t going to let us back in until we promised to shut up.’

  ‘Except it was only twenty minutes,’ Neve said. ‘Half an hour tops. And he only drove to the other side of the service station.’

  ‘I can’t believe you let Dad just drive off like that,’ Douglas said, because even after seventeen years he wouldn’t let it go.

  ‘But I didn’t even realise you weren’t there,’ Neve explained for the hundredth time. ‘I’d got to the chapter where they were caught in a blizzard and had to stay in a mountain hut; it was riveting.’

  ‘Tell Max what you and Dad did when you finally got your nose out of the Chalet School,’ Celia ordered and Neve thought she was being a bit heavy-handed with the righteous indignation but Max was grinning, his eyes darting to each of them in turn as they spoke.

  ‘We had egg, chips and beans and a Cornetto for afters and he read the paper and I read my book and neither of us said a blessed word to each other,’ Neve recalled with relish. ‘Good times, my friends, good times.’

  ‘While we had to make do with some soggy cheese and pickle sandwiches,’ Douglas said. ‘And when we got back in the car, I think we managed to stay quiet for, hmmm, five minutes.’

  ‘More like two minutes,’ Neve said dryly. She looked at the remains of the chicken; if she was really lucky she might be able to make soup from the carcass. ‘Everyone done?’

  There were empty plates all round, except for one solitary and exceedingly crispy roast potato sitting on Max’s plate. Celia was already reaching for it. ‘If you’re not going to eat that, can I have it?’ she asked, fork poised.

  ‘No,’ Max said, slapping her hand as she made a dive for it. ‘It’s Neve’s.’

  Neve could see Douglas and Celia exchanging raised eyebrows and a smirk as Max handed over his treasure, so she shut her eyes to enjoy her tiny moment of carbo-riffic bliss without them ruining it.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, when she was done. There was pudding, and it couldn’t be shared between three, but to her surprise, Neve realised that she didn’t want to kick Douglas and Celia out just yet. Though it pained her to admit it, it had been lovely to have a family dinner and Max wouldn’t be opening the second bottle of Cava if he wanted them to go.

  ‘So, I have a question to ask about your sister,’ he announced as he expertly popped the cork. There was a twinkle in his eye that Neve didn’t trust at all but she was sure it couldn’t be anything too embarrassing. She’d led such a blameless life.

  ‘Like, what?’ Douglas wanted to know, bristling slightly as if he might have to defend Neve’s honour, which was sweet and very unexpected.

  ‘Like, have you ever heard her say the f-word? That’s what she calls it,’ Max explained, as Celia snorted with laughter. ‘She can’t even bring herself to say it as she explains why she won’t say it.’

  ‘Oh, stop it!’ Neve tried to swipe at Max with her oven mitt but he was too far away. ‘I told you, I don’t like swearing.’

  ‘It’s true; she really doesn’t swear that much,’ Celia said, shaking her head as if she couldn’t understand why anyone would have a problem with frequent cursing. ‘I mark it on the calendar if she says “bloody”.’

  ‘I’m not that bad!’

  ‘Except for that one time, of course.’ Douglas leaned back in his chair and smiled smugly.

  ‘What time?’ Neve asked crossly as she tried to give Max a look that said, ‘Can you believe this?’ though from the eager expression on his face, he wanted to believe it more than anything.

  ‘The time you were back from Oxford and working all hours on some essay thing and I get woken up by you screaming, “Fuck you! You fucking useless excuse for a fucking computer!”’

  Celia sat up straight and gasped: ‘I’d forgotten all about that! The Day That Neve Swore – they’re going to make it a public holiday.’

  ‘What was I meant to do? The computer just died on me and I hadn’t backed anything up.’ Neve covered her burning face with the oven mitt. ‘There were extenuating circumstances.’

  ‘Don’t suppose either of you caught this on tape, did you?’

  ‘No birthday presents …’ she growled at him warningly, even though Max was too busy clutching his sides to pay any attention.

  ‘It’s not on tape,’ Celia said sadly. ‘Though the memory lives on in our hearts. There were quite a few more “fucks” after that first outburst. Mum was all for getting Father Slattery to do an exorcism because she thought Neve was possessed.’

  ‘I can’t believe you’ve been holding out on me all this time,’ Max said between giggles. All the sharp angles of his face were softened and he looked at least ten years younger. ‘Come on, Neve, just say it. Say the f-word. It’s my birthday!’

  Neve scrunched up her face as if she was seriously weighing up the consequences of dropping the f-bomb, while the three of them looked at her expectantly. ‘It’s never going to happen,’ she said at last. ‘Swearing is neither big nor clever and I’m not going to bow to peer pressure.’

  ‘Oh, you always do this.’ Celia jumped up so she could pretend to throttle her, while Neve tried to swat her away until the fake strangulation turned into a hug. ‘Just as well I love you, you little non-swearing freak of nature.’ Celia rested her chin on top of Neve’s head and looked at Max. ‘So, what about you, Birthday Boy? You got any embarrassing childhood stories to share?’

  ‘None that I’m going to tell you,’ Max said, pushing his plate away. ‘I’m an only child so there aren’t any wi
tnesses.’ He gave Neve and Celia, then Douglas, a long, hard look. ‘It’s cool that you three are so close.’

  ‘Those two are thick as thieves, but there’s no way I’d want to hang out with my little sisters,’ Douglas announced cheerfully. ‘And you two never used to be so tight until Celia buggered off to New York.’

  ‘True,’ Celia conceded, letting go of Neve so she could start clearing the table, which was a Celia first. ‘But I was so upset and pissed off when I left and Neve had been in Oxford for three years so I didn’t feel like I knew her that well, but then … Do you remember those emails you sent me, Neevy? They were so sweet, then you flew out to New York and we had so much fun that week.’

  It was obvious that there was backstory but Max didn’t start firing questions in all directions. He just waited until Celia had turned back from the sink, tilted his head and simply said in a voice that was as warm as honey in the sun, ‘New York?’

  Neve could see why Max interviewed celebrities for a living. The combination of head tilt and soft voice was a lethal combination that made you want to sit down as close as possible to that sympathetic gaze and unburden. Well, it would have done if Neve hadn’t tried to repress all the painful memories of what had made Celia bugger off to New York.

  But Celia wasn’t made of such stern stuff. Neve finished clearing the table, did the washing up, put the dishes away, made coffee and Celia and Douglas were still regaling Max with the sorry saga of the last Sunday lunch they’d had en famille.

  It had been a gorgeous, golden day; the French doors wide open so a light breeze blew into the dining room. It was also meant to be a happy day to celebrate Neve’s First from Oxford, Celia’s A-level results and Douglas taking over the family business. All three Slater children taking big steps out into the world.

  Except it had also been the week that Celia had spectacularly failed all her A-levels because instead of revising, she’d been sneaking out of the house to meet her friends and chat up boys. Douglas had fouled up a huge contract from the local council and got arrested for being drunk and disorderly when he’d gone out to drown his sorrows. So the Sunday lunch, where their parents planned to make the big announcement that their three responsible, adult children were getting a flat apiece in their grandmother’s house while their parents took early retirement and split their time between Yorkshire and the new place they’d bought in Malaga, had come at the end of a week of arguments, tears and slammed doors.