Me Before You(40)
Author: Jojo Moyes

‘We’re very grateful for your housekeeping, love,’ Mum said, so often that it made me feel a bit uncomfortable.

It was a funny week. Treena began packing for her course, and each day I had to sneak upstairs to go through the bags she had already packed to see which of my possessions she planned to take with her. Most of my clothes were safe, but so far I had recovered a hairdryer, my fake Prada sunglasses and my favourite washbag with the lemons on it. If I confronted her over any of it, she would just shrug and say, ‘Well, you never use it,’ as if that were entirely the point.

That was Treena all over. She felt entitled. Even though Thomas had come along, she had never quite lost that sense of being the baby of the family – the deep-rooted feeling that the whole world actually did revolve around her. When we had been little and she had thrown a huge strop because she wanted something of mine, Mum would plead with me to ‘just let her have it’, if only for some peace in the house. Nearly twenty years on, nothing had really changed. We had to babysit Thomas so that Treena could still go out, feed him so that Treena didn’t have to worry, buy her extra-nice presents at birthdays and Christmas ‘because Thomas means she often goes without’. Well, she could go without my bloody lemons washbag. I stuck a note on my door which read: ‘My stuff is MINE. GO AWAY.’ Treena ripped it off and told Mum I was the biggest child she had ever met and that Thomas had more maturity in his little finger than I did.

But it got me thinking. One evening, after Treena had gone out to her night class, I sat in the kitchen while Mum sorted Dad’s shirts ready for ironing.

‘Mum … ’

‘Yes, love.’

‘Do you think I could move into Treena’s room once she’s gone?’

Mum paused, a half-folded shirt pressed to her chest. ‘I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought about it.’

‘I mean, if she and Thomas are not going to be here, it’s only fair that I should be allowed a proper-sized bedroom. It seems silly, it sitting empty, if they’re going off to college.’

Mum nodded, and placed the shirt carefully in the laundry basket. ‘I suppose you’re right.’

‘And by rights, that room should have been mine, what with me being the elder and all. It’s only because she had Thomas that she got it at all.’

She could see the sense in it. ‘That’s true. I’ll talk to Treena about it,’ she said.

I suppose with hindsight it would have been a good idea to mention it to my sister first.

Three hours later she came bursting into the living room with a face like thunder.

‘Would you jump in my grave so quickly?’

Granddad jerked awake in his chair, his hand reflexively clasped to his chest.

I looked up from the television. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Where are me and Thomas supposed to go at weekends? We can’t both fit in the box room. There’s not even enough room in there for two beds.’

‘Exactly. And I’ve been stuck in there for five years.’ The knowledge that I was ever so slightly in the wrong made me sound pricklier than I had intended.

‘You can’t take my room. It’s not fair.’

‘You’re not even going to be in it!’

‘But I need it! There’s no way me and Thomas can fit in the box room. Dad, tell her!’

Dad’s chin descended to somewhere deep in his collar, his arms folded across his chest. He hated it when we fought, and tended to leave it to Mum to sort out. ‘Turn it down a bit, girls,’ he said.

Granddad shook his head, as if we were all incomprehensible to him. Granddad shook his head at an awful lot these days.

‘I don’t believe you. No wonder you were so keen to help me leave.’

‘What? So you begging me to keep my job so that I can help you out financially is now part of my sinister plan, is it?’

‘You’re so two-faced.’

‘Katrina, calm down.’ Mum appeared in the doorway, her rubber gloves dripping foamy water on to the living-room carpet. ‘We can talk about this calmly. I don’t want you getting Granddad all wound up.’

Katrina’s face had gone blotchy, the way it did when she was small and she didn’t get what she wanted. ‘She actually wants me to go. That’s what this is. She can’t wait for me to go, because she’s jealous that I’m actually doing something with my life. So she just wants to make it difficult for me to come home again.’

‘There’s no guarantee you’re even going to be coming home at the weekends,’ I yelled, stung. ‘I need a bedroom, not a cupboard, and you’ve had the best room the whole time, just because you were dumb enough to get yourself up the duff.’

‘Louisa!’ said Mum.

‘Yes, well, if you weren’t so thick that you can’t even get a proper job, you could have got your own bloody place. You’re old enough. Or what’s the matter? You’ve finally figured out that Patrick is never going to ask you?’

‘That’s it!’ Dad’s roar broke into the silence. ‘I’ve heard enough! Treena, go into the kitchen. Lou, sit down and shut up. I’ve got enough stress in my life without having to listen to you caterwauling at each other.’

‘If you think I’m helping you now with your stupid list, you’ve got another thing coming,’ Treena hissed at me, as Mum manhandled her out of the door.

‘Good. I didn’t want your help anyway, freeloader,’ I said, and then ducked as Dad threw a copy of the Radio Times at my head.

On Saturday morning I went to the library. I think I probably hadn’t been in there since I was at school – quite possibly out of fear that they would remember the Judy Blume I had lost in Year 7, and that a clammy, official hand would reach out as I passed through its Victorian pillared doors, demanding £3,853 in fines.

It wasn’t what I remembered. Half the books seemed to have been replaced by CDs and DVDs, great bookshelves full of audiobooks, and even stands of greetings cards. And it was not silent. The sound of singing and clapping filtered through from the children’s book corner, where some kind of mother and baby group was in full swing. People read magazines and chatted quietly. The section where old men used to fall asleep over the free newspapers had disappeared, replaced by a large oval table with computers dotted around the perimeter. I sat down gingerly at one of these, hoping that nobody was watching. Computers, like books, are my sister’s thing. Luckily, they seemed to have anticipated the sheer terror felt by people like me. A librarian stopped by my table, and handed me a card and a laminated sheet with instructions on it. She didn’t stand over my shoulder, just murmured that she would be at the desk if I needed any further help, and then it was just me and a chair with a wonky castor and the blank screen.