Effie & Simon

Don't get too excited, I'm just re-publishing this one!

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Continued from Simon's journals

When my mother was pregnant with Effie, I don't remember her having to go into hospital much. Only for, what I imagine were routine appointments (from which she always emerged smiling). And then of course, for the birth itself.

I wasn't present for that part, thank goodness, but if I ever thought about the gruesome business, I imagine she smiled beatifically throughout that as well. Mother always said, with that familiar expression of pure happiness that she always wore whenever she talked about my little sister, I should have had Effie at home, really. The doctors all said so, she just slipped out, easy as you please...

They brought her home the day she was born. Within hours, if you can believe it. My parents pushed her at me, wanting me to hold her, but I had no interest in any of that, thank you. Father frowned a little, and mother's smile flickered, but then it was back to gazing at her and grinning, which was the default setting for most people around Effie.

Did I dislike her even then, sight unseen? An as yes faceless blob in a fuzzy pink blanket? Probably. Let's face it, I'd not liked her much before she was even born. I think my parents imagined that if only I would look at her, feel the warmth of her, that heavy milky smell, the softness, the grip of her hand curled on my finger... Surely I'd be powerless in the face of that cavalry, and would fall head over heels for her just as they had.

I must have held her at least once, because there's a photograph of it. I'm all awkward arms and a blank expression. I wouldn't be surprised if my mother worried I might be a psychopath. I don't looking like I am cradling a sister, a beloved family member. No, I look like I've been handed a brick that's slightly too big for me to grip comfortably, and I'm waiting politely to be relieved of it.

I never hurt her. I've heard of such things happening. Little children smothering an unwanted sibling with cushions, or filling up the pram with water, or pinching and poking to make the baby squawk. I just thought she was a nuisance. I didn't like that everyone had eyes only for her, but I didn't see that I could do much about it, beyond stewing in my own resentment. Perhaps I have always been weak.

I am assured by anyone who has known the family long enough that Effie was a beautiful baby. They do not say this about me. Small. Delicate. I've seen pictures of us both, and in all honesty, they are right.

She chomped away at mother's milk with gusto, and the rest of the time she beamed at anyone who glanced her way as if they were her favourite person in the world. She charmed people, even then, I swear. Dazzled might be a better word. Dazzled their eyes, rendering me invisible.

Plumptious, with rounded squidgy cheeks, and plenty of hair even on that first day. She didn't cry. She slept like... well, like the baby that everyone says they slept like (if not an actual baby, an inordinately wakeful creature by all accounts).

She grew, and I was often charged with minding her. She was never any trouble, and actually, I did like her slightly better when there weren't other people around. Outside the cage of inevitable comparisons, her company was more tolerable.

I waited for that dorky phase to bring her down to Earth with a rude bump. To my dismay, that particular shoe never dropped. She went from bonny and plump to tall and willowy, with nary a pimple in between. Her hair thickened and grew shiny. She honed that smile and wielded it more consciously, but it never lost its sheen. I suspect our parents spent more in a month on her clothes than they spent in a year on mine.

Are you picturing me, now, with my rabbity teeth and thinning hair, as oily as ever? In the long shadow cast by my sister's statuesque beauty and irresistible charm?

As we got older it was, "Oh, you're Effie's little brother, haha, I never would have guessed, you look nothing alike..." Stammering, I would try to assert that I'm the older, actually... but they would steam-roller over me in their naked admiration of her, and I always got the impression that I was supposed to be pleased, somehow.

Because here's the thing, in case you missed it... Whatever my feelings towards Effie, she adored me. She turned that smile on everyone she saw, but there was one person she sought out more than anyone, and it was me. She followed me everywhere, and then when we were older, she dragged me along to whatever she was doing.

She got invited to many parties, and I had to go, too. Initially it was, "Simon, go along and look after your sister," but even when that stopped, Effie still wanted me to go, too. She'd wheedle, and beg, and pester, and enlist our parents to help her, and eventually I gave in. It was easier just to cave at the beginning. It saved time. Anyway, (and I resent this, because it was an argument she used against me many times) what else was I going to do? It was the only social life I had.

You might imagine that our teen years were torturous, and that other boys teased me relentlessly about my sister. It did happen once. Some boy she was interested in made some vulgar remarks to me about what he intended to do to her. Effie got wind of it and cut him off. Not just that he'd said such things, which was bad enough, but that he'd said them to me. To upset me, or get a rise out of me. Effie would not tolerate that.

If I said I didn't like someone, she took it seriously. "You've always looked out for me," she'd say, with her most earnest iteration of that smile. "And you see a different side to these guys than I do. And you're the nicest person I know. If you don't like someone..."

Word got around: if you want to stand a chance with Effie, you have to be nice to her brother.

Before long I wasn't just being dragged along to these parties; I was actually invited to some of them.

Effie was always a sucker for a party. When we were children, birthdays were her favourite. It didn't matter whose. It was the whole vibe she enjoyed, and the more elegant the better. Cake, presents, singing, music, dancing... Effie delighted in it. Any party was an occasion and a half as far as she was concerned. Weddings, housewarmings, baby showers, anniverseries... She even enjoyed our grandmother's wake a little more than was proper, in my opinion.

As adults, the parties got gradually more and more... expensive. Somehow, with her gregarious nature, Effie could be trusted to find the most well-connected person in a crowded room and become his or her best friend before midnight, guaranteeing an invite to another "do".

Was she consciously climbing a social ladder? I don't think so. I think she had led a charmed life, luck, youth and beauty were all hers, and the world had treated her kindly. Why shouldn't she feel emboldened to take opportunities as they arose?

This was how, at the age of twenty-four, she met Lonnie.

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