The Disaster of Effie & Simon

From one of Simon's journals

My sister is a feckless wretch, if you must know, and that is why I do this, night after night.

Effie is beautiful, in the way an impressionist painting is beautiful, i.e. more so further away. Up close, her flaws become apparent.

She's likeable enough, to the people who don't know her. The more you know her, the less likeable she is, but still, apparently, beautiful enough to be loved. By which I mean in that particular way that men reserve for beautiful women.

As her brother, I don't see her that way, but I see the way they see her, the way their eyes follow her. How they blush and trip over their words if she casts a smile at them, which she does so casually, so absent-mindedly, it's not even for sport. Some just stop talking when she enters a room, and try to keep their eyes to themselves. Others gawp unreservedly. Not a small number actually stand until she is seated.

It's annoying. And it's always been like that, I swear. Since the day she was born, it's been Effie this and Effie that. Oh, isn't she gorgeous! Oh, isn't she darling. No, I am not writing this in the 1920s, but yes, people do actually use the word "darling" as an adjective to describe her, and perhaps the next paragraphs are wasted and that tells you all you need to know.

I have always been ordinary. A little brighter than average, maybe, and I know one end of a computer from the other, but still. That slight gawkiness that some children possess, and everyone charitably (secretly) hopes they will outgrow? I had it, and I did not grow out of it. My scrawny frame, buck teeth and limp, mousy hair are all unchanged, except that my hair is a little thinner these days. I should probably stop combing it to one side. It was a style (if you'll allow me to play fast and loose with that word) that suited me fine not so long ago, when my main follicle-based problem was that I had to buy products labelled "for greasy hair". These days it looks like I am attempting a comb-over, but the truth is I am just not very good with change. Unless it's advances in technology, and frankly even some of those can get in the bin.

My sister on the other hand...

I've never liked her very much. Oh I love her, in the dutiful way a brother loves his annoying sister. But I don't like her. Can you tell?

You might think it jealousy. As Billy Joel once said, you may be right. Perhaps, once upon a time, it was jealousy. She is younger than me by six full years, so I have a clear memory of having my parents all to myself before she came along. Often, I feel envious of the children who have no such memory, because being displaced in that way is quite horrible, even if it is necessary.

Don't get me wrong. I was probably a spoilt and insufferable little shit, my parents being as doting as they were, and not having to share that out amongst a brood. It doesn't even pain me to admit that a sibling was probably exactly what I needed, back then. To this day, I ask... did it have to be her?

Let's picture it together: I was a very much wanted baby. My parents both wanted a son and here I was. The pregnancy was godawful, by all accounts. I don't remember it, and it probably hadn't been so bad for me, cosy little parasite that I was. My poor mother, though, oscillated between the hospital and strict bed rest at home.

The birth was even worse. Tiny as I was, to hear my mother tell it, I damn near cracked her in two.

Still, they loved me. There might even be a special mechanism in mothers' brains that tells them their darling sprog must be worth it, so that they don't despair... This, then, if it does kick in, means that by some twisted subconscious logic, the greater they have suffered, the more wondrous the child must be. By this measure, I was very wondrous indeed.

I wasn't a robust baby, so you may add worry to that love, or maybe multiply them together. My mother must have fluttered around my incubator (and later, my hospital bed) more times than could be considered fair. Like an anxious honey bee, and my father a stoic flower in the corner.

As a newborn, my problem was failure to thrive, apparently. Unable to tolerate the bottled milk, I threw up a lot, gained hardly anything, and wasted a lot of energy crying in between. Some sort of allergy or intolerance or something of that nature. I left it behind in my infancy, but the smallness, the stinginess of appearance - that stuck with me throughout my childhood.

Of course I needed an inhaler. And glasses. Unwilling to be squashed flat in more physical games, or be left literally breathless, or have my glasses stepped on, I was drawn to books and computers.

I have a vague memory of my mother telling me that I was to have a little brother or sister. She did glow, I think. I got the impression I was supposed to be as pleased and excited as she was, but I wasn't sure how to feel. I remember swallowing the words, but I don't want a little brother or sister...

That could be a momentous memory. It might have been the first time I tempered my words to accommodate someone else's feelings. In a fit of magnanimousness, I never would have imagined, at five tender years, the precedent I was setting.

TBC

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Thank you for reading!