Underneath

Wakey wakey! Rise and shine!

You don't budge as I creep across the room. I dump the cardboard box on the carpet and edge back towards the door.

You're a bugger for keeping me waiting. After what seems like forever you push away the duvet and haul yourself up to a sitting position, rubbing your eyes like a cutesy dormouse in a kid's cartoon.

Got a treat for you today, I say, with a pantomime gesture towards the box by your bed. Two treats, in fact. Something yummy to eat and something pretty to wear.

You stare glassy-eyed, as if trying to work out if I'm real or part of your dream. Your daffodil-yellow hoodie clashes with the ruddy cellar walls.

My fingers curl into fists. Don't you want to see?

Your gaze cuts through me like I'm nothing but smoke.

I'm scanning the room, mentally crossing off excuses for your sulking one by one. Your toilet bucket is almost empty and you're used to the smell. You've plenty of water in your plastic jug and there's a bumper packet of crackers you haven't even condescended to open. Don't tell me you're bored, when there's a world of entertainment in the brush-marks on the walls. If you're cold, put on your fleece or turn up the radiator another notch. I'm too tolerant, that's my trouble. WHO ARE YOU TO COMPLAIN?

You clutch the duvet tight to your chest, blinking hard. I don't like to shout, but you give me no choice.

I dive into the box and chuck a cellophane packet onto the bed. Don't you want a chocolate muffin? I yank out the scrap of silk, jiggling its hanger to make it dance. Don't you want a nice new blouse?

Your lips tremble, like you want to speak but can't remember how.

I'm waiting, I say. Or shall I take all this back upstairs?

You clear your throat, square your shoulders, raise your chin.

Pardon? I say.

Why? Your voice rasps with reproach. Why? Why? Why?

My arms and shoulders were moaning from eight hours of heaving trolleys down hospital corridors as I slipped through the glass doors of the minimart. Outside, the fog made haloes around the streetlights, and the warmth and tinny brightness of the shop seemed like another world. I grabbed a wire basket with little sense of what we needed: if I bought bread and milk, Liesel would surely have picked some up earlier; if I didn't, I'd get home to find we didn't even have the makings of tea and toast.

Scanning the shelves for inspiration, I noticed a young woman farther down the aisle, looking as clueless as I was. She was short, even shorter than Liesel, and, draped in a dun-coloured duffel coat, she could've been anywhere between fourteen and forty-one, but it was her footwear that called for a second glance. Her brown feet were swamped by makeshift rubber sandals fashioned from car tyres, a style unknown to this part of the world in winter, though endemic throughout the Global South.

I wanted to go up to her, commiserate about the cruelty of the English climate that gnaws at the soul. I wanted to summon up my Shona and Swahili, tell her about Mwange Primary and read the recognition in her eyes. But a gentleman doesn't approach a stranger when she's comparing brands of sanitary protection. As soon as she'd chosen, a tall white guy appeared at her elbow to usher her towards the tills. I switched my mind from pointless nostalgia to selecting a ready-meal, something I could heat up in the microwave if Liesel wasn't home.

The alarm didn't sound as the door slammed shut behind me. A smile melted the chill from my cheeks as I realised Liesel must be in. My smile extended to a grin as, moments later, she emerged from the dining room, arms outstretched in welcome. Even clad in my mustard-coloured rugby shirt topped with a grey cardigan bullied out of shape by too many wash cycles, she brought to mind a Pre-Raphaelite model.

Dropping the supermarket carriers onto the parquet, I hugged her to my chest, conscious of the frailty of her ribcage even through the padding of my jacket. I pushed aside a coil of hair and pressed my lips against hers, all sense of weariness or hunger banished by her sweet smell of patchouli. After three months of blissful cohabitation, I still couldn't quite believe this amazing creature was mine.

Hazel eyes gleaming, Liesel pulled away slightly, as if considering where we would do it: upstairs in her bedroom; on the kilim in the sitting room; down below in the cellar. Wherever she wanted, I was ready.

Over Liesel's left shoulder, I glimpsed an elfin figure lurking in the frame of the dining-room door. She wore a knitted tunic over a skin-tight T-shirt, knee-high boots and leggings, like a pantomime principal boy. "Hi, Jules," I said, stepping away from Liesel as casually as I could. "I didn't know you were here."

Jules raised a pencilled eyebrow. "Obviously not!"

Liesel laughed. "Jules has been helping me with my application for that team-leader post."

Through the open door I could see her laptop on the dining-room table, a glass of red wine alongside. "I'll leave you to it." I made to pick up the bags to take them to the kitchen.

"No, no," said Liesel, grabbing my hand and dragging me into the room. "We've done all we can for tonight."

"I'll be going soon," said Jules, yet she stretched herself out on the chair beside the laptop and cupped the bowl of her wineglass.

Liesel gathered up two square white plates smudged with pale sauce. "I'll get you a glass," she said. "And there's a bit of fish pie left if you'd like it?"

"Please!" Denied another kind of comfort, Liesel's cooking came a good second.

Liesel bustled out. I removed my beanie and patted down my hair in awkward silence. I took my time easing off my jacket and arranging it over the back of a chair.

Jules ran her hand across the top of her head. If her cropped peroxide hair was meant as a no-no to the opposite sex, she didn't know men. "This job Liesel's in for ."

I gave her a noncommittal smile.

"She's got her heart set on it, you know."

Liesel's work was as mysterious as the innards of a woman's vanity case. I nodded.

Jules slugged her wine. "And she'd be brilliant at it."

"Of course." Liesel was brilliant at everything.

"But she's going to have to fight for it. Really sell herself at the interview."

I remembered the charade of my own interview around nine months before. They'd had no concerns about lack of experience, or the irrelevance of my degree, but they'd needed some persuading that I wouldn't be jetting off to some country they'd never heard of once the nights started drawing in.

"She's going to need an awful lot of support this next couple of months," said Jules. "I don't know what kind of state she'll be in if she doesn't get it."

Liesel's voice wafted through from the kitchen along with a whiff of fish. She didn't sound like a woman who'd get herself in a state. "There's a Christmas card come in the post for you. And what looks like a credit card bill."

I could see the square white envelope propped up on the waxed-pine mantelpiece. Even from across the room I recognised the writing. No way was I opening a missive from my sister with Jules overseeing my reactions. I heard the ping of the microwave. "So Jules," I said, with the manufactured enthusiasm of a cold-caller touting personal protection plans, "what are you doing for Christmas?"

Jules's cheeks turned a deeper shade of peach. "Well, it's a bit complicated . Our families live at opposite ends of the country ."

Liesel smiled warmly as she slid a raffia tablemat in front of me and plonked a steaming plate on top. "Tastes better than it looks, I promise you."

"It tastes delicious," said Jules.

Liesel poured me some wine, sharing the remains of the bottle between the other two glasses. "So, did I hear you two discussing Christmas plans?"

I scooped up a forkful of fish sauce and mashed potato.

Jules groaned. "I don't know why people get so excited about Christmas. Half of us get hijacked by family miles from where we want to be."

Liesel's face took on the look of a professional sympathiser. "You and Maddie going your separate ways?"

"At least we'll be together for New Year," said Jules. "What about you two?"

Liesel reached under the table and squeezed my knee. "We're going to hide in the cellar and not come out till all the fuss is over."

"Cool," said Jules.

My fork almost missed my mouth. "In the cellar?"

"Won't it be finished in time?" Liesel turned to Jules: "He's been beavering away down there for weeks. Total obsession. Like an old man with a garden shed."

Jules gave a wry half-smile. Liesel smiled back. It reminded me of the silent compact that used to pass back and forth between my sisters, sign language for: Boys, what do they know?

"I'm lining the walls with plasterboard to stop the damp getting through," I said. "There's no point having a cellar if you can't use it."

"I entirely agree," said Jules, not bothering to stifle a yawn.

Liesel nudged her on the shoulder. "You're just jealous you and Maddie don't have a love nest like ours."

Polly's card showed a glittery Christmas tree with a man raising a champagne glass to the fairy saddled on the summit. He had a pipe and...