as I’ve taken fivers, tenners, twenties and exchanged them for coins, my left hand turning bright pink with cold, I’ve been feeling sick at how it might be, seeing our Lisa and our Emma and their big fat American life in the humble surroundings of an NHS hospital. Yet, hearing their voices, I actually feel okay, as if stuck in a time warp, and I wish I had a paperback beneath my fleece so I could sit in the corner and blissfully ignore them all. I left Mary’s thriller in the bloody van. I need my head screwing on.
‘Yo,’ I say slowly, unsure of where the ‘yo’ came from.
Emma jumps up first and starts to flap and clap. Her many movements make way for Lisa, who simply stands and embraces me with a warm hug. She breaks away, looking into my eyes with a closed-mouth smile, then takes in my forehead, my hair, my chin. Christ, she’s so dramatic sometimes. Where does she think she is? Little House on the bloody Prairie? Luckily Emma drags me away and between hugs and kisses introduces me to Sienna and Mason, ushering her weary kids to hug me, too. I mess up their hair before I’m whacked – well, smacked – on the back.
‘Alright, Jack?’ I say, bracing myself for a strong handshake, only to be pulled into him.
‘HEY, BROTHER,’ Emma’s husband yells, suffocating me with his huge body and arms. ‘Glad to see you, it’s been too long.’
‘I’m Paul,’ Lisa’s husband says, with a lot less volume yet equal enthusiasm. I take in his neat haircut, his side parting. Finally, I’m meeting the hot-shot lawyer who got hitched to our Lisa in Vegas. He was knee-deep in a case for our Emma’s wedding here in Liverpool; same again for my dad’s funeral, apparently. ‘Apologies. My hands are kind of tied here.’
Paul’s sitting in the plastic armchair, the youngest member of the family, baby Bree, sat upon his knee chewing on a rubber giraffe. Bree is actually Emma and Jack’s third kid, and I think of how Lisa and Paul have been trying to conceive for years, IVF having failed twice. I instantly warm to Paul, The Good Uncle. He could teach me a thing or two.
Making my way past my suddenly huge family, I manage to give my ma the magazines and a peck on the cheek. ‘From Griffo,’ I tell her.
‘Oh, Griffo!’ Emma exclaims. ‘He was so in love with our Lisa, wasn’t he?’
Lisa blushes and perches on the armchair beside Paul and Bree. A short breath of silence follows and I’m able to take in the whole picture. Emma, Jack and their kids look as though they’ve walked straight off the set of a made-for-TV family movie, all jumpers and beige ‘slacks’, a song escaping their mouths rather than speech. Lisa and Paul look expensive, their jeans, their boots, their white shirts and sleeveless body warmers all screaming designer labels. But, really, my sisters seem the same as always. Just with better teeth.
‘Dare I ask,’ I say, ‘what you’re all bickering about?’
‘We’re not bickering,’ Lisa says, to nobody’s surprise.
‘Everyone’s getting on me bloody nerves, son,’ my ma says.
‘Look,’ Jack says, taking centre stage with his massive hands. ‘Allow me to intervene. It seems to me, from my recent observations, that there is a whole lot of misunderstanding going on here. My sister-in-law – your ever-so-wonderful sister – has made your mother an offer she can’t refuse. However, your mother – this incredibly fearless woman – is finding ways to refuse because she believes the offer will cause problems. Only what your mother – whose strength I admire from the bottom of my heart – doesn’t seem to understand is that there is NO problem. None whatsoever. In fact, there is more of a problem if she …’
And Jack keeps talking.
Words bubble out of him like Niagara bloody Falls, leaving me feeling soaking wet.
Bree starts to cry, prompting Jack to speak louder, and slower, so our Lisa picks her up and bounces her in a different direction. I can’t speak for anybody else but my guess is nobody, not even Emma, is listening to him.
Then, my ma hurls a magazine across her bed, target unspecified, hitting me in the head. I tell myself to be grateful that the woman’s getting her strength back. Shame she couldn’t have aimed it smack bang into Jack’s mouth, though.