How it all came to this!

Every now and again the siblings - Diana and Katy - would happen across James and Marie, perhaps at a rare family occasion, and they would find themselves lulled into a false sense of security by the pair. Diana and Katy's natural good natures meant that in their heart of hearts they longed for a normal family. Katy had been married for twenty years to a very peasant gentleman. Rob, the aforementioned husband, and Diana had not always seen eye to eye over the years due to a clash of personalities but had always remained civil and polite for Katy. Lately this situation had thawed into an altogether more pleasant experience. Actual socialising had even taken place. Diana had very recently married a delightful young man some nine years her junior. He had the lovliest family Diana and Katy thought they had ever met. Although John, Dianas' husband, only had one sister there were aunties, uncles and cousins galore and so far Diana had not met a single one that she did not like.

I digress. As i said, now and again Diana and Katy would have no choice but to be in the same location as James and Marie and occasionally these characters would be on their best behaviour and appear to be much improved. Diana and Katy would wind up giving them yet another chance only to find themselves on the receiving end of some further skull-duggery at a later date. In order to avoid this situation Diana and Katy made deliberate efforts to reminisce from time to time in order that all the misdeeds of the 'unusual' pair could be remembered and used to spare themselves further stress. These deeds ranged from the many times that James (as a child) had shouted and screamed to the parents that he was being beaten by his sister when in fact she was doing nothing of the sort and she, Diana, had received the occasional unwarranted good hiding,to the time that Diana had would up working in the same place as Marie and discovered sometime later that due to Maries' description of her, her new workmates had been expecting her to arrive for her first day in a mini skirt, crop top, push up bra and stilettos carrying a price list for her sexual services. Sisterly love huh! The sheer volume of lies that Marie had told over the years in an effort to cause Diana and Katy to no longer be friends and so commandeer Katy for herself defied belief. Diana thought that by far the worst act of all had happened approximately ten years earliers. Diana had split from her then partner of eight years and during a particularly heated debate the ex had jumped up ontop of her car and began jumping up and down on the roof. He followed this by running down onto the bonnet and attempting to smash the windscreen in front of her face with his foot and finally jumping to the ground and smashing a side window with his elbow. During all this Diana was not alone in the vehicle, her nine year old daughter Clair was also in the car, screaming and terrified. Diana had driven the damaged vehicle back to her new home and called her father and the police in that order. Her father called James - presumably for moral support - but James went to the ex's house without so much as a second thought to give him any assistance he could. This was an unforgivable act of treachery as far as Diana was concerned and she had had nothing to do with him from that day to this.

Now, I hope I haven't given the impression that Katy and Diana were dyed-in-the-wool, halo-wearing saints because they most definitely were not. Amongst their favourite stories were the time that they filled Maries sleeves on her nightdress with sanitary protection. The three girls had shared a bedroom as children and the prudish Marie was fond of the kind of nightwear that covered her from neck to ankle with long elasticated sleeves. One night Katy and Diana had filled the sleeves of the unattractive garment with tampons, towels and panty liners and lain quietly waiting for Marie to come to bed. As Marie thrust her arms into the long sleeves a fire-work display of paper and tubes exploded into the air. Marie had berated the pair for their childishness and swiftly kicked the items under her bed before anyone else could see them. The story that still reduced the girls to tears of laughter after each telling even twenty years later went like so :- Diana and Katy had decided to target the hideous nightwear again! Marie's nightgowns tied at the front of the neck (believe me, no one was getting a glimpse of her vest in a hurry). One memorable night Diana and Katy had tied the little ribbon until the hole in the middle would not have allowed through a tennis ball much less a human head. Again they waited and again Marie arrived eventually and began the laborious undressing saga. The nightgown went over her head and she hid in there, removing items of clothing until she was ready for the next stage. Finally she slid both arms into the sleeves. Normally at this point the nightgown slipped easily over her head onto her shoulders and was tied ... but not this time! No, the nightgown remained on the top of her head causing her arms to be held up in the air in the manner of a zombie. There was no muffled snickering this time. Katy and Diana screamed with laughter until they thought they might actually suffocate. They were almost positive that they would die from laughter and a lack of oxygen when it became apparent that not only could she not free herself but she would also not ask them for help, so instead she made her blind way down the very narrow staircase and the girls could hear her hands banging on the walls as she went.

And so here we are, Saturday 24th Jan 2009. Diana and Katy see each other regularly. They both have jobs, lives, friends, husbands and children who love them. They are both still in touch with friends from Primary School, High School, various jobs etc. And James and Marie? Not one friend between them from any school, any job. There were occasional fleeting 'friendships' with people that they were currently working with, but noone who felt inclined to keep in touch once they were out of regular contact. Marie had married some twenty years earlier but according to the many stories she had told to the staff when she and Diana had worked together, Marie wasn't particularly fond of him either. James had married in the last year or two but I'm afraid Diana had no interest in who to or where it was going because Diana had no interest in James! She did not like him, she did not hate him - she nothinged him - and she was happy for that to continue for the foreseeable future.