My Friend/His Sister Ch. 03

Apologies for the delay, it's complicated.

Just so you know I've tried to address some requests from several readers asking if the fountain is 'Arian's Pool'.

Maerbont, a fictitious town in Wales of my invention but based on at least two real ones, is close to where that pool was, but regular readers will know that one can't just wander up to Arian's Pool, because it probably wouldn't be there.

A patch of writer's block took my mind back to Mid-Wales and the amazing scenery, and while it's not the same place, nor is there a suggestion of 'enchantment from the elder days', I hope that the 'waterfall' scenes have a certain magic all their own.

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"WHAT... THE ACTUAL FUCK?!"

"I'm sorry?" I said.

Kev took a sip from his water bottle and sat up slightly straighter. I watched as Claire's lips went through almost her entire lexicon of annoyed movements from a hung open mouth to pencil-thin red line. She held the pencil thin line and narrowed her eyes.

"You bastard..." she hissed. Not at me, but at her half-brother Kevan.

He rolled his eyes before closing them, with a 'here-we-go-again' sigh.

"A problem Claire? Don't tell me, Laura is the girlfriend you told me I'd never have isn't she," he sipped some more, "well, I didn't drive her off with my horrendous stammer, and she isn't driven to vomit by my outrageous body hair, strangest thing."

"YOU... YOU... DID THIS ON PURPOSE!" she fumed, spit flying from her lips in her rage, "My one friend, and YOU!" she snarled pointing at him, "You had to steal her, like you always stole EVERYTHING I ever wanted?"

Kev stood and was more than a foot taller than her.

"Yeah, Claire, I took everything didn't I. Let's see I took..." he paused; "Hmmm... riding lessons? Nope... you had those, but you didn't like the smell of the horses; ballet lessons? Nope, you didn't like being told to work harder. Piano lessons; yeah, couldn't learn the piano to concert hall standard in one weekend, so you never bothered after the third lesson." He shook his head and looked at me, "seven THOUSAND POUNDS Laura, that's how much my Dad had to pay out for the Baby Grand Piano. Little Andrea Preview here." (Classic Morecombe and Wise, YouTube it!) "spent one weekend smacking the crap out of it, and by Monday morning shouted to Dad that it was broken, and she didn't want to play it anymore."

"It WAS broken!" she snarled.

"Of course it was Claire Anita, and because Dad didn't have it removed straight away, she had to smash the lid with a flower vase Laura," he closed his eyes again, "two THOUSAND POUNDS worth of damage to a Baby Grand less than a week old."

"I dropped a flower vase..." she said, rolling her eyes and folding her arms as if it was nothing.

"From the first-floor balcony Claire, ONTO the Baby Grand; Dad worked it out Laura, to make the flower vase, it was a 17th century Delft - part of my Mum's collection, hit the piano lid, she had to have leant out, and probably thrown it a bit."

"I was ANGRY, Mummy and Daddy didn't do anything to try and help with my needs, I had depression!"

"Depression? Really? Was that why you had to wreck everything I ever had," He moved quickly and was now almost in her face, "D'ya know Laura, I had to lock my bedroom door because if I didn't, Claire Anita here would go in and trash my room! If I had a toy and it was breakable, she'd break it!" He smiled "And Why?" he said quite simply, "That's a question you'll have to ask her Baby, because she never answered me when I asked her for the THIRTEEN YEARS WE LIVED IN THE SAME HOUSE!"

"You... you..." Claire snarled at my fiancé, "YOU JUST SPOILED EVERYTHING!"

"What did he spoil Claire?" I said, in schoolteacher tones.

"EVERYTHING! I had one set of parents -- ONE! He had two, I had to..."

"His Mum was killed by a drunk driver Claire, you DO know that?" I slipped in calmly.

"Like I could have forgotten; 'Oh poor K...K...Kevan, his poor mother killed by that man, that DRUG DEALER!" she snarled, with the hint of a real emotion rather than her anger, "MY Mum didn't get killed, MY Mum could fucking DRIVE!"

"Claire!" I snapped back at her like I would a stroppy child, "That's enough!"

"Oh, and now he's taken YOU! My best friend, and he decided he had to..."

"Claire, he didn't 'take me'..." I paused, he had done, many times in fact! "We met each other at the hospital, I was there taking a friend to the emergency department, we bumped into each other, and trust me, the attraction was mutual!" I slipped an arm through his just to prove it.

"Well...." She flung her arms down, "Well, I'm done with the pair of you!" she screeched, "My so-called-brother and my so-called-best-friend... well you're fucking welcome to each other!" she screeched, an adjacent dog walker stopping and looking over to the three of us.

Claire turned on her heels, re-folded her arms and with her nose in the air flounced off towards the park exit.

Kev stood up next to me, slipped his arm around my waist as his half-sister bounded off, slowing occasionally to angrily look back and check that we were still looking. He looked at his watch,

"Coffee?"

"Love one," I said, and taking his hand we walked back to the Airstream.

Claire's rage manifested itself that night; I was Facebook tagged, and she accused me and her 'so-called-brother' of the 'worst kind of betrayal'.

With her usual minimalist headlines, she hinted at things unspoken, that I'd cast her aside 'like an old toy I no longer wanted', but then indicating that I really didn't know what I was in for, and that HIS true colours (Kev didn't do social media so couldn't be tagged) would soon become evident.

It was standard Claire Anita Facebook bullshit, meant to generate a whole mess of requests for more information that she could then kid herself she 'had to tell', then all the 'PM me Babe' messages and the sympathy she felt she deserved.

There were half a dozen quick misery responses telling the author to be strong, and to not waste her tears on a shallow bitch like... (My name was tagged even though I didn't have the first clue who the commentator 'Jessie' was) and I would have been fucking lucky to have Claire in my life.

I briefly inspected Jessie's profile and saw that they'd been friends from a previous holiday, I certainly didn't recognise her from school or college. I was minded to reply and ask Jessie what part she played in Claire's support network other than just insulting me.

But I knew not to respond; that would have been like feeding the monster, giving the addict what she craved the most, the opiate of attention.

But fortunately, I didn't have to. Someone else did it for me.

There, writ large under all the whiny shit was Kelly Duncan, better known as 'Cousin Kelly' who'd bitch-slapped Claire Anita after she slagged off her Dad. Kev had never succumbed to social media above a short-lived Twitter account, but I still read it out to him.

"FFS Claire, two of the nicest people you ever knew happen to be in a relationship, Laura is an old friend that is engaged to your brother. You're straight, SO how can you POSSIBLY HAVE A PROBLEM WITH IT!

You forget Claire Anita, some of us remember Kevan and Laura, and as your cousin I can come on here and confirm that all the sh*t you've been writing about them is just that, and created in that nasty, empty head of yours to get you all the attention.

I STRONGLY suggest you take this rubbish down, as some of it is actually libellous and a few screenshots of it passed before a half-competent 'no-win-no-fee' solicitor might see you in the deep Ca-ca, and trust me Babe, you can't afford it.

That, and if we're all telling stories about the old days, I might just post on your page what you used to get up to, and how sh*tty YOU were to Kevan in his growing up.

And as for Laura? She was one of few good friends you ever had; but you've done what you always did and turned on the people closest to you in your usual bullshit tantrums, unworthy of an eight-year-old. WIND YOUR NECK IN CLAIRE!"

I took a deep breath.

Kev looked over to me,

"I always liked Cousin Kerry!" he said.

I'd met Cousin Kerry lots of times; at parties and Goodall family barbecues, or just at Claire's big house and we became good friends until... you guessed it... Claire had a tantrum that Kelly was pinching her friends.

While she came across as quite a strong person, she was always really nice to me, and to Kev whenever he appeared from his monastic bedroom retreat, temporarily free from the hateful interference of his hateful half-sister.

"I must confess she was always nice to me; I did once think about introducing her to Stevie, seeing as she was only a couple of years younger than him."

I tapped on her name, and her page popped up. As I wasn't 'friends', much of the information was missing, but the few photographs showed the same girl I used to splash about with in the Mill House pool, play football with, and who could play quite a few songs on her almost-always-present guitar.

She was obviously with someone, and he shared her profile picture along with a small child and they both looked happy.

"What does Cousin Kelly do?" I asked, intrigued.

"She's a barrister," he said, "she decided that she wanted to be a solicitor at senior school; Dad told me that she took the bar exam after being a Crown Prosecutor for a few years."

"And she slapped her cousin Claire?"

"Like a good'un," he said with a soft smile, "but as has been said before, 'bitch had it coming'. And let's face it, I wouldn't want to take Kelly Duncan to court for assault, would you?"

I clicked back to the original page and her defence of my boyfriend and me but it was 'unavailable'; doubtless, Claire had taken it down on the 'legal advice'.

I clicked back again, to Kelly's page and in a moment of madness sent a simple personal message, 'Thank you!', which was replied to in a moment, 'You're welcome, Laura' swiftly followed by a friend request, which I accepted.

Soon I saw that Kelly wasn't married but lived with her long-term partner Mark and their daughter Ellie. I was also pleased to see that we had a mutual friend in policewoman Patty's crown prosecutor 'friend' Mike.

Messenger buzzed at me, and I saw that I had an incoming call from her, so I clicked accept.

"Kelly!" I said brightly seeing her smiling face on my phone screen, "you haven't changed a bit!"

"Aww thank you Laura! You look EVEN PRETTIER!"

We chatted on and I told her how I knew Mike through Patty and how gorgeous her daughter looked.

She replied very sweetly and said she was happy to see that Kevan and I had something going on, considering we both had Claire in common.

I told her about the night before and Claire's venom adding how, thanks to my brother, Kev and I had met again after ten years and that we lived together and were engaged.

She replied that it was lovely to hear things were going so well, and not to worry about Claire who was 'going through another rough patch'.

There was a shuffling sound and a tiny, pretty girl appeared to her right, "Laura!" she said lifting up the child, "THIS is Ellie, say hello to Auntie Laura Ellie!"

The tiny girl waved and giggled, saying a 'Ello' just in earshot.

"Hi Ellie!" I waved back and received a burst of chuckles and smiles, enchanting and making me feel even broodier than my first cuddle with Daisy.

"And I see you teach at Fossett Park Laura," said Kelly bouncing her child slightly, "That's our catchment," she hugged Ellie a bit tighter, "I'd better go with 'say hello to Miss Hardy', or will it be Mrs Goodall by then Laura?"

I held up my engagement ring on my finger,

"Hope so!" I said, watching as little Ellie started to fuss a bit.

"Oh Laura!" she squealed, stopping when Ellie started to fuss, "OK sweetie, Mummy's coming," she looked at the screen, "Laura, it's been so lovely catching up; listen, the school holidays kick in soon, meet you in town for coffee and a catch-up, you can bring that gorgeous looking fiancé of yours!?"

"It's a date!" I said, "I' on holiday so send me a couple of dates and times, and I'll bung it in the diary!"

We said our goodbyes, and within minutes we'd made a date for coffee in town, it even fitted in with Kev's shifts.

It was quiet for a while until I had saw I had been copied into a Facebook post on a Friday evening from a 'Janice Spencer', copying in a load of her mates insisting that she'd had a 'stand-up quickie' with a hot ambulance man the Friday night before, and that it was my cheating boyfriend that had been the man in question. There was a host of smart-arsed comments and giggles at my expense, but I didn't bother to respond. I showed Kev the profile picture of the accusatory girl, and he smiled.

"Don't recognise her baby," he said, "I'm sure that if I'd shagged her in an alley somewhere I'd remember her face at least. Anyway," he added with a quite wicked leer, "I do believe last Friday was the evening we went to the cinema and then to the MP," (our shorthand for the Moulmein Pagoda, our favourite and closest curry place), "then you all but dragged me home and threw me down a shagged me!"

That was indeed true, I'd just finished a long week at work AND my period, then with the romantic overtones of the movie and being in our first date restaurant I was as horny as fuck.

"Yeah," I sidled up to him and reached up to wrap my arms around his neck, and kissed him, "I did, didn't I... wasn't a stand-up quickie though." Our tongues swished together in that way I loved so much.

"Far more comfortable in that that big king-size through there." He nodded towards our bedroom.

"Yeah," I said, letting my arms fall so I could hoist my short tight corduroy skirt up to my waist, "but there's a first time for everything..."

It's just the weirdest thing; after almost a year of living with the most amazing man and wonderful lover, I'd figured we'd tried almost everything (and I do mean EVERYTHING!), but I still remember that most amazing orgasm he gave me. Pinned against the wall, my legs wrapped around his waist, the gusset of my tiny panties dragged to one side as he fucked me ragged.

I laughed, cried, gasped and cooed to the most incredible and mind-blowing love-making as i clung to him, stood in our kitchen, both still fully dressed (bar some underwear rearrangement) and both slightly stunned that something that simple had been that passionate.

After he finished deep inside me, I lowered my legs down and we unsteadily made for our bedroom, giggly and a bit silly at what we'd just gotten up to.

Stripped out of our work clothes and laying down to recover, I looked back at the offending Facebook page,

"Should I go onto the post and thank Janice Spencer for giving us the idea?" I said rubbing the line under my big boobs left there by my bra.

"Nah," said Kev, taking over the post-coital care of my breasts, "she must know how good I was."

We laughed then kissed and cuddled some more. When he went to make us a mug of tea, I flicked through the Facebook page of his phantom Friday night lover, by looking at those marked with the 'mutual friend' function, I found out that she was a friend of a friend of Claire Anita.

After another week the holidays started, and after a few days sorting my old classroom, and preparing my new one, the Friday in question came long, and Kev and I met Kelly for brunch. We hugged, and cheeks were kissed, and Kev took everyone's orders.

I sat down with Kelly and started talking about how little we had all changed in the years since we'd met last. It had been a similar path for all three of us; university, debts (for Kelly and me at least), life as a grown-up, then the good old days; and Claire of course.

"Linda's latest marriage had reached critical mass, and it looks like Claire might be moving to yet another parental home, paid for by Linda's latest ex-husband of course."

"Anything to do with Claire?"

"It wouldn't surprise me!" she said with a grin, then considered, "no mate, Auntie Linda is quite capable of being a pain in the arse; she had another boob-job, and even my Dad said that it wasn't going to end well."

I thought back on how she'd tempted her well-hung stepson into shagging her shortly after her second breast augmentation.

"Do you think Linda could be why Claire is so... emotional?"

"Oh, very well put Laura! And yes, without question," Kelly paused for a moment, "Linda is what my Dad calls a 'serial monogamist'; she's always been pretty, stunningly so in fact. When she was young, she did some modelling, mostly fashion, some magazine work, catalogues and stuff.

After a TV appearance she met then lived with a really nice-looking bloke who was a musician in a pop band. Trouble is, he knew he was well off and attractive, and was a bit of a man-whore. He lived with Linda but when he was working his gigs, he was shagging any number of groupies and fans as his whim took him.

She dumped him once she found out, but she was pretty broken up about it. She shagged a mate of his in revenge, and moved in with him," Kerry sipped her latte, "same thing happened. Dumped him, then moved in with a TV presenter who got her more work. More modelling, more TV, some shopping channel work, TV presenter dumps her because she's getting 'too clingy', two days after she asked about marriage.

She moves in with another popstar because, according to my Dad, she was now 'used to being with attractive men with money'.

Still modelling and doing performance work, she was holding an umbrella over a driver at Silverstone when she met Nigel who was something in the media department of Formula One. Instant love apparently.

Bins B-list popstar, whirlwind romance, married Nige, then Baby Nicola was born with Downs and that was that. Nanny Duncan always said that Linda hated people's first response being about her daughter and her condition, not her.

Nigel was 100% committed to Nicola and her progress and took a couple of years out to help raise her, which meant there was much less foreign travel, no weekends surrounded by the rich and famous, more importantly less money, with just a tiny girl that would never be the kind of fashion accessory she wanted her to be.

Linda hated that of course, and soon she met Phil through a media sales event, and it was one of those 'what first attracted you to IT multi-millionaire Phil Goodall' moments."

"Phil was telling me about how your Granny stayed in touch with Nicola and her Dad," I said.

"Yeah, major falling out with her over that; Phil was her new husband, Claire her new daughter, blah-blah-blah. What a cow."

"So..." said Kev with some surprise, "after pop stars, TV stars and international jet-setters, she married MY Dad?"

"She got older Kev," said Kerry, "suddenly she wasn't getting employed for such things, she wasn't getting picked to be on modelling jobs even after her first boob job, and she hated it. So, after two marriages and two kids she decided that she was going to just enjoy Uncle Phil's money and being Mrs Hardy."

"And I suppose that Claire Anita WAS the perfect fashion accessory." I said.

"Yes, using Uncle Phil's abundant cash she would buy dozens of outfits. Drove her mad when Claire had to start wearing duffle coats and Gingham rather than Dolce and Gabana. That just made her worse, and the shopping increased. She enjoyed it when Auntie Linda made her the centre of attention, which she often did, and would get angry when it didn't happen."

"And that's how we got Claire Anita?"

"Yep!" said Kelly, "and it did her no good whatsoever, completely screwed her up in fact..." It went quiet for a few moments, "I know she's a pain but to be honest with a Mum like Linda, the poor bitch never stood a chance."