The Party Crasher(12)

      I remember staring back at him, my face tingling. I was so shocked that he’d taken Krista’s side against me, I could barely stutter a reply before leaving as quickly as I could.

  I never did tell Gus or Bean about that day. I kept my promise to Dad. But I hadn’t promised not to start a feud with Krista, had I?

  So I did that instead.

  My first salvo was at Krista’s birthday. Dad had summoned us all to this gruesome lunch to “celebrate” Krista’s big day. She was turning “forty-one years young,” as she told us about a thousand times.

  Did we want to “celebrate” Krista’s birthday? No. Are we her proper family? No. Was it just a chance for her to get out all the expensive china and hire caterers and pop champagne bottles and show off? Yes.

  But Bean said we should make an effort and I should stop saying “celebrate” with snarky quote marks and maybe if we truly tried to be happy for Krista, we would start to bond with her.

  I sometimes give up on Bean.

  So I trooped along and gave Krista a gift-wrapped framed photo as her present. It was a gold-tinted picture of her. In a gold frame. And it had two comedy speech bubbles. One read, Look at my sparkler!!! and the other read, Ker-ching!!!

  OK, Ker-ching!!! might have been going a bit far. But I just couldn’t resist it.

  I was all ready to defend it vigorously as an innocent, playful gift—but I didn’t even need to. Krista stared at it for a few seconds, her face rigid, then said, “Super!” and shoved the photo straight in her bag before anyone else could see it.

      And then she threw her drink over me. The official version was that she accidentally “dropped” her drink over me. But she knows and I know: It was no accident. She chucked her kir royale over my new cream dress, then instantly played innocent by grabbing her dachshund, Bambi, and stroking his head, saying, “What did Mummy do, Bambi? Silly Mummy dropped her dwinkie on poor Effie!”

  So that was the day she and I tacitly declared war. And for a while we were in quite active battle. Our weapons were mostly passive-aggressive emails, backhanded compliments on Instagram, and insults dressed up as affection.

  It was almost fun, goading her and waiting to see how she would retaliate. It was a kind of game. I still went to family gatherings, bristling silently, watching Krista with a wary eye, but there was never anything I could actually object to. Until one evening two months ago. We all three arrived for supper at Greenoaks together—Gus drove us down—and I was actually in quite a good mood. Until Dad said on the doorstep, avoiding looking at us in the eye, “Oh, by the way, Krista’s repainted the kitchen. Don’t worry, I took some photos of it first, as souvenirs.”

  Just like that. I still can’t believe it. That he let Krista do it in the first place. That he told us so casually. That he didn’t understand how devastated we would all be.

  Gus just gasped as he walked in and saw the white-painted cupboards. Bean’s face kind of crumpled. As for me, I felt shell-shocked. I remember standing, feeling as though my whole childhood had been wiped out.

      The worst thing was, Krista was proud of her desecration. She kept telling us the paint was called “Wimborne White” and saying it looked so much fresher now. I was so dismayed at that point, I could barely speak, but when I heard the word fresher, I couldn’t help snapping, “You know, I’m sure the Mona Lisa would look ‘fresher’ if you plastered that with Farrow and Ball too. You should offer your services to the Louvre!”

  Which didn’t go down brilliantly.

  Gus and Bean seemed to get over it after a few minutes. They pulled themselves together. They had a glass of wine and made chitchat. But I couldn’t. I was too wounded. Too fraught. I started trying to explain how upset I felt, and I gradually got more and more worked up…until suddenly I was yelling at Krista, “You know what? There’s not enough room in this house for us and you, Krista, so we’re off. OK? We’re off. For good.”

  Then it all got really embarrassing, because I’d assumed Bean and Gus would stalk out with me, but they didn’t. They stayed put on the sofa. I strode into the hall, flushed, breathing hard, ready to high-five my siblings—who would naturally be by my side in solidarity—then realized I was on my own. I was so flummoxed, I put my head back into the sitting room and said, “Aren’t you coming?”

  Whereas Bean said, “Effie…” in agonized tones without moving, while Gus just looked absent.

  So I had to do a second exit, trying to hold my head high, and I swear I heard Krista giggle.

  I was so livid. I nearly refused to forgive them both. Bean said afterward she’d been really torn, but she’d had this awful instinct that if we all walked out, the family would be broken forever, and she was trying to be the “bridge.”

      I snapped, “Yes, you are the bridge, because you let Krista walk all over you!” (Whereupon she looked hurt and I wished I hadn’t.)

  So then I tackled Gus. He said he hadn’t realized he was supposed to walk out and next time I should send him a WhatsApp.

  My family are useless.

  And since that evening, I’ve barely communicated with Dad. Nor have I been down to Greenoaks. I haven’t launched any more salvos at Krista, nor has she at me—but that doesn’t reassure me. I’m continually wary, wondering what bomb will drop next.