‘But of course! How could she possibly be anything else?’ Tash replied with a grin.
Cleo lifted her glass. ‘To the play – and to new chapters!’
Maya turned to them, eyes bright. ‘And to remembering who we are and standing tall when everything else collapses round us!’
They met up with Lesley and Fran again at the boarding gate. The pair were sitting side by side but not speaking and Lesley had a face like thunder.
Fran got up to say hello to Cleo, Tash and Maya.
‘Lesley’s furious our seats aren’t next to each other,’ Fran whispered. ‘She started to kick up a stink with the airline staff, but I said I didn’t mind. Obviously, that made her even angrier.’
‘Oh dear,’ Cleo replied with a smirk. ‘I bet you’re relieved about the seats, though.’
On the plane, Cleo found herself two rows behind Fran, who sat between a chatty American teenager and an older woman who was knitting a green scarf.
Lesley was further back, wedged between a huge man with wide, muscly shoulders and a noisy toddler with a plastic dinosaur which roared.
As the plane taxied down the runway, Lesley leaned into the aisle and tried to catch Fran’s eye.
‘FRAN!’ she hissed.
Fran didn’t hear – or pretended not to.
‘FRAN!’ Lesley tried again, louder.
The toddler began wailing while the muscly man put in his earbuds and shut Lesley out completely.
Cleo felt a little sorry for Lesley, but also found herself thinking this was what happened when you spent your whole life complaining, being rude to people and belittling your sister. Eventually, no one wanted to be near you.
When the plane finally landed at Heathrow, Fran stood, stretched and thanked the crew. Lesley, by contrast, wrestled noisily with her carry-on bag in the overhead locker and dropped a jar of Cretan olives on the muscly man’s head.
He winced. She didn’t apologise.
Cleo, Tash and Maya stuck with each other on their way to the arrivals hall. Fran was just ahead and about halfway there, she suddenly stopped dead and turned to face Lesley who, for once, was trailing behind her.
‘Lesley,’ she said gently. ‘Thank you for being my sister and for looking after me when I was little, but I don’t think our relationship has ever been very equal. I need space – and a new start.’
Lesley froze. She was speechless.
‘I hope you’ll be all right,’ Fran went on. ‘I genuinely do. But I can’t be your skivvy any more.’
Cleo watched as Fran took a breath and straightened her shoulders, while Lesley opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again.
‘You’re making a mistake,’ she said at last, in a small, tight voice.
Fran shook her head. ‘No, I think I’m finally doing something right.’
She turned to Cleo, Tash and Maya with a big smile and blew them kisses.
‘Keep in touch!’ she cried, before hurrying away. Soon, she was swallowed up by the crowd and vanished from view.
Lesley remained where she was for a few moments, looking lost, with her heavy backpack still on the ground at her feet where she’d placed it.
At last, she bent down, as if she were about to pick it up, but changed her mind and gave it a hard kick instead.
She was one of those people, Cleo thought, who tried to arrange the universe to their liking, but the universe, like Fran, had moved on.
Well, she’d got her comeuppance. And a rather fitting one, too.
