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“If you head upstairs”—Jonathan gets up too, pointing towards the stairs as if he’s directing tourists to Marble Arch—“I thought you and Dad could take the second on the right and BJ and Johnny could take the first on the left.”
“Gotcha.” Wendy grabs an over-stuffed wheely case from by the door. “Come on Les, sooner we’re started sooner we’ll finish.”
Uncle Johnny is on his feet as well, but Barbara Jane is making a very intense hold-on-a-second expression.
“Youcannot,” she says, “seriously expect me to share with him.”
“What’s wrong with me?” asks Johnny in the tone of somebody who’s aware there’s several possible answers.
Barbara Jane just glares. “What’srightwith you? And how many thirty-two-year-old divorced women do you know who’d be happy about sharing a room with their sixty-something uncle?”
Jonathan smiles the way he only ever smiles at Barbara Jane. “I’m not sure thirty-two-year-old divorced women get to be choosy.”
“Now, son.” Les looks conditionally disapproving. “I’m not sure but I think that’s probably sexist.”
“It is,” I confirm.
Barbara Jane continues to glare. “Not sure either of you are authorities. And actually, Johnny, Idoget to be choosy because I can always book into a hotel, and if the choice is between bunking with him”—she indicates Uncle Johnny—“and going somewhere with room service, I know which I’d rather pick.”
With a flourish, Jonathan pulls his phone from his breast pocket. “Then let me call you a cab.”
“Works for me,” says Uncle Johnny. “Means I won’t have to share a bed.”
Barbara Jane’s eyebrows do something extremely expressive. “Excuse me, I’d assume you’d at least be sleeping on the floor.”
“With my back?”
“Tell you what.” Wendy has set her suitcase on end and is sitting down on it. She’s probably expecting this conversation to go on a bit. “Why don’t you come in with us and Johnny can have the room on his own?”
“So instead of sharing with my annoying uncle, I’m sharing with both my parents?”
“Okay then.” It’s looking like Wendy has a whole strategy mapped out. “Then you take a room on your own and Johnny comes in with us.”
Les stirs, just slightly. “He bloody isn’t.”
“Alright.” Uncle Johnny sounds more outraged than he looks. “I wouldn’t want to be in with you either. You snore.”
“I do not,” says Les firmly.
Wendy gives him something that’s part smile, part grimace. “You do, love.”
All this while, Barbara Jane has been mulling something over. “I’m confused. Isn’t this a five-bedroom house? That should be one room for you, one for me, one for the parents, one for Johnny, and one for Sam, assuming…” She flicks a suggestive look between us.
“Yes, thatwouldbe the situation,” agrees Jonathan, “but you might remember somebody suggesting we put a third of a pine tree in Sam’s old room to create a magical Christmas illusion.”
“To be fair,” I say, “it was me that suggested it, so maybe I should give my room up.”
“You can’t ask him to share,” insists Wendy, aghast, “he’s a guest.”
“Aren’t you all guests?” I point out.
Barbara Jane shakes her head. “Different rules for family. We can be as awful to each other as we like, but foryouwe have to pretend to be generous-spirited.”
“You’re about to move into my house, BJ,” says Jonathan. “How much more generous-spirited do you want me to be?”
“You could have offered to make the tea when we came in?” The wounded tone in Barbara Jane’s voice is mostly put on, but only mostly.
“Andyoucould have made some for the rest of us,” Johnny tells her, staring accusingly into the kitchen.
