Sisters

I drew blood from my first baby sister at her Christening and there’s no denying it because, unfortunately, she still has the scars to prove it.

She arrived like a present on Christmas Day when I was two years old. By the time her Christening came around, she’d already been in hospital with bronchitis and I must have been so fed up with all the fuss this new arrival was causing, that despite the shiny white PVC pinafore I’d been bought for the occasion, I snuck into the bedroom and scratched up her face!

I don’t remember any of this. Actually, I remember the pinafore: it had a snazzily 70s zip right down the front. But the violent bloodletting? Nope, blanked that out completely.

I’m the oldest of three sisters. Just 13 months after Natasha’s arrival, Sonya joined us. Carmen, Natasha and Sonya, we sound so glamorous don’t we? But, in reality, ever since we could speak, we’ve called each other: Carm, Tash and Son.
Any psychologist could have warned my mother that if she was going to have three same sex siblings this close together, she would need a ref’s whistle and training with the Premiership instead of ante-natal classes.

We fought, we ganged up, we teased, we envied, we hated, wrestled, raced, slapped and bit each other. The rest of the time, we quite liked each other really.
Three is undoubtedly a crowd. There was always a slight tug-of-war for Tash’s attention because she was the nicest. Son and I had our bossy, determined, do-as-I-say personalities right from the off.

An entire afternoon could be spent very peacefully with Tash, but with Son a game of Boggle could become a fight to the death as we’d try to gouge out each other’s eyes with the dictionary.

At home, we might have fought like cat and dog - yes I do remember spiking their Ribena with mustard, Tabasco and chilli powder - but if anyone ever did anything horrible to them at school, I was there like the avenging angel.