Previous episodes of Two Sisters can be read in previous posts on Anecdotage.

I hear no more. A week later, Christmas is cranking up and we’re busier than ever at the agency, arranging a festive meal and entertainment for our elderly and disabled clients and sorting out their transport to the venue, on top of our usual, caring duties. We all feel the need of a knees-up so we gather at our local, which is hosting a DJ night and three-for-two on cocktails and spirits. By the time it winds up we’re all merry, also hoarse from all the screeching at each other. It’s in this festive, warm afterglow that I get off at my nearest bus stop and make my way to the flats, looking forward to sliding between the sheets and enjoying the heat of the electric blanket.

I push open the outer door into the hallway, delving into my bag for my key and look up to see a woman, slumped on the carpet by the console table that houses our mail. I have to do a double-take before I realise it’s her, Terry, collapsed on the carpet, bundled in her coat, handbag spilling out next to her. She raises her face to mine. Her face is ravaged, smeared lipstick, mascara streaks and red, swollen eyes. I pull her to her feet and she sags against me, weeping.

Not wishing to conduct enquiries here in the hallway, I pull her towards and up the stairs to my floor, into the flat and lower her down on to the sofa, where she sinks, sobbing. I switch on the electric fire, manoeuvre her out of her coat and sit down next to her, waiting for the shuddering sobs to subside.

In the aftermath, I acknowledge that the entire, sorry saga has been predictable. Should I have tried harder to prevent the disaster that befell her? I’ve had to conclude that nothing I could have said or done would have caused her to give up her scheme or be more circumspect in her relationship with Julian- if indeed that was his name.

She’s not recognisable as the woman she was. I come home from work each day and she is sprawled on the sofa in front of the TV watching anything and everything. Most days, she’s still in the pyjamas I had to give her and won’t have washed or brushed her hair, which has grown long and straggly, the blond highlights making their way down the sides of her face to make way for grey.

On my days off, I make attempts to get her out of the flat but so far I’ve been unsuccessful. She has nothing but her state pension and I’ve suggested she finds some employment, although she shows no sign of searching for jobs on my old, battered laptop or making any attempts to compile a CV. Her conversation is, at best, monosyllabic. She neither shops nor cooks and does no housework.

I have managed to worm the gist of what happened out of her, of what became of her home and all of her belongings, including her sporty BMW car. She seems adamant that there’s nothing to be done. She signed everything over to him; her savings, her property, her house contents- all passed to him like a dish of peas. She can no more gain entry to her former home or business than she can fairyland, since it’s locked up and in the hands of estate agents. Where is ‘Julian’? Fleecing some other unsuspecting, gullible, older woman by now, no doubt.

I haven’t given up my bedroom and she must sleep on the sofa-bed, the one that my daughter uses when she stays, only now she has to share with me when she visits. I bought a small, second hand TV for my bedroom, which I’ve converted into a bed-sitting room so that I can escape from the gloomy cloud that hangs around her in her despondency/

I don’t invite her to join in my nights out with the girls. I need my own space away from her and besides, she wouldn’t want to come. It’s a world away from the yacht club or cruising and she wouldn’t want to admit how far she’s fallen. The girls tell me I should throw her out, her and her arrogant, self-centred ways and I should reclaim my flat and my life. But I’m not able to, not able to throw her out on the street.

She’s my sister…

Novels by Jane Deans [Grace]: The Year of Familiar Strangers and The Conways at Earthsend. Visit my website: janedeans.com