My sister is here. At my parents' place. And it's driving me completely and totally mental. I'm trying to have some patience with her, considering the current situation, but there's only so many attacks a person can take. I've reached my limit and so I’ve withdrawn to the privacy of my room.
Yesterday, if I spoke at all, she'd respond with some witty put-down, then laugh long and hard just to demonstrate how successfully she'd put me down and how witty she had been in the process. At one point there somebody said something about my height. It was a sort of passing comment which was very accurate because I am definitely tall. Caroline’s devastating contribution to this conversation was "aye, ye long skinny shite!"
Now, I don't like any unnecessary use of exclamation marks, but in her case - due to the sheer volume of her comment - that one is necessary. Then that laugh that can only be described as a cackle. Fucking hell.
Now, the really frustrating element is that this doesn't qualify as banter, because if I have a response handy then her counter-response is even more shrill and filled with rage. The veneer of cameraderie quickly drops and I become "a cheeky bastard". It's not banter - it's an argument. I'm trying not to fall into this trap so much, but it's difficult because the only way of getting out of it is by being silent and the best outcome of that is a demonstration that I'm not up to the battle of wits. The worst outcome is opening myself up to becoming "a huffy bastard" instead.
I've never known how to respond to her. She's a fucking psycho. Seriously. There are times when I'm tempted to consider that to be a bit of an exaggeration, but then I look at the facts - this person bit a cop once. And I had to grow up with her. She has never cared how much trouble she brings down on her own head, so long as she can spread it around. Biting a cop is, I believe, more than enough evidence to back up that particular belief. Now, I'm confident that she wasn't overly discriminatory about where the trouble landed, but I'm sure always got a particular thrill whenever any of it specifically landed on me. Which makes her a fucking psycho with a grudge.
(I'm wondering about the wisdom of including this chapter in the book. It might get edited out later, but right now I’m going to treat it as a sort of therapy. This is getting the frustration out of my system.)
Now that I think about it, the final straw – the reason I retreated to my bedroom – is disappointingly trivial. When Caroline got in, she went to the kitchen and put the kettle on. Now, one of our regular power struggles (and I consider myself to be just as petty as her on this one) revolves around the issue of making tea. On almost every visit she makes, there will be a request phrased along the lines of “Graham, go and make a cup of tea?” and I’ll have to decide my response. If I do as she requests, she’s effectively given me an order and I’ve complied. If I refuse, I’m being petty. Perhaps this power struggle is entirely in my head and the very fact that I have this internal dialogue going on at all could say more about me than it does about her. But it’s there. Every time.
She didn’t request that I make the tea, though. She wandered into the living room and sat down. The kettle finished boiling, but she had settled down by then. There was a brief exchange about it at one point, but nobody got up to finish the job. It was just generally understood that when someone wanted tea or coffee enough, that person would get up and make it – and then everyone else would get a cup if they wanted any. Nothing particularly controversial there.
Then I had to get up and do something. And when I had finished, I lingered for a while before I re-entered the living room, because I wanted to figure out what response I would have if I was asked to make tea. I decided I would be diplomatic and just do as I was requested, because it was the easiest option. And then I returned to the living room. There was, however, no such request, so I sat down without having to deal with that moral quandary. Issue ducked without any compromises – result.
I had returned near the end of an item on the news about Edinburgh’s canal, though. I had missed most of it, and I was intrigued. I’ve always wanted to own a canal boat, so I wanted to know more. I asked for a quick recap, and was told that the canal between Edinburgh and Falkirk had recently reopened. I wanted to know more, so I picked up my laptop, checked to see if there was anything on the internet about it and quickly found an article. I was most interested in the celebration that had been mentioned, so I wanted to find out when it was being held and where. I found a reference pretty quickly and, as a prelude to suggesting that it might be a good day out if anyone else wanted to come along, I mentioned that it was happening this weekend. And that was when Caroline waded in.
“They just told you about that on the news!”
Now, over the years, I think I’ve developed a bit of a Pavlovian response to that shrill voice and it irritated me right away. I reminded her that I had missed most of the news item, then remembered my earlier resolve to be diplomatic and tried to tone back the bitchy responses. This resolve lasted just long enough for Caroline to subside into a brief silence – lasting perhaps half a minute – before coming up with an answer. Then she put her hands up to her ears and said “That’s what you’ve got these for!” Seriously, it’s practically Wildean.
And that’s when I left the room. As I closed up my laptop and unplugged it, my mum told me I should stop being so touchy (a valid point), but I was on my way at that point. The decision had been made and I wasn’t turning back. As I climbed the stairs, I heard Caroline saying “He can dish it out but he can’t take it back!”
That got me thinking. I had to stop and consider whether she had a valid point with that statement. I felt that there was a big difference between my occasional offhand comment or bit of banter and her constant attacks. And… yeah… there definitely is a massive difference. I enjoy a bit of humour and a bit of witty debate. But Caroline is incapable of this. Instead, she has a potent mixture of volume, rage and energy. She’s really good at it. There aren’t many people (certainly not me) who can stand against it. In fact, I can’t think of anyone who can do it better, with the possible exception of my dad. I’m not sure who would win if there was ever a major conflict between the two of them and they both turned it on full force, because I haven’t witnessed that sort of thing in a long, long time. And even if I witnessed it again, I wouldn’t see the ultimate conclusion. Because I’d be taking cover. A long, long way away.
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