'Sister Ruth' extract

Ruth lolled on the hot concrete of the airport car park and glared malevolently at her father. She felt he deserved it. He was wearing pink shorts with ducks on them and negotiating loudly with the bemused Portuguese man in charge of the Europcar rentals.

‘Run smoothly, does she? Built for the heat?’

Ruth’s mother Susan’s voice was the next to reach her on the gentle Iberian breeze.

‘Ohforfuck’ssakePete. Christ.’

Ruth hoisted herself vertical. Her brother Luca, eight years old and seven her junior, was close by, pulling a stranger’s discarded bubble-gum from a crack in the ground. 

‘How much do you hate dad? Look at his shorts,’ said Ruth, shuffling up beside him.

Luca remained silent, committed to his sticky task with uncharacteristic solemnity. His loyalty, Ruth knew, was based almost entirely on a pleading bribe extended to him on the plane by their mother. Mention had been made of a certain inflatable pool-toy from the resort shop, pined after fruitlessly by Luca on holidays gone by. Rendered in the (somewhat impractical) shape of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, it was red, it was Luca’s heart’s desire and - for the first time - it was within his grasp. All he had to do was ‘behave himself’ from plane to villa.

Luca was not sure where exactly Susan would pin his current business with the bubble-gum on the ‘behaving himself’ spectrum, but as it was a quiet preoccupation and his father’s own antics had once again taken centre-stage, he thought he was probably alright so far. At any rate, he was not inclined to destroy his chances by allowing his sister to draw him into one of her conspiratorial parent-bashing sessions. Luca knew from experience that being discovered as a participant in Ruth's vicious tête-à-têtes did not, in general, result in any T-Rex-based rewards... unless you counted the admittedly reptilian transformation of his mother when she reached peak anger zone.

And yet... The resort shop was not known for its consistency of stock. This year round, they could just as easily be kitted out with benevolent, Herbivorous, green inflatables. Herbivores would not do. Green would not do. Susan was on shaky ground with the T-Rex bribe, and they all knew it. As such, Ruth persevered with her provocations.

‘Look how annoying dad is. Just look at him. Even if you couldn't hear him, he'd be annoying. Mum’s about to lose it, look.’

Luca, thinking resentfully of Diplodocuses - the gentle, boring fools - allowed himself a glance in the direction of his parents. Sure enough, Susan was at breaking point, shifting from foot to foot, beetroot-faced as Pete bellowed on about air conditioning to the now rather alarmed-looking car dealer.

‘Imagine you were mum and you had to kiss dad,’ whispered Ruth in Luca’s ear. Luca screamed. She clamped a hand over his sticky mouth. To her astonishment, the kerfuffle went unnoticed as their father opened, slammed and re-opened the driver door for the final time.

 ‘Okay kiddos! All in order. Thunderbirds are go.’

To be continued…