Wonder Women by Rosie Fiore Page A

discussing whether it was throw-up sick or snot sick.’
    â€˜Oh dear, did he share the kitchen-floor incident with you? He’s very proud of that. It’s a worry.’
    Jo laughed, and Holly found herself laughing too, for the first time since she’d stepped off the plane from South Africa.
    â€˜Miranda never mentioned she had a sister,’ Jo said. ‘It’s nice to meet you.’
    â€˜Well, for the last ten years, I’ve been the sister who lived on the other side of the world. South Africa. I’ve only just got back.’
    â€˜Back to stay?’
    â€˜I think so. Not sure yet. Everything’s a bit up in the air at the moment.’ Holly tried to keep her voice as steady as she could, but she found herself pushing Martha’s swing a little harder than she should, and it wasn’t until Martha let rip with a wail that she realised what she was doing. She caught the chain of the swing and stopped it.
    â€˜Why don’t you hop out and have a go at something else?’ she said sweetly.
    â€˜I want to go on the roundabout with Zach,’ whispered Martha.
    â€˜Zach,’ said Jo to her little boy who was running around and around, pretending to be a very noisy aeroplane, ‘will you take Martha on the roundabout?’
    â€˜Naaaah!’ shouted Zach. ‘I hate the roundabout. And she’s a smelly girl!’
    â€˜Sorry,’ Jo said, smiling ruefully. ‘He’s in that sexist phase. All boys are brilliant and all girls are smelly or boring. I’ll beat it out of him eventually.’
    â€˜I think nature will probably do your work for you … In a little while, he might start to see girls differently.’
    â€˜No hurry for that!’ said Jo.
    Martha whispered something, and Holly had to lean over the swing and ask her to repeat it three times before she worked out that the little girl was saying, ‘I want to go home, please.’
    â€˜Of course,’ she said, and lifted her out of the swing. She turned to Jo. ‘I’d better take her home and see how Miranda’s coping in the sea of baby sick.’
    â€˜Oh, what a pity,’ said Jo. ‘I was just about to ask if you wanted to get a coffee. Another time, maybe.’
    â€˜Another time,’ said Holly, and smiled. She couldn’t imagine when she’d next be in North London in a park full of small children and mummies, but Jo seemed a nice woman. She took Martha’s hand and they walked slowly home. Martha didn’t speak the whole time, and Holly was aware of how small Martha’s hand was in hers. The little girl seemed permanently slightly bewildered, as if the world was too loud, too busy and rather frightening, and she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to join in. And Holly certainly knew how she felt.

5
HOLLY THEN
    Holly was born with the show-off gene that is often granted to the youngest child in largish families. Her siblings, David and Miranda, were close in age to each other, and five and four years older than her respectively. Theirs was a family where roles were assigned early and did not change. David was the clever one, who did well academically, got a scholarship to a very exclusive boys’ school and then a place at Cambridge, followed by a distinguished career researching and lecturing in economics. Miranda was the good one, the average student who never gave her parents a moment’s worry, loved to bake and sew and babysit the neighbours’ children, had a series of unchallenging jobs and then sank with relief into marriage and life as a stay-at-home mum.
    And Holly was the maverick, the funny one, the creative one. When she was little, everyone had adored her because she was pretty and sassy and outgoing. As she got older, her mother seemed to spend most of her time sighing and saying, ‘Oh,
Holly
.’ Holly’s dad died of a heart attack when she was ten and Miranda and David were fourteen and