Fern Britton 3-Book Collection: The Holiday Home, A Seaside Affair, A Good Catch

‘The other room suits you much better.’

‘Why?’

‘Yellow is your favourite colour.’

‘No it isn’t. I like blue.’

‘You’re spoilt.’

‘You’re jealous.’

Dorothy wandered back in from the bathroom.

‘All settled, girls?’ Registering the sulky expressions on the girls’ faces, she promptly abandoned all efforts to placate them. ‘Oh, for Heaven’s sake – why don’t you two go and explore the beach before I banish the pair of you to the box room – you’ll have plenty to mope about then, won’t you?’

*

Nothing more had been said about the bedrooms. Not because Pru had given up; she was just biding her time.

The family didn’t visit Cornwall again until the Easter holidays. That first day, both sisters were squashed into the back of their father’s new Range Rover, surrounded by the bedding, kitchenware and other household bits and pieces their mother had packed around them after they’d got in.

Henry insisted on having Radio 4 on for the entire journey, so the girls plugged themselves into their Sony Walkmans, staring glumly out of the windows at the passing traffic.

At Bristol they stopped for elevenses. Moody as hell, Pru and Connie trooped in behind their parents, scowling at the food on offer in the cafeteria.

Dorothy tried to adopt a light, cheery tone: ‘OK, girls, what do you want?’

‘A doughnut,’ said Connie.

‘That’s very fattening,’ said Dorothy, looking pointedly at Connie’s rounded tummy. ‘Have an orange juice and a banana. Pru?’

Connie’s lip wobbled, stung by the suggestion she was overweight.

Pru, still plugged into her Walkman, didn’t respond. ‘Pru!’ her mother asked again. No response. Henry took the headphones off his elder daughter’s ears and shouted, ‘Take those bloody things off and answer your mother!’

Pru stared blankly. ‘What?’

‘Your mother has asked you three times: what do you want to eat?’

‘Nothing. And she only asked me twice.’

Henry took the Walkman and headphones from Pru’s hands and stuffed them in his pocket. ‘Right. I’m confiscating these.’

‘But, Dad!’

‘What do you want to eat?’ he barked again.

‘Nothing,’ she shouted, and stalked off to W H Smith, throwing over her shoulder: ‘This is SO unfair.’

Henry nearly went after her, but Dorothy laid a hand on his arm. ‘Let her go. I’ll be glad of the peace.’

*

Back in the car, Pru glowered and sulked without her Walkman. Connie smugly and irritatingly listened to hers, flicking her sister the occasional two-fingered salute.

After a while, Pru waved her hand in front of her sister’s face in order to attract her attention.

‘Hello,’ she said exaggeratedly. ‘Earth to Constance! Let me have a listen to yours, Con.’

Connie was indignant. ‘Why should I? It’s your own fault Dad took them off you, not mine!’

‘Oh, come on, Connie,’ Pru wheedled, going for the sympathy vote – a tactic Connie was always a sucker for. ‘You know I’ve been desperate to listen to that new Madonna tape for weeks, and you did promise to swap when we left London. I was going to let you have the Kylie one, remember?’

‘But Dad’s confiscated it.’

‘Exactly – not fair! Come on, you know I’d do the same for you.’

‘You would not!’

And so it went on, with Pru eventually breaking her gentler sister down.

Connie managed to tune out the tinny strains of Madonna’s ‘Express Yourself’, and stared out of the window, drinking in the Cornish scenery as it sped by. She hoped that Pru wouldn’t be a complete cow over the whole bedroom business, but she had a horrible suspicion that her sister would outwit her again, same as she always did. She sighed loudly, attracting a quizzical look from her father through the rear-view mirror.

At last the Range Rover crunched slowly down the lane and into the driveway of Atlantic House. Pru got out quickly and, with suspicious brightness, told her father: ‘I’ll help you take the luggage upstairs.’

He raised an eyebrow in surprise and disbelief, but handed her a suitcase and a couple of pillows and opened the front door for her.

A couple of minutes later, Connie climbed the stairs, lugging her bags behind her, and threw open the door of her bedroom, the big and beautiful blue room.

‘Surprise!’ sang Pru from the depths of the pretty four-poster bed. ‘Your room is down the hall, little sister.’

‘Very funny, Pru,’ laughed Connie, before turning to her mother. ‘Mummy, thank you. This is the best room ever.’

‘Which is why I am having it,’ said Pru. ‘The yellow room is so pretty and just right for you, Connie. Much more suitable for a fourteen-year-old.’

Connie’s face darkened. ‘And why should this room be suitable for a horrible sixteen-year-old?’

‘Because,’ Pru said reasonably, ‘I am studying for my O-levels and I need this room to study in. It’ll be quieter for me.’

‘Mummy!’ Connie turned to her mother for justice. ‘You said this was my room.’

Dorothy, staggering up the stairs with her own luggage, heaved a sigh. She was tired of constantly having to adjudicate in her daughters’ petty squabbles. Opting for the path of least resistance, she turned to Connie. ‘Darling, be a sweetheart. Pru needs to do lots of studying to get good grades, or else she won’t get a place at university. As soon as she’s through with all that you can swap rooms – OK? Hmm? For my sake?’

Connie knew she was defeated before she’d even started. It was typical of Pru to resort to these guerrilla tactics. Mum always said she loved them both equally, but somehow she always ended up twisted around Pru’s little finger. She was so manipulative!

Nonetheless, Connie acquiesced. She had no appetite for a fight she was bound to lose.

‘OK, Mum – but I’m only doing this for you, not her.’ Connie cast a filthy look in her smirking sister’s direction.