Nice Girls Do

Chapter One Sex. Anna felt a moment of panic. What if she'd already had the last time ever, and couldn't remember it? It wasn't like smoking, where you ceremonially flushed the rest of the packet down the loo at ten past midnight on New Year's Eve. You wouldn't know that it had been the last time. Had it been any good? Probably not. If it had been good, Richard wouldn't have left. She could feel the skin contract across her cheekbones, tight with remembered pain. She stared out the sitting room window at the rain-blurred garden, then turned back to flicking through the Sunday supplement, where everything was about sex. Dossiers were sexed up, buildings were orgasmic, even dishwashers, which had once been plain old white goods, were now transformed into sexy desirables in gorgeous finger-lickin' hues. Then there were all the things that were better than sex. Chocolate. Yoga. Football. Gardening was the new sex, and history was the new sex, even newer than gardening. Anna sighed. If that was true, as a garden historian she ought to be awash in sex, whereas here she was, sitting in her parents' house watching the rain dribble down the window, not even able to remember the last time she'd done it. "Can you see them?" Anna's mother, Valerie, bustled into the sitting room, wiping her hands on her apron, the flowery, frilly retro sort that was popular at the moment with young women playing housewife. Anna knew it was original '50s and worn without irony. "We'll eat as soon as they arrive. I do hope they come soon, or the roast potatoes will be like mash." "Clare's always late for everything, you ought to know that by now," Anna said, as Valerie crossed the room and peered out the window into a rainy Sunday. Valerie's hair, neatly set at the hairdressers', had escaped in the warmth of the kitchen, giving her the look of a startled cockatoo. "It used to drive me mad at school, having to hang around at the end of the day for her. We were always missing the bus." "You were the eldest, it was up to you to help her." Valerie's tone was as sharp as lemon juice. Anna clasped her hands together, knuckles whitening. You're twenty-nine, not fifteen anymore. There's no point. But still her teenage self howled in her head: why do I have to help Clare organize her homework, why do I have to wait when she's got detention, why why why? Just because I'm two years older than her. Adult Anna reasserted herself. "The thing is, Mum" Valerie's face lit up. "Is that Steve's new car? It's very smart." Anna looked out as a sleek silver-gray sedan drew up next to her own insignificant hatchback. "Yes, that's them." Valerie rushed out of the sitting room but Anna stayed behind, counting raindrops, letting her mother enjoy greeting her sister and boyfriend on her own. As Clare shared Anna's house in Bath, seeing each other was not a novelty. She heard Clare bounce through the front door. "We're not late, are we?" "Darling, not at all." A pause for kisses all round, Anna guessed. "It's so good to see you, you're looking so well. And Steve too! Come on in out of the wet." Valerie bustled into the sitting room, beaming in a way that Anna couldn't remDuncan, Sarah is the author of 'Nice Girls Do', published 2007 under ISBN 9780312362874 and ISBN 0312362870.