“He said they ate road-kill all the way”

I AM cheering up a lesbian on a sofa, in London; a “washed-up old lezzer”, as my sister describes herself, now that she is single again at 45.

My sister has approached the break-up of her long-term relationship in typically understated style. “Weekends are tough to get through,” she said at the start of the summer, in a piteously cheerful abridgment. Ever since, her five siblings and close friends have been jockeying for position on a Cheering Up Rota, which we drew up quicker than you can say the word ‘heartbreak’.

It’s hard to get on a cheering-up rota when the person for whom it’s been drawn up is the best kind of woman there is in the world. Competition has been fierce, I tell you. But I’ve got myself a slot, so I’m sitting on her sofa, and thinking how this cheering-up business cuts both ways, for we’ve just returned from a burlesque show in the Café de Paris. And it appears she’s holding good on her promise to help me book my family’s holiday accommodation in Puglia.

“Where do you wanna go in Puglia?” she says, lifting her glass of Merlot and taking a gulp.

“You see, that’s the problem, I haven’t quite decided…”

“Have you looked at a map?”

“You see, that’s the…”

“Stop pretending you have some sort of neurosis about booking accommodation,” she says. “Your neurosis about maths is a real neurosis. This is not.”

She gives me a look that reminds me why she was head-hunted for the terrifying work-title that’s written on the badge she pins on the lapel of her work jacket every morning.

“You’ve just long-fingered booking accommodation and now you’re panicking,” she says, “get on with it. What kind of place do you want?”

“Somewhere where I don’t have to leave my soul outside the front door… something beautiful ...”

She says “for Chrisssake” and asks me what kind of place my husband has in mind.

“A bike and a shack, which is why I said I’d book accommodation this year because I don’t want to arrive at a place and have to leave my soul….”

“For Chrisssake,” she says, “go and run me a bath, get me more wine, and don’t go near the pickled garlic while you’re at it. You stunk my flat out yesterday and if you do it again, I’ll book you a bloody a bike and a shack.”

I run her bath, and return with Merlot.

She sits on the sofa holding the phone in her hand with a slackened jaw.

“I haven’t gone near the pickled garlic,” I say.

She looks at the phone, then up at me and says that my husband just called.

“What did he want?” I say.

“He asked me if we’d got around to booking flights yet and then he told me a really weird story about two people he knows who’ve just cycled all the way from Cork to Wales, up the motorway to London, round the M25, and back again.”

“Oh yes,” I say.

“He said they did it with no helmets, no cycling gear and nothing but a wok and a bunch of leeks on the back of their bikes.”

“Yes,” I say.

“He said they ate road-kill all the way.”

“Yup.”

“Why is he telling me this now?” she says with that terrifying work-title look again.

“Because he knows you’re helping me find accommodation and he’s hoping this story will influence our decision. He’s a staunch believer in doing things the hard way. He’s not called Bear Grylls for nothing.”

“Well if he thinks you’re doing it the hard way this year, he’s got another think coming,” she says, and I find I like her terrifying work-title look much more when it’s not directed at me.

“Gimme my iPad,” she says.

I pass it over.

“Go and have my bath,” she says, “there are clean towels in the airing cupboard.”

I am off.

“Fill your glass up,” she shouts after me, “and there’s some lovely L’Occitane stuff above the sink. Help yourself. Road-kill, for Christ’s sake.”

“Yep,” I think, scrubbing up with L’Occitane in a deep, hot bath, “cheering up a lezzer definitely cuts both ways.”