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coffee mornings and classes with their designer clothes and solarium complexions. They have no real interest in the village; it’s just somewhere quaint to live.”
    Shane could see just how set in her ways his sister was. What had happened? He wished to god he could have taken her with him. He remembered what she had been like when she left school. She had been his inspiration.
     
     
    September 1986
     
    His sister Catherine, the wannabe writer, had left school excelling in every subject. She was his idol with her cool punk image, taste in music, desire to travel and her guts. In short, she was destined to do great things.
    Catherine took English at college, with the dream of becoming a journalist. She had it all set out in front of her. Everything was fine until she met Jack, a local farmer’s boy whose life’s ambition was to find a girl, get married, have kids and let her look after them whilst he worked on the land.
    He had only been out of hospital a month when Catherine brought Jack home for the first time, to be officially introduced to their parents. Their mother had insisted on it being a big affair; her daughter bringing her first boyfriend home.
    Shane stifled a snigger when he heard his mother say that, first boyfriend indeed. Catherine was not innocent and he’d known plenty of boys who were interested in her at high school. But this was the first one she was actually prepared to introduce to their parents. He wondered what was so special about this one.
    He tried as hard as he could to avoid this little soirée but it proved to be an impossible task. His mother had kept him busy with chores all afternoon. Do this , she said, do that . Why were his parents making such a big deal of it?
    He threw down the last of the towels he’d been folding. Slowly, he moved towards the back door, hoping she wouldn’t notice him.
    “Where do you think you are going?” snapped Mother, “You know we have company.”
    Catherine came down stairs carrying a bundle of university prospectuses. She was wearing her usual punky garb; a tatty pair of tartan trousers and an oversized Siouxie and The Banshees t-shirt. Her delicate arms were adorned with an ever multiplying infestation of bangles, bracelets and bits of coloured string. Shane thought she looked awesome.
    “So when do I get my t-shirt back?” He asked as he sat at the kitchen table.
    She sat opposite him and opened the top-most prospectus. “When you stop using it for your perverted sexual fantasies whilst spending time with Princess Palm and her five housemates,” she replied without looking up.
    “Have you decided which Uni you want to go to yet?”
    “Not yet. But I definitely want to take journalism.”
    “Cool. Maybe you could work for a national newspaper one day,” He pulled a worn sci-fi paperback from his jeans pocket.
    “Yes,” she smiled, “I want to get out and travel, and maybe I’d get to expose nuclear disasters like Chernobyl.”
    “I hope to God you’re not wearing that for the dinner? And surely you’ll be putting those pamphlets away?” said Mother disapprovingly, as she stood at the sink draining water from a bowl of vegetables. Catherine’s face became instantly stony.
    “Jack has seen me wearing clothes like these before Mother, and isn’t it rather shallow for him to be only interested in what I look like?”
    Shane glanced up from his book and smirked at his sister. Catherine shoved her tongue behind her bottom lip and stuck two fingers up at him whilst their Mother’s back was turned.
    Mother tutted loudly and faced them, waving the potato peeler as she spoke.
    “I’m sure he’s not shallow but if you don’t take pride in your appearance someone better might come along.” She didn’t miss Catherine rolling her eyes at her but chose to ignore it.
    She wiped her hands on the apron she wore and looked disapprovingly at Catherine and Shane. It didn’t seem that long ago that she watched them play together in the garden;