Low life | 14 January 2016

I was at home in Devon for the month of December. My sister was also there and her tyrannical, wildly fluctuating moods set the weather inside the house. She sleeps badly and usually appeared in the kitchen at 10 or 11 o’clock in a hagridden state, insane with anger at we know not what, daring anybody to wish her a good morning. I timidly observed one morning that the weather was quite mild for the time of year. She vehemently denied it and flew into a rage, presumably at Nature’s rivalry for supremacy over the climate.

She has no culture or accomplishments and doesn’t work. Her only interest outside her competing appetites is in celebrity gossip. As she has grown older, her voice has become more upper class and manual tasks have fallen further beneath her dignity. It is out of the question, for example, for her to sweep the grate in the morning, or lay a fire or even stoop to light it. She doesn’t know how to plug in the television. She doesn’t know how to access her email account from someone else’s device or dial 1471 to trace a missed call from a landline. It’s a wonder she can still dress herself.

She has two long-standing girlfriends, both of whom she fell out with badly in the summer. Her new boyfriend is already feeling the sharp edge of her tongue and she has fallen out with the bloke who manages his hotel. The first time she went to the village stores she fell out with the woman behind the counter. She and her boyfriend went to a hotel in Cornwall for New Year’s Eve. The manager took an instant dislike to her, made it plain, and they drank champagne in their room instead of with the other guests, whom she also heartily despised.