Oh, Brothers
My youngest brother called me wanker today. Before you berate my Mum and Dad’s parenting, I should specify that he is eighteen and only the youngest by twelve minutes, but we can all agree that it has greater impact when you begin by thinking my child brother called me a wanker. After a minor scuffle over tea (related to portion sizes), I called him a dick to which he replied, “At least I’m not a wanker though.” Touché. It’s the age-old insult which I can only imagine derives from the “I know you are, but what am I?” school of thought.
This is how our arguments go now that we are all young adults. In our early teenage years, there was a great deal more screaming and door slamming. Now it’s mainly expletives and muttering under breath. This is the first time we are reunited under one roof since the youngest two flew the nest last September. Everyone had adjusted to their new way of life pre-lockdown. Mum and Dad were sans child for the first time in twenty-two years. I was sans full time education after seventeen years. Max and Angus were sans twin for the first time in their entire lives, and Louis… well, his life was pretty much the same. We all had our own agendas, but suddenly we found these merged. As Mum teaches her primary two class, six different colours become a murky brown when mixed.
The family WhatsApp group acts as a good indicator of everyone’s different schedules. Mum will send a picture of Pepper (the cat) saying goodnight (don’t ask) at 9pm, signifying bedtime at home. Max, on the other hand, will reply with a Gif at 2am as he lounges in his student halls. I don’t think any of us are particularly similar. I wake up early and exercise to satisfy a yearning for productivity. My brothers don’t rise until lunch time, then proceed to eat half a loaf of bread with chocolate spread, directly followed by cheesy pasta for lunch. I question the need for breakfast if you wake up at lunch time. It doesn’t go down well. Following their hearty meal(s), they each go about their daily lockdown business. One watches the top 100 films. Another harbours entrepreneurial skill and proposes a different million-pound idea daily. The other juggles rising at 6am and working for Dad with sleeping eighteen hours per day. Sometimes I don’t properly see them until teatime, when they emerge bleary eyed from their rooms.
No one can wind you up like your siblings. With four of us, there was a different daily combination for “the argument.” Puberty spanning a period of ten years in our house meant chances were high that at least one of us would be having an off day. When I was experimenting with polo necks and low ponytails in the first year of University, my brothers compared my look to John Lennon and sang Imagine every time I entered the room. On reflection, it’s a pretty funny joke, but I still can’t wear a polo neck without hearing “and the world will be as one.” I’ve been called a nerd and an idiot within the same sentence, but portion control at tea is perhaps the tensest affair. We eye each other suspiciously as we spoon pasta, no one wishing to be short changed. Food must be divided equally and if you divide, you abstain the right to choose. There is no point cutting a purposefully bigger piece because then someone else will take it. It’s all politics.
When people ask if we are close, it’s not a straightforward answer. I’m not close with my brothers like I am close with my friends. We don’t spend hours on the phone, I don’t see them every day or share a constant stream of messages. But when I broke up with my boyfriend, they took me for coffee, gave me a hug and offered words of comfort. When one brother was struggling with anxiety, the rest of us spent a large amount of time worrying about him ourselves and spent hours on Google figuring out how to help. When another’s exams didn’t go to plan, we all wrote messages, dismissing the exams as stupid and researching different University options.
It’s funny the moments you realise that you are close with your siblings. I find it doesn’t come on the family holidays or over cosy dinners but rather in moments surrounded by others. It’s when we are with new people, and I realise I’m not interested in their polite chit chat, but what my brothers have to say. It’s during an extended family Skype call, when the joke doesn’t translate down the line, so only the four of us are laughing. It’s when my brother wants me to meet his new girlfriend first. When we are with other people, there is an unspoken agreement that in moments of discomfort we will be each other’s safety net. We will jump in to save a flat joke or back an argument. These are the moments when I can turn around and realise that someone wholly has my back.
And then there are the moments like today, when they call me a wanker. All praise flies out the window, and I storm out muttering to myself. Dicks.
Sophie Parsons is a recent graduate of the University of Edinburgh with a degree in French, dreaming of living in Italy soon.