Ninka had been diagnosed with leukaemia when she was 16 but for one final festive celebration, she was out of hospital and back home with us
We didn’t know until the very last minute whether my sister would be let out of hospital forIt was 1991 and we were camping in a house in London that a friend had lent my parents, waiting to find out. Home, in theory, was Rome for my parents, Edinburgh for me – but in practice, a year and a bit into my sister’s leukaemia, home was wherever Ninka was being treated. There had been a brief, sunny period in the summer where she had been in remission.
We were not the most functional of families most of the time, but before and after her diagnosis at the age of 16, my sister was the thoughtful, kind person who held the rest of us together . I had combined the worst of my parents – bad-tempered, impatient, my mum’s pear shape – while Ninka had inherited Mum’s sweetness and my father’s occasional, wonderful silliness. She had inherited my dad’s height and long legs, too, overtaking me a couple of years earlier.
And that was my best present ever. I wish I could remember every detail of that Christmas but the memories are vague. We had immutable traditions for every part of the day: buck’s fizz for breakfast, my father pretending not to want to open the presents, and then, finally, the presents and a beautifully decorated table for lunch. We were not in our own home, but Papa was a genius at making a roomDutch and candle-lit and cosy.
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