Alice

Friday is the youngest of five girls. An afterthought. Monday, her eldest sister is 15 years her senior. On paper, they should get on the least well, they have nothing in common. Monday still lives in the respectable and unexciting landlocked commuter town they grew up in. She has four children and is married to a man called Simon, who despite Friday having known him for most of her life (they met at Christian Camp when they were 16) has no real sense of what he looks like. When she tries to picture him, which she does rarely, all she can see is a smudge of grey, like something in a school exercise book, with a pair of unfashionable glasses drawn on.

Monday found God at fourteen and never lost him. Their parents are weddings, christenings and funerals type of churchgoers so were taken aback by Monday’s sudden fervent devotion. Luckily her faith manifested itself in the form of good works and community endeavours as opposed to anything more strident or evangelical. Now her children are at secondary school and university she throws all her energies into volunteering for the church, she runs the toddler group and has a column in the parish magazine that Friday has never actually read.

Friday at 27 has slept with over 60 people and Monday has only slept with one. Friday has lived abroad for 5 years and visited over 74 countries and done class A drugs in most of them whereas Monday has never lived anywhere other than their hometown. Despite this, it is Monday Friday instinctively looks across the table towards, when at a rare family gathering Wednesday, the middle sister talks about how the new manager at the gym where she teaches aerobics is a Scorpio and therefore they have incompatible working styles. Monday raises an eyebrow slightly and a smile plays on her lips and a moment of delicious complicity will pass between the two of them.

It is Monday who always asks Friday about her job as crew on a luxury yacht and listens with delighted interest when Friday tells her about the entitled millionaires who only wanted to eat French Fries and Hot Dogs despite the award-winning chef they had on board. Her other three sisters never ask her anything about herself and certainly never listen.