Weekend with a Brother

I caught him eventually

Jeremiah is a tall, lean weed. I am back home for the weekend and as I climb into the backseat of our Nissan Tiida at the airport I am delighted to find him there, limbs folded awkwardly against the driver's seat.

"Kuch!" I say, using my current preferred nickname for him as I lean over to hug him around the shoulders. With no place to escape, he allows me to hold him for a rare minute, grinning sheepishly as I lean my head against his shoulder.

"Hi Ka," he says. I am the only sibling for which he uses the proper Tamil term of respect. Jonathan has been "Thathy" since the nickname first proceeded out of Jeremiah's mouth at age two, a fact my middle brother has now grudgingly resigned himself to.

We catch up and spend most of the car ride home planning out our weekend, making sure the weekend's big football matches are slotted into our schedule.

***

At home, we fall back on our old tradition of sleeping in the living room. I claim the couch and Jeremiah drags his mattress from his room to occupy the space where the coffee table usually sits.

He lets me pick what I want to watch before we go to bed. I land on Brooklyn Nine Nine and we cycle through three episodes before falling asleep.

***

The next morning we wake up after our football game has started and find that each side has already scored two goals, a mere twelve minutes in. Jeremiah tosses me a glare, as if I am somehow responsible for this almost-unheard of scoreline and have deliberately kept him from witnessing it.

I throw my hands up in apology and we watch the rest of the insanity unfold from our temporary camp on the couch.

***

Around lunchtime, Jonathan makes an appearance in the kitchen, itching to get out and do something. We settle on a drive out to Sheffield, for pies.

As Jonathan drives and talks to Jeremiah, I silently marvel from the passenger seat.

Somehow, without my knowledge and certainly without my permission, Jeremiah has grown up.

He is no longer the silent presence when Jonathan and I are chatting about politics and celebrities and the pitfalls of social media.

He has thoughts on Billie Eilish and 'Old Town Road'. He has 424 Instagram followers!

My baby brother - the one I used to carry around on my non-existent nine-year-old hips and who paid me for my services by violently tugging on my hair - is gone. He is gone and has somehow been replaced with this ever-growing fourteen-year-old with newly-straightened teeth and the beginnings of a moustache on his upper lip.

***

I spend most of the weekend trying to wrap my arms around his skinny waist, pressing my nose to his hard, bony shoulder. He resists my attempts with quick, precise movements.

He spends most of the weekend gently torturing our mother. "Carroll!" he exclaims as he grabs her cheeks, which he proclaims to be the softest he has ever encountered. She struggles against him before accepting her fate.

***

We stay up late on Saturday night to watch the Tottenham-Man City game. It's an 11:30 start and by the end of the first half I've turned my back on the TV and decided to surrender to sleep. I know that he will man the remote.

I drift in and out over half-time and most of the second half, vaguely picking up the fact that Man City have scored at some point. Somewhere around the 90-minute mark I sense that the space beside me has gone quiet and turn over to see that he has fallen asleep, shirt off and mouth open on his mattress.

I sit up and stare at him for a moment. Despite the fact that he is now the night owl and taller than me and absolutely insistent that he is grown up, I am still his big sister - I am the adult. Sometimes - just sometimes - he will fall asleep before me and I will have to reach over and gently take the remote from him, aim it at the TV and turn out the light.

I return to my spot on the couch and fall asleep instantly.

***

The next day he gives no indication of having revealed a chink in his grown-man armour.

"You fell asleep before the game ended last night!" I say, grinning triumphantly.

He frowns. "Yeah, but I know what the score was."

I don't push it further.

***

On Tuesday morning I wake up at 6 and get ready in the dark. We had decided the day before that three of us - me, my mum and Jeremiah - would get to the airport early and have breakfast before my flight left.

At 6am, though, Jeremiah is no longer amenable to this plan. In the fashion of teenagers everywhere he wants to be left alone to fall back into the deep recesses of sleep.

I'm disappointed but I resist the urge to persuade him. Instead, I lean down over his mattress on the living room floor and wrap my arms once more around his protruding shoulders.

Again, with no escape, he lets me, grunting out a goodbye before burrowing back down under the covers.

I'm sad that he won't be following us to the airport, but I understand. He loves me in the fourteen-year-old way that cannot be stirred to do anything at 6am, let alone farewell sisters who will be back at some point.

I take my bag and pull the door shut behind me.

He sleeps on.