Oh God

"You don't have proper cousins." Clio said to Kit, as they lay on the two divan beds in Clio's room.

"Oh God, what are you picking on me for now?" Kit groaned. She was reading a magazine article telling you how to soften your hands.

"You never have families of cousins coming to stay."

"Why would they come to stay? Don't all the other McMahons live just a few miles away?" Kit sighed. Clio could be very tiresome sometimes.

"We have cousins coming from Dublin always, and aunts and things."

"And you're always saying you hate it,"

"I like Aunt Maura."

"That's only because she gives you a shilling every time she comes to stay."

"You've no aunts." Clio was persistent.

"Oh Clio, will you shup up. Of course I've aunts, what is Aunty Mary and what's Aunty Margaret...?"

"They're just married to your father's brothers."

"Well, there's Daddy's sister in the convent in Australia. She's an aunt. You can't expect her to be coming and staying and giving us a shilling, can you?"

"Your mother has no people." Clio lowered her voice.

"She's a person with no people of her own at all." There was something in the way she said it which made it obvious that she was repeating it like a parrot from something she had heard.

"What do you mean?" Kit was angry now.

"Just what I said."