The Patterson Girls by Rachael Johns

sleepyhead,’ she sang faux-chirpily. ‘It’s time to get up and clean the rooms. I’ve already done one.’
    Abigail groaned and flopped back against the pillow. She didn’t know what was more of a nightmare—the dream she’d been rudely awoken from or her real life. So much for this trip being a holiday. So much for presents first thing on Christmas Day.
    â€˜My head hurts,’ she whined.
    â€˜Hardly surprising considering how much you drank last night,’ Madeleine said, not showing one ounce of sympathy. Abigail didn’t think this was fair coming from the woman who seemed to have had a glass of wine in her hand constantly since they arrived, but she was too shook up to mention this. She’d hoped being intoxicated would stop the nightmares, but apparently not.
    â€˜Just let me have a shower and I’ll be with you,’ she promised.
    â€˜Fine. I’ll see you in a moment.’ Madeleine turned in her sneakers and marched back out of the room. If Abigail wasn’t feeling so shite, she’d have found great amusement in the sight of Madeleine wearing cleaning gloves. She couldn’t recall ever seeing her oldest sister anywhere near a cleaning product. Without a doubt, Madeleine paid someone to do her dirty work.
    Despite wanting to crawl back under her covers and tug a pillow over her head, Abigail forced herself to get up. A grumpy Madeleine was one thing but if she didn’t pull her weight she could add an irate Lucinda to her list of woes and that wasn’t a happy prospect. She hurried her shower and then dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, ready to work. For the first time in her life she wished she could cook, because surely making breakfast would be better than scrubbing motel rooms. After tying her hair back into a high ponytail and pulling on her sandshoes, she went outside to find Madeleine.
    â€˜Stop laughing, you jerk. It’s not funny.’ Madeleine—with a rare smile on her face—was leaning against the cleaning trolley a few rooms along the verandah, talking into her mobile phone. ‘How would you like to spend your Christmas changing sheets that smell of other people’s sex lives? I just had to pick up a used condom.’
    Abigail grimaced at the thought. Was there any way she could get out of this?
    â€˜Honestly,’ Madeleine continued, ‘you wouldn’t believe what pigs people are when they don’t have to clean up after themselves. Give me a nice hygienic maternity ward over this any day. I have a newfound respect for cleaners.’
    Abigail approached the trolley and gestured that she was going to start on the next room. Madeleine barely acknowledged her, laughing at something whoever was on the other end of the line said. Abigail stripped the bed—thankfully she didn’t find any nasty surprises—and then bundled the sheets up, tossing them in a pile by the door, ready to take to the laundry. Screwing up her nose, she returned to the trolley, pulled out a pair of plastic gloves—orange ones—took a deep breath and picked up a cloth and some spray. As she scrubbed the vanity of toothpaste and soggy hair, Abigail wondered if this was what her life would be like from now on. She would need to get some sort of job when she returned to London. Her meagre savings wouldn’t last more than a couple of weeks but she wasn’t trained to do anything except play music. Racking her mind for anything besides cleaning toilets for a crust, she worked quickly to clean the bathroom. She surveyed her handiwork and then went outside to get rid of the used linen and fetch the vacuum.
    Madeleine was still on the telephone. Now who wasn’t pulling their weight? Sighing her loud annoyance, Abigail marched past her sister on the way to the laundry and when she returned Madeleine was finally finishing up her phone call. Abigail paused, no longer feeling any guilt about