The Twins

For a long, long time, my dad's parents had been a source of contention in our house. You could guarantee that at least 75% of all arguments came about because of them - whether it was something they'd done, or just the anger that talking about them caused.

It hadn't always been that way. I remember when I was very young, I used to love visiting them in England. They always had two beautiful beagles that I would play with for hours, and my grandad was the epitome of the jovial, red-faced grandfather.

Then, when I was six, something happened. I never found out exactly what it was - only that my dad had been down visiting them, and when he came home it was like they didn't exist. We didn't see them, we didn't talk to them. We didn't get Christmas or birthday presents, and we never talked about them.

I didn't mind too much - living so far away from them, we'd only visited grandparents a few times a year, and although I enjoyed it I didn't have that close a connection. Plus, clearly they'd done something really bad to upset my dad so much, and I would always take my dad's side over theirs.

The silence lasted seven years until I was thirteen, when my parents sat me down in the kitchen and explained that grandad had tried to commit suicide. Or, attempted suicide, as my mum stressed - he'd left a very clear trail so that it would have been very difficult not to find him in time. However, with my grandad now recovering and on medication, my dad decided that it was time to talk to them again.

So, back down we went to England. We decided to meet in a local pub. It was a bit surreal seeing them walk in - they barely looked like they'd aged from my fuzzy memories. As we got up to greet them, I went to hug granny - the usual greeting I'd give to family. As I leaned in, she pushed my head back sharply so that she could kiss me on the lips. I was taken aback and not particularly pleased about it - I was at the age where kissing people was weird, especially people I barely knew - but I screwed my eyes shut and suffered through it until she let me go.

Alyssa was next. Again, granny grabbed her and leaned in, but Alyssa freaked out and pushed her away, stumbling backwards. Seeing my dad glare at her, she looked down at her feet and then shyly smiled at granny, mumbling, "Sorry... I don't like kissing people, it's yucky." I couldn't really blame her - if my memories of my grandparents were fuzzy, hers were virtually nonexistent.

Granny had been staring at her in silent outrage during the few moments since Alyssa had pushed her away. As soon as Alyssa finished speaking, she narrowed her eyes and started jabbing her finger towards my sister's face.

"You should be sorry! That is disgraceful behaviour, what kind of little girl doesn't want to kiss her grandmother? Apologise again, and properly this time!"

Granny wasn't bothering to keep her voice down, and most of the pub had turned to stare in disbelief at this lady berating a young child in public. By this point Alyssa had burst into tears and hidden her face in my mum's jumper, scared of this strange woman yelling at her.

Luckily, dad managed to calm granny down and the rest of the meeting went as smoothly as it could, but Alyssa refused to say anything until we left. I found out later that afterwards granny spoke to my dad and insisted that he make Alyssa apologise as soon as possible for her rude behaviour, completely unable to understand that as an adult, she should be apologising to Alyssa. To this day, she still insists that she did nothing wrong, and that a bit of public embarrassment is essential to a child's upbringing.

That really started the animosity between Alyssa and my grandparents. It was only aggravated when mum began to let slip details of how they'd treated her throughout her married life. Apparently they'd always disliked my mum, and made no secret of the fact. Little things to start with - such as never receiving a Christmas present from them despite being with my dad since secondary school.

Bigger things too - one that always stuck with me was their reaction when my parents started living together. My dad had moved to Scotland whilst my mum was still in England, and it reached the point where the relationship was either going to end, or move to the next level. After my dad proposed in a handwritten letter with a rose, in a rare romantic gesture from him, he invited my mum to come and live with him in his house. A house, you should know, that had been bought with significant financial help from my grandparents.

And as soon as they found out my mother was living there? They immediately demanded that my parents pay them back every single penny they'd put towards the house. It also turned out that the reason we cut contact with them? They finally said something about my mum which pushed my dad over the edge. He's never revealed what it was, but anything that created seven years of silence is something I never want to know.

More recently, when my mum was struggling with my maternal grandmother's diagnosis of Alzheimer's, my grandad told her in a phonecall to stop 'making up symptoms for sympathy and attention; it is not becoming in a grown woman.' From that point on, my mother joined Alyssa in their refusal to speak to them.

And me? Well, as you know, I hate family contention. I could completely understand why Alyssa and mum hated them so, and honestly I hated them too for how they'd treated my mum. However, I could see how much it hurt my dad - despite everything they'd done, they were still his parents, so for his sake I still saw and spoke to them. I perfected my smiling, friendly mask, asked about how they were doing, and this way I soon became their favourite grandchild.

It wasn't something I wanted. They would give me extra money for Christmas and birthday presents, which unsurprisingly wasn't well received by Alyssa and Peter. I always shared out the extra - I didn't want to be the one in the spotlight, I didn't want their favouritism. Couldn't they see that by making me the 'special' one, it just caused unnecessary issues? Shouldn't all grandchildren be loved equally?

It was also around this time that I began to realise what incredible, awful snobs they were. Every time we visited them for lunch, granny would make the biggest deal about how all the food was bought from Waitrose because Tesco just 'wasn't up to scratch with the masses all buying there'. One year I asked for the new electronic 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire' game for Christmas, excited over having an electronic game - with flashing lights no less! Bearing in mind I was 12 at the time, come Christmas I got a box of the right size... and opened it to find the adult 16+ game, with a note detailing of how children should be pushed to fulfil their full potential, and to see beyond the flashing lights to find true knowledge and purpose. Unsurprisingly, after a couple of games where none of us could answer any of the questions, the game quietly gathered dust in a cupboard until it was thrown away.

And I know this all sounds a bit churlish. At least they bought me presents, I hear you say. And you're right - but what began to eat at me, was a sense that they didn't care. That to them I wasn't a child, but a trophy - something to show off to their friends, to make them look good. To raise them yet again above 'the masses' because how many people had a grandchild who could consistently get the top grades in her class, who played football yet still played an instrument and did musical theatre? No one else's grandchild was as good as theirs - in anyone else a proud comment, a loving comment to make, but for them a cold superiority.

Fast forward to when I was applying to university, and had received offers from my top two choices: Edinburgh or Cambridge. I was invited down to England to see a cricket match with them and my dad, and remembering how much fun I'd had with my dad sitting amongst the cheering crowd at the Ashes the year before, I was actually looking forwards to going.

However, I should have known. Not for them the seats amongst the common crowd, no, only the most expensive tickets possible in the VIP box. In the private room I was surrounded by people four times my age subtly cutting each other down over expensive clothing, jewellery, cars. I went outside and sat alone at the front of the box, trying to pretend that I was down in the crowds, only caring about the sport and not how much money I'd made the previous month. It slightly sickened me that people would pay so much money for these tickets (and believe me I knew how much they'd cost, as it was virtually the only thing grandad had talked about), only to not even bother watching the match.

As I headed back inside, my stomach sank as I saw grandpa gesturing me over to the table, with a large bottle in his hand. Clinking a glass, the attention of everyone in the room swung to him as he drunkenly praised me for my "exceedingly excellent" grades last year, and asked everyone to join him in a toast to "Cambridge's newest and brightest jewel, if she knows what's good for her!". Mortified, I tried to sink into my seat as he presented me with a cheque for £500. Without even asking I knew that Alyssa and Peter hadn't got a penny off them. And just as I thought it was over, he swung the bottle of "extremely expensive!" champagne over and presented it to me, as "a token of our admiration!".

It was the final straw for me. I was, and had always been, teetotal. I hated the taste of alcohol, what it did to people, and had repeatedly talked about this with my grandparents. By repeatedly, I mean putting it into every single conversation with them as they always seemed bemused by my refusal to drink glasses and glasses of wine over meals. I had thought that maybe repetition would finally make them listen.

But no. Why would it matter about taking the person into consideration when you can use them as a prize, as a "shining jewel" to present and show off in front of a room of people as shallow as they were? A chance to flash how much money they had but hide it behind "celebrating our granddaughter"? To my dad's credit, for once he realised what his parents had done and we were able to escape pretty soon after that. As soon as we'd dropped them off I burst into tears, and sobbed most of the way home. I'd never been so humiliated, shown off like a prize pig to complete strangers. For the first time in my life I was ashamed of doing well at school, ashamed of my grades and all my extracurricular activities, and I hated them for it.

It was pretty soon after that incident that I rejected Cambridge and accepted Edinburgh. I would like to say that I was already 80% certain of Edinburgh before, due to so many things - being closer to home, Edinburgh's balance of greenery and town, and of course the brilliant Edinburgh Fringe Festival. However, that sealed the remaining 20% almost instantly. The thought of them being able to boast about their Cambridge star made my stomach turn over, and I gained a perverse pleasure out of knowing they'd now never be able to say that about me ever again.

Which brings us up to today. Alyssa and my mum refusing to speak to them, and me hating them but still agreeing to see them for my dad's sake. After I rejected Cambridge and they noticed how well Peter was doing at school, he has replaced me as favourite grandchild. He's quite pleased about it all - not through any love of them, but he is very fond of the extra money that position comes with. As we still try to be careful of my dad's feelings and not create unnecessary drama, my mum came up with a code name: "The Twins".

It comes from a beautiful book and upcoming film entitled The Art of Racing in the Rain, and the following quote sums them up quite completely.

"Enzo referred to Eve's parents, Maxwell and Trish, as the "evil twins" because they look the same and act the same. They always get mad at Eve for marrying Denny. They lived in a fancy house and nothing was ever good enough for them."

I decided that if I was never good enough for them, then I'd consider that a life well lived. I swore that I would never become like them, that I would never, ever consider myself 'above others' or in any way more important than someone else because of material possessions and wealth.

It's awful to admit, but occasionally I daydream of the day my dad dies, in a world where they're still living. And finally, at the funeral, there would be nothing holding me back. No more mask. No more faking it whilst screaming at them on the inside - no, this time I could let it all out, let them know exactly what I think of them and how from that moment on, they were no family of mine.

Of course, I don't want my dad to die - I'll be devastated the day that he does. But when I'm sitting there, listening to them complain over the influx of dirty immigrants or wax eloquent over my brother's desire to be a doctor (imagine that, Doctor Peter!), it's pretty much the only thing that keeps me smiling. And the fact they can make me smile over imagining my dad's death is just one more thing to hate them for.