That was the visible Veronica, the obvious Veronica. What Jake liked to think of as the real Veronica was much harder to define. They’d been through the worst experience of their lives together; he’d seen her at her worst and yet somehow he didn’t feel as if he’d penetrated more than the first few layers of the real Veronica. It was Carl who’d gone deeper – Carl, who’d managed to get past the barbed wire, past the barricades, onto the prize that, Jake was sure, lay at the end of it. She was so opaque and yet, somehow, managed to give the impression of being totally see-through.  She flung a layer of gauze over your eyes and silhouetted herself behind it, at once sharp and obvious and yet hopelessly unclear.

He’d been the first to speak to her at the party. It had taken him two shots of Jack Daniels tossed down in one go before, blinking and gasping, he found the courage to cross the room and talk to her. She was standing alone, her arms crossed under her breasts, a cigarette drooping between her long, pale fingers. She looked bored. Gulping, Jake moved across the sticky carpet, trusting to luck that he’d be able to come up with a killer first line.

He reached her side of the kitchen and edged towards her. She still hadn’t noticed him. Still time to turn back, he thought and then castigated himself for being such a pussy. He stepped in front of her, feeling the adrenaline suddenly spike within him. She regarded him coolly, even coldly, no change of expression on her amazing face. Oh shit… Crashing and burning and I haven’t even said anything yet…

Inspiration suddenly struck. He stuck his fingers into her half-full glass and lifted out a piece of ice. Her eyebrows went up, her mouth opened. He dropped the ice on the floor and stamped on it, hard. It shattered beneath his boot, sending splinters of frigid water across the dirty floor. Veronica stood there with her mouth open, flabbergasted. He’d looked her in the eye and waited.

“I thought you were a complete mentalist,” she said to him, a lot later.

“And has anything happened to make you revise that opinion?”

She grinned at that. “Not really, no.”

But that was a lot later, another day. At the party, she’d merely looked at him, aghast, for what seemed like a fiery, scorching eternity. If I run now, thought Jake deliriously, I could be home and curled in the foetal position under my duvet in twenty minutes…

“Jake, what the fuck are you doing?”

Carl. He arrived at Jake’s shoulder and Veronica had looked at him with a pleading, save-me look on her face. Carl smiled at her, his usual, easy, eye-crinkled smile and said ‘is my little brother bothering you?’

Carl’s dismissive question, Veronica’s obvious embarrassment; Jake felt like falling down a hole somewhere, desperate to escape social death. What had he thought he’d achieve, doing that stupid ice-breaking trick? Now Carl was on the scene and Jake knew from long experience that when his older, bigger, better-looking brother arrived, any female interest in Jake went swiftly down the pan. It wasn’t fair but he was used to it. Hopeless, he told himself. Totally hopeless. I’m an imbecile. A fool. I might as well leave right now.

Carl wasted no time. He’d been carrying an opened bottle of wine and he found a clean, unbroken glass for Veronica. They began chatting easily to one another, laughing softly. Jake could feel the heat between them even over and above his own scorching embarrassment. He tried to feel happy for his brother – probably Veronica would never had been interested in him anyway – but the familiar flames of jealousy were tickling the back of his throat. It had been like this as far back as he could remember. Of course, Carl had the edge on him in age, height and looks… but Christ, was it going to be like this for the rest of his life? Jake tried to remember when the pure, clean taste of hero-worship had become tainted. Was it during the sullen, turbulent teenage years? It can’t have been earlier, when they only had each other to rely on, when only he and Carl knew each other’s grief. Two little black-haired boys, dressed up for a funeral…

“So who’s older?” said Veronica. She asked them both but she was looking at Carl, her chin tipped down slightly, glancing up at him from under her lashes. He smiled down at her.

“Guess.”

“That’s too easy,” she said and she giggled. “You’re the big brother. Am I right?”

“If it’s too easy, why bother to ask?” said Jake, grumpily, under his breath. Neither of them heard him, or if they had, took any notice. Their faces were ten inches apart, their gaze flickering between eye and lip.

Jake watched Veronica for a moment longer. He was searching for something in her appearance, her manner, anything, that would cool his ardour. He didn’t find it. Even the tiny, make-up caked spot on the edge of her jaw couldn’t dim his fervour for her – it just made her more accessible. She smelled intoxicating. He tried to shut his ears to his brother’s voice but the inevitable was happening – she was falling for Carl, right in front of Jake’s eyes.

He’d left them and moved out into the crowded living room, sulky as a child who’d just had his favourite toy taken away. Of course, he’d got over it – he had to. Carl and Veronica has spent the night together and most of the next day. Jake remembered his brother coming home at the tail end of the Sunday, tired, mussed and grinning from ear to ear. You only had to look at him to see he’d been having sex for about eighteen hours straight.

That had been the start of it, the start of Veronica-and-Carl. But also, the start of the three of them. Because it was the three of them, more often than not. Jake felt it sometimes when they were gathered in the living room, sprawled on carpet or sofa, playing cards, chinking glasses, laughing at the many little in-jokes that they shared. It was the three of them in the big, rangy kitchen, messing up the table with breadcrumbs, flour, red wine, orange peel. It was the three of them in the tangled garden, hacking sporadically at the luxuriant jungle of weeds, pausing for gulps of sun-warmed beer, smoking cigarettes in the soft summer evening. The garden held no fears for them then – it was just another room, roofed with sky. Once, they’d taken pills and lain out there all night on one scratchy blanket, looking up at the stars and talking endlessly through clenched jaws, eyes black, talking until their throats were sore and pale fingers of light were creeping across the indigo sky.

He could still remember when she’d moved in. He’d been in the kitchen, doing something hopelessly domestic – washing up or opening a tin of beans or something – and Carl had breezed through the doorway in his suit, bringing with him a smell of underground trains and spring rain. His black hair was dewed with raindrops. Jake hadn’t said much, just hi and how was your day. Carl was an investment banker and did something very profitable but very dull with fixed income derivatives. He’d given up telling Jake about his deals, as it was obviously no fun talking to someone who instantly glazed over at the mere mention of the word.

“There any beer?”

“Some in the fridge.”

Jake wiped his hands on a dirty tea towel and turned to face his brother. Carl rooted about inside the fridge for longer than was strictly necessary to find the beer.

“You alright?”

“Yeah, fine.” Carl emerged, can in hand. “By the way, Veronica’s going to be moving in.”

Jake felt his jaw drop. “What?”

“From this weekend. She needs a bit of time to get her stuff together.”

“But – but…” Jake grasped at his flailing sentence. “When did you decide this? Why didn’t you say something before? Did you even think of asking me?”

“Oh come on, little bro, don’t kick up a fuss. You like her, right? She’ll help out with the rent and stuff, if that’s what you’re worried about.”