For the first nine months of their existence Sarah, Jane and Mary were as close as any three sisters could possibly be and after that their three cots were so close together in the small nursery that the sound of the other two breathing, mewling or crying formed a constant and unbroken background – white noise – and the possibility of any one of them ever being parted from her siblings was simply unthinkable.
As they grew and learned to crawl and walk and talk, they were always together – ever present playmates who were always much more the sum of their parts than three individuals.
They were not identical triplets, but the similarities were so striking that in their more mischievous moments even their own mother was often reduced to looking very carefully in order to identify the offender. However, it was not their similarities which ultimately mattered, it was their subtle differences and it was around the time they started school that these differences began to surface.
Sarah was the extrovert: passionate about every type of sport, always at the centre of group physical activity in the school and surrounded by a large circle of friends.
Jane was the studious one: teacher's pet, the Hermione Granger of the class, always top of the tree where it mattered academically.
Mary was . . . well Mary was Mary. There was not much more you could say, she was never one for physical activities – she could not see the sense in running around and getting sweaty – she found bookwork tedious and spent most of her days in her own private little world, daydreaming the hours away.
It might seem to the outsider that there was no possible way that such disparate personalities could be ever be related, let alone be friends, but they were much more than that. Not in the obvious sense of constantly being together as a family group, because they each had their own separate circle of friends who occupied their school-time days, but more in their instinctive ability to know precisely where their sisters were, what they were doing and, most importantly, when they were in trouble. In the beginning there were one or two girls in the school who had had to learn the hard way that if you took on one of the sisters then the other two would never be far away. Like the Three Musketeers they were 'all for one and one for all'.
Boys were a totally different matter, of course, but there was seldom any sibling rivalry between them, as their choice in boys was sufficiently diverse that it seldom became an issue. On the odd occasion that a boy tried to complicate the system, however, the girls would close ranks and the hapless youth would very quickly discover the meaning of the line from the Beverley Sisters' song:
'Lord help the mister who comes between me and my sister.'
The first big change in their lives came when Mary announced that she would not be staying on for A-levels; she had found herself a comfortable little job in an office in London and was quite relieved that the daily educational grind was finally over. Sarah and Jane, however, pushed onwards and upwards and in a couple of year's time the spectre of university hovered over the trio.
It was Mary who first coined the phrase, as they hugged and wept together on the concourse at Victoria Coach Station.
'When shall we three meet again?'
Sarah wiped her eyes and forced a weak smile. 'We break up on the 14th of December.'
The driver made the last call for the Exeter coach. Sarah tore herself away from her sisters' embrace and boarded and within minutes she had disappeared in a cloud of diesel smoke.
The Manchester coach was only half an hour behind it and, as Mary watched it drive away, a terrible sense of isolation overwhelmed her. Up until now the three had never been apart for more than a few hours at a time and the prospect of three months without them was almost too much for her to bear.
But that was all history now – that was BC – that was 'Before Christopher'.
It was now AD – 'Anno Dominic', and everything had changed.
Christopher was 6ft 6 and purpose built for the position of Quarterback which he played for the Exeter University rugby team. He was desired and pursued relentlessly by the female students, but Sarah's passion and expertise in everything sporting related tipped the balance and won his heart. After the first couple of weeks as freshmen they were inseparable.
Dominic was quite the opposite, he was under-weight, under-height and over-freckled, but he always made a point of sitting close beside Jane in the Mathematics classes and their future too was mapped out very early in their university careers.
Although the girls came home for the Christmas holidays, the boys came too and Mary very soon fell prey to that other line from the song:
'And Lord help the sister, who comes between me and my man.'
Together they limped through the three years trying desperately to maintain their uniquely close relationship, but sadly nothing could ever be quite the same again. However, there was one thing which they were passionate that they would never give up – each year without fail they would get together on the 18th of August to celebrate their communal birthday.
However, if they thought that the university years were a strain on their relationship, the crunch came for real when they finally graduated.
Christopher was a CAD – that is an engineer specialising in Computer Aided Design – and his second cousin was looking for some expertise from the old world to assist him with his business in Sydney, Australia. At first, Sarah was devastated at the thought of moving so far from home and leaving her sisters, but a carrot was subtly dangled before her, just at the point when she might refuse, of running a Fitness Centre in the shadow of Sydney Harbour Bridge. It was simply too good to refuse.
Dominic, with his honours degree in Astrophysics, was head-hunted by NASA for the job of his dreams at the Langley Research Facility in Virginia. Jane carried her excellent, but slightly less impressive, degree in Mathematics across the pond with a promising handful of job interviews awaiting her arrival.
Mary was . . . well Mary was Mary. She was perfectly content in her little office job, which was nothing special, but paid the bills and funded the lease on a small studio flat in Bayswater, which she shared with a large fluffy black cat called George. Despite her good looks and amiable personality, she was still awaiting the opportunity of receiving the amorous advances of a suitor, but she had read Bridgett Jones' Diary and had seen both films, so she had at least a modicum of hope for the future.
The farewells at Heathrow had been even more painful than their first parting at Victoria Coach Station had been and when Mary asked, 'When shall we three meet again?' their responses had dissolved into an incoherent blub. It was finally agreed as the 18th of August, their twenty second birthday, and Sarah insisted that they both come to her, promising to book seats at the iconic Sydney Opera House to celebrate the occasion.
Mary waited in Starbucks on the airport concourse until the Sydney flight had disappeared from the Departures Board, as she could not bear to leave until both of her sisters were beyond the point of no return. She drove back along the M4 in a daze. August was months and months and months away and she felt as if she had been cast adrift in a small boat in an endless ocean never to see land or her beloved sisters ever again.
As she approached the Hammersmith flyover her eyes misted over again; she slipped her glasses off and dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. It was only a few seconds inattention, but it was just enough for her to fail to see the black cab which flew past and swerved across her path onto the off-slip. There was a huge, grinding, metal-rending roar which seemed to go on forever; the car spun around and around and Mary's world went black.
Day by day, week by week, three months dragged passed, three months in which Sarah and Jane seldom left her side. They sat around the white metal framed bed, taking it in turns at the side less encumbered by tubes and wires. Today, Sarah was holding Mary's limp left hand while Jane fussed over the state of the pillows and the blankets. On a small trolley at the head of the bed an array of instruments bleeped and danced, which, together with her shallow breathing was the only outward sign that their sister was still with them. However, this in no way inhibited the active two thirds of the trio, who had been told at the beginning by the nursing staff that it is commonly believed that coma patients retain the ability to hear conversation. They were, of course, inexhaustible conversationalists and between the two of them they managed to keep up a relentless barrage: memories of their childhood, amusing anecdotes of university life, lengthy discourses on the driving abilities of the average London taxi driver . . .
And then, at the tail end of yet another exhausting afternoon, Sarah looked up to see Mary's eyelids tremble. She called out to Jane, who was gazing idly out of the window, and they both watched in amazement as Mary's nose twitched, her body stretched awkwardly and her blue eyes fluttered open. She looked from sister to sister taking in their silent expressions of joy.
Puzzled she asked, 'What are you two doing here?'
Then she said, 'I can't be our birthday yet . . . can it?'