by Ron Nicol

Synopsis

The three Dunstan sisters meet for their father’s 80^th birthday. Hester is unmarried and has remained in the family home to look after Father, who is frail and in bed upstairs, while Fay and Carrie have travelled some distance to be there. The sisters look back on their unhappy childhood, recalling their strict upbringing and their father’s domineering nature. They replay games from their childhood, reminisce about their turbulent schooldays and recall the special ‘Three Sisters’ relationship that helped them survive at school, remembering how they terrorised other girls at their school. One girl had been waylaid by Fay and Hester and sent home minus her underwear, while they had taken similar revenge on Carrie’s ex-boyfriend.

When Fay and Carrie are alone, Fay analyses why she was so ungovernable in her youth, recounting the misery of her married life and the problems of bringing up two children on her own. She torments Carrie with Father’s unfinished self-portrait, reducing her to tears. Carrie admits she was terrified of Father while she was a child and confesses that she’s pregnant but has been abandoned by her lover. In return, Fay admits to having an affair with her next door neighbour Ellen. When challenged to tell her own secrets, Hester insists that her life is so dull that she’s nothing to hide.

Hester goes upstairs to fetch Father but returns to tell them he’s dead. This revelation leads to suggestions that one of them might have murdered him, with consequent accusations and arguments, regrets and recriminations until the murderer eventually confesses. They find Father’s will, discovering that the house and everything in it has been left to Hester.  Hester tells them she intends to share everything between the three of them. Fay’s ironic prediction that Father would be quite capable of rising from his deathbed seem to have been fulfilled when he stumbles into the room – but his eventual death is unexpected.

Duration

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