'Humph', he mutters, 'should have realised from the start - David wouldn't make old bones.'

His brother David was always fascinated by the mystical, magical wonder of things and this translated into a childlike excitement around Xmas. Virgin birth - just a sidestep from genies and dragons, Joe thinks.

He remembers how as a young boy it had taken ages to drag David away from the theatre advertisement they stopped to look at. He chuckles recalling David's corny joke:

'Abracadabra, genie I wish you'd make me rich. So.... from now on, you call me.... Rich, capital R.'

Still laughing David asks,

'Can we go Joe? I love genies and magic.'

'Nah, I'm not really that interested.'

Joe feels guilty remembering how he deliberately turned away, trying to ignore David's quivering bottom lip and watering eyes.

It wasn't easy being the worshipped older brother and the several years between them meant their interests rarely overlapped. A realist, Joe didn't share David's fascination with magic.

Since David was adopted, they also didn't share a gene pool. But they did share their parents' love. That was a strong bond, but it couldn't compensate for everything.

Apart from David's learning difficulties, obvious even as a toddler, there was the huge gulf created when as a teenager his health crashed.

It makes Joe angry to think about it all these years later. Seems Nature was out to get David, any way it could, adding serious disease to disabilities; kicking when he was already down.

Joe remembers how David - whose failure to learn resulted in rejection by mainstream schooling, would go with his parents to watch Joe receive his academic awards. His sad eyes belied the vigour of his clapping.

It became a form of self preservation for Joe to distance himself, get on with his own life. He didn't want to be like their Mum, beaten down by David's requirements: special schools, special Doctors, trips to hospitals. Joe refused the obligational tug of involvement. He determined as a teenager; he would not get dragged into that abyss.

Consequently, a tumultuous twist of conflicted emotions always swirled around all things David.

Especially memories of that familiar refrain; 'I wish you'd take me Joe.'

Too often, Joe's refusals and David's resentments would collide and Goldy their pet Labrador would suffer the consequences. Joe recalls Goldy yowling as David kicked her belly. Later, remorseful, he'd catch Goldy in a headlock, squeezing so hard her eyes would bulge and usually David's glasses would get damaged.

'Those glasses... thick and geeky.' Joe mutters. 'All that surgery. Kid couldn't see with them, let alone without.'

David's constant whining, 'Why can't I play cricket too Joe?'

'How many times do I have to tell you? You have to see a cricket ball to hit it. You'd get hurt.'

Now, Joe wonders who he was really protecting - the kid, or himself?

Joe: tall, thin and blonde as the 60's surfer boy he'd been and David: gypsy black wavy hair, cold coffee coloured skin; extended fluid-filled belly perched like a keg over skinny hips.

David's Otherness, his Oddness made Joe cringe, feeling caught in a web of duty, but needing distance.

Now David's gone it's easier to acknowledge his embarrassment - but living it - he'd usually tried to hide it. However, David's penchant for bright, gaudy clothes, always mismatched with kitsch, sideshow- alley jewellery - that was a real test. But the Xmas David swapped his habitual large silver skulls for a big, bright pink and green beaded necklace - that was one fashion faux pas too far. Joe sniggers now. Initially he'd tried not to stare, but then - one beer too many he blurted:

'Mate, you're wearing a women's necklace!'

'Joe, the man in the shop said it was either a man's or a woman's thing.'

Then the penny dropped. Conned! David's confidence deflating like the bubbles in the glass of Coke he grabbed, splashing the table, his eyes sliding sideways, flashing as anger displaced shame.

Joe sighs, reflecting that while so much of David's acting up was a reaction to knowing he was different, he was incapable of understanding why that made him vulnerable.

And hardest of all, Joe recalls, flicking one persistent, straggly piece of tinsel from the Aladdin pamphlet, was that last Xmas, in hospital.

As always, when they saw each other, David's talk was all about cricket; their one thread of common interest. But that last time: Joe's first to the dialysis ward, that thread unravelled.

'Hey Joe.... what about ......Tendulkar eh Joe?', David gasped between words, but stopped abruptly, registering the colour draining from Joe's face as he lands on the nearest chair.

'Joe...Joe...you alright?

Here... have a Twisty...the salt... helps!'

All those years, three days each week hooked up to that grotesque, complex machine, and Joe had never understood what that really meant.

Suddenly all the colours around him seemed too bright, like they might burst from their shapes and drown him in one huge wave of sorrow. His eyes were transfixed with the horror of the thick plastic tubes, pumping, dicing with David's chances of survival. Poisoned red wave flowing in - cleaned blood pulsing out, and Joe's terrifying realisation - all the possible malfunctions in between.

Just looking made Joe feel nauseous and he realises - constantly enduring that lifesaving lucky dip took real courage.

Now, Joe's fist crushes the soggy Aladdin pamphlet. He had taken David, whose eyes had sparkled throughout the performance, spellbound by the Genie's wizardry. But for David, in the end there was no magic - no miracle to deliver his final wish. To live.