The Alphabet Sisters (12 page)

“That’s my girl.” She had pinched her cheek. “Now, your turn to shower me with compliments. Do I look a picture? The truth now, mind.”

Bett had taken in Lola’s outfit in all its glory. She was wearing a long purple taffeta skirt, a gold shimmering tunic, at least five necklaces, including her new one from Bett, and surprisingly tasteful makeup. A little too much rouge, perhaps—Bett was tempted to wipe it off then stopped herself. It would be more of a surprise to the guests if Lola arrived without her rouge, surely. “You look sensational. Like you belong in Hollywood.”

“The very words I wanted to hear. Thank you, darling. Now go and have a good time. And by the way, you’re sitting next to the Englishman from room two. Did I tell you he was a journalist, too? Imagine that. You’ll have lots in common to talk about.”

Bett had groaned, not in the mood for matchmaking. “Lola, what have you done?”

“Whatever I like. It’s my birthday, remember.”

Sure enough, when Bett got to her table there was a man sitting next to her. He was perhaps ten years older than her, lean, solemn-faced, wearing glasses. He was dressed in a casual suit. He smiled at her, a surprising, beautiful smile that completely lit up his face. “Quite a party,” he said.

Bett smiled back. “She’s quite a woman.”

“Have you known her long?”

“All my life. She’s my grandmother.” She held out her hand. “I’m Elizabeth Quinlan, known as Bett.”

“Richard Lawrence.” They shook hands.

“You’re English? Is that a London accent?”

“It is, yes.”

“I’m just back from there. Only this morning in fact.”

“All that way for a party? You are a social creature.”

Bett laughed. She noticed then he had very sparkly eyes behind his glasses. “I didn’t have a choice, believe me. And you’re on holiday here, are you?”

“Well, a working holiday I supp—”

A slap on her back nearly sent Bett flying into the table. “Bett Quinlan, great to see you again, love. Are you going to be back working on that newspaper?”

Her other neighbor had arrived, a man who had done the landscaping around the motel and knew the family well. He’d immediately launched into a conversation that hadn’t let up through the first course. Out of the corner of her eye Bett had noticed Richard Lawrence being interrogated by his other neighbor, one of the local councillors. She heard snatches, something about doing research for a writing project. She’d been about to ask him more about it when Lola had wafted past her and whispered that it was time to move tables. “Circulate, darling, circulate.”

Bett found the move between tables very difficult. Not quite as difficult as the walk into the function room in the first place, though. She had been intensely aware of people looking at her and talking about her. She’d kept a big smile on her face, greeting lots of old faces, friends of Lola’s or people she knew from her years on the local newspaper, brightly answering their questions. Yes, she was finally back from London. No, the jet lag wasn’t too bad. That stopover in Singapore had made all the difference. Yes, home for good, but she’d probably be heading off to Sydney or Melbourne fairly soon. Yes, it was great to see all the family again, not to mention a blue sky, ha ha ha.

No one had mentioned Matthew’s name, or the circumstances of her leaving, not to her face anyway. No one except Len the butcher, of course. It seemed he hadn’t changed his ways. She’d barely walked past after saying hello to him and his wife when she’d heard his remark, in a loud whisper that managed to carry beautifully around the room. “That’s the one I was telling you about. Her fiancé left her and ran off with the younger one. No, not the one with the child, the pretty one over there with the blonde hair.” Bett had resolutely kept moving, praying the low light hid her red cheeks.

By the time the main course had been served, she was feeling much better. The three glasses of local shiraz were helping things along beautifully, too. She’d found herself sitting beside the local parish priest, who had surprised her with his rapid-fire joke delivery. She hadn’t laughed so much in ages. To make things even more pleasant, one of her favorite dishes had been on offer for main course—lovely crispy Wiener schnitzel, served with a pile of fat chips and salad. She knew it was deeply unfashionable to like such standard motel dining-room food, but she’d always loved her mother’s cooking. Her all-time favorite was the chocolate pudding, all crunchy on the outside and molten on the inside, served with cream and ice cream. She’d never found any reason to join in with Anna and Carrie over the years when they had tried to get Geraldine to update the menus, to offer more light and healthy options.

Bett knew full well that it was her love of her mother’s kind of cooking—hearty, deep-fried, large servings—that was to blame for her constant battle with her weight. Lola had made it abundantly clear one afternoon, too, when Bett had gone to her in tears.

“It’s not fair. How come Anna and Carrie got to be skinny and I didn’t?”

“Anna and Carrie are skinny because they exercise a lot and they both eat like birds, Bett,” Lola had said bluntly.

“I eat like a bird, too,” she’d said gloomily, knowing Lola was right. The only problem was her bird was a vulture.

She decided now to try to be disciplined and reluctantly left the last of her chips on her plate. A minute on the lips, a lifetime on the hips, she had once tried chanting. Unfortunately she’d quickly reworded it. A minute on the lips, even nicer served with chips. As she tried to ignore the chip’s siren song, she felt a tap on her arm.

“Bett, have you heard the one about the horse who goes into the bar?”

“No, I haven’t, Father, but I’d love to,” she said, turning to him with a smile. As she did she noticed one of the waitresses heading toward their table to pick up the plates. Oh, to hell with it. She was on holiday, wasn’t she? As the priest began his joke, she picked up the last chip and popped it in her mouth.

T
hree tables away, Anna smiled up at the young waitress as she collected her plate. “Thanks very much. That was delicious.”

The girl frowned. “Why didn’t you eat any of it, then? It looks like you hardly touched it.”

Anna tried not to laugh. “I’m just not very hungry,” she said politely. She knew from experience that her mother would have called on her pool of casual waitresses for tonight—local schoolgirls, young mothers, anyone needing a bit of part-time work.

The girl looked a little uncertain. “Will I bother bringing you a dessert then, if you’re not very hungry?”

“Just a small one would be great, thanks,” she said. “And one for my daughter. She’ll be back in a moment.” Lola had come over and swept Ellen away a few minutes before. “I want to show her off,” she’d said brightly. Ellen had happily gone off with her.

Anna tried not to react as the waitress dropped a knife onto the floor, narrowly missing her foot. She picked it up and handed it over with a smile. “Don’t worry. You’re doing a great job.” Poor kid. She—and Bett and Carrie, too—knew only too well what it was like to work part time as a waitress. They’d spent their teenage years ferrying meals into the motel dining rooms. Their mother’s unchanging menu items had at least meant easy serving, with no complicated sauces or cooking methods to explain. All they’d had to do was get the right meals to the right people at each table in the dining room. They’d worked out their own method of identifying each diner, scribbling one- or two-word snapshots of people in their order books. It had worked well until one evening Bett had inadvertently left her notebook on the table. When she’d come out to collect their dishes it had been to find the six people passing it around trying to work out which of them was which, from a choice of Big Nose, Ugly, Baldie, Flashy (the woman had been wearing lots of rings), Creepy Beard or Clownface. Anna remembered Bett being so mortified she’d run out of the dining room and not returned for the rest of the night.

Alone at her table for a moment, Anna looked around the room. Lola, hand in hand with Ellen, was moving regally from table to table. Her parents were standing nearby, chatting to another couple. Her father’s arm was casually resting on her mother’s back. Bett was still sitting two tables away, laughing at something the man beside her was saying. A possible suitor? Anna caught herself thinking. Then the man moved, and Anna saw he was wearing a priest’s collar. Perhaps not. Anna had wondered if Bett would arrive home with an English boyfriend. She’d casually asked Lola once whether Bett had mentioned any men in her life in any of her letters.

“Not a sinner,” Lola had said bluntly. She’d always been more than happy to keep each of them informed about the others’ lives. “I just wish she would meet someone over there. It would solve a lot of problems.”

Anna finally spotted Carrie, too, shining in her golden dress on the other side of the room. Her sister had become very skilled at running events like this, it seemed. Everything was running so smoothly, the staff checking with her constantly, looking at her with respect. Not surprising, really. Carrie had always had that confidence with people, the ability to charm them so effortlessly.

“Hello, love. Are you enjoying yourself?”

Anna turned and smiled up at her father. “Dad, hello. Sit down.” She patted the chair beside her. “It’s a great night, isn’t it? Carrie’s done a very good job.”

“She has. She’s doing wonders around the place, in fact. She’ll have your mother and me out of a job before we know it. We’ll wake up one day, and she and Matthew will have taken over while we were sleeping.”

It was funny to see how naturally her father referred to Carrie and Matthew as a couple. She shouldn’t have been surprised, she supposed. He’d had three years to get used to them both. “It’s all that good training you gave us as kids. Actually, I was just sitting here reminiscing about our waitressing days. That time Bett left her notebook on the table. Do you remember?”

Jim threw back his head and laughed. “The times I’ve told that story. What was it again?” He reeled off the six insulting names, word perfect. “And that time Carrie put those film people in their place. Do you remember that? When we first moved here?”

Anna laughed, too, remembering it well. A film company had booked in to stay, and over dinner in the public dining room openly started smoking joints. They’d become more and more obnoxious, ordering fifteen-year-old Carrie, their waitress for the night, around like a servant, complaining that there wasn’t the rare brandy they wanted or the scotch they preferred. As Carrie had leaned over to change their ashtrays, one of the men had given her a pat on the bottom. “These are just herbal cigarettes, love. Nothing to worry about.” Then he’d winked. “Let me know if you’d like to try one.”

Without missing a beat, Carrie had removed his hand from her bottom and smiled sweetly. “And do you see those two men over there in the bar?” She had pointed through the door at the local postmaster and the railway stationmaster, enjoying a beer together. “They’re from the drugs squad in Adelaide. Let me know if you’d like to meet them, won’t you?”

Anna laughed. Not only had the film people put out their joints there and then, but they’d left Carrie a thirty-dollar tip.

“Do you remember how furious Bett was?” Jim continued. “She came marching in to me in the bar. ‘How come Carrie always gets the tips? I’m going to start wearing a blonde wig when I’m waitressing from now on.’ ”

Anna had forgotten that part of it. She gave a wry smile. “So good that we’ve put all that fighting behind us now, isn’t it, Dad?”

“I’m just glad to have you all home again,” he said simply. “We missed you, you know. You and Bett. It’s a shame it took so long.”

It was the most her father had said about it in a long time. “It’s good to be back.”

“Hi, Grandpa.” Ellen popped her head in between the two of them and then climbed onto her grandfather’s lap. “Can you do that trick where you take the coin from your ear and then put it in my ear?”

“That’s not a trick, Ellie. I really do keep coins in my ear. It’s much safer than the banks.”

“Grandpa,”
Ellen said, shooting Anna a glance. “He’s joking, Mum, isn’t he?”

“Oh no, Ellen. Your grandpa has a fortune in his ears.”

“Show me, Grandpa?”

He checked his watch, then touched the end of Ellen’s nose. “A little later, sweetheart. I just have to make a quick announcement about the birthday girl, but I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He stood up and made a show of straightening his tie, smoothing back his hair. “My moment of fame has come at last.”

Ellen watched him go, then turned to Anna. “Mum, Grandpa is Lola’s son, isn’t he?”

“That’s right.”

“They’re both a little bit mad, aren’t they?”

Anna burst out laughing. “Yes, Ellie, they are.”

B
ett said good-bye to the priest and moved back to her original table, carrying her fourth glass of red wine. She’d hardly have believed it possible, but she was almost enjoying herself. It seemed she just needed to keep herself mildly drunk and surrounded by a crowd at all times, and she would get on just fine back here. She smiled at Richard the Englishman as she sat down beside him. “You’re enjoying yourself, I hope? All this Australian country hospitality not too much for you?”

“Good lord, no,” he said. “In fact, I’ve been invited to join two local cricket teams.”

“You didn’t accept, I hope. You know they only want another excuse to laugh at an English cricketer.”

“I had a funny feeling about that, actually.”

Bett laughed. “Well, just make sure you think long and hard before you accept any offers.”

He picked up a bottle of wine and went to fill her glass. “May I?” he asked. She accepted, impressed by his good manners.

Richard raised his voice over the sound of the Irish folk tunes. “Lola told me all four generations of her family would be here tonight. Is that right? She seemed very happy about it.”

“That’s right,” Bett said, hoping he wasn’t about to ask her to introduce him to everyone. She didn’t want to point out Anna and Ellen, or Carrie, she realized. She didn’t want him comparing her to the other two, finding herself left on the sidelines once again. She was enjoying him too much herself. She was guiltily pleased when she noticed her father had started making his way to the microphone to introduce Lola’s speech. “Excuse me,” she said to Richard. He nodded and turned toward the front of the room, too.