The Alphabet Sisters (58 page)

“I’m not going to live with him either. I’d miss you all too much.”

“Are you telling me—”

“No, I’m not going to have an abortion.”

“Then what the hell are you going to do? Give the baby up for adoption?” He sat down again abruptly. “I didn’t even think. Of course that’s what you’re going to do.”

“I’m not doing that either. I’m going to keep it. Keep him or her.”

He gave a sharp laugh. “Of course you are. Sixteen-year-olds make wonderful mothers. You’ll get a few nannies as well, I suppose? To mind the baby while you go off to discos with your friends?”

“No. I’ve got other ideas. I was going to talk about it with you tonight. I’ve had some news.”

“More news? I can hardly wait.”

“The university course I wanted to do is going ahead.”

“The environmental science one?”

“I found out yesterday.”

“But that’s wonderful. That’s really wonderful.” It was clear in his face, his pride at her news. Then his expression changed. “But you can’t possibly go to university now.”

“Why not?”

“Why can’t she?” Juliet asked.

He threw out his arms. “Can’t you see? She’s having a baby. She can’t just put it in a bassinet and head off to lectures.”

Juliet moved then. She went over and stood behind Clementine, and put her arm around her. “Yes, she can. I’ll help her.”

Miranda didn’t hesitate. “Me too.” She moved and stood on Clementine’s other side.

Sadie and Eliza followed. All five were at one end of the table, Clementine in the middle, facing their father at the other end. Clementine reached for Juliet’s hand and squeezed it.

“You can’t
all
help her. You’ve got work and study too. When are you going to find the time?”

“We’ll take it in turns, like we do with the housework.”

“I’d rather not change its nappy,” Miranda said.

“I’ll do all of it,” Clementine insisted.

“No, Clemmie, Miranda has to help,” Juliet said. “You can’t pick or choose, Miranda. What does the poor little creature do if its nappy’s full? Wait for one of its less-squeamish aunts to arrive home?”

“It will just need to learn a bit of self-discipline.” Miranda’s tone was matter-of-fact. “I’ll make bargains with it. ‘Listen here, sonny, you hold it in until your mother gets home and I’ll take you to the park tomorrow.’ “

“Girls, you’re not being realistic about this. You’ll lose interest. You’ll be like children getting a puppy for Christmas—bored with it by New Year’s Day.”

“Of course we won’t,” Juliet said. “We’ll make a pact now. We promise to help you, Clementine, until your baby is at school. You all agree, don’t you?” She looked at Miranda, Eliza, and Sadie.

“Of course,” Miranda said. “I’m sure the school won’t mind admitting her as an early-age student. Six months old, say.”

“Until he or she is five,” Juliet said firmly. “Miranda? Eliza? Sadie?”

Eliza and Sadie nodded.

“Five, did you say?” Miranda looked alarmed.

“It won’t be in nappies for five years.”

“All right, but if we’re going to help look after it, do we get to choose the name?” Miranda asked.

“You can make suggestions,” Clementine said. “If it’s a girl, I want her to have Mum’s name as her middle name. If it’s a boy, Dad’s name. The tricky thing is Faraday; it’s hard to get a name to go with it.”

“I’ll pick up a book from the library and we could—”

“Excuse me.”

“—take votes on some of—”

“Excuse me.” It was their father, knocking on the tabletop. They stopped talking and looked at him. “So that’s it, is it? Clementine calmly tells all of us that she is having a baby, that this entire house is going to be turned upside down for the next umpteen years, and you all just accept it? Start bickering already over who gets to call it what and who changes its nappy?”

Five nods.

“As if it’s as simple as that? As straightforward as that?”

Juliet spoke on behalf of them all. “It is as simple as that, Dad.”

Clementine moved toward him. Not right up to him; halfway. “I’m sorry I disappointed you. But I don’t think it’s a bad thing. It’s a wonderful thing. Don’t you think?” She smiled, the great open smile that all five of his daughters had. “A baby in the house. It will be fun, won’t it?”

“It will be, Dad.” Juliet’s voice was soft. “It’ll be okay. We’ll manage. We know how to.”

He shut his eyes. They waited. They had each walked into the kitchen or the living room in the past eight years to the sight of their father having silent conversations with their mother. They knew he wasn’t just sending up a prayer to his wife now. He was sending up an emergency flare. Less than a minute later he opened his eyes.

“On one condition.”

Clementine waited.

“I never want to change its nappy either. I saw more nappies with the five of you than I ever want to see in my life again.”

Clementine stepped forward and held out her hand. “It’s a deal.”

They shook on it.

Read on for an excerpt from

Family Baggage

a novel

by Monica McInerney

Published by Ballantine Books

Chapter One

I
t was all coming back to her, Harriet Turner realized. The key to being a successful tour guide was to think of herself as a duck. A mother duck, to be precise. A thirty-two-year-old mother duck in charge of twelve elderly, excited ducklings.

She glanced back over her shoulder, doing a quick head count of her tour group. Good, all twelve were still in sight, obviously tired but upright at least. They’d followed her obediently as she led the way off the plane, through passport control, and here into the baggage collection area of Bristol Airport. Ten gray-haired women, two balding men, none of them under sixty-five years of age, all in comfortable clothes and sensible shoes. Each sported a large
TURNER TRAVEL: TOURS TAILORED JUST FOR YOU
nametag on one shoulder and a homemade
I’M ON THE WILLOUGHBY TOUR!
badge on the other. Some looked bedraggled from the long journey, but more than half were still smiling. The excitement of arriving in England had obviously lifted their spirits. Harriet was glad to see it.

Her protective feelings toward them had grown with each step of the journey. She’d arrived at Melbourne Airport two hours early so she could greet each of them personally. On the plane she’d regularly checked whether they were too warm or too cool and if they needed anything to eat or drink. During their overnight stopover in Malaysia, she’d kept a close eye when they crossed roads, walked across bridges, or ate anything that might have bones in it. All the simple rules of being in charge of a group had come flooding back. Of course she could do this, she told herself for the hundredth time since her brother’s surprise phone call. The tour would be a success. She’d do everything she could to make it a success.

They were among the first passengers from their flight to arrive at the baggage carousel. Harriet found a prime position, near the start of the conveyor belt and close to the exit. She was taken aback when the group clustered in a circle around her, looking up with big smiles and expectant expressions. It took her a moment to realize what they were waiting for. The customary Turner Travel welcome speech. James, her eldest brother, had begun the tradition, marking the start of each group tour with a little poem or funny speech beside the baggage carousel. He was usually so organized he had copies printed to hand out to the group members as souvenirs. Harriet’s mind went blank. She had been brought in to this tour on such short notice she’d hardly had time to learn the itinerary, let alone write a funny ditty.

She looked around at them again. Twelve faces looked back. Pushing embarrassment to one side, she smoothed down her official Turner Travel uniform, gave a big smile, and threw open her arms.

“Welcome to England!” she cried.

It wasn’t enough. They needed much more than that. She could see it in their eager expressions. She tried to ignore the curious looks from the other passengers coming into the baggage area and racked her brain. A rhyming game she used to play as a child with James and her other brother Austin sprang to mind. She’d have to give that a try. She threw out her arms again, hoping she looked confident and theatrical rather than weird and scarecrow-ish, and said the first lines she could think of:

Here we all are on the Willoughby tour

Through Devon and Cornwall, across several moors

I hope you’ll all have a wonderful time

And quickly forget this very bad rhyme!

She cringed inside even as they rewarded her with a burst of laughter and applause. “She’s definitely James’s sister,” she heard one of them whisper. She was saved from attempting an even worse second verse by the sound of the conveyor belt starting up with a metallic groan. Everyone sprang to attention, their eyes fixed on the emerging luggage.

As the first bags trundled past, Harriet felt a tug at her sleeve. She looked down. It was Miss Talbot. At seventy-three, she was the oldest member of the tour party. At four foot eleven, she was also the tiniest.

Her soft, wrinkled face was all smiles. “That was a lovely poem, Harriet. You hit the nail right on the head.”

“Oh, thank you, Miss Talbot,” Harriet said, smiling back. She had known Miss Talbot for as long as she could remember and was very fond of her. The little white-haired woman not only ran the Country Women’s Association craft shop in Harriet’s hometown of Merryn Bay but also knitted most of the contents. She specialized in yellow matinee jackets and small knitted penguins with crocheted orange beaks. She was also well known in the town for buying her clothes from children’s-wear shops. Harriet glanced again at Miss Talbot’s traveling outfit of pink tracksuit and matching shoes, trying not to look too obviously at the Groovy Chick logo embroidered on the front. “How are you feeling? Not too tired, I hope?”

“Oh no, Harriet. I snoozed like a bug in a rug the whole flight. And those little meals on trays were just delicious, thank you so much.”

“You’re very welcome, I’m glad you liked them.” No matter how many times she’d tried to explain, Miss Talbot remained convinced that Harriet was responsible for every single thing that happened on the trip, meals included.

Miss Talbot gave another happy sigh. “I just can’t believe we’re here at last. All these years of seeing Willoughby on TV, and tomorrow we’re actually going to meet him. I know I’m old enough to be his grandmother, but it really is so exciting. He’s such a dreamboat.”

Harriet grinned at the old-fashioned term, fighting an urge to pick up Miss Talbot and give her a cuddle. She wasn’t actually sure whether Willoughby was a dreamboat or not. She could never admit it to Miss Talbot—or any of the others in the group—but she had only a dim recollection of the
Willoughby
TV series on which their entire trip of a lifetime was based. All she knew was that it featured a dark-haired detective disguised as a postman solving crimes in beautiful seaside villages in Cornwall.

Her brother James, lying in his hospital bed, had tried to assure her it wouldn’t matter.

“You’ll never know the series as well as the tour group, anyway. You know where the word fan comes from, don’t you? Short for fanatics. And that’s what the
Willoughby
fan club members are.” He’d lowered his voice. “More
Willoughby
weirdos than fans, some of them, if you ask me.”

A bright blue suitcase decorated with a gaudy yellow ribbon came trundling past. “That’s mine, that’s mine,” one of the tour group called. Harriet leaned across and retrieved it. In the pretravel information pack, each member of the group had been advised to attach a distinctive ribbon as well as the Turner Travel label to their suitcases so they would be easy to spot on the carousel. They had certainly taken up the challenge, Harriet saw, as more of their bags appeared. They were decorated with everything from tartan bows to shiny red ribbons and chiffon scarves. It looked like they’d been on holiday in a haberdashery.

Another suitcase came toward them, decorated with the Turner Travel label and a bright pink pom-pom. It belonged to Mrs. Dorothy Lamerton, official president of the
Willoughby
fan club. English born, wealthy, polished, a widow, she thought of herself as the social Queen Bee of Merryn Bay. Harriet thought of her as the High Queen of the
Willoughby
weirdos. She had a matching pom-pom around her wrist. Harriet leaned forward and lifted her suitcase off the carousel, too.

Mrs. Lamerton gave an imperious wave. “Thank you, Harriet. Those conveyor belts go by far too quickly, if you ask me.”

A simple thing like collecting their clients’ luggage off the carousel was just part of the Turner Travel personalized service, but Harriet still got a little glow inside at the thanks. Harriet’s late parents, Neil and Penny Turner, had prided themselves on delivering personal touches. They had started the business thirty years previously in the small coastal town of Merryn Bay, two hours from Melbourne, after emigrating from England as part of the “ten-pound pom” assisted-passage scheme. The business had started slowly but grown successfully, with its emphasis on tailored tours and, latterly, themed tours like this one for the
Willoughby
fan club members. Harriet didn’t have to try hard to be able to picture the handwritten list of Turner Travel official rules her father had pinned to the wall of the staff room: