The Alphabet Sisters (7 page)

Anna reached up to give her father a quick kiss on the cheek, followed by a warm, close hug. He was tall, like Lola and herself, but chubby, not thin, his square, open face red from too much sunshine. She watched intently again as he got down on his haunches to be at eye level with Ellen. She’d spoken to Lola from Sydney before they left, asked her to remind her mother and father to build Ellen up as much as possible.

“And welcome to you, Miss Ellen. And aren’t you looking beautiful as well? All set for the party tonight?”

Ellen nodded shyly again, struck dumb by the attention and the new surroundings.

Jim tousled Ellen’s hair. “Good girl. It’s great to have you both home again.”

Ellen stared at him. “It’s not really home. My home is in Sydney.”

Jim gave a roar of laughter. “You can’t call a big city like that home, darling. Home is where the heart is. Isn’t that right, Geraldine?”

“That’s right, Jim.”

“But isn’t my heart in my body all the time?” Ellen asked Anna, looking confused. “Not just when I’m at home?”

“Grandpa’s teasing you, Ellie. Don’t mind him.”

“Best advice I’ve heard all day,” an Irish voice behind them said. “Hello, my darlings. The birthday girl is here.” It was Lola, dressed in a pantsuit made of pink flowing material. She was in full makeup, with a small pink rose pinned in her white hair.

“Lola! Happy birthday!” Anna found herself rushing to meet Lola as if she were a child again herself. Now she knew for sure she was home. Lola turned from her hug with Anna, then leaned down with melodramatic groans to Ellen’s height, took her face between both hands, gazed at her for a long moment, and then kissed her extravagantly on both cheeks. “That scar is fading so quickly there must be a miracle at work.”

Anna relaxed. Trust Lola to mention it, to point it out, and bring it into the open. Ellen didn’t seem to mind, she noticed. She was nodding. “It is going a bit, I think, Really-Great-Gran.”

Lola gave a shout of laughter and kissed Ellen again. “You’re still calling me Really-Great-Gran, you dear little pet.”

Ellen looked delighted with herself. “I listen to that tape a lot.”

“You’re a little girl with wonderful taste. I know it in my bones.” She stood up with another groan. “Creaking and feeble as those bones might be. Enough of dillydallying with this riffraff, my dear Ellen. It’s time for a tour. And may I introduce your tour leader for the day. Myself, your Really-Great-Gran.”

Ellen beamed up at her. “But can I call you Lola, now, Really-Great-Gran? Like Mum does? Now I’m here?”

“You can call me all the names under the sun, my little darling,” Lola had said, before sweeping out of the room with her.

Anna looked out the kitchen window now and saw Lola and Ellen walking by the back fence. On one side was bushland, gum trees, and scrubby earth covered in dry bark and wiry grasses. The other side of the fence marked the start of the motel grounds, with a strip of bright green lawn, flowers, and bedding plants, all their father’s work. It was an island of green amid the dry South Australian landscape. As she watched, a tubby white sheep trotted up behind Lola and Ellen. Her parents had bought it the year before, to help keep the grass down around the motel. Anna saw Ellen’s reaction, a shriek and then a push against her great-grandmother, looking for a shield. As her hands clenched, Anna felt her mother’s eyes on her and gave an embarrassed smile. “It’s that obvious, is it? I’m trying not to run out there. The doctor says I have to be careful not to make her any more anxious than she already is.”

“Sheep have fairly blunt teeth. She’ll be safe enough.”

Surely her mother wasn’t making light of it? “It was terrifying for her, Mum. For all of us.”

“I know it was. I’m not laughing at you or her. I’m saying it as it is—she’ll be all right with Bumper. Besides, Bumper is so besotted with Lola she only has to whisper a word and he behaves.”

The sheep was now on one side of Lola, Ellen on the other. Lola had a hand on each of their heads and was inclining her head toward one and then another. Introducing them again, Anna realized. Probably explaining the sheep’s name once more. Bumper as in Bumper Baa. Lola’s idea—she’d thought it was hilarious.

Lola’s voice filtered in. “Can you feel his lovely soft wool, Ellen? Sheep have lanolin in their wool, one of nature’s very best moisturizers. If you ever meet a shearer, ask to shake his hand. You’ll never feel softer skin in all your life. Now, let’s go and say hello to the chickens as well. They’re a bad-tempered bunch. We won’t worry about shaking their claws today.”

Anna turned from the window, a smile on her face. At that moment the kitchen door opened and Carrie walked in, carrying a large bundle of long brown twigs.

Anna’s stomach gave a leap, and the smile froze. “Carrie. Hello.”

Carrie stopped short. “Hello, Anna.”

Anna swallowed, kept a smile on her face. “You look well.” She did, too. Small, pretty, she looked like a dainty forest creature. Anna was unreasonably disappointed. What had she expected? Carrie to have turned into a garden troll since they’d seen each other last?

“So do you.”

Anna accepted the compliment with a brief smile. So she would want to, all the money and effort she put into it—constant dieting, fake tans, manicures, pedicures, eyebrow shaping.…

“Have you been here long?”

“About half an hour.”

“How was the trip?”

“Fine thanks.” Anna forged ahead. She was going to be polite; she was going to handle this if it killed her. “All set for tonight?”

“Just about, thanks.”

Geraldine looked up from the oven. “You would have been ready days ago if Lola hadn’t kept changing her mind about the way she wanted the serviettes folded. Swans one minute, bishops’ hats the next. What was it you ended up with, Carrie?”

“Fans,” Carrie said shortly.

Anna gave a genuine smile. As teenagers they had spent what felt like months learning how to fold different sorts of serviettes for various functions—bishops’ hats for business meetings, fans for ladies’ lunches, and swans for weddings. The three of them could do it in their sleep. Once upon a time Anna would have reminisced about those days, gone straight over, taken the foliage from Carrie, chatted easily, and dragged her out to say hello to Ellen. Now they were standing like two store dummies, stiff and awkward, making equally stiff and awkward conversation. She tried again. “Do you need any help?”

Carrie paused for a few moments too long. “No thanks. Everything’s under control.” She glanced around. “Where’s Ellen?”

“Lola’s showing her around.”

“And Glenn?”

“He couldn’t make it. Work.”

“Oh.”

Say it, Anna, say it. “And how’s Matthew?”

“Fine. Good. Busy.”

The air grew tense, and the silence stretched out.

L
ola had seen Carrie’s car arrive. She flung open the door with a flourish, talking loudly to Ellen, deliberately interrupting. “And here we are back in the kitchen. Oh, and look who’s here, your Auntie Carrie. Carrie, you remember Ellen, our beautiful Ellen?”

Carrie turned and after a flicker of something passed over her face—shock, surprise—so quickly that only Lola noticed it, she bent down to her niece, who had gone straight over to Anna. “Hello, Ellen. It’s great to see you again. Did you have a nice trip?”

The little girl nodded, her face pressed against Anna’s side.

“She’s gorgeous, isn’t she?” Lola said proudly. She glanced around, judging the mood. It was like Iceland in here. Time for some defrosting. “Carrie, don’t tell me that pile of twigs over there is for my party, is it? Are we having a bonfire tonight?”

“They’re for the flower displays,” Carrie said sulkily. “You told me you wanted a bush theme.”

“Did I?” Lola asked. “Good heavens. Was I drunk?”

A
t Adelaide airport at that moment, Bett was walking up to the car-hire desk.

A young man in a badly fitting suit smiled at her. “Can I help you, madam?”

She smiled back. Madam? How sweet of him. A more honest query would have been, “Can I help you, you bedraggled-looking weirdo?”

“I’ve booked a car, thanks,” she said, handing over the paperwork. As he started pressing keys on the computer, she saw her reflection in the mirror behind him and only just stopped herself from poking her tongue out at her own rumpled, baggy-eyed reflection. She looked like the beagle she’d seen sniffing at suitcases in the arrivals hall.

Was it too late to find a gym and lose a stone? she wondered. First impressions were going to be very important. She wished that Lola had called this party two years ago, when for five glorious months, after a long bout of flu and poverty, Bett had actually been skinny, a size twelve, and change rooms were welcoming places, not temples of fear and doom. Anna had always had a comforting theory about women and body fat—that there was only so much fat in the world and what it did was redistribute itself around women all over the planet. When someone on a diet lost a few kilos, another poor unsuspecting woman in a country far away would discover to her astonishment that she had gained a few. Please, God, let Anna be wrinkled and plump and Carrie scruffy and taken to wearing nylon clothes that stick to her all over. With split ends. And adult-onset pimples. Bett turned side on, sucked in her stomach as hard as she could, and nearly fell over in the process.

“Is everything all right, madam?”

“Fine. Just doing some after-flight exercises.”

He looked a little suspicious.

Standing sideways again, she wondered whether it would be possible to buy a pair of those super-control tights somewhere nearby. Mind you, her only experience with a pair had been disastrous. When she finally pulled the things on, it was as if they had dragged every spare bit of flesh up with them. She’d been left with slimmish thighs, certainly, but also with the most extraordinary roll of fat over the top of them, as if she’d been stuck in a life buoy.

“Madam?”

The young man was now looking concerned. “Your keys, madam. Car number fifteen.”

Pulling her case behind her, she stopped at the airport door, struck by the high temperature now she was outside the air-conditioned building. It felt as if someone had opened an enormous oven nearby, sending out a hot, dry rush of heat. A woman in the arrivals hall had been full of the news that it had been one of the hottest summers in years, nine days straight of temperatures in the high thirties. Bett looked around for a phone box and spied one in the carpark. She’d promised Lola she’d call and let her know she was on her way. It had been her choice to hire a car, drive up herself, arrive independently. The phone box was no cooler, the receiver hot to touch. She stared at the phone for a moment, doing the deep breathing that all the books recommended, calming herself down. Of course she could handle this. Hadn’t she been out in the world for the past three years, surviving in Melbourne, Dublin, and London? Making a career for herself? Be strong, Bett. Be brave, Bett. Ring and tell them you’re in Adelaide and you’ll be up in a few hours.

She dialed. A cross-sounding voice answered. “Valley View Motel.”

It was Carrie. Bett hung up immediately.

H
ello? Hello?” Carrie waited a moment, then hung up. People were so rude. At least the ringing phone had got her out of the kitchen, though, before she exploded at her grandmother in front of everyone. Did Lola have any idea how hard it had been for the florist to find all those twigs?

She waited a moment to see if the caller rang back, but the phone stayed quiet. It had probably been another one of Lola’s mad friends ringing up to RSVP at the last minute.

“It’s not just going to be a room full of old people reminiscing, is it, Lola?” Carrie had asked her several days before. “There seem to be a lot of croaky old voices ringing up.”

“All human life will be represented, Carrie, my dear. And there’ll be some reminiscing, some entertainment, a little bit of this and a little bit of that.”

“A little bit of what?”

“It’s a surprise.”

“Lola, please. You’re the one who is supposed to get a surprise at your party, not us. What are you planning?”

“Carrie, how many times do I have to ask you to please treat me with adoration and respect. I’m not telling. All you have to do is set up the room exactly as I’ve outlined, follow the running order we have discussed, and then leave the rest to me.”

“You’re not going to tell me why Frank from the electrical hire shop was here yesterday, are you? Or what was in that big box I saw him carrying in?”

“No, I’m not.”

“Have you finished your table settings yet, then? Are you still expecting about sixty people?”

“More like seventy now, I think. All sorts of people have told me they’d love to come. Oh, and I also invited that quiet Englishman who’s staying in room two. He said he’d be delighted to attend. Actually, I think he said he’d be charmed to attend. Have you spoken to him yet? He has the most beautiful manners.”

Right then Carrie didn’t care if that Englishman was the most well-mannered man in history. Honestly, her grandmother drove her
crazy
sometimes. “Lola, you have to tell me these things. That changes everything. All the catering arrangements, everything.”

“Only slightly. Really, Carrie, you have to learn to relax or you’ll give yourself high blood pressure.”

“It is you and this party and this never-ending guest list that will give me high blood pressure. What are we supposed to feed these extra people?”

“Oh, they won’t mind if they have to share their meals.”

“I mind, though. If I’m trying to get more business into the motel, then every occasion like this is a chance to make an impression. And I won’t make a good impression if people don’t get enough to eat at a birthday party for one of the owners.”

“I’m not an owner anymore. I’m just the matriarch these days.”

Carrie had given in and started to laugh. “You’re just a law unto yourself, that’s what you are.”

It had been funny then, but it wasn’t funny now. Nothing was funny now. Carrie took her pulse, felt her heart beating. Yes, it was definitely fast. And no wonder, all the pressure she was under. She heard laughing and looked out in time to see Lola, Anna, and Ellen head over to Anna’s favorite room, number seven. She fought off a little feeling of hurt, picked up her car keys, and scribbled a quick note to her mother. She was going back into town for a long, slow cup of coffee.