The Beach Book Bundle: 3 Novels for Summer Reading: Breathing Lessons, The Alphabet Sisters, Firefly Summer (50 page)

She looked over at the portable bookcase and writing desk in the corner of the room. Jim had made it especially for her, so she could wheel it from room to room and feel immediately at home. The folder containing her special project was tucked well out of the way on the third shelf. Should she take it out now? Get everything out into the open? Would they be angry with her? Or would they guess the whole purpose of it was to keep them together for as long as possible? Get them working closely together again? She didn’t mind if they did guess. But no, it was too soon. Besides, she wanted to reveal it in a far more dramatic fashion, and in front of as large an audience as possible.

What could they work on together in the meantime? The food was prepared and the room was arranged, so there was nothing to be done there. Then she thought of the large pile of twigs Carrie would soon be putting into vases. Or not, perhaps … She picked up the phone and dialed the florist shop in town.

A
n hour later Lola was standing in the function room with ten newly emptied vases, eight bunches of freshly delivered flowers, and three stony-faced granddaughters. Carrie had been summoned from the office, Anna from the kitchen, Bett out of her bed. Ellen had been dispatched to the kitchen to find ice cream.

Lola gave them her most winning smile. “I know I’m the very devil for changing my mind at the last minute, but seeing the three of you together again reminded me of those wonderful room decorations you used to do for me when you were little. Do you remember that one Christmas, when you strung up mistletoe and pinecones all over the motel for me?”

Bett stared at her blankly. Perhaps it was jet lag, but she couldn’t remember ever doing Christmas decorations for Lola. It had always been Geraldine in charge of the decorations. They’d be hung up neatly exactly three weeks before Christmas, then folded away just as neatly exactly twelve days after Christmas.

“And I realized it would be the icing on my birthday cake to see your flower decorations at my party tonight,” Lola continued. She patted each of them on the cheek as though they were small animals. “So will you get to work? And no hard feelings about the bush theme, Carrie? I’m sure we’ll find a use for all those twigs.”

H
alf an hour later, eavesdropping from outside, Lola was forced to admit her plan hadn’t worked. It was more dysfunction than function room in there. No laughing and joking together as they merrily arranged the flowers. No cheerful “Doesn’t the room look beautiful for the party?” conversation. No lively chitchat as they took the opportunity to catch up on each other’s lives. Just several frosty exchanges.

“Please don’t put that vase there, Anna,” she heard Carrie say in an overly polite voice.

“Why not? I think it looks good.”

“All the flowers are to go on the side tables.”

“But you’ll hardly see them once you’re sitting down.”

“I’ve given it a lot of thought over the past few weeks and decided that is the most practical place for them.” Carrie was now speaking in a steely tone.

Outside, Lola winced. The underlying message being that Anna had no right to just march in and do what she liked …

There was silence for a minute or two, then she heard Bett’s voice. “Are there any more vases?”

“I’ll get them for you.” Carrie, her voice still stiff.

“That’s all right. I can get them.”

“They’re in the cupboard under the bar.”

“Yes, I know.”

Carrie’s tone was sharp again. “It’s just you’ve been away for so long, I thought you might have forgotten.”

After Bett came back there’d been more silence, broken only by the sound of vases being moved and stalks being snipped. Lola wasn’t quite sure what to try next. Should she go in and tell some of her jokes? She’d thought of a good one. What’s brown and sticky? A stick. Perhaps not. She had a feeling it would take more than a joke to fix this.

She walked into the room. The flowers were beautiful. Much nicer than the twigs had been. “Oh, well done, girls.” There was no response. She ambled over to the piano, lifted the lid, and experimentally ran her fingers up and down, playing one or two chords.

“Do you remember this one, Anna?” she said loudly. She thumped out the beginning notes of “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree.”

Anna shook her head.

“Poor Anna. Your memory gone and you still so young. Bett, your turn. What about this?” She played a swirly introduction to “Danny Boy.”

Bett glanced over. “I can’t place it, Lola, sorry.”

“Too much smog in London, darling. Your brain cells obviously need a shake-up. Carrie, what about you, my dear? What’s this one?” She played the introduction to “My Favorite Things” from
The Sound of Music.

“I’m not sure,” Carrie said, not looking up.

Lola was shocked by a surge of anger. Enough was enough. She stood up and clapped her hands, once, twice, three times. “Right, you little buggers.”

Three startled faces turned to her. Lola rarely swore and she even more rarely used Australian swear words. “I want to speak to the three of you. Over here, now.”

She gave them a moment to get closer and then glared at them, genuinely cross. “I know I should be more patient with you. I know you are probably jet-lagged, Bett, and you must be tired, too, Anna. But I’m sorry, I’ve been waiting three years for this, wanting this feud to be over every single day, and I can’t wait any longer to get it all sorted.” She pointed a long, varnished fingertip at her middle granddaughter. “Bett Quinlan, tell me the truth. How do you feel right now?”

Bett colored, transported straight back to being a ten-year-old. “I really don’t want to play this, Lola.”

“Play it, Bett. How do you feel right now?”

“Lola …”

It was a game she had played with them when they were children. Some trick she’d picked up at a drama class or from some TV documentary. Back then she’d had a magic wand that she would point at them. The truth stick, she called it. She said it saved time. Point and talk. How are you? What’s wrong? How do you feel and why? They had to answer. Back then the answers had been simple. “I’m cross because Mum told me off.” “I’m sad because I didn’t win the race today.” “I’m mad because the other two got more ice cream than me.”

Lola turned away from Bett. “All right, then. Carrie, I’ll start with you instead.”

Carrie was looking at her feet.

Lola kept pointing. “Carrie, the quicker we do this, the quicker it is over and done with.”

A long pause and then a low voice. “I’m cross because you keep changing your mind about the decorations and it’s driving me mad.”

It wasn’t what Lola had hoped to hear, but it was a start. “The customer’s always right, Carrie, remember. Anna, what about you?”

Anna glared at her. “I’m furious because I am thirty-four years old and you are treating me like a child.”

“You’re all behaving like children, so I’m going to treat you like children. Thank you, Anna. Bett?”

Bett hesitated. “I’m upset because I hate this.”

“Do you really?” Lola said a silent thanks. Now she was getting somewhere. Say it, Bett, she urged. Say how much you have hated fighting with your sisters. How much you’ve hated being away from them. “What do you hate exactly?”

Bett lifted her head, a picture of defiant misery. “You telling us off. And this truth stick business. I’ve always hated it.”

Lola put down the imaginary stick. It had been a last-ditch effort in any case. “Very well. I’ll try some straight talking instead. You see, I’ve always had the idea that you might have missed each other during the past three years. That perhaps there had been times when you’d wished you could call on each other. And then I had the even more obviously ridiculous idea that all it would take for you to become friends again was to get you together to talk about it.”

No response.

“No? Then it seems in my old age I am getting not just feeble of body but feeble of mind, and I have got it all wrong. Such a shame. However, as has always been my wont, I am going to try to make the best of a bad situation.” She glared at them. “So, my little brat-faced princesses—”

Bett suddenly had to bite back a smile. Lola hadn’t called them brat-faced princesses in years.

“Do you think it would be possible for the three of you to put this ridiculous fight—all right, not ridiculous, this extremely worthwhile and valid fight—behind you for a short time? Because, girls, the way of it is, I want to enjoy my party and I certainly won’t if I have to see your sulky faces all night long. Or all week long. And possibly beyond that. In fact, let’s say definitely beyond that.”

She ignored their looks of surprise and clapped her hands again. The three of them jumped. “From now on, there is to be conversation between you, do you hear me? I want some smiles, too. So I hereby lay down the law. There is to be no mention whatsoever of the events of three years ago. Do you understand?”

There was a flash of temper from Anna. “Oh, sure, Lola. As if we aren’t thinking about them.”

“You can think all you like. You can think of nothing else if you like. But while you are all living and working here, I want peace and conviviality between you.” She turned to Carrie. “I know this will be hardest on you at the moment, Carrie, Matthew being your husband and all. But I’d like you to keep him away from here for the time being. Do you think you can manage that?”

Carrie swallowed hard. If Lola only knew how easy it was going to be. She nodded, not daring to speak.

“I think it’s better if he doesn’t come to the party tonight, either. Tell him I’m sorry, but that’s the way it has to be. There’ll be enough gossiping about you all without him being there as well and everyone watching and listening to see what happens. Besides, I want all the attention to be on me, not him.” She gave a broad grin.

Carrie looked at her feet again. She’d long ago banned Matthew from coming to the party.

“So there we have it. Now, get to work please. It won’t be long before my guests come marching up the carpark, and there’s still plenty to be organized. Carrie, ask your sisters to help you. Bett and Anna, do what she says.” She was almost at the door when she remembered something else. “One last thing.”

They turned to her as one, like a chorus line, waiting.

She gave them a beautiful smile. “Thank you all for being here. You’ve made an old lady very happy.”

Chapter Six

T
he function room was a mass of fairy lights. There were ten round tables, each set with white linen, sparkling glasses, and gleaming cutlery. Irish music played quietly in the background, overlaid with conversations from the seventy guests, a mixture of older couples, teenagers, middle-aged women, several elderly men, and even a baby in a carry-cot. There were candles and the vases of fresh flowers on the long side tables, with several bottles of wine already opened on each. Young waitresses in white shirts and black skirts were circulating with trays, collecting empty champagne glasses. Everything was in the room except the guest of honor herself.

At the door, Carrie glanced at her watch, then across the room at her oldest sister. She had stiffly asked for her help that afternoon, and just as stiffly Anna had agreed. “Are you ready?” she mouthed.

“Ready,” Anna mouthed back.

Carrie signaled over to her other sister in the far corner by the speaker system. It had been just as hard asking Bett for help, but she’d had no choice. Lola’s complicated running order for the early stages had made it impossible for Carrie to manage on her own. At Bett’s nod, Carrie turned the room lights on and off and on again to get everyone’s attention, then turned them off once more, leaving a spotlight over the main door. The room went quiet. Anna turned on the microphone and in her best public speaking voice—one she’d used to great effect in the children’s cartoon
Hatty and the Headmistress
—made her speech: “Please will you stand and welcome the belle of tonight’s ball, the reason we’re all here, the woman who is celebrating her eightieth birthday this very day—Lola Quinlan!”

Lola swept in to the sound of The Kinks’ “Lola.” She stood in the doorway for full dramatic effect, then gazed around the function room with pride and glee. The girls had done themselves and her proud. Waving majestically, she inclined her head as her friends and family started clapping, many of them laughing at her choice of music.

“You do realize it’s a song about a transvestite?” Carrie had asked Lola the previous week.

“Is it?” Lola had said blithely, peering at Carrie over her glasses. “Never mind. People will think I’m being ironic about my makeup.”

Bett watched now as Lola moved from table to table, greeting every guest in person, having a word here or a word there. She also watched people’s reactions after Lola had moved on—a mixture of amazement, amusement, and, sometimes, outright laughter. It seemed Lola had the same effect on everyone who knew her, not just her granddaughters. It was an oddly comforting thought.

Across the room, Carrie glanced down at the running sheet in front of her. So far so good. Guests to be greeted in person at front door. Tick. Champagne to be circulated by waiting staff. Tick. In the past two days Lola had gone into a kind of white heat. “What do you think about playing ‘I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside’ as the waitresses bring out the prawn cocktails?” “Wouldn’t one great big long table look better than ten round ones?” “Do you think it’s too late to ask everyone to come in costume, as pirates or gypsies or something dramatic like that?”

Carrie had finally put a stop to it. “Lola, it’s an old lady’s birthday party, not a Broadway production.”

“Do you think it’s like a Broadway production? Really? Which parts?”

It wasn’t supposed to be a compliment, Carrie stopped herself from saying. “I just think it might be best if you don’t get too carried away. From what you’ve deigned to tell me, you already seem to have a lot of different activities throughout the night. People will want to talk to each other and eat their meals, remember. You need to let a bit of it happen of its own accord.”

To her surprise, Lola had agreed, taking the pen and swiping it through several items on the rundown. Probably just as well, Carrie thought—she hadn’t been too sure the crowd would join in on a version of Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely?,” though Lola had been fairly confident. She had kept in two items, though—one dubbed S and the other SS.

“What do they stand for?” Carrie asked.

“Surprise and then Super Surprise.”

“I don’t like surprises. Tell me.”

“You’ll find out when you need to find out,” Lola had said grandly.

Which wouldn’t be long now, Carrie thought with some relief. Dramatic entrance? Tick, she noted, as she watched Lola take her seat. It was all good experience, though. She’d probably be able to manage the inauguration ceremony for the President of the United States after this. It might even be simpler.

T
wo hours later it was ten minutes to Item Seven, the first of Lola’s surprises. The starters and main courses had been served—prawn cocktails, followed by Wiener schnitzels served with chips and salad. There had been three spot prizes, also Lola’s idea. The lucky winners had received bottles of Lola’s favorite gin. Dessert was to follow after the next set of speeches. There was a choice of fruit salad and ice cream or homemade chocolate pudding, which was in fact factory-made chocolate pudding with a slightly homemade chocolate sauce on top.

Carrie and Lola had argued about that as well. “You can have any food you like, you know. Something special if you want.”

“I like your mother’s menus. Plain, nourishing …”

Boring, Carrie didn’t say out loud. The motel food had long been a sore point between Carrie and her mother. Geraldine had her favorites and had never seen any reason to change them. The starters were always either prawn cocktail or soup of the day—generally vegetable. The main courses were usually a choice of T-bone steak, ham steak and pineapple, or Wiener schnitzel, all served with chips and salad. The desserts didn’t often change either: apple pie, chocolate pudding, or fruit salad, all served with vanilla ice cream. The coffee was defiantly instant, the tea made with teabags, not leaves. Geraldine billed it all on the menu as “delicious homemade country-size fare.” As the person who unpacked a good lot of it from the wholesaler, Carrie had argued about the term “homemade” as well. She couldn’t argue about the “country-size,” though. The portions were always enormous.

Carrie caught Lola’s eye across the function room. “Ten minutes,” she mouthed, holding up both hands, fingers spread wide, for clarity. Lola nodded, sending her a beaming smile, before returning to her conversation with the neighbor at the table where she was currently sitting. She’d arranged the seating so there was a vacant seat at every table. “That way I can move around all night, talk to everyone.” She’d explained her reasoning to Carrie at another one of their preparty meetings. “Don’t you think it’s silly to have me at a head table with your mother on one side and your father on the other? I can talk to them every day. I’ve always thought that’s a ridiculous thing about weddings, actually—putting the bride and groom miles away, out of reach. They’re going to spend the rest of their lives talking to each other, being beside one another, aren’t they, Carrie?” She hadn’t noticed Carrie’s expression. “I’m going to share myself around all night long. And I’d love it if you girls would do the same thing, take up my chairs when I’m not there. Just like those people do during the Academy Awards presentations. Have you heard about them, Carrie? Imagine doing that for a job, slipping in and taking a famous person’s chair every time they nip out to the lavatory or for a cigarette. Or perhaps they go out for some drugs, would that be it?”

Carrie had stared at her for a moment, prayed for patience, and then returned to the running order in front of them.

The table swapping seemed to be working well, though. Anna and Ellen had already moved to a table on the opposite side of the room. She could see them both, Anna, with Ellen on her knee, talking to the lady from the chemist shop. Anna looked very glamorous, Carrie thought, in an elegant midnight blue dress set off with a dramatic pair of earrings that were more art than jewelery. Ellen was all in pink, with a sweet matching hat.

On the other side of the room she could see Bett, laughing at something the local parish priest was saying. She was wearing a vintage dress for the party. Stunning material, Carrie admitted, but she knew in her heart that her own outfit was the most eye-catching. It was a deceptively simple long gold dress, with a matching gold silk wrap. She’d woven little silk flowers through her hair and taken a long time over her makeup, too.

“You look like a model,” Len from the butcher shop had said admiringly when he’d arrived with his wife. Then he’d fixed her with a beady eye. “Matthew not here yet?”

She’d told the almost-truth. “He’s away up north on a sheep station, for the final part of his vet’s training. Fantastic experience. It’s just a shame it’s so remote. Lola understood, of course.” She stared right at Len, daring him to ask her any more. He hadn’t, but she could tell by his eagerness to get away he was dying to pass the news around to everyone in the room. Good, it would save her having to do it.

Looking at Bett again, Carrie noticed she had lost a bit of weight while she’d been in London, but she was still—well, not chubby anymore, but certainly not thin. Guiltily, Carrie realized she was relieved. She’d been worried Bett would arrive back from London model-stick thin. She had a feeling Matthew preferred slender girls. She’d asked him one night as they were going to bed, in the early days, when she’d gone through a period of guilt and uncertainty. Before they had declared a blanket ban on talking about Bett.

“Matthew, did you think Bett had a better body than me?”

He’d seemed uncomfortable. “Carrie, we promised we wouldn’t talk about it.”

“But did you?”

“Carrie, I’m not answering that question.”

She’d been cross with him then, and decided to show it. “Then you must have,” she’d said sulkily. “Well, you should go back to her then, shouldn’t you?” She had glanced up at him under her lashes. He hadn’t been sure whether she was joking or not, she knew that. She had stood up, walked across the bedroom in her underwear—her extremely lacy and sexy underwear. She had discovered early on that Matthew liked sexy underwear. At the door she’d stood and relished the look on his face as he took in her body. “I’ll ring Bett, shall I? See if she’ll come back to you?”

Matthew was lying on the bed. “Come here, Carrie.”

“Why?”

“You know why.”

“What will you do if I do come over?” From the look in his eye, she had a very good idea exactly what he had in mind. She’d come closer. He’d put out his hand. She’d leaned back, just out of reach.

“Don’t tease me.” His voice had been husky and she’d relented, leaning forward.… She shook the memory away. There was a time and a place for sexual fantasies, and her grandmother’s eightieth birthday probably wasn’t it.

What would Matthew be doing now? She tried to picture him on the sheep station, two hundred kilometers away. The job offer had come out of the blue six months earlier, a perfect practical application of all he’d been learning in his latest course in veterinary farm management.

“How was today?” she’d asked in the early days, when things were still okay between them.

“Another sheep learning curve,” he’d replied.

“And the lecturer?”

“Baa-baric. He kept trying to ram all the facts home. He asked me what was wrong and then got cross when I said mutton much.”

Carrie had tried to keep a straight face. “Have you finished?”

Matthew had just laughed at her. “For the moment.”

“I hope that’s the truth. You know I hate it when you try to pull the wool over my eyes.”

They had been good together, Carrie kept telling herself. They’d had lots of fun. They’d talked about everything. The first six months had been the most difficult, putting up with the whispers and gossip in the town, but cocooned in their belief that what had happened was bigger than both of them, had been beyond their control, they’d brazened it out. And then one of the Richards girls had a baby at the age of sixteen and the sports teacher ran off with one of the prefects at the school and there was a spate of burglaries in the Valley and everyone had plenty of things to talk about other than them.

Carrie started to feel sad and then anger took over. Had he any idea at all how hard it had been for her the past few years? And how hard it was for her tonight, facing everyone, knowing people would be talking about them? Especially knowing Bett and Anna would be watching her every move?

She was tempted for a moment to phone him, but stopped herself. She already knew what would happen. They’d just have another fight, and more likely than not she would find herself crying at the end of it. And tonight of all nights she didn’t want to have blotchy skin and puffy eyes.

But she suddenly wished Matthew was there right now. That she could go across to him, whisper something funny or sexy in his ear, make it all right again that way, the way they used to do. Had done for months, until … She realized she was staring over at Bett when her sister caught her eye. She flushed and looked away.

Bett looked away, too, embarrassed to have been caught staring at Carrie. There was no doubt about it, her younger sister looked stunning tonight. She had been proud of her own outfit, until she put it on and saw herself beside Carrie and Anna. The whole family had been summoned to Lola’s room for one quick drink together before the party—a little pep talk, Lola had called it. Her father made a toast. “We’ll do this again publicly but for now, cheers to you, Lola, a wonderful mother, mother-in-law, grandmother, and great-grandmother.”

“To our happy family, reunited again,” Lola had toasted in return. “Jim, did you bring your camera? I’d love a shot of us all. And one with the three girls together again at last.”

Her father unfortunately had left his camera in the function room. “We’ll have to take that one later on,” he’d said. Bett had been relieved. She and Anna and Carrie had hardly exchanged a word with one another since the flower arranging that afternoon, let alone stood close enough to get a cheery arm-in-arm shot.

Lola had called Bett back as they were all leaving her room. “You look marvelous, darling. Those last adjustments were just what that dress needed.”