The Alphabet Sisters

by Monica McInerney

  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.

  Lola 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?”

  At 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.

  Hello? 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.”

  “Hav
e 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.

  Chapter Four

  At last, at last, at last.” Lola held Bett tight in another hug, then stepped back to look at her again, a wide smile on her face. She had been sitting waiting on a chair at the front of the motel for the past hour. “You had me worried sick. I thought I’d have to start the party without you.”

  Bett was surprised to find herself fighting tears. “As if I’d let the birthday girl down.” Another hug. “Let me look at you.” Bett took a step back, still holding Lola’s hands. She’d felt bones under Lola’s pink clothing. “You’ve lost weight, Lola.”

  Lola was looking at her just as closely. “So have you. Not too much, thank God. I wouldn’t know you without your curves.” She tucked a bit of hair behind Bett’s ears. “And your eyes are as beautiful as ever, your cheeks as rosy, and I like that color in your hair. What’s it called? Chestnut brown?”

  “I don’t know what it’s called. It’s my own color.”

  “Is there such a thing? Imagine that.”

  Bett glanced around her. “Are the—”

  “Others here? No darling. I poisoned them all this morning. I decided it would make for a much more peaceful life if you and I had the place to ourselves.”

  The sound of the front door opening halted any more questions. Bett looked up as her mother and father came out toward her. “Bett! Welcome home!” She was enfolded in hugs from another two sets of arms.

  An hour later, her head was spinning with news of the motel, of the Valley, of the party that night. There had been no sign of Anna or Carrie yet, and no mention of them. Her parents hadn’t asked her too many questions about her life in London either. They knew some of it, of course, from her letters and phone calls, so it wasn’t as if she had crawled in from the wilderness. But she had just got back from three years overseas. Shouldn’t they have had more questions?

  Lola was sitting on the sidelines, watching beady-eyed. Grasping a break in the conversation, she stood up with a groan loud enough to make them all look at her, then crossed to Bett and tucked her hand into her arm. “Now, come on, Bett, I’ll help you unpack. And while we do that, I want you to tell me every little thing you’ve been doing while you’ve been away.”

  Lola was like a mind reader sometimes. “You know it all. It was in my letters.”

  Lola steered her out of the kitchen. “They were a tissue of lies. I know that, and you know that. Come on, darling. You can tell me the truth now. By the way, I’ve organized room six for you, your favorite.”

  Lola and the three girls had been sleeping in the motel rooms rather than the manager’s quarters ever since the family first moved in, fifteen years before. It had been Lola’s idea. She’d decided it was better to use the rooms during quiet times, rather than have them lie idle and unused, getting all musty.

  As they walked out into the sunshine, Bett noticed quite a few rooms had a car parked in front of them. “It’s busy enough for this time of year.”

  “Not bad, actually. Carrie has been working hard. Mostly one-nighters, though room two has been here for two weeks now. An English fellow. He’s coming along tonight, actually. I called on him last week, had a very nice chat. He’s researching a book or something fascinating like that. I’m dying to find out more about it.”

  Bett kept her mouth shut. Many times in the past her mother had asked Lola not to call on the guests like that, but she was obviously still ignoring her. It would be a bit alarming, Bett supposed, to be booked into a motel room and have a heavily made-up old lady carrying a clinking gin and tonic appear at your door asking for your life story.

  With a flourish, Lola produced the key to number six. “Here you are, darling. All yours once again. I actually had to move a couple out that Carrie had accidentally booked in. I said there might be a problem with a nest of huntsman spiders, and they seemed happy enough to move.”

  “Move rooms or move motels?”

  “Motels, now I think of it. Now, be sure to make yourself at home. If your luck holds and we don’t get many guests, you might be able to stay put the whole time you’re here. You do have neighbors, though.”

  “Neighbors?”

  The door to number seven beside them opened and Anna and Ellen came out. Bett’s stomach flipped as she saw them for the first time in years. Anna looked as fresh and elegant as ever, immaculately made-up, wearing a white shift dress that showed off her toned, brown body. Ellen was in a pale blue sundress, holding a straw hat. Bett stood up a little straighter, suddenly conscious of her own creased T-shirt and makeup-free face.

  Lola coughed politely. “Anna Quinlan, may I introduce your sister, Bett Quinlan. Bett Quinlan, this is Anna, your older sister.”

  “Hello, Anna.”

  “Hello, Bett.”

  “And this is Ellen,” Lola continued. “You remember Ellen.”

  Bett looked down at the little girl, feeling Anna’s eyes boring into her. Ellen was lovely, a mini version of Anna, with big eyes, straight dark hair, and olive skin. Bett glanced at the scar on her cheek, keeping a big smile on her face. Lola had warned her Anna was extremely sensitive about people’s reactions to Ellen’s scar. She leaned down. “Hello, Ellen.”

  Ellen pressed close against Anna and wouldn’t look up.

  “Ellen, this is Bett, your auntie. My sister.”

  Ellen still didn’t look at her. Anna gave Bett a tight smile, a half shrug, as if to apologize.

  Bett looked behind her, waiting for Glenn to emerge as well. Anna noticed.

  “He’s not here,” she said.

  Bett felt the rush of color into her face. Had Anna kept him away because of her? Because of the things she’d said about him? Oh, God. Talk about things getting off to a bad start. “Look, he’s—” Very welcome to be here, too, she’d been about to say.

  “Very busy at work,” Anna said smoothly. “He wasn’t able to get away.”

  Bett relaxed slightly. “Oh. I see.”

  Anna spoke again, her voice measured, in control. “So how was your flight?”

  “Fine. Long. But I had a night’s stopover in Singapore, so I’m not too exhausted. And you? Did you drive down or fl
y?”

  “We flew. Took the ten o’clock this morning.”

  Lola stepped in, shaking her head. “Well, it’s a credit to the both of you. Three years’ separation and look at the conversation you manage to strike up.”

  “Lola, please.” Anna and Bett turned to her and spoke as one.

  “Mum.” Ellen’s voice was little more than a whisper, as she started pulling at her mother’s hand.

  Anna leaned down, stroking her daughter’s hair from her face. “You’re hungry, I know. Come on, darling. We’ll go and see what Grandma has for you. See you later, Bett.”

  “Yes, see you, Anna. See you, Ellen.”

  As they walked away toward the kitchen, Lola was half laughing, half sighing. “You’ll be the death of me. If that was the best you and Anna could do, then God knows what you’ll do with Carrie. Lunge at her with a knife, probably.”

  “Lola, sorry, but you have to stop all these cracks. This isn’t some little tiff between us. This is big, serious stuff. Grown-up stuff.”

  “Nonsense. It’s been the world’s most ridiculous feud. Over Matthew, of all people.”

  “It wasn’t just over Matthew. It was—”

  “What?”

  “All sorts of things.” Bett wasn’t ready for this. She tried to find the words. “Maybe we were unnaturally close all our lives, you know, with the three of us moving so much and the whole Alphabet Sisters thing.”

  “So now you’re blaming me?”

  “Lola, of course I’m not blaming you. I loved the Alpha-bet Sisters, until—” She stopped short. Was that actually the truth? She grabbed her grandmother’s arm. “Can we please not talk about it right now? Just for a little while? Can you and I go inside and talk about normal things, like terrible gossip from the charity shop or the party tonight or—”

  “In a moment.” Lola had heard the sound of a car coming up the driveway. “Carrie has just arrived back, and I want you to meet her. Now.”

  “No.” To her own astonishment, Bett leaped inside and shut the door of the room.

  A second later it opened, and Lola came in. “What happened to you in London? Have you been regressing rather than aging? Don’t tell me you were about to hide under the bed?” Bett had spent hours of her childhood under the bed. Looking for peace, she had insisted. Hiding from work, Lola had preferred to put it. “I’m sure you weren’t this cowardly before you went away.”