The Alphabet Sisters

by Monica McInerney

  “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.

  Three 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.”

  Bett 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.

  She wriggled around to get a better view of her father and then nearly leaped out of her seat as a sharp pain ricocheted through her right thigh. She moved and another sharp pain shot into her bottom. Bloody hell, had she sat on a spider? She lifted up her bottom an inch, lowered it, and nearly shot out of her seat as the pain struck again.

  Behind her, Richard noticed her jump. “Bett, are you all right?”

  “Something keeps biting me.”

  “Good heavens. I promise you it’s not me.”

  That made her grin. “I didn’t think it was you. Don’t mind me.” She couldn’t get up now, make a scene, not during Lola’s big moment.

  Her father was now making his introduction. “Once again, I give you my mother and the birthday girl herself, Lola Quinlan.”

  The lights came on and in the front of the room was Lola, pulling back a curtain to reveal a large white screen. The guests shifted expectantly. Bett gingerly turned her seat around to make sure she had a full view, not moving her bottom, just the chair, trying to keep the insect or spider or whatever creature it was pinned underneath her bottom.

  Lola waited until she had every last person’s attention. “Thank you, my darling Jim. Before I move on to the next important event of the night, I’d like to properly introduce my family to you all. I’d invite them all up here beside me, but then you’d be looking at them not me.” There was a ripple of laughter. Lola pointed them all out, one by one. “My son, Jim, and his wife, Geraldine, who have been so good and kind to me over the years, even when I was driving them mad.”

  “Never,” Jim called across. Geraldine smiled stiffly.

  “And my granddaughters. Anna, put your hand up, darling, would you? Anna’s home from her successful acting life in Sydney for a little while with her daughter, my dear great-granddaughter, Ellen, who has just turned seven and is adorable.” Bett noticed Ellen was pressed against Anna, her hair hiding her scar.

  “And at the table next to Anna and Ellen is my middle granddaughter, Elizabeth, known of course as Bett …” Bett self-conciously raised her hand as Lola continued, “who has left behind her extremely glamorous life in London to come home and spend time with me.”

  She turned and gestured toward Carrie, who was standing by the door. “And of course my dear Carrie, there in the golden dress with the golden hair, who not only keeps me young on a daily basis, but has pulled out all the stops for tonight. Thank you, Carrie darling.”

  Lola waited for the applause to come to an end before she spoke again. “When we were first planning this evening’s entertainment, I learned that a tradition these days is to have a little slide show ready to surprise the guest of honor. Carrie suggested it, and I turned her down immediately, not wanting to be embarrassed by photos of myself that I thought had long disappeared. But then I thought about it some more, and I decided, yes, perhaps it would be good, especially if I got to choose the slides, rather than have any naughty surprises.

  “So I went ahead and prepared a little slide show of some of my favorite moments, and I’d like to share them with you. Please, get yourselves a drink and then we’ll get started.”

  Uh-oh, here we go, thought Bett. Anna was sitting at the table behind her, the two of them virtually back to back. She felt a tap on her shoulder and turned.

  “Did you know anything about this?” Anna whispered.

  Bett shook her head, surprised Anna was asking her. They both glanced over at Carrie. By the look on her face, this was a surprise to her as well.

  Lola clapped her hands. “Attention please, everyone. Anna, Bett, stop whispering over there.” She waved over at them. “My darlings have come home especially for this, you know. So good at my age to have all the family around me again.”

  In the quiet moment that followed before the slides began, two voices were clearly audible.

  “Is the youngest one’s husband here? The bloke that caused all the trouble?”

  “No, he’s been banned, I’d say.” Len the butcher’s voice was easily recognizable. “Shame, really. I was hoping to see another catfight over him tonight.” He gave a loud laugh.

  Bett stiffened. Bloody Len and his big mouth. She wished he’d go and choke on one of his own chops. From the corner of her eye she saw Anna spin around to spot the speaker. She didn’t dare look in Carrie’s direction. To her relief, the lights suddenly went down, the screen flickered into life, and Lola’s voice came over the speakers, her Irish accent strong and clear. “Please forgive my indulgence as I reminisce a little about the past eighty years.”

  A lilting Irish song started playing as slide after slide came up on the screen, with captions of the year and the place underneath. There was Lola as a child beside an enormous oak tree in front of her big family house in Ireland, standing with her parents behind her, the only child. As a young woman at a gala party, in Dublin. On her wedding day, Edward serious-faced, Lola almost a child bride. A photograph of them on the boat to Australia in the late 1930s, then several of Lola with a baby Jim on their own; by a beach; in the gateway of the Botanic Gardens in Melbourne; among a group of women, all with young children.

  Bett was fascinated. She hadn’t realized Lola had those photographs from Ireland, or so many from her early days in Australia. Lola had rarely spoken about those days in any detail. The memories must have been too painful for her, the three girls had decided. Bett heard whispers at the tables around her. “She was widowed very young, wasn’t she?” “Tragic, wasn’t it? Her with a young son, too.” “Did she marry again?”

  Something about the photo of Lola’s house in Ireland struck a chord with Bett. She had visited it on behalf of Lola when she was living over there, taken photos of it and tried—but failed—to find anyone who remembered Lola and her family from years before. She’d like to have looked more closely at the photo, but it had flashed past too quickly. She’d have to ask Lola about it another time.

  The next slides were of Lola and Jim in the different guesthouses and motels they had gone on to manage all around Australia. They had moved dozens of times over the early years, from city motels to country motels, motels in farmland and motels by the sea. Geraldine and then the three girls started appearing on-screen. There was a wonderful photo of Lola in her mid-fifties on holiday in Tasmania, on a beach with wind whipping through her hair, looking like a film star. Another of her in her late sixties, behind the counter of the charit
y shop here in the Valley, the year she had announced herself officially retired from motel work. One from her seventieth birthday party in the middle of the vineyard in front of the motel on a glorious summer day, like today. The day that she had signed over all the ownership to Jim and Geraldine. Bett remembered it clearly. Lola hadn’t listened to any arguments. “I don’t want money for it. It’s yours to do what you like with, as long as there’s always a room and a ready supply of gin for me.”

  Bett relaxed as the screen went white again. Thank God Lola hadn’t included any slides of the Alphabet Sisters. She knew there were dozens of hideously embarrassing photographs from their various performances all over the country, none of which Bett ever wanted to see again. Lola usually pulled them out at any occasion. Who’d have thought she’d have respected their privacy like that tonight?

  Lola’s voice sounded out over the room again. “It’s been a long and eventful life, and one of the most special parts of it has been not just the joy of having three granddaughters but having three immensely talented, performing granddaughters. So I’d also like to take this opportunity to share with you some of the finest moments from their years performing as the Alphabet Sisters. Music please, maestro.”

  The room filled with the sound of Perry Como singing “The Alphabet Song.” Bett covered her face with her hands as one photo after the other of the Alphabet Sisters in an array of outfits flashed up onto the screen. There they were in the gingham dresses they’d worn for their first performance on the TV talent competition. In the matching yellow satin dresses with flared skirts. In the pink and blue skirt and shirt ensembles. The bright green taffeta party dresses …

  Bett made a gap in one hand and peered through, hearing the laughter around her. It was getting worse. Why had they reached their performing peak when puff-ball skirts, fluffy hair, and fluorescent colors had seemed fashionable? As Perry continued crooning in the background, working his way through the alphabet one more time, on-screen the three of them moved from childhood to teenage years. It was like time-lapse photography. Bett watched herself get plumper and plumper with each passing year. There was open and loud laughter all round now. People were laughing at her or the outfits or their makeup. She covered her face, praying for the song to finish, praying for an electrical fault, an earthquake.…