“Ah, Alba, my dear. To what do we owe this pleasure?” He kissed her temple, as he always did, and his voice was thick and grainy like the gravel outside. Jovial, inscrutable; the young man had gone.
“I was just passing,” she lied.
“Good,” he replied. “Come on in for a tipple and tell us what you’ve been up to.”
2
A lba clutched her bag. She could feel the bulge of the scroll tied up by a short piece of string. It demanded to be acknowledged, but she had to await her moment. And she needed a drink for courage.
“What would you like, Alba, my dear?”
“A glass of wine would be nice,” she replied, flopping onto the sofa. One of her stepmother’s dogs was curled up asleep at the other end. They look sweeter asleep than awake, she thought to herself, less like scruffy little rodents. She looked around the room where she had so often sat as a child, while her half siblings played Racing Demon and Scrabble, and felt more keenly than ever the sense of being an outsider. There were photographs in frames on tables laden with little enamel boxes and other trinkets, pictures of her smiling with her arms around Caroline, as if they had a true, unbreakable friendship. If one didn’t know better it would appear that she belonged to a large, united family. She sniffed her contempt, sat back, and draped one long leg over the other, admiring the blue suede clog boots she had recently bought at Biba. Margo sunk her large bottom into an armchair and picked up her brandy.
“So, how is it all going in London?” she asked. It was a deliberately vague question, because neither she nor Thomas knew what she got up to there.
“Oh, you know, same old thing,” Alba responded, equally vague, because she didn’t really know either. She had almost become Terry Donovan’s muse but had turned up late and he had already left. She had been too embarrassed to telephone to apologize, so she had simply let it go. Her attempts at modeling for fashion magazines had suffered from the same lack of motivation. People were full of promises: she could be the next Jean Shrimpton, they insisted, she could be famous, but she never quite managed to see anything through. As Viv said, “God helps those who help themselves.” Well, until she got around to helping herself, her father’s small allowance would keep her in Ace dresses. The Ruperts and Tims and Jameses would see to the rest.
“Surely you do more than sit about in that boat all day long?” said Margo with a smile. Alba decided to take offense. Margo was always tactless. Her manner was strident, insensitive. She would have made a good headmistress. Alba thought her deep, plummy voice was ideal for bossing schoolgirls about and telling them to pull themselves together when they dissolved into tears, missing their mothers. She had often told Alba to “turn off the waterworks” when she had cried for something deemed trivial and not worth the fuss. Alba felt the resentment rise at all the humiliation she had suffered at the hands of her stepmother. Then she remembered the scroll and its very presence gave her a burst of confidence.
“The Valentina is lovelier than ever,” she replied, emphasizing the name. “Speaking of which, as I was tidying up under the bed, I discovered, quite to my amazement…” Just as she was about to launch her missile, her father stood over her and handed her a glass of red wine.
“It’s a Bordeaux. Terribly good. Had it in the cellar for years.”
She thanked him and tried to resume, but once more she was interrupted. This time by a thick, reedy voice, wavering like the strings of a badly played violin. She recognized it at once as belonging to her grandmother.
“Am I missing a party?”
They all looked up in surprise to see Lavender Arbuckle in the doorway in her frilly nightcap and dressing gown, leaning heavily on a walking stick.
“Mother,” said Thomas, appalled at the sight. During the daytime, in her clothes, she passed for normal. In her nightcap and dressing gown she looked frail and tremulous as if she had stepped straight out of a coffin.
“Well, I don’t like to miss a party.”
Margo put down her glass and pushed herself up with a weary huff.
“Lavender, it’s only Alba. She’s popped in for a drink,” she explained.
Lavender frowned, her small face resembling that of a bird with shiny eyes and a tiny beak.
“Alba? Do I know an Alba?” Her voice rose in tone and volume as she peered down her powdered nose at her granddaughter.
“Hello, Grandma!” Alba said with a smile, not bothering to stand.
“Do I know you?” she repeated, shaking her head so that the trims on her nightcap waved about her ears. “I do not believe that I do.”