The Beach Book Bundle: 3 Novels for Summer Reading: Breathing Lessons, The Alphabet Sisters, Firefly Summer (47 page)

Carrie didn’t mind if it took all day to prepare her order. She didn’t mind if she had to live in the flower shop from this moment on. Anywhere was better than being at the motel waiting for Anna and Bett to arrive.

“Carrie? Do you want me to do that?”

Carrie took a seat beside the counter. “No, I’m in no rush at all. Honestly, take as long as you like. In fact, why don’t I go and get us both a cool drink?”

T
he weather hasn’t helped, of course. The past week or so it’s been more than thirty degrees every day. People want to head for the sea, not the countryside. Still, just as well we have a few empty rooms with you girls being home again.”

“Yes, isn’t it?” Anna said, trying to keep up with her mother’s update on the motel occupancy rate.

Anna and Ellen had walked through the reception area into the kitchen, surprising her mother, who had been wrestling with something in the walk-in freezer. Geraldine looked immaculate as ever. Not unlike a 1950s housewife, Anna had always thought. There was a brief hug, then her mother turned to Ellen, bending down, giving her a quick hug and kiss, too. “And welcome to you, too, Ellen.”

Anna watched, waiting for some reaction to the scar. It wasn’t the first time her mother had seen it. She had come to Sydney after the accident happened, to lend a hand, much to Anna’s surprise. But it was the first time she’d seen it in months.

“Well, aren’t you both looking great. Ellen, you must have grown three feet since we saw you last.” Geraldine straightened up, put her hands on her hips, and stepped back.

That was the physical contact over for the visit, Anna thought. She knew it wasn’t her mother’s fault she wasn’t a tactile person, but it had been hard at times to be her affection-craving daughter. Anna showered Ellen with hugs and cuddles and caresses, more than the child wanted sometimes. Ellen pressed close against her now, still shy, her hair forming a curtain over the right side of her face.

Geraldine busied herself in the kitchen again, passing on news over her shoulder. Anna and her sisters had always laughed at their mother’s conversational style. She had to be doing something while she asked questions or relayed information, be it mopping the floor or preparing meals for guests or sometimes, in shouts, over the noise of vacuum cleaners. She’d had the same approach to mothering, in fact—fitting it in around her other, more pressing tasks.

“Carrie will be back in a moment. She’s gone into town to collect the last of the flower displays for the party. Bett’s flying in today, too, of course. Insisted on driving herself up from Adelaide. Lola is around somewhere. I’m surprised she didn’t hear the car coming in. Your father had to make a quick trip to the bottle depot this morning, but he said he’d be back as soon as he could—”

“He’s here now, in fact.”

They both spun around at the sound of his voice. He’d come in through the back door. “Hello, Anna, and aren’t you looking beautiful?”

“Dad! Full of charm as usual,” she said, smiling at him.

“No, just telling the truth. You took after your mother, luckily,” he said with a wink in Geraldine’s direction.

Anna was amazed to see her mother get soft-eyed at the praise. Honestly, what were the two of them like? She waited, and sure enough, her father dropped a kiss on her mother’s head as he went past her.

“You should be glad your parents get on so well. Mine fought all the time. That’s much harder to live with,” Glenn had said in their early days, when she’d tried to explain how excluded she and her sisters had sometimes felt. “It’s unusual, though, I’ll give you that. Business partnerships and marriages don’t tend to last.” But her parents had always loved working together, putting across a united front, making decisions together, a true partnership. Anna had childhood memories of lying in bed at night, hearing her parents come in from locking up the motel, listening to the murmurs of conversations as they talked over their day, planned for tomorrow. That’s what she’d wanted when she met Glenn. What she’d thought she had when she met Glenn.

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.