‘Exactly.’ Thea nodded in approval. ‘Well said, Dad.’
Ali glared at her hands. This was a familiar scenario: the combined force of Michael and Thea, wearing her down with logic and mutual self-belief.
‘Suppose she has this baby,’ Michael said, attempting a conciliatory tone. ‘Do we look after it for her while she completes her studies? Do you give up writing, Ali, to play grandma?’
‘Oh, give me a break, Michael. Is that meant to shock me into agreeing with your point of view?’
‘Another baby in this household could only be a gift,’ Beatriz said. ‘A gift from God.’
‘No, actually, it would be a gift from some unnamed and oversexed teenage boy,’ Thea said.
‘Thea McCormack!’ Beatriz, so rarely rattled, used the voice that might once have made the girl hang her head in shame. No longer.
‘Facts of life, I’m afraid. It’s not the Immaculate Conception, Beatriz.’
‘That’s enough,’ Ali said.
Thea flicked her hair away from her face and sighed. ‘This is ridiculous,’ she said. She looked at Michael, who met her gaze and smiled. ‘Dad,’ she said. ‘You’re going to have to sort this out. Mum’s too flaky.’
Michael opened his mouth to speak, but Ali beat him to it. ‘Thea, button it, you’re being objectionable.’
‘You are, sweetheart,’ Michael said. ‘A bit.’
‘Fine.’ Thea’s face took on a chilly, shuttered look. She picked up her phone and began to scroll idly through her messages. A sleek curtain of blonde hair fell over one eye.
‘Dinner will be at seven,’ Beatriz said, fighting for normality.
Ali looked at her. ‘Actually, Beatriz,’ she said, ‘I think I’m going to be out.’
Michael, startled, said, ‘Are you? Since when?’
‘Just decided. I’m going to see Sheila.’
‘Sheila?’
‘Yep, Sheila Baillie.’ She slid off her stool and gave Beatriz a kiss on her soft cheek. ‘Sorry, Beatriz, needs must,’ she said.
‘Sheila?’ Michael said again. ‘That’s a four-hour drive. Why?’
Ali shrugged. ‘Feels right. I think she might be able to help.’
‘Oh, sure, just go, Mum,’ said Thea without looking up from her phone. ‘We’ll sort all this out in your absence.’
Ali looked at her older daughter, so assured of her place in the world, so convinced of her own excellence, and she could admit to a sort of pride and pleasure that Thea was strong and sure and a world away from the 22-year-old self that she, Ali, had been. Good grief though, this girl could be arrogant.
‘You’ll do no such thing, love,’ Ali said. ‘I’m taking Stella with me.’
So now they were in the car, well on their way on the main road north, which the city planners had named Main North Road, as if they were all out of ideas. It surged through and beyond Adelaide, crowded at first by suburbs, then discount stores, truck stops, car yards and petrol stations, before carving a trajectory through wide, scorched fields as the city, on its astonishing flat plain, fell further and further away. Stella was the happiest Ali had seen her for weeks. When she’d gone upstairs, knocked on the bathroom door and said, ‘Stell, will you come with me to see Sheila and Dora?’ she hadn’t expected the door to fly wide open and Stella to say, with something like hope, something like relief, ‘When? Now?’ Ali had almost begun to believe she would never again say anything that pleased Stella, but her daughter’s stony face had in an instant lost its sullen defences, and she’d smiled and said, ‘I’ll pack some things.’
They hardly ever saw Sheila, because she was rarely at home. When she was, she lived these days in Quorn, an endearing little outback town on the edge of the Flinders Ranges in a tiny cottage she rented from an artist. She’d based herself there many years ago after she’d shocked all of Elizabeth by walking out on her engineer husband Kalvin and taking up with a woman, Dora Langford, a volunteer driver on the Pichi Richi Railway, who wore a boiler suit and a peaked cap, and shovelled coal with strong, callused hands. So when Stella, aged two and a half, had been introduced to Sheila for the first time, it was on a dear little steam train, barrelling along past gum-lined creeks and bluebush-studded hills, and Dora had put her in charge of the whistle. Such experiences leave a legacy in young hearts: ever after, when Stella thought of Sheila and Dora, she’d experienced a flush of pure joy.
Stella was sitting, now, in the passenger seat of Ali’s car, her bare feet up on the dashboard, gazing left, out of the window. The city limits were far behind them and the evening sky was unstable; clouds in shades of charcoal shifted and rolled towards them from a lowering horizon, but the car felt snug and solid, a sanctuary. They’d called Michael on speakerphone with a progress report. He sounded lighter, thought Ali; he sounded relieved. She’d literally taken away the problem and, for the time being at least, he could legitimately think about something else. So could Stella, for that matter, and so could Ali – this journey, this trip: it was an act of escapism, an exercise in being happy. Thus far, Stella’s pregnancy hadn’t been mentioned, and if Stella didn’t bring it up, Ali certainly wouldn’t. Now and again she stole glances at her daughter, and could see from the way she inhabited the seat – her limbs loose, legs up, arms slack across her bent knees – that she was contented, relaxed. She was like a different girl, heading north to Quorn, running out on reality. Plenty of time for home truths, Ali thought, but first, a dose of Sheila.
‘So, can we have some songs?’ Stella said eventually, when the landscape became too relentlessly unchanging to watch. ‘Did you bring your music?’
‘Don’t be daft,’ Ali said. She handed over her iPod and Stella plugged in the aux cable. She spun the control, watching the screen options change, and the cursor clicked like semaphore, dot-dot-dashing its way down the list.
‘You should ditch this old thing,’ she said. ‘Put it all on your phone. It’s much handier.’
‘I love that iPod like I love you,’ Ali said.
Stella laughed. ‘What shall I put on?’
‘Whatever you fancy. No, wait, go on playlists, there’s a new one I made. Should be first up.’
‘Called?’
‘Best Last Two,’ Ali said.
Stella said, ‘Your playlists have weird names.’
‘The songs are great though. Oh God, I love this track.’ She whacked up the volume on the stereo and the swaggering beat of ‘Suffragette City’ swung into action like an instant party.
‘Ahh, Mum, this is the best,’ Stella shouted. ‘Who is it?’
Ali grinned at her. ‘Bowie,’ she shouted back.
They let it roll. Ali sang the words, Stella tried to pick them up. At ‘Wham bam, thank you, ma’am’ she hooted with joy and played it back again until she had the timing just right and could belt it out with Bowie and her mum, and when the song slammed to its halt, she heaved a sigh and said, ‘Loved that, what next?’
Ali said, ‘One more Bowie, then the Byrds – two of those as well – then Talking Heads, two, the Kinks, same, the Police, T. Rex, the Animals, Jimi Hendrix, the Buzzcocks and, finally, the Beatles. Two of each, every time. The best last two.’
Stella stared. ‘You’re such a music nerd,’ she said.
‘Thanks.’
‘Hmm, not sure about this one though,’ Stella said.
‘“Rock ’n’ Roll Suicide”,’ Ali said. ‘The last track on The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars.’
‘That’s the weirdest name for an album,’ Stella said. ‘So “Suffragette City” is second last?’
‘You got it.’
‘Why?’
‘Why what?’
‘The “best last two” thing?’
‘Oh,’ Ali said. ‘It wasn’t my idea. A friend gave it to me, years ago, when I was even younger than you are.’ Daniel’s image formed in her mind. She recalled a lingering kiss against the wall of his house, the feel of the cassette in her coat pocket, and the very firs
t time she heard the playlist, alone in her bedroom, in an empty house, before she’d discovered where her brother had gone that night, and where her mother was, and what Martin had done, or what he was yet to do. Like light before dark, she’d listened to this tape in her cold bedroom, and loved it, and loved Daniel for thinking of it. ‘I didn’t listen to mix tapes in those days,’ she said to Stella. ‘He made this for me, so each pair of songs was in their proper order, from the album they came off.’
‘He sounds like a nerd too,’ Stella said. ‘A bit of a try-hard. Did he fancy you?’
‘Ah, it was a lifetime ago,’ Ali said, dismissive, evasive. But still, she thought, here he was, with them in the car, with his meticulously curated Best Last Two. She’d remembered the cassette yesterday evening, gone up into the roof space to look for it after he’d plunged her back in time with the Comsat Angels. Two hours later, and somewhat to her astonishment, she’d found it in a cardboard box of sundry items, safe and sound in its plastic case. There was no track list, he hadn’t written one, so Ali had to dig out an old cassette player to remind herself what he’d chosen all those years ago. She’d listened to the songs in the permanent twilight of the loft, feeling melancholy, nostalgic, and entirely lost for a while in Daniel’s musical obsessions of 1979. Then she’d corralled those of the songs she already had, bought the ones she hadn’t, and organised all twenty of them into The Best Last Two on her iPod.
‘This one’s good,’ Stella said.
‘“The Girl With No Name”,’ Ali said. ‘The Byrds. Second to last track on Younger Than Yesterday.’
‘Is it old? Doesn’t sound it.’
‘Good music never gets old.’
‘He did a nice thing,’ Stella said.
‘Who?’
‘That boy. What was his name?’
‘Daniel.’
‘He did a nice thing,’ she said again.
‘Yes,’ Ali said. ‘He did a very nice thing.’
‘Hey,’ Stella said. ‘Remember “California Dreaming”?’
‘Always,’ Ali said. ‘Always and for ever.’ It was their duet on any long journey, their party piece at any family gathering, when Stella was still at primary school and would rather be with Ali than anyone else in the world.
‘You be the girls,’ Stella said. ‘I’ll be the boys.’
They switched off the music and sang their parts lustily, and outside the car evening turned into night and there was no longer anything to be seen in the darkness, until ahead, eventually, the warm, scattered lights of Quorn revealed themselves, winking at them, beckoning them in.
Sheila and Dora were waiting for them, so the door was flung open even before they knocked. The little house was suffused with the cinnamon scent of a lamb tagine, and when Sheila wrapped Ali in her arms, she smelled sweetly exotic, orange blossom and rosewater, a Turkish delight of a hug. Stella hung back, suddenly shy, but Sheila drew her in.
‘Beautiful, beautiful child,’ she said, holding Stella’s face. ‘Look at her, Dora. The image of Alison.’
Dora was square-shaped, sturdy, and her face was creased with smiles.
‘How I loved your book!’ she said to Ali. ‘So moving, and so real. I cried when it ended, because I couldn’t bear to lose my new friends, all those wonderful people you invented. Clearly, you’re blessed with creativity, like my Sheila. Now, how long can you stay, dear? Can you stay until Saturday? Sheila has a private view at one of the galleries in town, we’d love it if you could be there.’
‘A private view?’ Ali said. ‘Sheila, are you painting?’
‘Oh, she’s a hit,’ Dora said. ‘She’s a sensation.’
‘Alison, it’s so good to see you, it’s been too long,’ Sheila said. She had hold of Ali again, one arm tight across her shoulder now, keeping her close.
‘It has,’ Ali said. ‘Way too long. You smell lovely, Sheila.’
‘Thank you, darling. We’re not long back from Marrakesh, and we found a woman at a stall in the medina with her own fragrances. You can keep your Dior and your Chanel, can’t you, Dora?’
‘You bet,’ Dora said.
Ali smiled at them, two beaming old ladies with a glow and sparkle about them, an air of youthful energy. ‘You look marvellous, both of you.’
‘We’re trying to forget we’re the wrong side of seventy-five,’ Sheila said.
‘Well, you look marvellous,’ Ali said again. ‘I’m really sorry it’s been so long. We should come and see you more often.’
‘That you should,’ Sheila said. ‘But catching us at home is the challenge.’
‘What do you paint?’ Stella asked. She’d taken a seat on an expansive green leather sofa which was cracked with age and spilled stuffing from its arms. Stella plucked at it unconsciously as she took in her surroundings, so eccentrically furnished with unmatching pieces, as if this was a small sale room and they were all here for the auction. As well as the sofa, there was a chintz-covered armchair and a footstool upholstered with palomino hide. Also, there was an oversized, rough-hewn red-gum carver, and a coffee table – knotty burl top on a white mallee base – which stood like a rare fungus in the centre of the room.
‘What do I paint …?’ Sheila said in reply, pondering the question. ‘Well, it’s hard to say, darling. My work’s very …’
‘Organic,’ said Dora. ‘Their content and meaning is in constant flux.’
‘Wow,’ said Stella.
‘And they’re large canvasses,’ Dora said. ‘Aren’t they, dear?’
‘Too big for this little doll’s house,’ Sheila said. ‘I paint them outdoors, so that I can have full freedom of movement.’
‘Sounds fascinating,’ Ali said. ‘Do you sell them?’
‘Certainly,’ said Sheila. She paused, then added, ‘In principle.’ Then she tipped back her head in a full-throttle laugh that was impossible to resist, so the others joined in, laughing at Sheila laughing at herself.
Later, after lamb tagine and couscous and a bottle of hearty Malbec, the household settled down to sleep. Dora made Stella a nest out of cushions and blankets on the floor of the lounge, while Sheila showed Ali to a room upstairs which had a ceiling bedecked with Tibetan prayer flags and a wide but extremely thin sleeping mat on the floor.
‘Dora used to meditate in here,’ Sheila said. ‘Om, mani, padme, hum, all that rigmarole. Total hogwash, if you ask me, and she’s given it up now, but the flags are pretty. There’s a guest kimono on the back of the door.’
‘You think of everything,’ Ali said. ‘By the way, does Dora still drive the steam train?’
Sheila grinned, winking at her. ‘Oh, that,’ she said. ‘Not likely. We please ourselves now.’
Ali laughed, and said, ‘Well, good for you,’ and Sheila left her after another hug, another kiss, and a promise of a real talk the next day. With Sheila gone, Ali stripped down to T-shirt and knickers, lay down on the sleeping mat under the canopy of ragged flags and – feeling slightly guilty in this room once devoted to spiritualism – delved in her bag for her phone. A trapping of soulless commercialism, she thought; and yet, wasn’t it something that because of it, Daniel Lawrence had been able to take her back to the Rotherham Arts Centre, 1979? And that here in Quorn, ten thousand miles away from Edinburgh, she could listen again to the Comsat Angels, and consider her reply. Simple Minds, perhaps: the big-time, stadium version of the Comsats. Or, no, maybe a contemporary choice might be more the go; haul them out of the musical past and into the twenty-first century. No encrypted message from the 1970s, just: This is what I sometimes like to listen to, and I’m sharing it with you. Something light and lovely and melodic.
Belle and Sebastian, maybe. Yeah, Belle and Sebastian.
She opened Twitter on her phone, and did a quick search through their albums for the perfect track to strike a different tone in their fledgling playlist, and there it was, jumping straight out at her. ‘I Didn’t See It Coming’. Nice, because, well, why not state the obvious? She’d not heard from Daniel Law
rence for over half a lifetime; she’d severed their bond all those years ago, and made herself forget him by loving elsewhere, and yet now, thinking of him thinking of her … so yes, she thought; this would be her return gift, a sweet and whimsical song, with those perfect opening lines: classic Stuart Murdoch, the poet king of indie rock.
Make me dance, I want to surrender,
Your familiar arms I remember.
Daniel’s familiar arms. She played it through, for herself, and lay back down on the mat, remembering, then she swiftly copied the link, and sent it to @DanLawrenceMusic.
‘Hey, Mum?’
Stella was in the room. Ali slipped her phone away and smiled at her daughter. How often had Stella done this, through the years; appeared silently at Ali’s bedside like a spirit child in the night?
‘Can I sleep with you?’ she asked, as Ali had known she would.
Ali patted the mat. ‘It’s a bit hard,’ she said. ‘But the flags above are pretty.’
Stella lay down beside her, looking up. ‘Is it bunting?’
‘Tibetan prayer flags.’
‘Oh, right.’
‘Here.’ Ali passed Stella one bud of her earphones, which she’d now plugged back into her iPod. ‘Let’s fall asleep together to something mellow.’
Beside her, Stella snuggled into her, sighed, and closed her eyes.
10
SHEFFIELD,
7 JANUARY 1979
Peter was six years old when baby Alison was brought home from the hospital and, though no one expected him to, he’d loved her as soon as he laid eyes on her, a squalling bundle, red-faced, furious, unsafe in their mother’s arms. He’d been afraid Catherine would drop her, because she’d already – famously – dropped him; everyone talked about it, the time she lost her footing on the stairs and tumbled to the kitchen floor, breaking baby Peter’s fall with her own body, as if she was heroic, as if it wasn’t her fault in the first place. Young as he was, Peter couldn’t understand why other grown-ups laughed at this story. He watched his sister, this baby, as Catherine carried her into the house for the first time, plonked her down on the settee like a parcel and reached for the drink that someone handed to her. All the adults in the room said, ‘Cheers!’ and Catherine said, ‘Make the most of it, Geoff, because there won’t be another one.’
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