The Alphabet Sisters

by Monica McInerney

  “You do realize it’s a song about a transvestite?” Carrie had asked Lola the previous week.

  “Is it?” Lola had said blithely, peering at Carrie over her glasses. “Never mind. People will think I’m being ironic about my makeup.”

  Bett watched now as Lola moved from table to table, greeting every guest in person, having a word here or a word there. She also watched people’s reactions after Lola had moved on—a mixture of amazement, amusement, and, sometimes, outright laughter. It seemed Lola had the same effect on everyone who knew her, not just her granddaughters. It was an oddly comforting thought.

  Across the room, Carrie glanced down at the running sheet in front of her. So far so good. Guests to be greeted in person at front door. Tick. Champagne to be circulated by waiting staff. Tick. In the past two days Lola had gone into a kind of white heat. “What do you think about playing ‘I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside’ as the waitresses bring out the prawn cocktails?” “Wouldn’t one great big long table look better than ten round ones?” “Do you think it’s too late to ask everyone to come in costume, as pirates or gypsies or something dramatic like that?”

  Carrie had finally put a stop to it. “Lola, it’s an old lady’s birthday party, not a Broadway production.”

  “Do you think it’s like a Broadway production? Really? Which parts?”

  It wasn’t supposed to be a compliment, Carrie stopped herself from saying. “I just think it might be best if you don’t get too carried away. From what you’ve deigned to tell me, you already seem to have a lot of different activities throughout the night. People will want to talk to each other and eat their meals, remember. You need to let a bit of it happen of its own accord.”

  To her surprise, Lola had agreed, taking the pen and swiping it through several items on the rundown. Probably just as well, Carrie thought—she hadn’t been too sure the crowd would join in on a version of Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely?,” though Lola had been fairly confident. She had kept in two items, though—one dubbed S and the other SS.

  “What do they stand for?” Carrie asked.

  “Surprise and then Super Surprise.”

  “I don’t like surprises. Tell me.”

  “You’ll find out when you need to find out,” Lola had said grandly.

  Which wouldn’t be long now, Carrie thought with some relief. Dramatic entrance? Tick, she noted, as she watched Lola take her seat. It was all good experience, though. She’d probably be able to manage the inauguration ceremony for the President of the United States after this. It might even be simpler.

  Two hours later it was ten minutes to Item Seven, the first of Lola’s surprises. The starters and main courses had been served—prawn cocktails, followed by Wiener schnitzels served with chips and salad. There had been three spot prizes, also Lola’s idea. The lucky winners had received bottles of Lola’s favorite gin. Dessert was to follow after the next set of speeches. There was a choice of fruit salad and ice cream or homemade chocolate pudding, which was in fact factory-made chocolate pudding with a slightly homemade chocolate sauce on top.

  Carrie and Lola had argued about that as well. “You can have any food you like, you know. Something special if you want.”

  “I like your mother’s menus. Plain, nourishing …”

  Boring, Carrie didn’t say out loud. The motel food had long been a sore point between Carrie and her mother. Geraldine had her favorites and had never seen any reason to change them. The starters were always either prawn cocktail or soup of the day—generally vegetable. The main courses were usually a choice of T-bone steak, ham steak and pineapple, or Wiener schnitzel, all served with chips and salad. The desserts didn’t often change either: apple pie, chocolate pudding, or fruit salad, all served with vanilla ice cream. The coffee was defiantly instant, the tea made with teabags, not leaves. Geraldine billed it all on the menu as “delicious homemade country-size fare.” As the person who unpacked a good lot of it from the wholesaler, Carrie had argued about the term “homemade” as well. She couldn’t argue about the “country-size,” though. The portions were always enormous.

  Carrie caught Lola’s eye across the function room. “Ten minutes,” she mouthed, holding up both hands, fingers spread wide, for clarity. Lola nodded, sending her a beaming smile, before returning to her conversation with the neighbor at the table where she was currently sitting. She’d arranged the seating so there was a vacant seat at every table. “That way I can move around all night, talk to everyone.” She’d explained her reasoning to Carrie at another one of their preparty meetings. “Don’t you think it’s silly to have me at a head table with your mother on one side and your father on the other? I can talk to them every day. I’ve always thought that’s a ridiculous thing about weddings, actually—putting the bride and groom miles away, out of reach. They’re going to spend the rest of their lives talking to each other, being beside one another, aren’t they, Carrie?” She hadn’t noticed Carrie’s expression. “I’m going to share myself around all night long. And I’d love it if you girls would do the same thing, take up my chairs when I’m not there. Just like those people do during the Academy Awards presentations. Have you heard about them, Carrie? Imagine doing that for a job, slipping in and taking a famous person’s chair every time they nip out to the lavatory or for a cigarette. Or perhaps they go out for some drugs, would that be it?”

  Carrie had stared at her for a moment, prayed for patience, and then returned to the running order in front of them.

  The table swapping seemed to be working well, though. Anna and Ellen had already moved to a table on the opposite side of the room. She could see them both, Anna, with Ellen on her knee, talking to the lady from the chemist shop. Anna looked very glamorous, Carrie thought, in an elegant midnight blue dress set off with a dramatic pair of earrings that were more art than jewelery. Ellen was all in pink, with a sweet matching hat.

  On the other side of the room she could see Bett, laughing at something the local parish priest was saying. She was wearing a vintage dress for the party. Stunning material, Carrie admitted, but she knew in her heart that her own outfit was the most eye-catching. It was a deceptively simple long gold dress, with a matching gold silk wrap. She’d woven little silk flowers through her hair and taken a long time over her makeup, too.

  “You look like a model,” Len from the butcher shop had said admiringly when he’d arrived with his wife. Then he’d fixed her with a beady eye. “Matthew not here yet?”

  She’d told the almost-truth. “He’s away up north on a sheep station, for the final part of his vet’s training. Fantastic experience. It’s just a shame it’s so remote. Lola understood, of course.” She stared right at Len, daring him to ask her any more. He hadn’t, but she could tell by his eagerness to get away he was dying to pass the news around to everyone in the room. Good, it would save her having to do it.

  Looking at Bett again, Carrie noticed she had lost a bit of weight while she’d been in London, but she was still—well, not chubby anymore, but certainly not thin. Guiltily, Carrie realized she was relieved. She’d been worried Bett would arrive back from London model-stick thin. She had a feeling Matthew preferred slender girls. She’d asked him one night as they were going to bed, in the early days, when she’d gone through a period of guilt and uncertainty. Before they had declared a blanket ban on talking about Bett.

  “Matthew, did you think Bett had a better body than me?”

  He’d seemed uncomfortable. “Carrie, we promised we wouldn’t talk about it.”

  “But did you?”

  “Carrie, I’m not answering that question.”

  She’d been cross with him then, and decided to show it. “Then you must have,” she’d said sulkily. “Well, you should go back to her then, shouldn’t you?” She had glanced up at him under her lashes. He hadn’t been sure whether she was joking or not, she knew that. She had stood up, walked across the bedroom in her underwear—her extremely lacy and sexy underwear. She had discovered ea
rly on that Matthew liked sexy underwear. At the door she’d stood and relished the look on his face as he took in her body. “I’ll ring Bett, shall I? See if she’ll come back to you?”

  Matthew was lying on the bed. “Come here, Carrie.”

  “Why?”

  “You know why.”

  “What will you do if I do come over?” From the look in his eye, she had a very good idea exactly what he had in mind. She’d come closer. He’d put out his hand. She’d leaned back, just out of reach.

  “Don’t tease me.” His voice had been husky and she’d relented, leaning forward.… She shook the memory away. There was a time and a place for sexual fantasies, and her grandmother’s eightieth birthday probably wasn’t it.

  What would Matthew be doing now? She tried to picture him on the sheep station, two hundred kilometers away. The job offer had come out of the blue six months earlier, a perfect practical application of all he’d been learning in his latest course in veterinary farm management.

  “How was today?” she’d asked in the early days, when things were still okay between them.

  “Another sheep learning curve,” he’d replied.

  “And the lecturer?”

  “Baa-baric. He kept trying to ram all the facts home. He asked me what was wrong and then got cross when I said mutton much.”

  Carrie had tried to keep a straight face. “Have you finished?”

  Matthew had just laughed at her. “For the moment.”

  “I hope that’s the truth. You know I hate it when you try to pull the wool over my eyes.”

  They had been good together, Carrie kept telling herself. They’d had lots of fun. They’d talked about everything. The first six months had been the most difficult, putting up with the whispers and gossip in the town, but cocooned in their belief that what had happened was bigger than both of them, had been beyond their control, they’d brazened it out. And then one of the Richards girls had a baby at the age of sixteen and the sports teacher ran off with one of the prefects at the school and there was a spate of burglaries in the Valley and everyone had plenty of things to talk about other than them.

  Carrie started to feel sad and then anger took over. Had he any idea at all how hard it had been for her the past few years? And how hard it was for her tonight, facing everyone, knowing people would be talking about them? Especially knowing Bett and Anna would be watching her every move?

  She was tempted for a moment to phone him, but stopped herself. She already knew what would happen. They’d just have another fight, and more likely than not she would find herself crying at the end of it. And tonight of all nights she didn’t want to have blotchy skin and puffy eyes.

  But she suddenly wished Matthew was there right now. That she could go across to him, whisper something funny or sexy in his ear, make it all right again that way, the way they used to do. Had done for months, until … She realized she was staring over at Bett when her sister caught her eye. She flushed and looked away.

  Bett looked away, too, embarrassed to have been caught staring at Carrie. There was no doubt about it, her younger sister looked stunning tonight. She had been proud of her own outfit, until she put it on and saw herself beside Carrie and Anna. The whole family had been summoned to Lola’s room for one quick drink together before the party—a little pep talk, Lola had called it. Her father made a toast. “We’ll do this again publicly but for now, cheers to you, Lola, a wonderful mother, mother-in-law, grandmother, and great-grandmother.”

  “To our happy family, reunited again,” Lola had toasted in return. “Jim, did you bring your camera? I’d love a shot of us all. And one with the three girls together again at last.”

  Her father unfortunately had left his camera in the function room. “We’ll have to take that one later on,” he’d said. Bett had been relieved. She and Anna and Carrie had hardly exchanged a word with one another since the flower arranging that afternoon, let alone stood close enough to get a cheery arm-in-arm shot.

  Lola had called Bett back as they were all leaving her room. “You look marvelous, darling. Those last adjustments were just what that dress needed.”

  In her room Bett had thought the now mended dress did look good, the vintage brocade such an unusual design, the colors picked up in her favorite high-heeled shoes. But one glance at Anna and Carrie and her spirits had plummeted again. “Do you think?”

  “Darling, you are my Bett, and I say you look wonderful. And you do. Some people might prefer the way Anna looks, all cool and elegant. And Carrie is a pretty young thing and she knows it and wears it well. Those are the facts. The third and final fact is that you look beautiful, too. The colors are glorious, and your hair is shining. I just want that glint back in your eyes that I haven’t seen since you got here.”

  “Sorry, Lola. Sorry to be so stupid on your birthday.”

  “That’s my girl.” She had pinched her cheek. “Now, your turn to shower me with compliments. Do I look a picture? The truth now, mind.”

  Bett had taken in Lola’s outfit in all its glory. She was wearing a long purple taffeta skirt, a gold shimmering tunic, at least five necklaces, including her new one from Bett, and surprisingly tasteful makeup. A little too much rouge, perhaps—Bett was tempted to wipe it off then stopped herself. It would be more of a surprise to the guests if Lola arrived without her rouge, surely. “You look sensational. Like you belong in Hollywood.”

  “The very words I wanted to hear. Thank you, darling. Now go and have a good time. And by the way, you’re sitting next to the Englishman from room two. Did I tell you he was a journalist, too? Imagine that. You’ll have lots in common to talk about.”

  Bett had groaned, not in the mood for matchmaking. “Lola, what have you done?”

  “Whatever I like. It’s my birthday, remember.”

  Sure enough, when Bett got to her table there was a man sitting next to her. He was perhaps ten years older than her, lean, solemn-faced, wearing glasses. He was dressed in a casual suit. He smiled at her, a surprising, beautiful smile that completely lit up his face. “Quite a party,” he said.

  Bett smiled back. “She’s quite a woman.”

  “Have you known her long?”

  “All my life. She’s my grandmother.” She held out her hand. “I’m Elizabeth Quinlan, known as Bett.”

  “Richard Lawrence.” They shook hands.

  “You’re English? Is that a London accent?”

  “It is, yes.”

  “I’m just back from there. Only this morning in fact.”

  “All that way for a party? You are a social creature.”

  Bett laughed. She noticed then he had very sparkly eyes behind his glasses. “I didn’t have a choice, believe me. And you’re on holiday here, are you?”

  “Well, a working holiday I supp—”

  A slap on her back nearly sent Bett flying into the table. “Bett Quinlan, great to see you again, love. Are you going to be back working on that newspaper?”

  Her other neighbor had arrived, a man who had done the landscaping around the motel and knew the family well. He’d immediately launched into a conversation that hadn’t let up through the first course. Out of the corner of her eye Bett had noticed Richard Lawrence being interrogated by his other neighbor, one of the local councillors. She heard snatches, something about doing research for a writing project. She’d been about to ask him more about it when Lola had wafted past her and whispered that it was time to move tables. “Circulate, darling, circulate.”

  Bett found the move between tables very difficult. Not quite as difficult as the walk into the function room in the first place, though. She had been intensely aware of people looking at her and talking about her. She’d kept a big smile on her face, greeting lots of old faces, friends of Lola’s or people she knew from her years on the local newspaper, brightly answering their questions. Yes, she was finally back from London. No, the jet lag wasn’t too bad. That stopover in Singapore had made all the difference. Yes, home for good, but she�
��d probably be heading off to Sydney or Melbourne fairly soon. Yes, it was great to see all the family again, not to mention a blue sky, ha ha ha.

  No one had mentioned Matthew’s name, or the circumstances of her leaving, not to her face anyway. No one except Len the butcher, of course. It seemed he hadn’t changed his ways. She’d barely walked past after saying hello to him and his wife when she’d heard his remark, in a loud whisper that managed to carry beautifully around the room. “That’s the one I was telling you about. Her fiancé left her and ran off with the younger one. No, not the one with the child, the pretty one over there with the blonde hair.” Bett had resolutely kept moving, praying the low light hid her red cheeks.

  By the time the main course had been served, she was feeling much better. The three glasses of local shiraz were helping things along beautifully, too. She’d found herself sitting beside the local parish priest, who had surprised her with his rapid-fire joke delivery. She hadn’t laughed so much in ages. To make things even more pleasant, one of her favorite dishes had been on offer for main course—lovely crispy Wiener schnitzel, served with a pile of fat chips and salad. She knew it was deeply unfashionable to like such standard motel dining-room food, but she’d always loved her mother’s cooking. Her all-time favorite was the chocolate pudding, all crunchy on the outside and molten on the inside, served with cream and ice cream. She’d never found any reason to join in with Anna and Carrie over the years when they had tried to get Geraldine to update the menus, to offer more light and healthy options.

  Bett knew full well that it was her love of her mother’s kind of cooking—hearty, deep-fried, large servings—that was to blame for her constant battle with her weight. Lola had made it abundantly clear one afternoon, too, when Bett had gone to her in tears.