The Alphabet Sisters

by Monica McInerney

  “Shut up, Carrie.”

  “It’s true. How come it’s all right for you to march in here and tell me off, but you won’t listen to a few home truths about yourself?”

  “You self-centered, selfish little—”

  “I don’t care what you think of me, actually.” Carrie’s lip quivered again. “Come on, Matthew. This is pointless. Let’s go.”

  “You can’t go,” Anna had said, suddenly exhausted. “You’re in your room. I’m the one who has to go. And I’m happy to, believe me. Good-bye, Carrie. Good-bye, Matthew. Good luck whatever happens to you both in the future, but I’ll tell you something—I don’t want anything to do with it.”

  “Good. Because I don’t want you to have anything to do with us either.”

  And with that Anna had slammed the door.

  Richard shook his head in amazement. “And where was Lola in all this? I can’t imagine her sitting back and letting it happen.”

  “No, she didn’t.”

  There had been a family conference, Geraldine and Jim, Anna and Lola, with a number of phone calls made to Carrie on her mobile phone. She had left the motel and gone to stay with Matthew in his house on the other side of town. Bett had left, too. Got in her car the next morning and just driven away. She had phoned Lola to tell her she was safe, that she was in Melbourne, and had then turned off her mobile.

  Jim Quinlan had been sure it would all blow over. Lola had put him right on that. “Darling, you haven’t noticed any of this going on, have you?”

  “Noticed what?”

  Lola had shaken her head. “Geraldine, what about you?”

  Anna remembered her mother looking a little uncomfortable. “It’s been so busy here, Lola, I thought they were all getting on so well.”

  “They were indeed,” Lola had laughed. “Just in the wrong combination.”

  They’d all agreed what to do next. The wedding would have to be called off, the church booking canceled, any engagement presents returned, and word carefully put around a few key information brokers in the town. Lola volunteered to do it all.

  Anna had left the Valley the following day, still furious with Bett and Carrie. “They’ve shown their true colors, Lola—Bett lives in fantasy land and Carrie is a selfish little cow, and I don’t care how long it is till I see them again.”

  “Now you’re being childish.”

  “Don’t you start with the insults. I had enough from those two. I don’t care if I never speak to either of them again.”

  “Ah, so that’s it. Not just disgust at their behavior, you didn’t like what they had to say either? And what’s all this dramatic nonsense about never speaking to each other again? Of course you will. This situation will all blow over soon.”

  “It won’t, Lola. I saw a side to Bett and Carrie that I didn’t like one bit. I’m not running to them, I’ll tell you that. If they find it in themselves to apologize, well, we’ll see, but I’m not making the first move.”

  “When did you get so haughty? It must have happened when you were in Sydney because I certainly would have put a stop to it if I’d seen it happening here.”

  “I am not haughty. That’s a terrible thing to—” She’d stopped there at the sight of Lola laughing.

  “Don’t fight with me as well, darling, or you’ll have no relatives left at all. All right, you’re not haughty, and you’re not too proud either.”

  Anna colored, hating being caught out. “I need to calm down, like the whole situation needs to calm down. And then I’ll see how I feel.”

  One month later she was still cross, and she’d heard nothing from Carrie or from Bett, who had now decided to stay in Melbourne. Well, if they weren’t going to apologize for their behavior, she wasn’t either. The one-month silence between them grew to two, then to twelve.

  Anna heard via Lola that Bett had gone traveling overseas. Carrie married Matthew, a very small affair in Adelaide—neither Anna nor Bett was invited. Lola attended with Geraldine and Jim, and sent a photo and a report to each of them, with a note of disgust at the end: “This should have been a fun, happy day for the whole family. I am still ashamed of the three of you. It will take only one apology to get the ball rolling, you know.…”

  Anna put the photo away and turned all her attention to Glenn, Ellen, and work, returning home to the motel just once a year, timing it to coincide with Matthew and Carrie’s annual holiday away. One year became two, became three years, when the attack on Ellen happened, and took precedence over everything else.

  “And that’s how things were between us,” she said to Richard. “Until Lola’s party.”

  “You’ve been through a lot lately, haven’t you?” he said.

  She lay looking into his eyes. “Yes. Yes, I have, I think.”

  She felt the touch of his fingers on her arm, on her bare skin. “Too much to go through on your own. I wish I’d known you then. I’d like to have helped.”

  She moved closer, molding her body against his, feeling an answering reaction from him, his fingers tracing her body. “You’re helping now,” she said. His lips met hers once again.

  At that moment, in the vet’s quarters of the Red Hills sheep station, Carrie was kissing Matthew’s lips, then his chest, going lower and lower.

  “Carrie …” he murmured.

  “Shh,” she said. “I told you, I’m tired of talking. We’re not to say a word.”

  “We have to talk.”

  “Matthew, if you say another word I’m getting back in my car and driving straight back home.” Once she’d made her decision it had been simple. She loved Matthew, and she was going to fight for him. She’d changed her clothes, packed a bag, and driven for two hours without stopping. He’d been in his quarters when she knocked on the door. She’d given him no chance to protest, no explanations, just moved into his arms and started kissing him. It had taken him only a second to respond.

  She unbuttoned his jeans, lowered his boxer shorts, did exactly what she knew he loved, and was rewarded with his groans of pleasure above her. She stopped abruptly, slowly took off her clothes, and stood before him in her transparent pale pink lace underwear.

  “I’ve missed you so badly.” His voice was nearly hoarse.

  She held herself a little away from him. “And you don’t regret marrying me?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “You don’t want to go back to Bett?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He pulled her close. “Carrie, can you shut up about Bett for one minute and come here so I can …” He finished what he was going to do in a whisper in her ear.

  Carrie shut up.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  The phone rang as Bett was passing reception. It was her turn to mind the bar and the phone. Carrie was on a night off, and Anna had said she wanted an early night. Ellen was in with Lola again. She’d decided her favorite sleeping place was her great-grandmother’s double bed. Bett had checked on the pair of them a little while before. They’d both been asleep, books strewn on the bed around them.

  Bett picked up the phone. “Valley View Motel.”

  “Hello, could I speak to one of your guests please?” The caller had a well-bred English accent. “Mr. Richard Lawrence.”

  “Certainly, sir. I’ll put you through to his room.”

  She tried it and got the engaged tone. “Can I take a message? I’m afraid I can’t get through at the moment.”

  “I’ve been trying for the past two hours and it’s been constantly engaged. And his mobile is turned off, too. Is that a small motel?”

  “Reasonably small, yes. But it’s a good motel.”

  He laughed. “I’m sorry. I’m not asking for economic reasons. It’s just it’s urgent I speak to Richard this evening. Would it be possible for someone to knock on his door in case he’s accidentally left the phone off the hook? I need to check something with him urgently.”

  “Of course. Who can I tell him is calling?”

/>   “Please tell him it’s Charlie. It’s about the filming.”

  Bett walked over to Richard’s room. The curtains were drawn, but she could see the faint outline of a bedside lamp. She knocked softly at the door. “Richard, I’m sorry to disturb you. There’s an urgent phone call.”

  She heard moaning.

  “Richard?”

  Another kind of deep sigh.

  Good God, was he all right? “Richard?” She tried the handle.

  The door swung open just as Richard and Anna reached orgasm together.

  Bett was back at the reception desk in record time. “Hello? Um, Richard is a bit tied up at the moment. Can I take your number and get him to call you back?”

  “Are you sure he didn’t want to be disturbed?”

  “Pretty sure.” She didn’t know who had looked the more startled, them or her.

  “Could I speak to Lola, then?”

  How did he know Lola? “She’s asleep, I’m afraid.”

  “Damn.” He sighed. “I’ll just have to leave a message, then. Can you tell him we need to change the filming arrangements? Can he have everything set up for the day after tomorrow rather than next week? He’ll know what I mean. And could he ring me as soon as possible to confirm?”

  She took his details, and tucked the note in her pocket. There was no way she was going to go back to Richard’s room with the message. Not yet, anyway. She was completely shocked. How long had this been going on between them? What about Glenn? What about Ellen?

  She was in the kitchen making up the breakfast trays for the morning when she heard the door open behind her.

  “Bett?” It was Anna. “I think we need to talk.”

  Bett didn’t turn around. “Anna, you don’t have to explain anything. Seriously. What you do is your own business.” Bett picked up the next order form—one cereal, bacon and eggs, eggs hard not runny, underlined five times. And honey, not marmalade please. Also underlined.

  “Bett, I want to explain.”

  Bett picked through the box of preserves, searching for a little sachet of honey. “You don’t need to.”

  “I still want to explain. I don’t want this to cause another rift between us.” She hesitated. “I know you were a bit interested in Richard.”

  Bett kept busy with the tray. “It’s hardly the same situation, is it? I mean, I was engaged to Matthew when Carrie slept with him. All I’d done with Richard was tell you I might like to have a drink with him.” An awful thought occurred to her. “Were you laughing at me? You and Richard? Laughing that I was going to invite him out?”

  “No, Bett, we weren’t. I promise we weren’t. Richard doesn’t even know you were going to ask him out. Please, Bett. Please put down that bloody honey and listen to me.”

  Bett turned. Anna was dressed in a silk dressing gown. Bett was struck by how tired and fragile she looked. “So how long has this been going on between you?”

  “Not long. A week or two.”

  “And what about Glenn?”

  “Glenn and I have been over for a long time, Bett. He’s having an affair.”

  “He’s what?”

  Anna walked over, shut the kitchen door, and started talking.

  Forty minutes later, Bett was holding her crying sister close against her. “Oh, Anna, I’m so sorry for you. I didn’t realize it had been so bad. Why didn’t you tell us?”

  “When? How? We weren’t talking.”

  “But what about telling Lola? I can’t believe you’ve been through all this on your own.”

  “It was pride. I knew if I told Lola, she’d tell you and Carrie. And I decided I could bear the life, the silences with him, more than I could bear the two of you telling me you’d been right. That he wasn’t right for me. That I shouldn’t have married him. All the things you both said that night.”

  “Does Ellen understand what’s going on?”

  “Some of it. She’s picked up the tension, and the fact that he’s away so much. Even though he’d try to get back in time to take Ellie to school most mornings.” Glenn would come in, freshly showered from Julie’s bathroom, to be sitting there in the kitchen when Ellen woke up, for all the world the perfect father. “That’s the only good thing. He adores her at least. And she adores him. And he’s wonderful with her.” It was a simple fact. “It’s the two of us—” She stopped, started crying again. “It’s been a mess, Bett. A horrible, awful, lonely mess …”

  Bett held her close until the tears stopped again. “And this thing with Richard?” she asked softly.

  “I don’t know. All I know is that he is kind and he listens to me and he makes me laugh. It might last a day or a week but it’s what I need now. Do you understand?”

  Bett thought of her night with Daniel three years ago. “Yes, I do.”

  “I’m sorry. I should have told you the night you were going to ask Richard for a drink. Told you that he and I were becoming friends.”

  “I don’t mind at all. Really, I don’t.” She smiled. “But you might want to think about locking the door from now on.”

  Anna hugged Bett close again. “We needed to talk. Years before this. Why has it taken this long?” She took a step back. “Bett, I’m so sick of having secrets from each other. Please, can’t you and Carrie sort things out, too? Have you talked to her about Matthew yet?”

  Bett shook her head, wary again.

  “Please, Bett. You have to. She thinks you’re still in love with him; I’m sure of it. You need to—”

  The door opened behind them. It was Richard. “I’m sorry to interrupt. I’ll come back—”

  Bett was relieved. She moved away from Anna. “It’s fine, really.”

  He looked uncomfortable. “Bett, I must apologize. I’m sorry if that put you in an embarrassing position.”

  Her lip twitched. Actually it had been him in the embarrassing position. “It’s fine, Richard. And I’m very sorry for barging in on you like that.” She took out the note from her pocket. “I had a message for you. Someone called Charlie rang to tell you the filming will have to take place the day after tomorrow, not next week. That you’d know what he meant but could you call him back.”

  “The day after tomorrow?”

  Bett nodded.

  “Is something wrong?” Anna asked him.

  He gave a slightly awkward smile. “I think there’s something I’d better tell you both.”

  As she drove into the Clare Valley that night, Carrie knew that everything had changed for the better. She loved Matthew, and she knew he loved her. He had actually cried in her arms.

  “Carrie, I stopped loving Bett when I met you. I don’t know anymore if that was what I felt for Bett. We got on well, but—”

  “But she loved you so much. She was so upset when you split up.”

  “I know. I’m so sorry, but I couldn’t do anything about it. I had to be with you.”

  They talked about the past few months, about the fighting and the separation. “You changed when Lola started talking about Bett coming back.”

  “I got so worried that you’d decide you’d chosen the wrong girl.”

  “Of course I wouldn’t. But it felt like you were trying to push me away. So I went. But I missed you, really missed you.”

  “It was other things, too. You started talking about money all the time.” She paused, then forged ahead. “You stopped talking about having a baby.”

  He had held her close. “Carrie, I didn’t think we could afford to have a baby yet. I want one as much as you do, but I want us to have some security first. I’m not qualified yet. The house isn’t finished. I want it to be all ready when the baby comes.”

  “So you do want one?”

  “Of course I do. I tried to explain that’s how I felt, but I couldn’t get through to you.”

  Carrie recalled heated conversations, flaring into rows, which generally ended in her storming out, back to the motel or over to a friend’s house. That was what he had been trying to tell her, she realized guiltil
y. She’d heard “I don’t want a baby,” when what he had been saying was “I don’t want a baby yet.”

  That morning over breakfast he had agreed to come back to the Valley to meet Bett. He would come the day after tomorrow, in fact. Carrie kept driving, straight to the motel. It was after ten, but she was determined to speak to Bett that night, to arrange a time and place for the meeting.

  All the motel lights were on. She was surprised to find both her sisters in the office. Anna was on the land line, Bett on the mobile phone. Bett was finishing a call just as Carrie walked in.

  “Carrie, you’re back early. That’s great. Can you—”

  “In a moment, Bett.” She couldn’t let herself be distracted. “I’m sorry to get right to the point, but we need to talk about something.”

  “In a minute, Carrie. Something’s come up. We need to ring—”

  “It’s important.” Her tone surprised them both. “Matthew is coming back to the Valley, and he wants to see you. And I want him to see you. Do you still want to see him?”

  Bett blinked at her. “Sure. Yes. Fine. Can we worry about him later, though?” She thrust a list of phone numbers at her sister. “We’ve got a musical emergency on our hands.”

  By eleven o’clock the following morning the cast and a hastily assembled crew were in the Clare Town Hall. Len was directing a small group of men, who were moving paint pots, set panels, and ladders noisily across the wooden floor. The piano had been transported from the motel in the back of a refrigerated truck, sandwiched between twenty boxes of ice cream. They were just waiting on the arrival of the forklift from the local supermarket to help lift it onto the stage.

  Richard was worried. “It’s not a full-scale documentary, Anna. It’s just a short segment. Maybe only a few minutes long. I’m worried that you’re going to too much trouble.”

  Anna lowered her voice. “I think your friend Charlie is doing me a favor, actually. We’d never have got this done on time otherwise.”

  Bett had phoned her editor, Rebecca, to see if she could come and lend a hand, too.

  “Are you going to ring Daniel?” Rebecca asked. “Can you tell him if he needs someone to look after his mother, I’ll do it? He’d probably be more use to you than me.”