Did it matter that he wasn’t invited to any of them? Not really, Albert thought. He wasn’t hurting anybody; genuinely having places to go had got his parents off his back, and having constant conversations with people at social events kept his lips well oiled for talking to Florence.
He kept his business even as he became a full-time member of the Green Team. The two jobs never intersected, and Albert found he could shed the uniform for one easily before putting on the other. When Florence joined the Green Team, with her name badge that said Flo, Albert sensed a small leap inside of him, some sort of quickening and, although he could not be certain, his brother was in his ear saying, ‘Here we go!’ The first few times he spoke to Florence and she asked what he’d done over the weekend, he had panicked. He should have said, ‘I’ve got a little bar business I work at most weekends.’ He should have said, ‘I’m serving pitchers of Pimm’s at a woman’s fortieth birthday party,’ or ‘I’m working at a twenty-first on a boat on a river, and I’m afraid I won’t be able to get off,’ but instead he implied he was front and centre at all those events – often with his made-up friends Jeremy and Lydia.
But while he had conjured up his ‘usual suspects’ – and what a terrible phrase that was; it had fallen from his lips before he could catch it – they were in fact real people. Jeremy was a friend of Hamish’s from his first-year engineering course, and Lydia, an arts student, was the girl Albert was sure Hamish would have one day brought home to meet the family. She would get out of Hamish’s car with her long, loose limbs and raise a hand in greeting, a satchel slung across her shoulder, and they would all fall in love with her. Because she was Hamish’s girl, which of course made her the girl. Lydia Woolcock, Hamish had once told him, had hair the colour of butter.
He could not remember when he introduced Jeremy and Lydia into the stories he spun to Florence, but she seemed to like to hear about them, especially Lydia. By the time Albert realised that Florence would not care less if he had a social life or not – her own appeared to be sparing and largely centred around her family – it was too late. Albert was caught in his own lie. What would Florence think of him, he wondered as the sunset’s first colours began to bruise the sky, if he told her the truth? Not much. Florence could be prickly, and this would certainly make her prickle. Everything about Florence was straightforward, from the way she wore her hair pulled back, with her middle part running through it like a train line, to the way she strode through the forest in front of him, her face bare beneath its hat. There was no dissembling with her, no shady areas at all.
Albert stood up, bowed his head slightly to Kong, and turned back on the path. He was fortunate that Florence’s own lack of social life meant their paths never crossed. There was very little chance of running into her at any of the parties he worked at. Or anyone else he knew. He did encounter former Farrow boys from time to time, mostly drunk, mostly friendly and mostly having trouble placing him. They would peer at him from across the bar, and Albert would watch their faces pucker in concentration. ‘Where do I know you from, mate?’ Sometimes Albert told them, other times he let them work it out for themselves, but mostly they did not remember him at all. If they did, they remembered Hamish in the very next breath. ‘Oh, you’re Hamish Flowers’s brother . . .’ and their faces would pucker again, this time in memory and sadness. They would mumble something inaudible, and once a Farrow boy from Hamish’s year had shoved a crumpled wad of bills into his hand. They rarely mocked though. Oscar Bishop’s troop of clowns had been an anomaly.
Albert walked a little faster. He had lingered longer in the forest than he realised, the trees darkening as if, Florence would say, someone had turned down the dimmer switch. He didn’t mind the forest at night, but he did mind the insects that flew at him when the switch dimmed, so he made his way back to his car at the park’s entrance. The gala hadn’t been so bad, apart from missing Hamish. He could handle any rambunctious Farrow boy these days – he was just glad that his parents or Addie or Florence had not been there to witness it. But if Florence had been there, he thought, she certainly would have noticed the Milky Way was missing.
11
‘One, two, three, four.’
Amanda was counting in the beat, and Puck hit the snare drum, the session musicians moving into position.
‘On Christmas Eve when the lights are low . . .’ Amanda had her hand curled around the microphone as if it was welded there, Isolde and Florence bookending her on either side.
Florence smiled across Amanda to Isolde, twitching her body about the stage.
Amanda stopped. ‘Isolde,’ she warned. Isolde stopped. It was like watching jelly settling onto its plate.
‘What?’
‘Darling, we are performing “Santa Was A Jazz Cat”, not “Santa Was Caught In A Sudden Downpour”.’
The musicians behind Amanda sniggered, and Florence prickled. People always sniggered at Isolde, they had done so her whole life. On Isolde’s first day of school she had worn a messy, homemade crown of flowers on her head, and neither Lucas nor Amanda had stopped her. When Florence had protested, Lucas had said, ‘Oh let her be, honey bee,’ and Florence had wanted to scream. It was up to her, walking Isolde up the crumbly, concrete path that led to her little sister’s new classroom, to duck behind the school library and gently lift the crown of daisies and gold foil milk-bottle tops from Isolde’s head. ‘But why, Florrie?’ Isolde had asked with her big, dark eyes, and Florence had answered that crowns weren’t allowed at school. What she wanted to tell her was that people like them weren’t allowed at school. People who didn’t understand the signals. People who ‘brought attention to themselves’, as a teacher had once said to Florence, even if they didn’t mean to do it. Particularly if they didn’t mean to do it.
Florence had a two-year head start on Isolde in the playground, and she didn’t want her little sister to stumble at the first fence. So it was off with the crown, stuffed into Florence’s backpack. Not that it made a whit of difference. Isolde, like Florence before her, and Puck to follow, had her own strong scent of otherness curling around her that first day, and all the days that followed. Florence had waited outside Isolde’s classroom, watching as other little girls streamed out in patterns already knitted together. Florence waited until all the children had been expelled out the classroom doors, except Isolde. The teacher, Miss Harris, who wore long, batik skirts and smelt of sandalwood, had come out and said, ‘Florence, how lovely to see you. Isolde is still inside, come in.’ Miss Harris, Florence thought now, had a distinct whiff of the other about her too.
Isolde was sitting at her desk, colouring in, and when she saw Florence the first thing she said was, ‘Can I have my crown back now?’ and Florence knew she had been wrong to take it. Isolde had been completely at home in her body since she first found herself in it, just as she was now, flicking around the stage, limbs pulled by unseen hands.
‘Oh let her be, honey bee,’ Florence said to her mother, who, she saw, remembered the echo of Lucas’s first-day words.
‘You’re right,’ Amanda said. ‘I’m sorry, Isolde. Please continue dancing as if nobody is watching.’ She smiled at her second daughter, then gestured to the musicians. ‘All right, everybody, from the top, one, two, three, four.’
It was the first day of a three-day rehearsal set aside for the Saint Claire Swingers’ New Year’s Eve appearance on Hello 2000! It had played out exactly as Richard had said it would: a string of apologetic phone calls from a nervy Kip, an extremely good bottle of whiskey for Richard and a huge bunch of flowers for Amanda. Kip had delivered the bouquet personally, standing on Kinsey’s front porch, his head and torso half hidden by the sheaf he was carrying. Amanda had opened the door, said, ‘Kip, what a lovely surprise, do come in,’ and by the time he’d left, the Saint Claire Swingers were back on the bill at a considerably higher fee, and Kip looked like a crumpled suit left in a laundry bag.
Now, Florence saw, Kip was shadowing Richard, listening intently to everyt
hing the older man had to say, Kip’s hand curled thoughtfully around his chin. She almost felt sorry for him, but he was wearing too-tight leather trousers with a silver chain looping from one pocket to his hip, so really, she thought, he could only blame himself for any misfortune.
Amanda started again. ‘On Christmas Eve when the lights are low . . .’ and the Saint Claire Swingers, like old friends meeting in the street, began to swing.
Later, when they would stroll out onto the Domain’s stage, first Puck, then Isolde, then Florence, and lastly Amanda throwing her arms out wide and smiling, ‘Well, Hello 2000!’ the crowd’s collective roar would fill Florence’s ears, and sweet waves of nostalgia would roll towards her, but it would feel nothing like this.
From the moment she opened her mouth to join Amanda and Isolde in the chorus, Puck’s driving beat behind them, she felt herself return to the rhythm of her family. The four remaining members of the Saint Claire Swingers – five if you counted the one Florence spied in the wings – found their way easily to exactly where they belonged in the song.
When they finished, the crew applauded and Richard nodded at Kip.
‘There’s your moment mate,’ he said, grinning.
*
Afterwards, back at Kinsey, they opened a bottle of champagne and sipped some of Kip’s excellent whiskey, which Richard poured into tumblers.
‘Thank you, my dears,’ he said, raising his glass. ‘You’ve made an old man very, very rich.’
Florence lifted her tumbler. ‘To the Saint Claire Swingers.’
‘And Richard,’ Amanda smiled.
‘And Kip,’ Isolde said.
‘And his trousers,’ Puck added.
‘And Lucas,’ Richard said.
‘And Lucas,’ they all repeated.
Florence took a deep gulp of her whiskey, feeling the burn at her throat. It was time, she thought, for her own moment.
‘I really enjoyed today, singing with you all again,’ she began. ‘You might have thought I’d be a bit rusty vocally because I haven’t sung for a while, but that’s not entirely true.’
She paused.
‘It’s not true at all. I’ve been singing quite a bit in a group with two other girls, Orla and Veronica – Orla is British and Veronica looks like Jessica Rabbit . . .’ Florence felt herself teetering off the path and took another deep drink until only the tinkling ice cubes remained. ‘We do cabaret shows, mostly old standards and then some contemporary ones with our own arrangements. Anyway, I probably should have told you from the beginning, but I really wasn’t sure if I was going to stick at it . . .’
Isolde stood up and put out her hand to Florence. ‘Would you like me to refresh your glass, Miss Suki?’ she asked.
Florence felt everything tip off centre again.
‘What did you say, Isolde?’ she asked.
‘I said,’ Isolde drew out the words slowly, ‘would you like another whiskey, Miss Suki?’
Florence looked at her family. They were all laughing, Richard giggling from behind a hand, and Amanda’s shoulders shaking. Everybody knew.
‘Mum?’ Florence tried.
‘Yes, Miss Suki?’ Amanda spluttered, then let out her laughter in a joyous rush.
‘You knew?’
‘Of course, I knew, darling, we all did,’ Amanda answered. ‘And I must say, although Isolde would disagree, that I absolutely love Miss Suki. I find her fascinating, all that deathly makeup and antagonism, she’s like an angry corpse.’
Florence was caught between the dawning knowledge that not only did her family know of Miss Suki’s existence, but they had also seen her perform.
‘Isolde?’ she said.
‘I’m not in love with Miss Suki,’ Isolde answered. ‘Too studied. Too much like hard work. Too much slap covering her face. I like the Nightshades though, particularly the one who looks like she could eat you alive.’
Florence smiled. ‘That’s Veronica.’
‘I like the other one,’ Puck said, ‘the one with the posh accent.’
‘Orla,’ Florence said automatically, ‘and she’s not posh, she’s got a mouth like a London sewer rat.’
Florence stared at her family. ‘How many times,’ she asked, ‘have you seen me? Mum?’
Florence could understand how she might miss Isolde or Puck in an audience, how they could slip in to a back table between sets and slip back out again, if the bar was dark enough, and the bars the Nightshades played usually were. But Amanda?
Amanda Saint Claire couldn’t go to the laundromat without making an entrance. Sometimes people started spontaneously clapping when she walked into a room, and then looked surprised at themselves when they did.
‘Oh three or four, darling. Richard usually takes me. You’re very good, all of you, but I don’t agree with Puck about the posh one, I find her very pitchy.’
‘How is it at all possible that I have never seen you in the audience, Mum?’ Florence said. ‘You’re not generally known for blending in.’
Amanda shrugged. ‘I just go as myself, darling. I take all my makeup off, pop on a shirt and some jeans, and leave Lamanda, as you children so rudely call her, at home. People don’t recognise me without all the . . . fuss.’
Amanda smiled at her daughter. ‘Of course, it helps that no one’s seen my bare face since 1972.’
Florence laughed. Amanda’s method of concealment had been to take all her layers off, whereas hers had been to trowel them on.
‘How did you find out?’ she asked Isolde, for surely it would have been Isolde.
‘Followed you,’ Isolde said, stretching, ‘didn’t believe that hydroponics course guff – not even you would study something that boring.’
‘You followed me?’ Florence asked, letting the comment about hydroponics – which she did intend to study one day – go, in favour of imagining her sister shadowing her out of the house.
‘I had an inkling you were up to something,’ Isolde said, ‘always scurrying up the stairs carrying bags you wouldn’t let me look at and taking the phone into another room and not letting me listen.’
Isolde walked over to Florence and put her hands on her older sister’s cheeks.
‘I was worried about you, Florence, we’d never had any secrets between us, well, apart from the one about you killing Dad.’
‘Isolde!’ Amanda flung her daughter’s name across the room. ‘Would you stop saying that!’
‘Sorry,’ Isolde said, ‘but I was worried, Florence. I was afraid you had taken an unsuitable lover, someone who was married or voted for the National Party, and you didn’t want to tell us. So one night when you said you were going to your course, I waited until you were in your car and then Victor and I followed you in his.’
‘Victor! Victor knows?’
‘Oh, everybody knows, Florence.’ Amanda shrugged. ‘And although I cannot for the life of me understand why you would want to hide all that talent under a bushel, it is your business, not ours. Personally, I don’t understand why anyone in this family does anything, but I have found it is best to let you all just get on with it.’
‘When you say everybody,’ Florence asked, ‘do you think the people at my work know?’
Amanda shrugged and Florence saw Monty Rollins twinkling at her from beside the shelves: ‘We don’t mind a dollop of cabaret either . . . ‘ Monty knew, she was sure of it. Had he told anyone in the Green Team? Had he told Albert?
Florence thought of all those walks with Albert where he filled her in on his social life with the now almost certainly fictitious Jeremy and Lydia, and she regaled him with raucous stories of her weekends spent trimming Victor’s sweet peas, both she and Albert talking through their lying, rotten teeth. She concentrated on remembering Albert’s responses to her tales from behind Victor’s picket fence. There had never been, she was sure, a flicker of disbelief across his face. She had never seen a slightly twisted mouth, a lifted eyebrow, or heard an ‘Oh, really?’ And she was certain that if Albert Flowers had come to a
Nightshades gig, she would have noticed him, no matter how quietly he slipped in or what he was wearing. I would know Albert in a grizzly bear suit, she thought. No, she was sure Albert had not seen her alter ego, but she had seen his. It had been more shocking than it really should be. Plenty of people liked to keep their work and personal life separate. But plenty of people weren’t hiding a dead brother, a one-time stammer, and life so lonely they filled it with make-believe friends.
That Albert Flowers was achingly lonely had come to Florence along Sadie Bishop’s words, delivered from across her shoulder.
‘He does all the best parties,’ Sadie had said. ‘You should hire him.’
Bugger Sadie Bishop, Florence thought, I hope she caught pneumonia in that nightgown.
Florence pulled herself back from Avalon to her family, and Richard who was holding out the whiskey bottle to her.
‘Another wee dram, Miss Suki?’ he asked, and Florence wondered how long she would have to endure them all using her stage name. Isolde, she knew, would be relentless.
‘No thank you, Richard,’ she said. ‘I’m going to head home. Do you want a lift, Isolde?’
‘Yes please, Miss Suki,’ her sister answered.
*
‘What ho, Albert!’ Florence said when she walked into the library on Monday morning. She was overegging it, she knew. She had never uttered the words ‘what ho’ to anybody in her entire life. She was not sure anyone ever had. Bertie Wooster notwithstanding. But she was nervous, skittishly nervous that Albert may have glimpsed her at Avalon, and the words that fell from her mouth were a clumsy attempt to mask her concern with enthusiasm. Somewhere on her walk to work she had decided that her best line of defence was jauntiness. She would look like a woman without a care in her world, and not at all like one who had witnessed a car crash in a drinks line. When she saw Albert, she would not wear a question mark on her face, she would, instead, wear an exclamation mark – and she supposed that was where the ‘what ho’ had sprung from. If Albert had his own question mark, if he was wondering if she had been the woman who had dashed from the line like Cinderella bolting at midnight – stupid girl, ramming her feet into a pair of glass shards for some sappy prince who let his parents tell him who to marry – then Florence would remove all traces of doubt with, among other things, maximum wattage. She opened her mouth and exposed the whole horseshoe.
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