The Alphabet Sisters (13 page)

She wriggled around to get a better view of her father and then nearly leaped out of her seat as a sharp pain ricocheted through her right thigh. She moved and another sharp pain shot into her bottom. Bloody hell, had she sat on a spider? She lifted up her bottom an inch, lowered it, and nearly shot out of her seat as the pain struck again.

Behind her, Richard noticed her jump. “Bett, are you all right?”

“Something keeps biting me.”

“Good heavens. I promise you it’s not me.”

That made her grin. “I didn’t think it was you. Don’t mind me.” She couldn’t get up now, make a scene, not during Lola’s big moment.

Her father was now making his introduction. “Once again, I give you my mother and the birthday girl herself, Lola Quinlan.”

The lights came on and in the front of the room was Lola, pulling back a curtain to reveal a large white screen. The guests shifted expectantly. Bett gingerly turned her seat around to make sure she had a full view, not moving her bottom, just the chair, trying to keep the insect or spider or whatever creature it was pinned underneath her bottom.

Lola waited until she had every last person’s attention. “Thank you, my darling Jim. Before I move on to the next important event of the night, I’d like to properly introduce my family to you all. I’d invite them all up here beside me, but then you’d be looking at them not me.” There was a ripple of laughter. Lola pointed them all out, one by one. “My son, Jim, and his wife, Geraldine, who have been so good and kind to me over the years, even when I was driving them mad.”

“Never,” Jim called across. Geraldine smiled stiffly.

“And my granddaughters. Anna, put your hand up, darling, would you? Anna’s home from her successful acting life in Sydney for a little while with her daughter, my dear great-granddaughter, Ellen, who has just turned seven and is adorable.” Bett noticed Ellen was pressed against Anna, her hair hiding her scar.

“And at the table next to Anna and Ellen is my middle granddaughter, Elizabeth, known of course as Bett …” Bett self-conciously raised her hand as Lola continued, “who has left behind her extremely glamorous life in London to come home and spend time with me.”

She turned and gestured toward Carrie, who was standing by the door. “And of course my dear Carrie, there in the golden dress with the golden hair, who not only keeps me young on a daily basis, but has pulled out all the stops for tonight. Thank you, Carrie darling.”

Lola waited for the applause to come to an end before she spoke again. “When we were first planning this evening’s entertainment, I learned that a tradition these days is to have a little slide show ready to surprise the guest of honor. Carrie suggested it, and I turned her down immediately, not wanting to be embarrassed by photos of myself that I thought had long disappeared. But then I thought about it some more, and I decided, yes, perhaps it would be good, especially if I got to choose the slides, rather than have any naughty surprises.

“So I went ahead and prepared a little slide show of some of my favorite moments, and I’d like to share them with you. Please, get yourselves a drink and then we’ll get started.”

Uh-oh, here we go, thought Bett. Anna was sitting at the table behind her, the two of them virtually back to back. She felt a tap on her shoulder and turned.

“Did you know anything about this?” Anna whispered.

Bett shook her head, surprised Anna was asking her. They both glanced over at Carrie. By the look on her face, this was a surprise to her as well.

Lola clapped her hands. “Attention please, everyone. Anna, Bett, stop whispering over there.” She waved over at them. “My darlings have come home especially for this, you know. So good at my age to have all the family around me again.”

In the quiet moment that followed before the slides began, two voices were clearly audible.

“Is the youngest one’s husband here? The bloke that caused all the trouble?”

“No, he’s been banned, I’d say.” Len the butcher’s voice was easily recognizable. “Shame, really. I was hoping to see another catfight over him tonight.” He gave a loud laugh.

Bett stiffened. Bloody Len and his big mouth. She wished he’d go and choke on one of his own chops. From the corner of her eye she saw Anna spin around to spot the speaker. She didn’t dare look in Carrie’s direction. To her relief, the lights suddenly went down, the screen flickered into life, and Lola’s voice came over the speakers, her Irish accent strong and clear. “Please forgive my indulgence as I reminisce a little about the past eighty years.”

A lilting Irish song started playing as slide after slide came up on the screen, with captions of the year and the place underneath. There was Lola as a child beside an enormous oak tree in front of her big family house in Ireland, standing with her parents behind her, the only child. As a young woman at a gala party, in Dublin. On her wedding day, Edward serious-faced, Lola almost a child bride. A photograph of them on the boat to Australia in the late 1930s, then several of Lola with a baby Jim on their own; by a beach; in the gateway of the Botanic Gardens in Melbourne; among a group of women, all with young children.

Bett was fascinated. She hadn’t realized Lola had those photographs from Ireland, or so many from her early days in Australia. Lola had rarely spoken about those days in any detail. The memories must have been too painful for her, the three girls had decided. Bett heard whispers at the tables around her. “She was widowed very young, wasn’t she?” “Tragic, wasn’t it? Her with a young son, too.” “Did she marry again?”

Something about the photo of Lola’s house in Ireland struck a chord with Bett. She had visited it on behalf of Lola when she was living over there, taken photos of it and tried—but failed—to find anyone who remembered Lola and her family from years before. She’d like to have looked more closely at the photo, but it had flashed past too quickly. She’d have to ask Lola about it another time.

The next slides were of Lola and Jim in the different guesthouses and motels they had gone on to manage all around Australia. They had moved dozens of times over the early years, from city motels to country motels, motels in farmland and motels by the sea. Geraldine and then the three girls started appearing on-screen. There was a wonderful photo of Lola in her mid-fifties on holiday in Tasmania, on a beach with wind whipping through her hair, looking like a film star. Another of her in her late sixties, behind the counter of the charity shop here in the Valley, the year she had announced herself officially retired from motel work. One from her seventieth birthday party in the middle of the vineyard in front of the motel on a glorious summer day, like today. The day that she had signed over all the ownership to Jim and Geraldine. Bett remembered it clearly. Lola hadn’t listened to any arguments. “I don’t want money for it. It’s yours to do what you like with, as long as there’s always a room and a ready supply of gin for me.”

Bett relaxed as the screen went white again. Thank God Lola hadn’t included any slides of the Alphabet Sisters. She knew there were dozens of hideously embarrassing photographs from their various performances all over the country, none of which Bett ever wanted to see again. Lola usually pulled them out at any occasion. Who’d have thought she’d have respected their privacy like that tonight?

Lola’s voice sounded out over the room again. “It’s been a long and eventful life, and one of the most special parts of it has been not just the joy of having three granddaughters but having three immensely talented, performing granddaughters. So I’d also like to take this opportunity to share with you some of the finest moments from their years performing as the Alphabet Sisters. Music please, maestro.”

The room filled with the sound of Perry Como singing “The Alphabet Song.” Bett covered her face with her hands as one photo after the other of the Alphabet Sisters in an array of outfits flashed up onto the screen. There they were in the gingham dresses they’d worn for their first performance on the TV talent competition. In the matching yellow satin dresses with flared skirts. In the pink and blue skirt and shirt ensembles. The bright green taffeta party dresses …

Bett made a gap in one hand and peered through, hearing the laughter around her. It was getting worse. Why had they reached their performing peak when puff-ball skirts, fluffy hair, and fluorescent colors had seemed fashionable? As Perry continued crooning in the background, working his way through the alphabet one more time, on-screen the three of them moved from childhood to teenage years. It was like time-lapse photography. Bett watched herself get plumper and plumper with each passing year. There was open and loud laughter all round now. People were laughing at her or the outfits or their makeup. She covered her face, praying for the song to finish, praying for an electrical fault, an earthquake.…

At their table Anna and Ellen were in gales of laughter. Over dinner, Ellen had been solemnly informing the lady sitting next to her that her mother and aunties had once been famous singers. Behind her, Anna had been vigorously shaking her head, smilingly denying everything. Five seconds of these slides had been the proof. There they were, squinting into the sun, standing on makeshift stages on the backs of semitrailers, or in country halls, surrounded by balloons and crêpe-paper decorations. Another of the three of them caught mid–dance movement, looking about as elegant as scarecrows. And the dresses! They were even worse than Anna remembered.

On her lap, Ellen was in fits of giggles. “I hope you’re not laughing at me?” Anna said mock sternly.

“You all look so silly,” Ellen whispered back. “And look at Auntie Bett’s hair.”

Oh, poor Bett, Anna thought, as another slide flashed up showing Bett with her mouth caught wide open in midsong, her mad brown curls dancing around her head. Beside her Carrie was a demure golden-haired angel. Anna judged herself critically. Her hair had been as dark and straight, her posture as excellent then as it was now. She leaned down to her daughter again and spoke in a whisper. “We actually couldn’t sing very well either. But don’t tell Lola. She thought we were gorgeous.”

By the door, Carrie was enjoying every moment of the surprise slide show. She’d been taken aback at first, but was now reveling in the memories. She had loved every moment of the Alphabet Sisters. The dressing up, the singing, the applause … and she’d never minded any of the dresses they’d had to wear. She’d certainly never carried on about them the way Bett and Anna had, in any case.

She found herself wishing again that Matthew was there, to see this as well. He had loved hearing the stories of the Alphabet Sisters. There’d been a few awkward moments in their early days, when she had been telling him stories, wondering if he had already heard them from Bett. He had taken her hand and kissed it one night, when she’d confessed her worry. “Carrie, Bett and I didn’t talk the way you and I talk. Now, please, keep going—you were in the car with Lola on your way to a concert one day and what happened?” She bit her lip as the slides kept coming, seeing the younger, happier version of herself smiling up on the screen. Perhaps if things got better between Matthew and herself again—one day—she could show these slides to him herself.… 

The lights finally came on again, and Lola moved back in front of the screen. Was she truly wiping away a tear, Bett wondered, or was it all for show? The laughter and chat in the room quietened as all eyes turned to Lola again.

“Some wonderful memories there for me, as I’m sure you’d agree. The days working with my little Alphabet Sisters were among the happiest of my life, and ones that I had thought, sadly but inevitably, had come to an end.”

And not a moment too soon, Bett thought, the tension draining out of her. Lola’s next words had her sitting upright again.

“Then something wonderful happened. My darling granddaughters agreed to the most wonderful birthday present a grandmother could ask for. I would like to share it with you all tonight.”

Oh no, Bett thought. Surely she wasn’t going to talk publicly about the rift? Please don’t say she was about to produce Matthew out of nowhere, stage a tearful Oprah Winfrey–style reunion between them all? She glanced at Anna, and at Carrie. Did they have any idea about this wonderful birthday present? It didn’t look like it. Anna shot her a questioning glance. Bett shook her head, signaled that she had no idea either.

At the side of the room, Carrie was glancing down at the running order. She seemed just as puzzled. Bett turned around. At the back of the room Frank from the electrical shop had moved back by the slide projector and was as alert as a gun dog, waiting for Lola’s signals.

The room lights went out once again, leaving a spotlight on Lola. When had she rehearsed all this? Bett wondered.

Her grandmother’s voice was assured. “For the past ten years, I have been working on what I regard as my life’s project. Apart from my son and granddaughters and great-granddaughter, of course. And I have this man to thank.”

The spotlight went out. On the screen behind her was a large photo of a man in uniform.

“The American general, Douglas MacArthur,” Lola said, now pacing in front of the screen as though she was a university lecturer. “One of the heroes of World War II, famous for a wartime speech that galvanized hearts and minds all over the free world. Yes, indeed. ‘I shall return,’ General MacArthur promised, not just to his men in the Philippines but to all the Allied forces. It became the war cry of the Pacific campaign.”

Two older people near Bett nodded and whispered to each other. They obviously remembered it, even if it was news to her.

Another slide came up. General MacArthur standing on a platform at a small railway station, his elegantly dressed wife beside him, their small son between them.

Lola’s voice filled the room. “And where did he say those momentous words? In London? No. In Washington? No. Perhaps even in Sydney? No. General MacArthur said those words on the twentieth of March 1942 on the platform of the Terowie Railway Station. Yes, the little town of Terowie, South Australia, just sixty miles from here, as he traveled by train from Alice Springs to Adelaide. What an event for that tiny place, I’ve always thought, with the war and worries swirling all around them. It touched me deeply. Some years ago I started imagining and thinking and putting down ideas, and before I knew what was happening my thoughts had become a short story, which became a longer story, which became a musical. Yes, I, Lola Quinlan, in the twilight of my years, found that I had written a musical.”