The Alphabet Sisters Read online

  She’d patted him on the hand. “Kind Frank, thank you but no. Bett did that for me when she was there a few years ago.” Not that Lola had ever looked closely at the photos Bett sent back that time. Well, there’d been no need to, had there? It wasn’t as if they had meant anything to her. All the same, she’d sent Bett a note, thanking her for going to all the trouble of traveling there, talking to locals, taking the photos. And then she had never raised the subject again. She’d had more than the occasional twinge of guilt. Wanting to tell someone the truth. But too much time had gone past by now for it to matter anymore, surely.

  She took another sip of her drink and turned to her crossword. She’d finish the last few clues, then go to bed. As she reached for her pen and reading glasses, there was a crackle and a fizzing sound and the ceiling light went out. The wall light was on, so she could still see, but it wasn’t bright enough to work by. She’d been telling Jim for years he ought to improve them. She had a spare lightbulb in the wardrobe. She stood up and felt the desk chair. Yes, it was sturdy enough and the ceilings were so low, she’d easily be able to reach. It wouldn’t take a moment, and she must have changed hundreds, if not thousands, of lightbulbs over the years. And made thousands of beds. And set thousands of breakfast trays. And cleaned a million lavatories. She must count them all up one day; it could be amusing.

  She took a scarf off the end of her bed to unscrew the hot bulb. Opening the wardrobe door to give herself something to hang on to, she climbed up onto the chair. As she did, the chair shook slightly. She turned to grasp the wardrobe door but misjudged the distance. The chair tilted some more and she felt herself falling. She put out both arms to stop herself, but it was too late. Her head knocked sharply against the wardrobe door and she fell to the floor.

  The break was nearly over. Everyone was milling back in from the bar next door, complimentary beer and wine in hand. At their table in the corner, the three sisters were flicking through the forms.

  Bett glanced down her list. Many of the names had enthusiastic ticks beside them. “What did you think, Carrie?” She was quite surprised how easy it had been tonight to make conversation with her sisters. Then again, Lola’s ban on difficult subjects was still firmly in place.

  “I thought there was plenty of talent. And these here, see. What about them for the lead roles? Anna, who have you picked out?”

  Anna moved her hand. Her sheet of paper was blank, apart from a few swirling doodles.

  Bett bit back a smile. “Anna, it’s an amateur musical, remember. We’re raising money for a new ambulance, not going for the Tony Awards.”

  “But if we’re going to do it, we may as well—”

  “Do it well,” the other two chorused. The times they’d heard Lola chant that.

  Anna sighed heavily, then flicked through the forms again. “Have we heard this Daniel Hilder audition? He filled out the form, and he’d be the right age for the Jack-the-Lad character, wouldn’t he?”

  Bett stiffened. “Daniel Hilder’s here?”

  “The photographer?” Carrie looked up. “I didn’t see him. Shall I go and ask him to audition?”

  “No.” Bett spoke louder than she intended.

  Anna and Carrie looked surprised. “You don’t want him to audition?” Anna asked.

  “No, I mean I’ll go and ask him.” Bett stood up, taking her glass of wine with her. What would Lola have said to her? Face your fears. You are thirty-two. What happened was years ago, embarrassing and all as it was. Exactly. Of course she could handle this.

  She did a circuit of the room, then spotted him walking in from the bar, a drink in hand.

  “Daniel?”

  He turned. As she came near him, someone behind her stepped back suddenly, bumping her elbow and sending her glass of red wine flying. She stood there with red wine dripping from her chin to her knees and all down the front of her dark blue dress.

  For a split second she was tempted to run out of the room. Then she had a brainwave. React as if you are Anna, not Bett, she told herself quickly. It worked. “I’m going to ignore the fact that even happened,” she said coolly.

  “Are you?” He seemed surprised. “All right, then. So will I.”

  She stared straight at him, trying to ignore a glint of amusement in his eye. “I was wondering whether you wanted to audition, because if you do there’s still time.”

  He nodded, but didn’t answer.

  “Well?”

  He smiled. “I’m sorry, Bett. I really am trying to ignore that little accident, but it’s a bit hard when you’ve got red wine dripping down your chin.”

  She clung desperately to her new cool persona. “Well, we can’t have that.” She reached for a serviette, and wiped it away. “Would you like to audition? I noticed you’d put your name down, but we didn’t get to hear you.”

  “I got called out for an hour,” he said. “An urgent phone call. I missed my slot.” He gave a surprisingly shy smile. “I thought it might be something different to do.”

  How come he was being so normal? Did he have one-night stands all the time or something? Or had he blanked it out? Bett had been trying to, but all day she’d been tormented by memories from that night. She tried to block them out again. He’s got a live-in girlfriend, remember that. Possibly even married. Possibly even seven or eight children. A Labrador. Halitosis. Alopecia. Fungal toenails. It wasn’t helping. She was noticing only good things about him. The dark eyes. The laughter lines. The kind face. The shaggy dark hair. The faded jeans and casual shirt, hanging loosely, sexily, on him.

  She opened her mouth, needing to say something about their night together, trying to find the words for it, when she heard a voice behind her.

  “Hi, Daniel. I’m Carrie. I don’t think we’ve met.”

  “Hello, Carrie.”

  Carrie looked from one to the other. “So are you two ready to get down to it?”

  Bett blushed. She didn’t look at Daniel. “Pardon?”

  “The audition?”

  Yes, the audition. “Of course. Ready, Daniel?” Bett discovered you could look just to the right of someone’s face, and it almost seemed as though you were looking directly at them.

  He smiled. “Ready when you are.”

  Bett followed them back to the piano, surprised the candles on the tables weren’t melting from the heat coming off her face.

  In her room, Ellen woke up. “Mummy?” No answer. “Mummy?” Then she remembered. Her mum was doing the musical and Lola was looking after her. She’d told her to come to her room if she wanted anything.

  Ellen climbed out of bed.

  Anna was businesslike. “Okay, Bett, Daniel, when you’re ready.”

  Daniel was standing by the piano, looking down at her, ready to sing. She had to blink away another memory of kissing him. If she was remembering his body, was he remembering hers? She sucked in her stomach.

  “Bett?” Anna’s voice a little louder.

  Concentrate, Bett, she told herself. Easier said than done. How had her life come to this? Sitting at the piano in the Valley View Motel about to play the backing music so that Daniel Hilder could audition for a musical Lola had written. She’d have been less surprised to find herself strapped to the nose cone of a space shuttle. She stared at the sheet music. Hands poised over the piano, she glanced up at him, nodded, and played the first note.

  A loud shrieking filled the room.

  They all turned. Ellen was in the doorway, dressed in her pajamas, tears pouring down her cheeks.

  “Mummy, Lola’s dead.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Bett pressed her cheek against the wall of the hospital corridor, feeling the coolness as she spoke into the public phone. “No, you don’t need to come back, Dad. She’s in hospital. It’s all under control.”

  “Are you sure? We can catch a flight and be there in a few hours.”

  “Seriously, you don’t need to. She’s a bit shocked, but it’s just a broken wrist and a bad cut on her forehead. She
wasn’t even unconscious when Ellen found her. It’s just Ellen got such a fright.”

  Nothing compared to what Ellen’s words had done to the rest of them. The auditions had been forgotten, Daniel Hilder had been forgotten, as Bett, Anna, and Carrie ran to Lola’s room. The first sight was the worst, seeing Lola sprawled across the floor, the chair upended beside her, her left wrist bent at an awkward angle.

  “Lola, no,” Bett heard herself scream. Anna reached for her right wrist to feel the pulse, then nearly leaped out of her skin as Lola spoke. “Hello, darling.”

  “You’re not dead?”

  “Not unless heaven looks like the motel.”

  Bett was on the floor beside her in seconds, gently touching her. “Are you hurt? What happened?”

  “The stupid lightbulb. I told your father to buy better-quality ones.”

  “Lola, we’ve told you not to change those bulbs,” Anna said crossly. “You’re eighty, too old to be climbing up on chairs like this.”

  Lola rallied. “One minute you’re crying because you think I’m dead, the next minute you’re telling me off. Talk about fair-weather friends.”

  Crouched on the floor beside her, too, Carrie put a hand on her own chest. “Oh God, Lola, at least you’re okay. I nearly died of the fright. My heart is still racing; you should feel it.”

  “Jesus, Carrie.” Bett was shocked as a surge of fury hit her. “Do you have to be the center of attention all the time?”

  Carrie’s eyes widened. “I wasn’t, I was just—”

  “You were so. You always—”

  “Stop it, Bett, for God’s sake,” Anna snapped. “You’re as bad as each other.”

  Bett glared at her. “Don’t you start on—”

  “I will start on you. Leave Carrie alone and ring an ambulance, would you?”

  “I was about to, before she—”

  “Darlings, please.” Lola’s voice came from between them. Her head was against Carrie’s shoulder, her eyes closed. “Don’t fight over me. And, Bett, please don’t blaspheme like that again. You know I don’t like it.”

  Her words set them into motion, even as they avoided any further eye contact. Bett called for an ambulance. Carrie stayed with Lola while Anna moved to the door, asking the crowd that had gathered to please move back. “She’s fine; she’ll be fine. She’s not dead at all.”

  “Mummy?” A familiar little voice came from the back of the group. Anna turned as Richard Lawrence came into view, holding Ellen by the hand.

  He brought her forward. “I found her crying in the function room.”

  Anna pulled the little girl into her arms. “Ellie, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry to leave you behind.” In the rush to find Lola after Ellen’s announcement, they had run straight past her. “You’re such a good girl; you might have saved your great-grandmother’s life, do you know that?”

  Bett was about to suggest a cup of tea, something warm and sweet for Lola, when she saw headlights approaching. She crouched down beside her grandmother again and gently took her good hand. “Here we are now. The ambulance is here.”

  It wasn’t the ambulance but an ordinary station wagon. Daniel Hilder got out and walked over. “I thought it might be as quick for me to bring Lola in to the hospital. The ambulance could be a while yet.”

  “You see how important this musical is?” Lola said, rousing again for a moment. “I told you this Valley needs another ambulance.”

  “Lola, are you sure you’re okay to move?” Bett asked. “You’re not hurt anywhere else? Your back or your legs?”

  “I’m fine. It’s just my sore head and this stupid wrist.” She was shaking violently.

  Carrie was on one side of her, Bett on the other. Bett turned to Daniel, businesslike, serious, in no need of an inner-Anna now. “Daniel, we’ll accept, if you don’t mind. Carrie, you and I go in with her. Anna, you’d better stay here with Ellen. Lola, can you stand?”

  Daniel stepped forward. “I can carry you to the car, Lola, if you need it.”

  “So kind of you, Daniel.” Lola managed to be gracious. “But I’ll walk. Where’s my little Ellen first?” Ellen came forward, and Lola touched her gently on the cheek. “Thank you, my little darling, for doing exactly the right thing.”

  Bett had felt her eyes well up with tears at the sight of Ellen’s face, filled with pride. After that it had been all action, getting Lola to the hospital, into the waiting room. Daniel Hilder had been there, gentle, helping; then he had gone before Bett had a chance to thank him.

  On the phone, Jim Quinlan sounded relieved. “You’re absolutely sure you don’t need us there, Bett?”

  “I’m sure, Dad. She’s sleeping now. We’re going to go home, too. I’ll call you first thing in the morning.”

  As she hung up, she saw that her hands were shaking. Nurses were moving swiftly up and down the hospital corridor. Carrie was in a chair down a little way, making a call on her mobile phone. To Matthew, Bett presumed.…

  “Bett?”

  She turned. It was Daniel.

  “Is everything okay? Is Lola all right?”

  She nodded. “She’s going to be fine, they think. It looked more serious than it was.” She glanced up at the clock. Nearly two hours had passed since they had arrived, the time speeding past in the flurry of doctors’ visits and X rays, before Lola was finally settled into a small ward. “Have you been waiting all this time?”

  “I didn’t mind. I had a book with me. I thought you and your sister might need a lift back to the motel.”

  She was too tired to be embarrassed or to feel nervous with him. She just gave him a big, grateful smile. “Thank you.”

  Ten meters away, Carrie was talking into her mobile phone. “… so they’ll keep her in overnight. God knows what would have happened if Ellen hadn’t found her. She was so shocked she hadn’t been able to get up off the floor.”

  “What was she doing up on the chair in the first place?” Matthew said. “Don’t tell me, swinging from the light fittings?”

  It was nice to laugh. As soon as she’d heard from the doctors that Lola was going to be all right, she had wanted to ring Matthew. He had been wary when he first answered, but his tone had changed as soon she told him what had happened. Just hearing his voice helped calm her, too. Until he suddenly changed the subject.

  “I want to come down, Carrie.” He paused. “Not just for Lola, but also to see Bett. I think I need to. I’ve been thinking about her a lot.”

  Something chilled in her again. She thought of the photo she’d found. “No, you can’t.”

  “Carrie, come on.” He sounded cross, impatient again. “What do you think will happen? That I’ll decide I made a mistake and go back to her?”

  So the thought of that had been in his head already. “I don’t know what would happen, and I don’t want to find out.”

  “Carrie, don’t hang up. Can’t you see—”

  She didn’t want to see anything else that night. “The doctor is coming back, Matthew. I have to go. I’ll be in touch.”

  “Carrie—”

  “Good-bye.” She hung up first, once again. Composing herself, she walked over to Bett and Daniel.

  At the motel, Anna was kneeling beside Ellen’s bed. She stroked the hair back from Ellen’s face and tucked the sheet in close around her shoulders. The child was nearly asleep, stirring now and again to ask another question. “Lola will be all right, Mum, won’t she? They’re not taking her to be put down, are they?”

  Anna stopped herself from laughing. Their neighbor’s cat in Sydney had been run over and had needed to be taken to the vet to be put down. Anna thought she’d explained the situation to Ellen well when it happened, telling her the truth, that the cat had broken so many bones and was in such terrible pain it was kinder to end its life than try to fix it. She stroked her forehead again. “Of course not, Ellie. The doctors and nurses know exactly what to do, and she’ll be back home before we know it.”

  Ellen’s eyelids fluttered
, then closed, and in seconds her breathing was slow, measured. Anna waited a moment longer, then leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead and whispered, “I’m just going to turn all the lights off in the motel and then I’ll be right back.”

  As Anna came out of her room, she jumped as a figure appeared in front of her. It was Richard. She noticed the bar and function room were already in darkness.

  He came closer. “I hope you don’t mind, I wanted to do something, so I closed up for you. I’ve been here so long I know where all the light switches are.”

  “Thank you,” she said, surprised and touched.

  “And Lola will be all right?”

  Anna nodded. “I’m sure she will. It’s us who nearly died of the shock.”

  Richard looked concerned. “Anna, can I make you a cup of tea? Or perhaps a hot chocolate? I know my way around the kitchen, I think. Would you like that? You must have had a terrible fright tonight.”

  “Yes. Yes, I have. Thanks, Richard. That would be really kind of you.”

  Then she burst into tears.

  The blue station wagon pulled up in front of the motel. “Thanks, Daniel,” Carrie said from the front passenger seat beside him.

  “Yes. Thanks, Daniel,” Bett said from the back.

  “I was happy to do it. You’re both okay from here?”

  “We’re fine, thanks,” Bett managed to get in first.

  “And will you tell Lola I was asking after her?”

  “Of course.” Bett hesitated for a moment, wondering if this was the opportunity to speak to Daniel. She had to mention something about their night together, or the tension at work would be too much. But she couldn’t do it now. Not with Carrie in earshot. Her sister already seemed to be taking what seemed like hours to undo her seat belt and get out of the front.