Love Is a Four Letter Word (34 page)

‘Oh, hi, Dads. That's an invite.' Her shoulders drop in disappointment. ‘They have them for exhibitions. Just passing by, were you?'

‘Most amusing. When did all this happen? And any
idea why ours should have got to us so late?'

‘Can't imagine. Post, eh? Terrible.' She tuts and shakes her head.

Over her father's shoulder, she sees her mother. Alessandra hovers outside in the street, wondering whether it is safe to venture into the bear's den.

‘Hi!' Bella's voice sounds artificially high and bright in her own ears. She clears her throat ‘Er, hi. Hello. Mum. Come in, come in.'

‘Thank you, dear.' Alessandra steps cautiously into the hall. ‘But the invite was postmarked yesterday. Surely the gallery should send them out much earlier?'

‘Mmm.' Bella helps her off with her coat. ‘Just an oversight, I suppose.'

‘We went to see it,' says Alessandra. ‘It was marvellous. We loved it.'

Yeah. Right. Course you did.

Gerald is off now: it's fantastic – why hadn't she told them? – she must be over the moon – he is over the moon – they should both have been at the private view – would have been, of course – and the pictures – they were extraordinary – unforgettable – why did they bother having those other people's stuff in there, cluttering up the place – only to be interrupted by Alessandra saying she had thought them beautiful – the colours so rich – the textures so real she wanted to touch them – and they had argued over which one to buy because of course they must have at least one, would have bought one even if she hadn't been their daughter – and the young girl there had been ever so sweet and offered them coffee when they'd said who they were and made a fuss of them – and Alessandra had bought one for Gerald's birthday in advance and would Bella be sure to bring it next time she visited – if she thought she might be visiting – if she had time at some point.

Then there is silence. Gerald coughs.

‘We don't want to interrupt you if you're busy.' He looks around the room. ‘But we were curious to see the house. Didn't think we should wait for a formal invitation – what with the
post
and all.'

‘No sweat.' Abashed, Bella crosses her arms in front of herself, then lets them drop to her sides. ‘Tea or coffee?'

‘Tea, please,' Gerald says just as Alessandra speaks.

‘Coffee would be marvellous.'

Alessandra's gaze meets Bella's.

‘Tea's fine.'

‘Or coffee,' says Gerald.

Bella shifts a small stack of newspapers from a chair and drops them by the side of the sofa.

‘I'd have had a scoot round with the duster if I'd known you were coming.'

Alessandra opens the kitchen drawers and cupboards, like any keen cook. It is small, she agrees, but seems well laid out, very easy to work in, was Bella doing much cooking or was she too busy painting? Looking through the French windows, they exclaim over the garden with its architectural plants dramatically lit up, casting shadows onto the walls. Then they rather obviously try to play down their praise, switching their attention to the drama of the sweeping curtains framing the view outside, how light the house was, what fine details, the fireplace, the cornices, much more spacious than they had imagined.

‘Can I poke about in the garden?' Her father stands at the French windows, unable to contain himself any longer. Bella unlocks the doors to let him out.

‘Can you see all right? Feel free to weed while you're out there.'

*   *   *

They are alone.

‘Do have a look too if you'd like.'

‘Maybe in a minute.'

‘More coffee?'

‘Please.' Alessandra follows her through to the kitchen.

‘I'm sorry about last time.' Bella forces herself to look up from her mug. ‘I didn't mean – I went a bit overboard. Well, a lot overboard. I was, well, things with Will had— but I don't want to make excuses.'

‘I didn't know at the time. I am sorry. I'd have tried to be a bit more …' Alessandra shrugs, Italianstyle.

Bella clamps down the thought, ‘A bit more … like a different person?'

‘It's OK,' she says.

Alessandra seems to be especially fidgety, repinning strands of her hair that are already neatly in place.

‘Your father says there's something I ought to tell you. I ought to have told you a long time ago.'

‘I'm adopted? I'm the last remaining granddaughter of the lost Czar? I was born a boy? Dads isn't my real father; it was the milkman and that explains why I've got curly hair and can whistle so well.'

Alessandra is silent, waiting for her to finish.

‘Sorry,' says Bella.

‘It doesn't sound so very big now. Seems silly to have hidden it for so long.'

Alessandra asks if she remembers how, when she was a little girl, she was always asking why she didn't have any brothers or sisters.

‘In fact, well I … I did get pregnant again. When you were nearly three. But it didn't feel the same.' She shifts in her seat. ‘It was six, nearly seven months, but I couldn't feel the baby moving. And with you – well,
you were always kicking me.' Her eyes flick over Bella's face. ‘You were very mobile.'

They had examined her again.

‘And I was right. She – the baby – was dead.'

Alessandra starts to fumble in her handbag.

‘Here.' Bella tears her off a sheet of kitchen roll.

‘So silly after all this time.' Alessandra shakes her head, impatient with herself. ‘And. Well. I'm sure they wouldn't do this now. They couldn't. I hope they don't. But then – they induced me. I had to – you see – go through labour knowing she was already dead.' She seems to subside in her chair, deflated.

‘That's horrible.' Bella swallows. ‘You shouldn't have had to go through that.'

They had named the baby Susanna.

‘Did you try to have another one?'

Alessandra shakes her head slowly.

‘They said there was no reason why not. Your father was so keen. I could see it in his face, even when he forced himself not to say anything.' She blows her nose on the kitchen roll surprisingly loudly and laughs. ‘Not very elegant. No. No, I couldn't. I couldn't face it. In case, you know. Not again.'

She clicks open her powder compact and pats at her cheeks.

‘So where's that coffee?'

Bella plunges the cafetière and delves into the cupboard for her biscuit stash. Lays out buttery shortbread on a pretty plate. Alessandra nods appreciatively.

‘And were
you
all right?' Bella says quietly.

Alessandra seems to drift off for a moment, staring at her shortbread as if it were fascinating, as if hardly aware of Bella's presence.

‘Mmm. Physically. I suppose so. I came home afterwards. From the hospital. We went to pick you up from Mrs Mellors next door and – and you stretched your
arms up to me. You were so adorable but so, so –
little,
do you see? You looked so small and I … I couldn't bear it. Gerald always told me I wasn't – wasn't the same after that. With you.'

In her mouth, Bella's biscuit feels like a handful of dry crumbs, flour dust churning into cement. Her throat closes. She turns away and presses a piece of kitchen roll to her lips, discreetly emptying the cloying mass into it; pats her lips, sealing them shut.

‘So, shall we join Dad in the garden?' Alessandra rises to her feet. At the French windows, she pauses and lays a hand lightly on Bella's arm.

‘I'm glad I've told you.'

‘So am I.'

‘But still – I'd prefer it if you didn't keep bringing it up. I really can't – you know.' Her head on one side, eyes wide like a child's. ‘You do see?'

‘Sure.' Bella places her hand on top of Alessandra's and smiles.

Alessandra steps out into the garden.

‘Well now. Isn't this quite splendid? The lighting!
Magnifico!
Gerald-darling, you must be green with envy.'

Bella notices Alessandra peering round the room. She seems to be looking for something. Oh-oh, the lamp. Their house-warming present. Any second now and she would say, ‘Was there something wrong with the lamp?' with a studied sweep of the room, implying there was something suspect about Bella's taste. Bella starts to think of a reply. It had got knocked off a side-table by someone and smashed. The wiring was a little loose but was being fixed. She was incorporating it into a still life; it was set up in her studio and mustn't be disturbed. Viv had loved it so much, she'd borrowed
it for a week so she could talk Nick into getting one exactly the same.

‘These are very elegant, aren't they?' Alessandra gestures to the uplighters on the wall.

‘If you're wondering where your lamp is, just say so. The fact is it looked like it belonged in a stately home. It didn't fit in, OK?'

She scans their faces, expecting outrage or that wounded look.

‘It's fine.' Gerald is smiling, brows raised in amusement. ‘I did give you the receipt in case you wanted to change it.'

She uncrosses her arms and lets her hands fall to her sides.

‘It just wasn't quite me. I'm sorry.'

‘So what did you get instead?' Alessandra casts around as if she might guess.

Bella's face lights up.

‘Here. Come and see.' She tows them upstairs.

They stand in her bedroom, the three of them in a semicircle as if assessing a prize thoroughbred.

‘I've never had one before.' Bella suddenly feels embarrassed, like a child showing off her favourite doll while wondering if she were too old for such things.

‘I should have thought of it,' says Alessandra. ‘Why didn't I think of it? Everyone should have one.'

Gerald steps forward and poses in front of the full-length cheval mirror, holding his lapels.

‘I feel quite the gent seeing myself in this.'

Bella and Alessandra stand behind, flanking him. In the mirror, their eyes meet. A cautious half-smile from Alessandra, like a boy asking a girl out for the first time; the smile returned, then both are eclipsed by Gerald, adopting a certain swagger and beaming fit to bust.

*   *   *

Downstairs again, Alessandra spots the old photographs of herself and Bella on the mantelpiece.

‘Oh! That reminds me.' She opens her handbag and starts to search for something with her long, elegant fingers. ‘They are lovely, aren't they? You look so sweet in them. I'm so glad you have them up. Gerald-dear, we should have them framed. You'll never guess what I found at the back of my dressing-table drawer. I was having a tidy-up. Wait a minute. Here – here it is.'

She hands Bella a small ring box covered in soft blue velvet. Alessandra nods for her to open it.

‘The family jewels?' says Bella.

Inside, lying on a bed of pale pink cotton wool, as if it were a precious stone or a valuable ring, is a shell.

She takes it out and gently probes the inside, at the edge before it starts to curl in on itself; it is touched with pink, and very smooth. She turns the shell over and over in her fingers.

‘Beautiful,' she says. ‘Where's it from?'

‘Don't you remember?' Alessandra is half-smiling, half-frowning. ‘I thought you might. You gave it to me when you were only small. From the beach. It was on that day.' She picks up the photograph again. ‘Yes, I'm sure it was. I'd just been told I was pregnant – before – yes.' Alessandra nods.

And you've kept it all this time?

Her dreams of those early days.
Warm arms around her. The smell of jasmine and face powder and sea. Rubbing noses.
They were memories.

∼ ∼ ∼

The sky is the pure, fierce blue of a child's best summer. It is so blue, it almost hurts to look at it. Still, she tips her head back, trying to swallow the whole sky
inside her so that she can have this colour always. She closes her eyes tight shut now to check, her legs carrying her erratically crab-fashion along the beach. Inside her eyelids, the blue stays clear and strong.

‘Shall I show you how to build a castle?'

Mummy kneels beside her on the hard sand. She scoops sand into the brand new yellow bucket until there is too much, then shows Bella how to slap it down flat with the red metal spade.

‘Now.' She turns the bucket upside down with one deft movement like a conjuror, and sounds a fanfare.
‘Dah-dah.'

Daddy comes back, holding three ice creams as carefully as if they were Mummy's best crystal glasses. Strawberry sauce trickles down onto one of his hands, chocolate down the other. He hands them over and licks his fingers. Mummy breaks off the bottom of her cone and shows Bella how to make a mini cornet with it, topping it with a tiny portion of ice-cream and dab of sauce. Then she sucks the broken end of her big cone. Bella watches, fascinated, and copies her, dribbling ice-cream down her chin and getting it all around her mouth.

‘You look like a clown.' Daddy laughs and Mummy licks a hankie from her bag and wipes Bella's face.

They add three other sand towers to the first to form the corners of a square, then join between them with walls of sand, patted smooth and firm. A ditch is dug all around the castle. Daddy says it will be a moat and that they can make a channel to it from the sea.

They are several feet from the water, but he digs away, making a narrow trench from the water's edge. When it is nearly at the moat, he stops and hands Bella the spade. She cuts through the last barrier of
compacted sand and flicks it up and away, scattering it wide.

The sea rushes through the gap, dividing itself in two where it joins the moat, surging round the ring to meet itself again.

‘There. Now no-one can get in.' Daddy stands back to assess their work, stroking his chin. Bella nods seriously and fingers her own chin. ‘Unless you want them to, of course.'