The Alphabet Sisters (33 page)

“She used to be. That’s my patch these days. Six months of backbreaking work in that. To think I could go and buy it in the shop in less than five minutes.”

He opened the door and she followed him inside to the living room. It was a bright cheery area, full of feminine touches—bright cushions, light curtains, women’s magazines, and family photos on lots of the cupboards. He switched on the overhead fans, sending a cool breeze through the warm room.

“You’re sure you want to see this?”

“If you’re sure you want to share it.”

“I bet I’ll regret it, but yes.” He smiled. “I’ll get the tape.”

While he was gone she studied a photo on the TV, an old black-and-white shot of a man and a woman with a baby. Daniel’s parents, she guessed. His mother was very elegant. The house was obviously her work as well. Looking around, she noticed several unusual touches. There were colored lines on the floor, and locks on the cupboards. Like a kindergarten crossed with a
Home Beautiful
centerspread.

He returned with the tape. “Unfortunately I was able to land my hands on it straightaway.”

She put down the photo, hoping he hadn’t minded her looking. “Are you an only child?”

“No, I’ve got a younger sister. Christine. She’s away studying in New Zealand at the moment.”

“Oh, right. And has she got children?”

“No.”

She didn’t think he had children, either. She was puzzled. The house looked as if it had been well and truly childproofed. Maybe his mother did child-minding. She’d liked to have asked more questions, but he was now crouched in front of the television and video recorder. She looked at his long back, lean under the T-shirt, and had to blink away a clear memory of kissing it.

He pressed Play and then Pause so that a shimmery stilled image appeared on the screen. “You realize I’m doing this only in the interests of fairness. After me seeing those photos of you and the Alphabet Sisters.”

She took a seat on the sofa and nodded. “I understand. The ‘I show you mine and you show me yours’ principle.” In light of their Melbourne meeting, it suddenly felt like the wrong thing to have said.

His lip twitched. “That’s right.” He leaned against the door frame behind her and pointed the remote control.

She was laughing out loud in just moments. It was a low-budget TV talent show from the early 1980s. The set appeared to be made of tinfoil and plastic cartons. Dangerous were on third, after a woman singing a fast and off-key version of “Love Me Do” and a dreamy-looking harpist playing a Scottish air, also very fast. The host introduced Dangerous with mock fear, warning viewers that the following scenes might disturb.

She recognized Daniel immediately, a smaller version of himself, with black kohl around his eyes, black lipstick, spiky hair, and ripped clothes. Skinny white arms poked out of his torn T-shirt, and he’d perfected a good snarl that obviously amused the director. There were at least six close-ups of Daniel pulling a face at the camera. The lyrics were straightforward, about being tormented with nightmares about rats and spiders and snakes.

She was still laughing by the time Daniel pressed Pause. She had to wipe her eyes, sure there was mascara all over her face. “So did you win?”

“No, and to this day, I don’t know why. I think we were much better than the harpist. Did you like the lyrics? I can write them down for you if you want.”

“No, thanks anyway. What was that rhyme in the chorus again, snake with awake? Very inflammatory.”

“Don’t mock a twelve-year-old. It was hard to talk about bringing down the government when you couldn’t spell the word. I stuck to what I knew. The girls at school were terrified of me.”

“You’re lucky Lola hasn’t seen this. She’d have written a part in the musical especially for you. You beat the Alphabet Sisters hands down.”

“Oh, I don’t know. What was it you won? Third prize in the Miss Indooroopilly Talent Quest of 1978? Even though you were the only entrants?”

“Lola told you about that as well?”

“No, you told me. That night in Melbourne.”

“I did?”

“Don’t you remember? When we left the party and went to that little Italian bar. You told me all about the Alphabet Sisters. I hadn’t laughed so much in a long time.”

“I did? You hadn’t?”

He gave her a long, thoughtful look. “Bett, do you actually remember much of that night?”

She’d spent three years trying to forget it. “Um, yes, some of it.”

A pause. “Do you mind telling me which parts?”

“I remember meeting you at the club.”

“Yes.”

“And I remember … going to the bar. And then to your flat, talking, and then, um, going to bed with you …”

A glimmer of a smile. “Good.”

Something about the way he was looking at her made her want to tell him the truth. “But mostly I remember waking up and being so embarrassed at my behavior I crept away as quickly as I could.”

“Embarrassed? Why?”

“You know,” she said feebly. She couldn’t say the rest of it. Because I seemed to have got it into my head I was a sex goddess. Because I didn’t so much throw myself at you as hurl myself at you … 

“Bett, don’t be embarrassed. I enjoyed it. All of it.” He gave a slight shrug. “That’s why I was disappointed that you’d gone when I woke up. Before we’d had a chance to swap numbers. I went back to the bar we met at a couple of times, but I didn’t see you there again.”

“You did?” She hadn’t gone within a two-mile radius of the place after that night.

“I was going to ring the motel here, to see if they had a number. But I thought because of all the problems with your sister and your fiancé that might be a bit awkward.”

She cringed inside. Had she shut up for a single moment all night?

“And then I figured if you’d wanted to see me again, you would have left a note. Look, as I said the other day, I was disappointed you didn’t want to see me again, but I got over it. I don’t want you to feel awkward about this.”

“That’s what you meant last week when you said you’d got over it?”

He looked puzzled. “What did you think I meant?”

“That you’d got over the night. Got over how terrible it was. And then you said that it wasn’t the first time and it wouldn’t be the last time. I thought you were talking about having one-night stands.”

He threw back his head and laughed. “Oh, yes. Danger Hilder rides again. No, Bett. I actually don’t make a habit of one-night stands. Not that we were a real one-night stand, anyway, were we? Don’t one-night stands have to be between strangers?”

“I’m not too sure of the official definition. I haven’t made a habit of them either.”

“No?” There was a sparkle in his eye. “You’re very good at them, for a novice.”

“You’re one to talk.” She could hardly believe they were joking about this.

His phone beeped, and he checked the text message. “I don’t know why I thought country papers would be quieter than city ones. We’d better get back.”

They were pulling into the carpark behind the
Valley Times
office when she felt she had to mention it one more time.

“Daniel, thank you for being so nice about it today.” She hesitated. “And three years ago.”

“It was my pleasure, Bett.”

Bett knew he was remembering exactly what she was remembering. “Good. Great. Well, see you later, then.” Once again, she nearly tripped as she climbed out of the car.

Chapter Nineteen

W
elcome, General MacArthur. Can I offer you one of our finest lamingtons?”

Anna sighed. Still no good. So much for her pep talk the previous week. Yes, some of them had learned their lines, and yes, some of the songs sounded a bit better, but the acting was still atrocious. There was no other word for it. This was the fifth run-through of the scene featuring the CWA president, Mrs. Smith, greeting the newly arrived General MacArthur at the Terowie Station, and it was getting worse, not better.

“One more time? With perhaps a little bit of enthusiasm?” The woman sounded as though she was offering him a plate of snake heads instead of cakes.

Mrs. Smith put her hands on her hips. “I can’t help it if I don’t like lamingtons. Have you ever tried to make them? You get chocolate icing and coconut all over the place and the cake always crumbles.”

“Well, could you pretend you like lamingtons? Just for this scene?”

“Can’t I offer him a cheese sandwich or something simple like that?”

Anna kept her voice calm. “An American general has survived days of fierce battles, has traveled on a train for hours and hours to your tiny town in the middle of nowhere, and you want to offer him a cheese sandwich?”

“He might like cheese sandwiches. We might have heard from one of his people that he likes cheese sandwiches. Sometimes the simple things are what people want. I read in a magazine once that Princess Diana used to get sick of all that fancy food and would long for a night in front of the TV eating cheese on toast.”

Anna tried counting to ten. Then to twenty. It didn’t help. What had gotten into them all tonight? She looked around the room. Romeo and the American GI were playing an improvised game of table tennis in a corner of the room. The musicians from the high school were reading pop magazines instead of rehearsing their songs with Bett. General MacArthur was sending text messages. The plumber playing Jack-the-Lad had disappeared, muttering something about a burst pipe in one of the pubs in town.

Things had been as bad earlier, too. Kaylene had at least learned her lines, but was insisting on speaking them in an English accent.

“Kaylene, you can’t,” Anna had said. “She’s American.”

“But she doesn’t sound posh enough. Can’t she be English? I love doing English accents.”

“If we were doing
My Fair Lady,
yes. But you’re Mrs. MacArthur. Mrs. Married-to-the-American-general-and-an-American-herself MacArthur. So will you please speak in an American accent?”

Kaylene folded her arms. “There’s no need to get huffy about it.”

Things had gone no better with Kaylene’s father, either. Len had arrived with the first of the set panels that evening. His painting of the railway station at Terowie looked more like the interior of a submarine. He had been telling her for days how well the train was going and then had produced it in a shoebox. It was five inches long.

“Len, I don’t know if this is going to work on the stage. It’s a bit small, don’t you think?”

“This is the model, Anna.” He roared laughing. “As if this would be the real one.”

“It’s just you’ve spent days making it, and I’m a bit worried we’re running out of time.”

“It’s the detail that takes time. See, Anna, take a look. I’ve even painted tiny people in the carriages. Have a look.”

Anna looked. Yes, so he had. A row of faces grinned wildly out of one of the little carriages. Marvelous. Splendid. Especially if she was planning on staging this musical in an ant farm. What was she supposed to do—give everyone in the audience a pair of binoculars?

“So can it be a cheese sandwich, Anna?” the CWA woman asked stubbornly now. “Maybe even a cheese and tomato sandwich?”

Anna stared at her. “Can you please excuse me?”

She marched out the door, across the carpark, and knocked politely on Lola’s door.

“Come in.”

Lola was in bed, a folder of papers on her lap. “Anna, darling, how are things going?”

Anna opened her mouth, screamed, then shut her mouth again. Feeling much better, she turned on her heel and returned to the rehearsals.

T
he next morning in his room, Richard Lawrence took a break from his writing and picked up the latest edition of the
Valley Times.
As he flicked through the pages, an article on page five caught his eye.

Auditions Unearth Valley’s Hidden Talent

Auditions for the forthcoming fund-raiser musical
Many Happy Returns
unearthed a surprising amount of local talent, musical director Anna Quinlan said this week.

All seven lead roles have been cast, with a large chorus also assembled for the 1940s-style musical, written by Anna’s grandmother, Lola Quinlan (eighty).

The musical is loosely based on the true story of General Douglas MacArthur’s wartime visit to the small town of Terowie.

It will be staged at the Clare Town Hall on March 20, the anniversary of General MacArthur’s visit to Terowie. All proceeds will go to the Buy a New Ambulance Fund. Tickets are available from the Valley View Motel.

Richard smiled. Anna had told him she’d given a diplomatic interview to the local paper. She had called over for another drink after rehearsals the evening before. She was such good company, full of stories about plays she’d been in, voice-overs she’d done, but filled with questions for him as well, about London, about his work. She’d also been keeping him hugely entertained with stories of the rehearsals, five-inch trains, stubborn actors, and all.

“It’s not too late for you to join in, you know,” she’d said. “I’m sure I could find you a part. General MacArthur even.”

“No thanks. I’m happy to save myself up for the opening-night audience.” He’d already extended his stay for another fortnight so he could be there.

His mobile rang, and he hoped briefly it was Anna calling from Adelaide. She’d told him she was going there early that morning to hunt down some costumes for the musical. She’d thought it was safely in Len’s hands and then discovered his idea of an army uniform was a spray-painted ice-cream container helmet and a broomstick as a gun—with the bristles still attached.

The name Charlie came up on the phone display. Charlie Wentworth, a university friend currently traveling around Australia producing an offbeat cable TV travel series. “Charlie, hello.”

“Mr. Lawrence, how are things with you? That book of yours still coming along?”

“Couldn’t be better. How about you? Still headed this way?” He settled back, preparing to be entertained as his friend filled him in on the latest batch of items he’d been filming. The program specialized in quirky “Did you know?” stories. Last time they’d spoken Charlie had just finished a segment on Australia’s oversize tourist attractions—the giant fiberglass pineapples, koalas, lobsters, and oranges dotted around the countryside.