44 Scotland Street - Alexander McCall Smith [63]
“Do you think she’ll miss us?” Todd had said to his wife shortly after her departure. “She looked so happy. It was almost as if she was pleased to go.”
Sasha sighed. “She’s a strange girl. I’m not sure if I understand her, but I’m sure she’ll miss us.”
Todd had been silent. He had wanted a son, who would play rugby for Watson’s and who would in due course join the firm. But life rarely worked out as one planned it and when no further children had arrived he had accepted his lot, to be the father of a daughter who seemed each year to become more distant from him, and increasingly uninterested in his world. He looked to his wife for an explanation, and a solution, but it seemed that she was as incapable as he was of communicating with their daughter. It crossed his mind that it was dislike – as simple as that – a failure of the intricate, inexplicable chemistry that makes one person like or love another. But that was a bleak conclusion, and was only once, very briefly, articulated when Todd had said to the then sixteen-year-old Lizzie: “I suppose you’d like me more, wouldn’t you, if I were Sean Connery?”
And she had looked at him blankly, perplexed, and had said: “But you aren’t,” before she added: “And I suppose you’d like me more if I were Gavin Hastings.” It had not been a profitable exchange.
Years on now, Lizzie slipped her key into the lock and opened the parental door. She sniffed at the air. This was the familiar smell of home, but not a smell that she particularly liked. Her mother’s cleaner used a lavender-scented furniture polish and the smell of this pervaded the house. It had always been there, from the earliest days of Lizzie’s childhood, and it had ruined lavender for her, forever.
From within the house there came the sound of a bath being
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run. Todd was late back from the golf course and needed a bath before changing into his kilt. Sasha, by contrast, was always ready well in advance, and was making her way down the corridor, fully dressed, when she heard Lizzie come in. When the two of them met in the hall, Sasha glanced quickly at Lizzie’s dress. Had she made an effort? That was the issue. It would be typical of her to agree to come to the ball and then do nothing about looking her best for the occasion.
The verdict was positive. “That’s a very pretty dress, dear,”
said Sasha. “And those shoes . . .”
They were standing at the entrance to the drawing room and Lizzie now turned away and walked towards the window that looked out over the distant rooftops of Morningside.
“They hurt my feet,” she said. “I’m going to have to take something else with me.”
“I can lend you a pair,” Sasha said brightly. “I bought them just a few weeks ago. They’d go very nicely with that dress.”
She went off to fetch the shoes, while Lizzie stared moodily out of the window.
“Here,” said Sasha, holding out the shoes. “Slip into these. They’ll be much more comfortable.”
Lizzie looked at the pair of velvety, bejewelled shoes which Velvety Shoes
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Sasha was holding out to her. There was a slight movement of her nose, almost undetectable, but insofar as it could be detected, upward.
“Where did you buy those?” she asked. And then, before Sasha could reply, Lizzie continued, “I saw a pair just like that in Marks and Spencers the other day. Did you get them at Marks?”
Sasha froze. “Marks? Marks?” Her voice wavered, but then became steely. “Certainly not. I got these from a shoe boutique in William Street. If you care to look at the label, you’ll see exactly where they’re from.”
Lizzie reached out and took the shoes from her mother. She looked inside and shrugged when she saw the boutique’s label.
“Not really the sort of shoe I like to wear,” she said. “Of course, they might suit you. In fact, I’m sure they do. Don’t get me wrong.”
“I’d never force you to wear