44 Scotland Street - Alexander McCall Smith [64]
Sasha did not reply. In one sense she was an eight, but she could fit perfectly well into a six-and-a-half, provided she did not have to walk. But she was not going to be drawn into a discussion with Lizzie about shoe sizes. It was typical of her daughter, she thought, just typical, that she should walk into the house on a day like this, a special day when they should all be getting ready to enjoy themselves, and start an argument about shoe sizes. It was all so undermining of her, and so unfair. She had never criticised her daughter’s dress sense, in spite of obvious temptations, and yet all she could do was reject every attempt that she made to help and advise her. Lizzie was beyond pleasing, she concluded, and this meant, she thought grimly, that she would never find a man, as no man was perfect; far from it, in fact –
just look at Raeburn.
52. Silk Organza
Todd glanced at his watch. Bruce might arrive at any moment, but there was time for a whisky before that. He had picked up some of Sasha’s anxiety over the evening, which was inevitable, he supposed, in view of the fact that they were the organisers; a whisky would reassure him. He poured himself a small glass of Macallan and wandered into the drawing room where Lizzie was standing by the window.
“I’m very grateful to you,” he said quietly. “I know that you don’t always enjoy these things. But it means a lot to your mother that you’re coming tonight. So thank you.”
Lizzie continued to look out of the window. “I don’t mind,”
she muttered. “I didn’t have anything else on.”
“Even so,” said Todd. “It’s good of you.”
He heard a door close behind him and he turned round to see Sasha coming into the room, holding a plate of sliced brown bread and smoked salmon. She put the plate down on a table and came to his side.
“You look so good in your kilt,” she said, turning to Lizzie.
“Your father does look good in it, doesn’t he?”
“Yes,” said Lizzie, without any great enthusiasm. Todd shot her a glance. He did not mind if she was lukewarm about what he was wearing, but it would be nice, would it not, if for once she complimented her mother.
“And your mother looks good too, doesn’t she?” he said. “With that magnificent dress. And the shoes.”
Lizzie looked Sasha up and down. “Silk organza. Fish-tail hem, I see,” she said.
“Fish what?” asked Todd.
“Fish-tail hem,” repeated Lizzie, pointing at Sasha’s dress.
“You’ll see that it’s higher in the front – shows her knees – and then goes down at the back like a fish tail. Very popular among the twenty-somethings.”
Todd looked at Sasha, who was staring at her daughter. “Well, I like it very much,” he said. “Twenty-something, forty-something
– what’s the difference?”
Silk Organza
135
“Twenty years,” said Lizzie.
Sasha bent down and picked up a piece of buttered brown bread with its small covering of smoked salmon. For a moment Todd wondered whether she was going to use it as a weapon, but she popped it into her mouth and quickly licked the tips of her fingers.
“Actually,” Sasha said, “I had this dress made up for me from a photograph I saw in Harpers. And, if I remember correctly, the person wearing it in the magazine was not in her twenties.”
“Teens?” asked Lizzie.
Sasha looked at Todd. He saw that she had coloured, and that her lower lip was quivering. He turned to his daughter.
“Do you have to be like this?” he asked. “Do you have to say cruel things? Do you have to upset your mother?”
Lizzie’s expression was one of injured innocence. “But I didn’t say anything,” she protested. “I merely said that that sort of dress was very popular among younger people. What’s wrong with that? It’s just an observation.”
“Except that you think that I’m too old to be wearing it,”
Sasha blurted out. “That’s it, isn’t it? You’re never happy unless you make me feel small. You’ll be forty-four one day, you know.”
“Forty-five,” said Lizzie.
At this remark, Sasha turned sharply away and walked out of the room, leaving