The Liberation of Alice Love - Abby McDonald [68]
Alice laughed. “I’m sure they’ll complain about everything, once they reach their teens.”
“Don’t remind me.” Rupert made a face. “A teenager! I can’t even get my head around a toddler yet, let alone the big, scary ones.”
“You’ll be fine, I’m sure.” Alice patted his arm. “I can see you now, one of those swaddling hammocks slung over your back, and a bottle in each hand.”
Rupert grinned. “I’m already building a crib. Or, at least, trying to. It’s still in pieces on the bedroom floor; I thought I better start early.” He looked around. “Say, have you got time for tea?”
“Sure,” Alice agreed. “Downstairs?”
“Lead on.”
***
They ordered thick porcelain mugs of tea, and wedges of cake, settling in the wood-paneled café among tourists and a battalion of blue-rinsed pensioners.
“How is everyone at the office?” Rupert asked, spooning sugar into his cup. A few granules fell, and he pressed his finger to the tabletop to scoop them up. “I haven’t heard from Vivienne in a while, but I suppose everything’s winding down for summer.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Alice swallowed her mouthful of cake. “Fairly quiet. Which is a relief, for me anyway.”
“Of course. Toiling away up their in your garret.”
“Garret?” Alice laughed. “You make it sound like I’m dying of consumption.”
Rupert chuckled. “Still, I wish the summer wasn’t like this—so slow. With the baby coming…” He sighed. “But that’s the actor’s lot, I suppose. Predictable, our careers will never be.”
Alice sipped her tea, wondering if she should say anything about Vivienne’s newly redirected affections. “Have you got names picked out?” she asked instead.
Rupert’s face brightened. “Some. We like old-fashioned, solid names.”
“None of this Ariel and Bronx nonsense,” Alice agreed quickly.
“Exactly,” he agreed. “I like Lucy for a girl, and Miles, a boy, but Keisha has other ideas.”
“Like what?” she took a sip. It couldn’t be that bad, Keisha was a sweetly sensible human resources manager he’d met at the Learn Your Own Book-Keeping seminar—hardly the type to go esoteric on him.
But Rupert made a face. “Napoleon.”
Alice spluttered, “Oh, no, that’s terrible!”
“I’ve tried to make her see sense.” Rupert shook his head, resigned. “At least there’s time.”
“Wage a good campaign,” Alice advised. “Or, as a last resort, change the birth certificate. I wish my father had managed to get to it in time.”
“What do you mean?” Rupert looked up.
Alice paused, realizing her slip. “Oh, nothing.” She reached quickly for a nearby brochure. “Did you take a look at the summer schedule yet? There are lots of good exhibitions coming up.”
“Come on, you can’t say something like that and then not spill the details.” He wagged his finger at her, undeterred.
She bit her lip. “Alice…isn’t exactly my name. At least, not my full name.” Rupert leaned forward, but Alice still hesitated. “You can’t tell, I’m warning you.”
“Scout’s honor.”
“And I’m only divulging this in the service of baby naming, as a cautionary tale.” Alice continued. She wasn’t even exaggerating: nobody but her parents—and now, Alice supposed, Ella—had ever known the full horror of her birth name. By the time it came to her christening, even her father had seen sense and ensured that the elderly vicar welcomed plain Alice Love into the world.
Rupert waited. “Now I’m really intrigued.”
Taking a deep breath, Alice admitted, “My real name is actually Alicia. Well, Persephone Angelique Alicia Love.” She recited the name like the prison sentence it was.
Rupert blinked. “Wow. Um.” He coughed. “Wow.”
Alice nodded slowly. There was a method to the madness, she’d been assured. Her mother had wanted an exceptional name for what would surely be an exceptional child, and matching the goddess of the underworld with a more heavenly name made perfect sense. By modern London standards, it wasn’t particularly shocking, but twenty-nine years ago, in their small Sussex village? It was only the memory of his recently departed mother that made her father Richard tack on the last, simpler name, thus saving little