The Secret Life of Evie Hamilton - Catherine Alliott [111]
Stacey was more animated now, clearly enamoured of her grandfather and showing him Anna's bracelets from Accessorize, then her own jangling assortment on her wrist. ‘The same, Granddad, d'you see? We bought them separately and chose exactly the same. How weird is that?’
As he knocked back half his beer in one thirsty gulp, his huge stomach straining the buttons of his shirt, he exclaimed with her. ‘Aye, luv, look at that, you have! And right tacky they are too.’
‘Granddad!’ She swatted him with the back of her hand as he roared with laughter.
‘Well, lime green and pink, I ask you. What rotten taste you've both got!’ He looked from one girl to the other, teasing them with his eyes, but they were keen too, those eyes, as he took in my daughter, this half-sister of Stacey's. I wondered what he'd see. No, knew what he'd see. The astonishing similarities: the big smile, the high cheekbones and then, as Anna spoke, the educated Oxford accent, unlike his granddaughter's local one, the poise, the confidence an expensive education could buy as she explained; ‘Tat is the new style. It's very avant-garde to be kitsch.’
‘Is it, by 'eck!’ he marvelled, but you could tell he was impressed. His gaze roved to Ant: more brains and more blond hair, the missing link, who was pulling the cork from the bottle, and I saw Ted sip his beer more thoughtfully now, take a moment to digest the provenance, the gene pool that defined his granddaughter.
The evening slipped on. For slip, read well oiled, for Bella forgot to put the vegetables on, which prolonged the cocktail hour, and also people were nervous, so by the time supper was finally on the table, I for one was flying. The table was a long thin slab of oak, and to prevent us being miles apart, Bella had seated three down each side, with Ted and I opposite one another, then the girls, then Ant and Bella. It was the obvious placement: I could hardly sit with Ant, nor Bella with her father, but as the girls chattered to each other across the table, eventually three conversations developed. And I got on famously with Towering Ted, who looked like Gulliver in his tiny chair, most of him spilling over the side. His voice boomed out as he talked, mostly about his daughter, and how all his colleagues at work bought her books, and how he was constantly getting them thrust under his nose to get her to sign.
‘“Hey, Ted. Get your lass to sign this for our Sandra, would you? She loves 'em, can't put 'em down. And me mam!”’
I smiled. ‘You must be very proud.’
His eyes filled as he seized his wine glass. ‘You'll never know, lass.’ His lower lip gave way to an involuntary quiver. ‘Never know.’
And then he knocked back another glass of wine, his face quite purple, and my eyes filled too – why? – as I also knocked back another one, for moral support, for sympathy, for courage.
The girls, who'd managed craftily to recharge their glasses whilst we weren't watching, shrieked and laughed at each other across the table, clearly quite tight, whilst Ant and Bella fell into a quieter conversation at the end. I strained to hear as I pretended to listen to Ted, who was telling me now how a book group near him, down his road in fact, had picked one of Bella's books and then ‘– would you believe it – a couple of months later, on account of enjoyin' it so much, picked another!’ As I nodded and smiled, marvelling and exclaiming, I felt a hand reach in and squeeze my heart. What were they talking about? I heard Stacey's name. Yes, of course. Their daughter. Their daughter. The bizarreness of it hit me. I lunged for my glass. God, this was surreal. What was I doing here? No wonder Ted had given me flowers, no wonder Caro had – for once – been lost in admiration for me. Was I mad? Completely insane? Or a fool? I felt myself wobble, thought, at any moment, I might just get up and announce, ‘Sorry, I can't do this,’ and run out. I steadied myself as Ted rattled on. No. This was right. The right way forward. The only