The Secret Life of Evie Hamilton - Catherine Alliott [4]
Shocked for the second time by my impure thoughts, I resolved, as we all filed out ten minutes later into the sunshine, congratulating the young people as they stood about awkwardly, to be more sisterly. More… supportive.
Caro turned to me, a defensive look in her eye. ‘You're coming back to the house?’
‘Of course,’ I smiled.
‘Good,’ she beamed, clearly imagining, I realized with a jolt, that I might not. ‘We haven't done much in the way of catering, just a glass of sherry and some sandwiches.’
‘Lovely,’ I said faintly, knowing the sherry would be sweet and the sandwiches curly, and wondering how Caro had got so determinedly stuck in the 1950s when she hadn't even lived through them. Why she was so determined to be a parody of a landowner's wife.
‘Of course, we would have done lunch,’ she said, peeling off her gloves – Granny's gloves, I realized with surprise – and scurrying down the path, ‘but it gets so expensive, doesn't it?’
Ah, there it was: the first reference to penury. Plenty more where that came from. She hurried up the lane to the farm where our land – her land – adjoined the churchyard. Stick thin as ever, bent at the waist as if against a howling gale, she bustled along and I followed, just as I'd followed her to lessons or PE, always with that same steely determination; always needing to get on.
In my not terribly strenuous efforts to catch up with her I passed Mum and Felicity, loitering by the church gate, looking furtive.
‘Coming?’ I called cheerily.
Felicity glanced over her shoulder. ‘Er, no.’
‘No?’ I stopped in my tracks.
‘Well, the thing is, Evie, we've got tickets – have had tickets, for ages – for a choral concert at Christ Church. Tom James is the soloist, and we told Caro at the time, when she arranged this, that we could only come to the church, but you know what she's like.’ Felicity looked genuinely fearful, whilst Mum grinned, eyes rolling, enjoying herself hugely.
‘Oh, I think we just tell her to piss off, don't you?’ she said loudly, puffing on a ciggie. ‘After all, it's Jack's party, and he's not fussed, are you, darling?’
‘Go on, you ravers, off you go.’ Jack appeared behind us, putting an arm around each of their shoulders, hustling them towards their car. ‘Off to your gig. Your guilty secret is safe with me. Like the leggings, Granny.’
‘Thank you, darling.’ She struck a pose. ‘I thought if I wore skin-tight Lycra I wouldn't be so tempted to throw my knickers.’
This was baffling even for Mum, and I wondered if she'd got Tom James muddled with an ageing crooner from Wales. Two hours of Fauré's Requiem might come as a bit of a shock if she was expecting to punch the air to ‘Sex Bomb’.
‘Well, you look terrific,’ said Jack, unfazed. ‘Got a fag, Granny?’
‘Yes, darling.’ Mum went for her handbag. ‘Here, I—’
‘No she hasn't,’ hissed Felicity, staying Mum's hand and glancing round tremulously. ‘Caro will freak. Now come on, Barbara, we're in enough trouble as it is. Let's get going.’
Jack and I shielded them as they hastened to Felicity's old green Subaru, and then, as they drove away, we turned to join the straggle of people making their way down the lane to the farm.
‘I've got half a mind to go with them,’ Jack said gloomily, pulling a butt out of his jacket pocket and attempting to set fire to it. It was doomed to failure but he persevered. It always amused me that he deemed me the laissez-faire aunt, the one he could smoke in front of. Or perhaps he was testing me.
‘Oh, come on, Jack, your mum's gone to a lot of trouble.’
He frowned, considering this, his freckled face upturned to the sun. ‘Yes, maybe that's the problem. It's always trouble. Never fun. Oops, talk of the devil.’ He tossed the butt in the hedge as Caro, having gone round the back of the farmhouse, flung open the front door from inside.
‘Come on, Jack, you're supposed to be welcoming everyone!’ she