mother and Sylvia precede him when the doorman treated them to the sight of his palm. "Can you show me your invitations?" he said.
"They're my family," Margo told him. "They're with me."
"Sorry, madam, but it's one guest per invited person. That's because of the numbers they're expecting to attend."
"I'm glad to hear I'm doing so well, and I know you're only doing your job, but this is ridiculous. Where's Lucinda?"
As the smokers grew hushed with interest in Margo or in the argument, Sam said "I can see your exhibition next time I visit dad. I expect he'll want to see it anyway. I'll take the train and meet you all back home."
"That's kind, Sam, but it doesn't solve the problem," Heather said, thinking yet again that he hadn't been so restless on a journey since he was a small child.
"There'd still be one too many."
"That can be me," Sylvia said at once. "I'll come down when Sam does."
"You're both very thoughtful."
Heather was wondering if Margo had concealed any hurt in that, and reminding herself not to ask after Sylvia's condition until they were alone, when both doors were opened at arms'
length by a woman more middle-aged than her ankle-length backless silver-scaled dress and carelessly cropped ash-blonde hair were designed to make her appear. "Margo dearest," she cried. "Why are you hovering out there? Come and raise a glass to yourself."
"Not unless my family can too, Lucinda. Apparently they aren't allowed in without tickets."
"Most emphatically they are. Did I forget to tell you they were imminent, George?
Apologies to all."
"No problem, Mrs. Hunt," the doorman said with a butler's discreet cough. "Can't think of everything."
"File in, do," Lucinda Hunt urged. "Nobody's more welcome. Quick, while there's bubbly."
She strode flashing like a collection of knives through the crowd to a table bearing flutes of champagne and tumblers of orange juice. "Anyone not tippling?" she enquired.
"I'm not much," Heather said.
"You're a great deal," Margo protested. "All my family is."
"I'll take an orange juice," Sylvia said.
"Aren't you going to help me celebrate when Heather's driving?"
"I feel like I'm still travelling when I've been on the road."
"At least someone isn't going to make it look as if I'm drinking more than my guests,"
Margo commented, for Sam had already picked up and half emptied a flute.
Heather waited to be handed one and strolled after Sylvia to murmur in her ear "Is that all that's wrong, what you said?"
"I had to give mom some kind of explanation. You ought to know why I'm staying clear of alcohol."
"Just trying to look after my sister."
"You don't need to here. It's almost like being back inside mom."
While Heather wouldn't have phrased it quite in those terms, she supposed her experience wasn't altogether unlike Sylvia's. The first room of the exhibition was so full of familiar images-even the original of the impossible tree in her hall-that she found it felt positively comfortable. The next room represented Margo's English period, and the third contained all that year's work. Heather made for that one, only to frown at herself-surely only at herself.
She'd seen most of the pieces in Margo's studio, and had thought them her mother's best work: carvings that conveyed a sense of the infinite contained within the small, a quality Heather loved in the paintings. Now the carvings looked like no more than they used to be, pieces of deadwood whose shape Margo had elaborated, perhaps over-elaborated. Heather told herself she was exhausted by driving and, worse, by parking. She was circling one sculpture after another in an increasingly anxious solitary dance when a woman said "She's lost it, hasn't she?"
She was frowning delicately at Margo's latest piece. Her thin pale long-chinned face was framed by a pair of dangling ringlets that pretended to have escaped from the mass of black curls packed on her scalp. "I didn't mind some of her earlier product," her
"They're my family," Margo told him. "They're with me."
"Sorry, madam, but it's one guest per invited person. That's because of the numbers they're expecting to attend."
"I'm glad to hear I'm doing so well, and I know you're only doing your job, but this is ridiculous. Where's Lucinda?"
As the smokers grew hushed with interest in Margo or in the argument, Sam said "I can see your exhibition next time I visit dad. I expect he'll want to see it anyway. I'll take the train and meet you all back home."
"That's kind, Sam, but it doesn't solve the problem," Heather said, thinking yet again that he hadn't been so restless on a journey since he was a small child.
"There'd still be one too many."
"That can be me," Sylvia said at once. "I'll come down when Sam does."
"You're both very thoughtful."
Heather was wondering if Margo had concealed any hurt in that, and reminding herself not to ask after Sylvia's condition until they were alone, when both doors were opened at arms'
length by a woman more middle-aged than her ankle-length backless silver-scaled dress and carelessly cropped ash-blonde hair were designed to make her appear. "Margo dearest," she cried. "Why are you hovering out there? Come and raise a glass to yourself."
"Not unless my family can too, Lucinda. Apparently they aren't allowed in without tickets."
"Most emphatically they are. Did I forget to tell you they were imminent, George?
Apologies to all."
"No problem, Mrs. Hunt," the doorman said with a butler's discreet cough. "Can't think of everything."
"File in, do," Lucinda Hunt urged. "Nobody's more welcome. Quick, while there's bubbly."
She strode flashing like a collection of knives through the crowd to a table bearing flutes of champagne and tumblers of orange juice. "Anyone not tippling?" she enquired.
"I'm not much," Heather said.
"You're a great deal," Margo protested. "All my family is."
"I'll take an orange juice," Sylvia said.
"Aren't you going to help me celebrate when Heather's driving?"
"I feel like I'm still travelling when I've been on the road."
"At least someone isn't going to make it look as if I'm drinking more than my guests,"
Margo commented, for Sam had already picked up and half emptied a flute.
Heather waited to be handed one and strolled after Sylvia to murmur in her ear "Is that all that's wrong, what you said?"
"I had to give mom some kind of explanation. You ought to know why I'm staying clear of alcohol."
"Just trying to look after my sister."
"You don't need to here. It's almost like being back inside mom."
While Heather wouldn't have phrased it quite in those terms, she supposed her experience wasn't altogether unlike Sylvia's. The first room of the exhibition was so full of familiar images-even the original of the impossible tree in her hall-that she found it felt positively comfortable. The next room represented Margo's English period, and the third contained all that year's work. Heather made for that one, only to frown at herself-surely only at herself.
She'd seen most of the pieces in Margo's studio, and had thought them her mother's best work: carvings that conveyed a sense of the infinite contained within the small, a quality Heather loved in the paintings. Now the carvings looked like no more than they used to be, pieces of deadwood whose shape Margo had elaborated, perhaps over-elaborated. Heather told herself she was exhausted by driving and, worse, by parking. She was circling one sculpture after another in an increasingly anxious solitary dance when a woman said "She's lost it, hasn't she?"
She was frowning delicately at Margo's latest piece. Her thin pale long-chinned face was framed by a pair of dangling ringlets that pretended to have escaped from the mass of black curls packed on her scalp. "I didn't mind some of her earlier product," her
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