Hills. There must have been risks, Abigail imagined. But the squat premises were shiny and bustling and the phone rang constantly. Two movie stars were being worked on in the V.I.P. area. (“I could tell you who, but I’d have to smash your head against the Italian marble sink till you bled to death.”) And everyone there seemed to love him, of course.
“When are you coming to my crib?” he asked. “None of this ‘we must do lunch’ crap. Before you go, we diarize.” His house was on the Venice Canals, he told her. The back windows looked out onto the water, and there was a cute little bridge a few hundred feet away. “And I have a boat! A sleepover! How’s a week from next Friday?” He wrote the date on a card, along with his home address and telephone number. “Bring booze and a toothbrush.”
As she shambled back outside into the bright LA sunshine, trying to adjust to her new hair, she couldn’t wipe the silly grin from her face.
Strange—she hardly knew Bren—but she knew she’d take him up on his offer. Another outsider, she supposed. But no, that sold him short; she’d known from the moment they’d parted at the airport that they were mates. There was no “shining.” But there was no agenda, either. He cared. That was it. No weirdness at all like she felt with Becky. Or Melanie. Or Grahame. Or even Stick, for God’s sake. Just comfortable. Watched out for.
L ATER THAT NIGHT , G RAHAME , dressed in a kilt, caught Abigail hovering at Becky’s door. “She’ll be tapping away on that computer of hers,” he said. “Leave her to it for now. Come join us.”
When she was in the place called “care,” the word “party” meant something awful and depressing.
Christmas party!
(Cheap tinsel, ten-year-old plastic tree, self-harming children ripping open thoughtless and impersonal cash-and-carry gifts).
Birthday party!
(Shop-bought cake for tearful abuse survivor).
Leaving party!
(Outdated disco music on cheap old-fashioned CD player that nobody would dance to. Why dance, when you knew you were leaving nowhere to go nowhere?)
But this party—for
her
, she kept having to remind herself—was a proper affair, one that
should
make a person feel happy. Over half of the grown-up men were dressed in kilts, all rented, no doubt, from the same extortionate and pretentious LA shop. Women attempted to outdo each other in dresses so glamorous they looked like a parody of some red-carpet movie premiere. Waiters carried trays of blue cocktails, “the same color as theSt. Andrew’s flag!” (said Melanie, of course.) Waitresses served delicately presented vegetarian haggis and smoked salmon on oatcakes. Celtic music drifted through the garden and pool area. People smiled, talked, and laughed. There were only a few young people. The rest were friends, family, and colleagues of Grahame and Melanie’s.
Abigail would never remember all the names. She wondered if she would ever, ever find anything to say to any of them. They were all aliens.
The chat was the same, over and over.
You look so like your father
.
Sorry, what did you say?
What a change this must be
.
I cannot understand that accent! Hilarious!
How wonderful that you finally found your family
.
What? What are you saying?
Marlborough! You’ll love it
.
I didn’t catch that. You sound just like Billy Connolly!
Do say something Scotch–let me hear the brogue …!
Exactly like Billy Connolly! You just have to laugh!
No one mentioned her mother. Either no one knew about her or she was a dirty word. In the whirl of being presented like an object, Abigail could once again slip back into robot mode. There must have been a reason her mother distrusted her father. But perhaps it was only resentment. While £50,000 was no small sum, this party alone probably cost half that. Maybe Sophie resented the fact that Grahame could have always taken care of Abigail without a second thought. If so,why the hell would Sophie have kept Abigail from him? Why
“When are you coming to my crib?” he asked. “None of this ‘we must do lunch’ crap. Before you go, we diarize.” His house was on the Venice Canals, he told her. The back windows looked out onto the water, and there was a cute little bridge a few hundred feet away. “And I have a boat! A sleepover! How’s a week from next Friday?” He wrote the date on a card, along with his home address and telephone number. “Bring booze and a toothbrush.”
As she shambled back outside into the bright LA sunshine, trying to adjust to her new hair, she couldn’t wipe the silly grin from her face.
Strange—she hardly knew Bren—but she knew she’d take him up on his offer. Another outsider, she supposed. But no, that sold him short; she’d known from the moment they’d parted at the airport that they were mates. There was no “shining.” But there was no agenda, either. He cared. That was it. No weirdness at all like she felt with Becky. Or Melanie. Or Grahame. Or even Stick, for God’s sake. Just comfortable. Watched out for.
L ATER THAT NIGHT , G RAHAME , dressed in a kilt, caught Abigail hovering at Becky’s door. “She’ll be tapping away on that computer of hers,” he said. “Leave her to it for now. Come join us.”
When she was in the place called “care,” the word “party” meant something awful and depressing.
Christmas party!
(Cheap tinsel, ten-year-old plastic tree, self-harming children ripping open thoughtless and impersonal cash-and-carry gifts).
Birthday party!
(Shop-bought cake for tearful abuse survivor).
Leaving party!
(Outdated disco music on cheap old-fashioned CD player that nobody would dance to. Why dance, when you knew you were leaving nowhere to go nowhere?)
But this party—for
her
, she kept having to remind herself—was a proper affair, one that
should
make a person feel happy. Over half of the grown-up men were dressed in kilts, all rented, no doubt, from the same extortionate and pretentious LA shop. Women attempted to outdo each other in dresses so glamorous they looked like a parody of some red-carpet movie premiere. Waiters carried trays of blue cocktails, “the same color as theSt. Andrew’s flag!” (said Melanie, of course.) Waitresses served delicately presented vegetarian haggis and smoked salmon on oatcakes. Celtic music drifted through the garden and pool area. People smiled, talked, and laughed. There were only a few young people. The rest were friends, family, and colleagues of Grahame and Melanie’s.
Abigail would never remember all the names. She wondered if she would ever, ever find anything to say to any of them. They were all aliens.
The chat was the same, over and over.
You look so like your father
.
Sorry, what did you say?
What a change this must be
.
I cannot understand that accent! Hilarious!
How wonderful that you finally found your family
.
What? What are you saying?
Marlborough! You’ll love it
.
I didn’t catch that. You sound just like Billy Connolly!
Do say something Scotch–let me hear the brogue …!
Exactly like Billy Connolly! You just have to laugh!
No one mentioned her mother. Either no one knew about her or she was a dirty word. In the whirl of being presented like an object, Abigail could once again slip back into robot mode. There must have been a reason her mother distrusted her father. But perhaps it was only resentment. While £50,000 was no small sum, this party alone probably cost half that. Maybe Sophie resented the fact that Grahame could have always taken care of Abigail without a second thought. If so,why the hell would Sophie have kept Abigail from him? Why
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