Interpreters by Sue Eckstein Page B

us, a toddler on her shoulders. She is tall and lean, with long, wavy brown hair, some strands of which are tied back with an eclectic collection of clips, combs and multicoloured ribbons. She is wearing faded, frayed jeans and what look to me like layers of coloured blouses under an embroidered waistcoat. Around her wrists are silver bangles. She smiles at my father – a smile so warm and so wide that, for a moment, her dark brown eyes disappear completely. She swings the toddler to the ground. Then she puts her jangling arms around my father and kisses him on the cheek.
    ‘I’m Jane,’ she says to my mother, holding out her hand. ‘It’s lovely to meet you at last.’
    We sit at a long wooden kitchen table. The toddler sits on my father’s lap, one arm wrapped round his neck, fondling my father’s left earlobe. With its other hand, it is fishing for crumbs in the deep cracks in the table with a fork. One of the little dogs jumps on to the table and pinches a piece of fruitcake. Two more children join us. One looks about the same age as me, the other a little younger. I think they are both boys but it’s hard to tell. They each have long curly brown hair and their faces are suntanned and streaked with mud. The younger one seems to be wearing a man’s shirt over his ragged jeans, all the buttons done up in the wrong holes. The older one stands behind his mother, resting his chin on her shoulder. They look so alike, with their dark eyes and high cheekbones, that I find myself smiling. They smile back at me.
    ‘Do you want to come and play with us?’ the child standing behind his mother asks.
    I glance at my mother, who is sitting at the far end of the table watching my father with the small child. I wish – just one little wish – that she would turn and look at me and smile, and say brightly, ‘Off you go and have a good time, darling,’ but I know that she doesn’t want me to go, and I feel that familiar sensation of being slowly torn in two. Love, pity and a biting rage begin to seep through me as I resign myself to staying in the kitchen to protect my mother from whatever it is that’s troubling her.
    ‘Good idea, darling!’ says Jane, smiling. ‘Off you all go – and take some cake with you if you like.’
    I don’t let myself look in the direction of my mother again.
    ‘What are your names?’ the older child asks as we walk through the low-ceilinged passage into the sunny sitting room, munching on fruit cake.
    ‘Julia. And he’s Max.’
    ‘I’m Jolyon and this is Ivo. The little one’s Octavia.’
    ‘Is that a boy or a girl?’ asks Max.
    ‘A girl. It means the eighth but she’s just the third. I don’t think Mummy’s going to have any more now. But you never know. Jamie is quite keen, I think.’
    ‘Who’s Jamie?’
    ‘Octavia’s daddy.’
    ‘I thought she was your sister.’
    ‘She is. But our daddy’s called Matthew. He comes here all the time with his other children. They’re younger than me and Ivo. They’re called Sebastian and Flora. That means flower. What does your name mean?’
    ‘I don’t know. Nothing, I think.’
    ‘How old are you?’ asks Jolyon.
    ‘Twelve,’ says Max.
    ‘Nearly ten,’ I say.
    ‘I’m eight and three-quarters and Ivo’s seven next Tuesday. She’s in love with Oscar,’ says Jolyon matter-of-factly as he throws himself into the huge worn sofa.
    ‘Who is?’ I ask, confused as much by the unexpected use of my father’s name as by the thought of anyone being in love with him.
    ‘Octavia is. She loves him. Jane says Octavia probably knows that Oscar saved her life. Even though she’s so little.’
    ‘She would have died at least three times if it hadn’t been for Oscar,’ says Ivo authoritatively as he (I’m pretty sure by now that he is a he) flicks through a pile of LPs. ‘Jane said, once he drove out to the hospital twice in the same night to save her. Did you know that?’
    ‘No,’ I say.
    Max, Jolyon and Ivo sit on the floor