Losing Nicola by Susan Moody

that child would try the patience of a saint.’
    â€˜Not that you’d know much about sainthood,’ said Orlando, so low that only Bertram and I heard him.
    â€˜That’s quite enough from all of you,’ said Fiona. ‘Now, this may be the holidays, but I, for one, have work to do.’
    â€˜I read your last story while I was in the hairdressers,’ said Miss Vane hastily. ‘It was really awfully good.’
    â€˜Thank you so much. Which one was it?’
    â€˜Something to do with a lonely little boy befriending an old lady . . . or was it an old man? I’m sorry, I can’t remember. But I know it was lovely.’
    â€˜Good. Now, everybody, there’s one last thing.’
    We stopped pushing back our chairs to listen.
    â€˜In view of the coming changes, and since it will coincide nicely with Alice’s birthday, I thought we might have a party before the end of the holidays. Even a dance. What do you say?’
    â€˜Great idea,’ said Callum.
    â€˜Do you mean here?’ asked Ava.
    â€˜We can push back the furniture in the drawing room, roll up the carpets. There’s plenty of room. Have food set out in here. A barrel of beer, cider, soft drinks.’ Her eyes softened. I knew that instead of plastic mugs and glasses from Woolworths, paper plates and picnic forks, she envisioned porcelain and silver, crystal goblets filled with the finest wine, groaning trenchers featuring roast birds, honey-glazed hams studded with cloves, sides of beef, dishes crowded with creamy mashed potatoes, tender vegetables, buttered peas, a swan carved from ice, the elaborately-decorated sort of dishes in the illustrated Mrs Beeton which was kept on the bottom shelf of the drawing-room bookcases.
    â€˜Sounds terrific, Mum.’
    â€˜Absolutely splendid. Are you talking about black tie?’
    â€˜Don’t be silly, Mr Yelland. Do we look like black tie people? Though of course, before the war . . .’ She looked pensive for a moment. ‘Oh well . . .’
    â€˜Who’s going to come to this party?’ asked Callum.
    â€˜The rest of the family, for a start. I want you to think of all the people we might want to invite, and we’ll write out invitations this evening and you two . . .’ she nodded at Orlando and me, ‘. . . can deliver the local ones on your bikes.’
    How did I feel about the prospect of leaving Glenfield? How did Orlando feel? When I asked him, he raised his zebra eyebrows. ‘Hmmm. I don’t know, really. Half of me thinks it exciting. I don’t like change, and this has been our home for a long time. But it’d be marvellous to be close to Oxford, all that music, and theatre and stuff. And C. S. Lewis lives there too . . .’
    â€˜Daddy actually knows him.’
    â€˜. . . so we might even get to meet him!’
    â€˜And Mr Tolkien,’ I said. ‘Gosh, he said I must come to tea with him next time I was in Oxford.’
    â€˜So all in all,’ said Orlando, ‘I think we’re quite pleased, aren’t we?’ He pulled at his zebra hair. ‘If it ever happens, that is.’
    â€˜You think it might not?’
    â€˜Don’t you?’
    â€˜Hmm . . .’ So many of Fiona’s plans faltered at the last fence. ‘If it does, will we be sad to leave the boys, Julian and the rest of them?’
    â€˜Not as much as we might have been.’
    I didn’t even mention Nicola, knowing his views, but in spite of everything, I would be sorry to say goodbye to her. She was bad, even wicked, but she was exciting, vital, a breath of slightly fetid air blowing through our hitherto staid lives. But it would also be a relief to say goodbye to her. I could throw away the shoplifted stuff, I needn’t worry about her being mean to Orlando or—
    â€˜Oh!’ I said. ‘But I wouldn’t be able to have lessons with Mr Elias any more.’
    â€˜There are other piano