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Authors: Joanna Trollope
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nearly, and shesaid, oh thank you, darling, thank you, in a way she never does normally, and now I’m in a hole because I’m exhausted by it all and can’t think how on earth I’m going to come up with anything constructive by tomorrow.”
Sigrid let a silence fall, but she didn’t take her hand away. Instead, she let her gaze travel along the lines of family photographs in their glass-and-chrome frames, which sat on the front edges of some of the bookshelves, her parents on their boat, her parents dressed up for some formal occasion at the Grand Hotel in Stockholm, her brother in a leather coat and dark glasses on a Berlin street, Mariella in a tutu, on a bicycle, in a playpen, on a beach, Anthony and Rachel on Ed and Sigrid’s wedding day, his brothers and their wives on theirs, Ralph and Petra’s little boys posed on a hearthrug with some colored wooden bricks. Then she looked back at Edward.
“I can think of one thing. One thing you could do.”
He sighed again. He said, despondently, “What?”
“Well, Ralph is clever, isn’t he? He was successful in Singapore—”
“Yes—”
“They wanted him to stay.”
“Yes—”
Sigrid moved to the edge of the sofa, preparatory to getting up and returning to the kitchen for supper.
“Well,” she said, “why don’t
you
offer him a job?”
It was only much later, Sigrid thought now, pulling off her boots and sliding her feet into the ergonomic molded clogs in which she worked, that Ed had confessed that he thought Ralph—even if work could be found for him—would be very difficult to work with. So difficult, in fact, that he, Edward, wasn’t at all sure he could do it. It was at that point that Sigrid had lost her temper. She said a great deal about Edward’sattitude to his family, and contrasted it with her attitude to her family, and then she said that she, too, would find working with her own brother difficult, but if she decided to do it she would just
do it
, for family reasons, and not go complaining on, as all the Brinkleys did, and all the time, about everything,
everything
was a drama with them, and then she had gone into the bathroom and locked the door and, staring at herself in the mirror while she brushed her teeth, told herself that tomorrow she would be in her laboratory, with interesting, impersonal work to do and, even if there was irritating Philip, there would be no Brinkleys, and no circular conversations, and nobody asking for advice in order to ignore it.
And here she was now, clogs on, hair tied back, ready. In a sealed box, wrapped in acid-free paper, on the bench by her accelerator and microscopes, lay a fragment of medieval textile, sent from a significant church in Florence, about which Sigrid had all the interested skepticism of the cradle atheist. She opened the door to the lab, almost humming in anticipation of a day ahead free of all the clinging tendrils of family preoccupations, and saw at her bench, actually sitting on her particular stool and peering into one of her microscopes, ginger-haired Philip.
Mariella liked her rare journeys to school with her father. She liked her father being tall—taller than most of the other fathers—and she liked his black car with its blond interior, and she liked being able to talk to him when she had his individual attention. His attention, at the weekend, had been all over the place, which meant that her mother had been distracted too, although she would have denied it, which rather diminished the eventual victory about the American bakery and the cup-cakes. They had gone, certainly, but Sigrid hadn’t been wholehearted. Like most only children, Mariella was aware of every nuance in parental mood.
“Daddy,” she said, buckling herself into the front seat of the car beside her father, “are Ralph and Petra going to have absolutely no money at all, not even enough money for cornflakes?”
“
Uncle
Ralph,” Edward said automatically. “
Aunt
Petra.”
“Petra said to call
Sigrid let a silence fall, but she didn’t take her hand away. Instead, she let her gaze travel along the lines of family photographs in their glass-and-chrome frames, which sat on the front edges of some of the bookshelves, her parents on their boat, her parents dressed up for some formal occasion at the Grand Hotel in Stockholm, her brother in a leather coat and dark glasses on a Berlin street, Mariella in a tutu, on a bicycle, in a playpen, on a beach, Anthony and Rachel on Ed and Sigrid’s wedding day, his brothers and their wives on theirs, Ralph and Petra’s little boys posed on a hearthrug with some colored wooden bricks. Then she looked back at Edward.
“I can think of one thing. One thing you could do.”
He sighed again. He said, despondently, “What?”
“Well, Ralph is clever, isn’t he? He was successful in Singapore—”
“Yes—”
“They wanted him to stay.”
“Yes—”
Sigrid moved to the edge of the sofa, preparatory to getting up and returning to the kitchen for supper.
“Well,” she said, “why don’t
you
offer him a job?”
It was only much later, Sigrid thought now, pulling off her boots and sliding her feet into the ergonomic molded clogs in which she worked, that Ed had confessed that he thought Ralph—even if work could be found for him—would be very difficult to work with. So difficult, in fact, that he, Edward, wasn’t at all sure he could do it. It was at that point that Sigrid had lost her temper. She said a great deal about Edward’sattitude to his family, and contrasted it with her attitude to her family, and then she said that she, too, would find working with her own brother difficult, but if she decided to do it she would just
do it
, for family reasons, and not go complaining on, as all the Brinkleys did, and all the time, about everything,
everything
was a drama with them, and then she had gone into the bathroom and locked the door and, staring at herself in the mirror while she brushed her teeth, told herself that tomorrow she would be in her laboratory, with interesting, impersonal work to do and, even if there was irritating Philip, there would be no Brinkleys, and no circular conversations, and nobody asking for advice in order to ignore it.
And here she was now, clogs on, hair tied back, ready. In a sealed box, wrapped in acid-free paper, on the bench by her accelerator and microscopes, lay a fragment of medieval textile, sent from a significant church in Florence, about which Sigrid had all the interested skepticism of the cradle atheist. She opened the door to the lab, almost humming in anticipation of a day ahead free of all the clinging tendrils of family preoccupations, and saw at her bench, actually sitting on her particular stool and peering into one of her microscopes, ginger-haired Philip.
Mariella liked her rare journeys to school with her father. She liked her father being tall—taller than most of the other fathers—and she liked his black car with its blond interior, and she liked being able to talk to him when she had his individual attention. His attention, at the weekend, had been all over the place, which meant that her mother had been distracted too, although she would have denied it, which rather diminished the eventual victory about the American bakery and the cup-cakes. They had gone, certainly, but Sigrid hadn’t been wholehearted. Like most only children, Mariella was aware of every nuance in parental mood.
“Daddy,” she said, buckling herself into the front seat of the car beside her father, “are Ralph and Petra going to have absolutely no money at all, not even enough money for cornflakes?”
“
Uncle
Ralph,” Edward said automatically. “
Aunt
Petra.”
“Petra said to call
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