bit of good for the Third Age and went home still thinking about going to America and how jealous Mavis Mottram would be when she heard about it. In the afternoon she prepared the smoked salmon sandwiches and dip for tonight’s meeting of the Environmental Protection Group. And because there didn’t seem enough smoked salmon she went round to the delicatessen and bought some rollmops just in case more people turned up than usual. And she put the vinho verde in the fridge to cool. But all the time her thoughts reverted to the problem of what the quads should wear on the trip to Wilma. She wanted them to look respectable but on the other hand if she dressed them too smartly Auntie Joan might think…well, that she was spoiling them, and spending too much money or worse still, had the money to spend. Eva went through a series of permutations involving Auntie Joan being English herself, having been a barmaid and, according to Eva’s mum, something else on the side which was probably why she was so generous now. Against that there was the fact that Auntie Joan’s own mum had been a tight old skinflint and no better than she ought to have been herself, not when she was a girl that is, again according to Mum in one of her bad moods; though Eva had once heard Mrs Denton having an awful row with Joanie and shouting at her for giving herself to them Yanks for practically nothing. ‘It’s ten pounds in the back of a car and twenty-five if they want to go the whole way. You’re just demeaning yourself for anything less.’ Eva had been eight at the time and had made herself scarce before they knew she’d been listening. So now when it was important to play her cards right she had to be careful and not overdo things. Maybe if she didn’t look smart herself Auntie Joan would feel sorry for her and think she spent all her money on the quads. Not that Eva minded what Auntie Joan had done in her teens. Not when she was so rich and respectable now and married to a multimillionaire. Anyway the main thing was to see that the girls behaved nicely and that Henry didn’t get drunk and say rude things about America not having a National Health Service.
In the lavatory Wilt was already thinking rude things. He was buggered if he was going to the States to be patronised by Uncle Wally and Auntie Joan. She’d once sent him a pair of Bermuda shorts with a tartan pattern and Wilt had refused to wear them even for the photo Eva had wanted to send back with a thank-you letter. He had to find some excuse.
‘What are you doing in there?’ Eva demanded through the door after ten minutes.
‘What do you think I’m doing? Having a crap of course.’
‘Well, open the window when you’ve finished. We’ve got visitors coming.’
Wilt opened the window and came out. He’d made up his mind.
‘It sounds a great opportunity. Going to the States,’ he said as he washed his hands in the kitchen sink and dried them on a cloth Eva had laid out to shake some lettuce in. Eva looked at him suspiciously. When Henry said something sounded great, it usually meant the opposite and he wasn’t going to do it. This time she was going to see he did.
‘It’s just a pity I can’t come,’ he continued and looked in the fridge.
Eva, who’d been putting the lettuce in a clean, dry cloth, stopped.
‘What do you mean, you can’t come?’
‘I’ve got that Canadian course to teach. You know, the one on British Culture and Tradition I did last year.’
‘You said you weren’t going to do it again. Not after all that trouble there was last time.’
‘I know I did,’ said Wilt and helped himself to the hummus with a piece of Ryvita. ‘But Swinburne’s wife is in hospital and he can’t leave the children. So I’ve got to take his place. I can’t get out of it.’
‘You could if you really wanted to,’ said Eva and vented her feelings by shaking the lettuce cloth vigorously out the back door. ‘You just want an excuse, that’s all. You’re frightened of flying. Look how you were when we went to Marbella that time.’
