‘So! Rosie … you’re … er … about to apply to university!’
‘Yep.’ Rosie nods. Pretty in her pale green bridesmaid’s dress, she has a confident look about her that suggests she’s one of the popular crowd at school. I don’t think her lack of interest in me is anything personal so much as the fact that to her I’m just some boring older person who doesn’t know the ins and outs of her social life. ‘Just like Mum already told you.’
‘Right. So, theatre design, maybe?’
‘Not if I have my way,’ Dad says. ‘You know, this girl here is a contender for a top-notch media and communications course anywhere in the country. I’m trying to persuade her to apply to Kingston, because that’s one of the best places for a terrific all-round media education. And she can specialize in film history in her third year.’
‘Oh.’ I’m slightly startled that Dad is even interested in Rosie’s upcoming choice of tertiary education, let alone quite this invested in it. ‘So you’re a film fan, then, Rosie?’
‘God, yeah, I love movies. Especially all the classics. Eddie’s introduced me and Mum to so many of them. We do, like, these old movie nights on Sundays, and I invite my friends over and stuff—’
‘And I try not to be too much of an old bore and stop the film every five minutes to lecture them all on the things they should have noticed,’ Dad interrupts, with a chuckle.
Yes, that’s right: a chuckle.
A chuckle isn’t something I’ve ever heard Dad emit before.
‘Oh, you’re all right, Eddie,’ Rosie tells him, with a laugh of her own. ‘Anyway, if you do too much of that, we just send you out for more popcorn.’
‘So that’s what I’m reduced to, is it?’ Dad says, with another – another – chuckle. ‘A PhD, and all my years of experience, and author of a highly regarded book on the history of cinema, and you and your mates just want to send me out for popcorn!’
‘Oh, talking of your book,’ says Rosie, ‘my friend Jasper’s been reading it over the holidays, and he said it’s amazing. Like, he’s learned absolutely loads from it.’
‘Well, Jasper is obviously going places!’ Dad says. Only semi-jokingly.
But then Dad is always at his most pompous where His Book is concerned. Which I suppose is a good thing in some ways, because it was the writing of His Book that dominated his life and made him such a crappy, absent father to me for over twenty-five years.
Perhaps it’s the fact that the book finally came out last year that has enabled him to be (as he so clearly is) a pretty involved stepdad to Rosie.
Just at this moment, I feel a gentle touch to my elbow, and glance around to see that Olly has come over to join us.
I don’t actually throw myself on him like a drowning woman might throw herself on a passing lifeguard, but it’s a pretty close thing.
‘Hi,’ says Olly, extending a pleasant, if rather chilly, hand to my dad. ‘Congratulations, Mr Lomax.’
‘Oh, thanks … you’re … uh … Oscar, is it?’
‘Olly,’ I say.
‘Are you Libby’s boyfriend?’ Rosie asks, suddenly perking up and showing a bit more interest in me.
Or, to be more specific, in Olly.
At least, I assume this is what all the sudden pouty lips and hair-flicky action are about.
And Olly is looking nice today, in his smart suit, and with his sandy hair vaguely tidy for once, so I suppose I can’t blame Rosie for all the pouting and flicking, even if it does feel a bit … incestuous. Because she’s my (wince) new stepsister, and Olly is practically my brother.
‘No, no,’ I say, hastily, before Olly has to be the one to do so. ‘We’re just friends.’
‘Oh,’ says Rosie, meaningfully, as if Olly, being helpfully single, might suddenly decide that a seventeen-year-old is a suitable match for him, at thirty-three, and whisk her on to the dance floor for a bit of a smooch.
‘I just came over, Libby,’ Olly says, tactfully ignoring Rosie’s eager body language and turning to me instead, ‘to see if you wanted a dance. I think I might have worn your grandmother out, unfortunately, so I’m a partner down. I get the impression the jazz band are keen for some enthusiastic participants, though, so if you’re up for cutting a rug …?’
‘Delighted to,’ I say, with abject relief, as I clasp his outstretched hand. ‘I’ll catch you later, Dad. You probably need to circulate anyway, right?’
‘Absolutely,’ Dad says, looking pretty abjectly relieved, himself, to be rid of me.
‘And great to meet you, Rosie,’ I add, with what I hope is a suitably friendly-but-not-overly-intimate stepsisterly wave. ‘Maybe we can … er … keep in touch? I’m sure Dad can give you my email address if you’d like.’
Her eyes boggle at me as though I’ve just suggested writing each other letters with a quill pen and ink and sending them off by horse-drawn mail coach.
‘Anyway, congratulations again,’ Olly says, swiftly and smoothly, as he starts to lead me in the direction of the dance floor. ‘You’re shaking,’ he adds, to me, in a low voice. ‘Tricky conversation?’
‘Not for my dad and his brand-new stepdaughter, no,’ I say, but quietly, because I don’t want Grandmother to hear. She’s sitting on a chair in the shade of some nearby trees, where Olly must have chivalrously parked her, with a fresh glass of champagne in her hand. ‘They seem to be getting on like a house on fire. He’s taking an interest in her future … introducing her and her friends to all his favourite movies … supplying the popcorn …’
Olly gives a little wince of his own – amazingly, his first of the trip. ‘Sorry, Lib.’
‘It’s all right.’
It isn’t, really. Because although my dad not being bothered about me is something I’ve come to terms with, it’s quite different to see my dad taking such obvious pleasure in building a relationship with a daughter who’s come into his life through circumstance, and not biology.
Those cosy-sounding movie nights Rosie mentioned, for example. They were precisely the sort of thing I used to crave – I mean, really crave – when I was growing up. I had a few of them when I was eight or nine and still staying over at Dad’s for the occasional night (before plans for His Book properly took off, and he lost interest in me entirely). And I can still remember how exciting it was to be treated like a grown-up, and shown Dad’s favourite movies until way, way past my bedtime. Casablanca, and The African Queen, and Some Like It Hot … with hindsight, of course, not all of them exactly the sort of thing an eight-year-old enjoys. But I enjoyed them with Dad. Despite his stiff, rather formal method of showing them, with frequent breaks for him to point out Meaningful Scenes. A method he seems to have loosened up on where Rosie is concerned.
‘Do you want to go?’ Olly asks, lowering his voice still further. He has one hand on my waist and one on my shoulder as we dance (or rather, rock aimlessly from side to side; I evidently haven’t inherited Grandmother’s rug-cutting genes), and he uses the latter hand now to give my shoulder a gentle, comforting squeeze. ‘I’m happy to make the excuses if you want. I could say you’re feeling ill. Or I could say I’m feeling ill. Or I could say we’re both feeling ill – blame it all on those mushroom vol-au-vents I’ve seen doing the rounds, and cause a mass stampede for the exits …?’
I laugh. ‘Thanks, Olly, but I think I’d be even more unpopular around here if I put the