the party at this hour, I wondered. ‘I’ll get it,’ I called out to anyone who might be listening, and went to open the front door. Alex Loom was standing in the porch, in her shiny black quilted coat and a red knitted pixie hat, holding a bunch of cut flowers wrapped in cellophane.
‘Hi!’ she said, with a smile. ‘I guess you’re surprised to see me.’
‘I thought you were supposed to be in America,’ I said.
‘That was the plan,’ she said. ‘But Heathrow was socked in. After waiting two days for my flight, I gave up. Can I come in? I was invited.’
‘The party’s nearly over,’ I said stupidly, as if I hoped this would make her go away.
‘Who is it, darling?’ said Fred from behind my back.The ‘darling’, I knew, was purely for appearance’s sake, and implied no melting of her resentment. ‘Oh, it’s you, Alex!’ she cried. ‘Let the poor girl in, for goodness’ sake. Come in! Come in! What on earth are you doing here? I thought you were going home for Christmas.’
Alex explained that her flight had been delayed several times and eventually cancelled, and as she couldn’t get on another one that would have enabled her to get home in time for Christmas, she gave up, caught an airport-link bus, just about the only public transport running, and got back to her flat late on Christmas Day. ‘So I thought you wouldn’t mind if I took up your party invitation after all,’ she said.
‘Of course not - we’re delighted to see you, aren’t we, darling?’ I responded to Fred’s question with a forced grin and nod. ‘But why so late?’ she asked Alex.
‘I wanted to get some flowers, but it proved harder than I’d figured,’ Alex said, handing the bunch to Fred. ‘I’m not used to the English Boxing Day, with everything shut. I got a taxi to drive me around and we finally found a flower stall outside a cemetery.’
‘Well, you really shouldn’t have taken the trouble, but thank you so much, they’re lovely,’ said Fred.
‘What cemetery was that?’ I asked.
‘I’ve no idea,’ Alex said with a smile.
‘Stop asking Alex silly questions, darling, and take her coat.’ Fred thrust the slippery black nylon coat into my arms and led Alex off to the dining room, saying, ‘Now come and have some lunch, there’s still plenty left.’
I was pretty hungry myself, having eaten nothing but a few nuts and nibbles snatched between my conversation pieces, and after hanging up Alex’s coat I followed them into the dining room. Alex, a glass of white wine in her hand, was already entertaining a little group of guests with tales of the horrors of Heathrow - queues snaking out of the terminals into the open air, people sleeping slumped over their luggage or prostrate on the floors, distraught parents with crying babies and children . . . We had seen it all on the TV news of course, but there is nothing like a personal report from the front line to bring home its horrors and fill one with profound gratitude at not having been there. Fred brought Alex a plate of steaming Thai chicken curry from the hostess trolley and stayed to listen. I foraged for myself.
I’m not sure I believe Alex’s story about driving round the city looking for flowers. If she got them from a cemetery she is more likely to have pinched them from a grave in the church-yard at the end of Rectory Road than paid for them. I think she intended to be late. By being the last guest to arrive she could very naturally be the last one to leave. In fact she lingered long after everybody else except the family had gone, and made herself useful clearing up the dirty glasses and dishes and stacking them in the dishwasher. Fred invited her to stay on for a cup of tea and she accepted readily. By the end of the afternoon, to my dismay, she had made herself thoroughly at home, and was effortlessly addressing everybody by their first names. I had to admire her conversational resourcefulness. She could talk money to Giles and babies to Nicola, and property to Jim and Ben, and make-up to Maxine. She even managed to charm Ben without making Maxine jealous, and Marcia, who might have been more resistant, had gone home soon after lunch with Peter and the children. Of the family party only Anne, I thought, regarded Alex with faint suspicion.
Eventually she said