Kehua! by Fay Weldon Read Free Book Online Page B

Chester on her knees praying for her daughters, christened
     Mary and Joan (now Cynara and Scarlet, the ingrates), and for funds for a new church building. I am tempted for some reason
     to make Alice a member of the Minnesota Light of the Divine Canyon Church,but this is what I mean by characters getting out of hand. She will be simply Church of England and devout. Someone brought
     up by Beverley will quite reasonably seek stability, faith and respectability in their middle age. I’m having trouble enough
     getting Scarlet out of Robinsdale and into Jackson’s arms as it is, without involving an evangelical church in Minnesota.

In the kitchen at Robinsdale
    ‘Are you running
to
someone,’ asks Beverley, ‘or just running away in general?’
    ‘To someone,’ says Scarlet, automatically, though she had meant to tell no one. ‘Actually, it’s Jackson Wright, you know,
     the film star?’
    ‘No I don’t, I’m sorry,’ says Beverley. ‘I don’t go to the pictures very often. Films are so noisy nowadays.’
    ‘He’s rather like Russell Crowe.’ Scarlet refrains from adding ‘with vampire teeth’, in case it gives Beverley the wrong impression.
     Jackson is the gentlest man.
    ‘I’m afraid that doesn’t help. Is he expecting you?’
    ‘How do you mean?’
    ‘I just remember the shock your poor Uncle Richie had when your Aunt Solange came knocking on his door with a suitcase in
     either hand, saying she had run away from her husband and children and was moving in with him. He wasn’t expecting her at
     all. In fact he could hardly remember her name, but she had red hair, which he remembered from various art film festivals
     in the Rocky Mountains. It is so easy in these exotic locations for girls to get the wrong end of the stick. Your Uncle Richie
     thought he was passing the time every now and then, but she was a nice girl and assumed it was true love, just because he
     said it was. He let her stay – he had a film to finish and no time for domestic issues – and they are stilltogether to this day and so far as I can see perfectly happy. I am sure it will work out okay for you too.’
    Scarlet wonders why no one in her family takes her seriously. Perhaps if she could get out of fashion and into current affairs
     it would be better? As it is, in Cynara’s eyes she is a traitor to the feminist cause, in Louis’ eyes she is devoid of aesthetic
     understanding; in Lola’s eyes out of touch and over the hill; and her own grandmother dismisses the very idea of a ‘career’
     – saying there was no such thing, only a bunch of self-styled feminists fooled by capitalism in the name of divide and rule,
     lured on by the idea of promotion to keep them working harder and longer than one another to the point of exhaustion. And
     her mother Alice hadn’t even cared enough about her to come to her wedding to Louis, saying ‘she didn’t have the time’. Which
     Cynara tactlessly reported to Scarlet as Alice thinking Louis and the whole fashion world was made up of homosexuals and druggies
     and she didn’t approve.
    Scarlet had reacted by throwing a hissy fit, saying, very well then, Louis and I will live in sin if that’s what you prefer,
     calling off the wedding, and having the party without the ceremony, which few realised had not happened, they having gone
     straight to the reception in Nopasaran’s concrete garden. A good compromise. A marriage is a piece of paper; a wedding party
     the real thing. Who cared about parental approval anyway? That had been years back. Scarlet had since made it up with Alice,
     who had even quite come round to Louis, and looked forward to grandchildren. Now Alice would have Jackson Wright to contend
     with.
    ‘And you’ve known this film actor some time?’ enquires Beverley.
    ‘I went to his place three weeks ago to do an interview, and that was that,’ says Scarlet. ‘We’ve seen each other every day
     since then, except Sundays.’
    ‘I can see explaining this