Family Album Read Online Free PDF Page A

wandering over the grass, her hair glinting in the sun, the baby on her hip. Charles goes. Alison smiles at Ingrid. “Is Clare tired?” she says. “You could try putting her in her cot for a bit.”
    “She is fine,” says Ingrid. “Shall I soon take the ice cream from the freezer?”
    “Soon,” says Alison. “They’ve nearly found all the treasure now.”

    She sits at the top of the grassy slope above the pond garden, waiting. The treasure is hidden all over the garden—gold and silver chocolate coins. The little ones think the fairies hid it, but Gina knows better: she saw Alison, earlier, bustling in and out of the bushes, reaching up onto tree branches, pausing at the swing, the long bench, the steps up to the terrace. The treasure hunt is not to start till Alison shouts one, two, three—go! So they are all poised, dotted about the garden. She can see the bright flicker of their clothes, hither and thither, each pitched where they think they have a private hunting ground. There is Paul, over by the rhododendrons. Paul is not much enjoying himself, Gina knows; it is not his birthday, he has no friends here. She is sorry about that, because she is in bliss herself, but it is after all her turn. You wait a whole year for this, and he had his, as did all of them.
    Bliss. She can’t quite believe it—this is the day, her birthday, the day you wait for, that will never come. Better even than Christmas, because it is yours alone. The presents, the cards, the fact that you are eight, not seven. Eight, eight—she rolls the word around in her mouth. I am eight.
    There is Dad, standing beside the pond with Ingrid. Usually when it is someone’s birthday Dad stays in his study with the door shut, so Gina is pleased to see him. Ingrid is carrying Clare, and she now detaches Clare from her hip and appears to offer her to Dad, but Dad does not take her. Of course not—Ingrid should know by now that Dad does not carry babies.
    Eight. Eight, eight, eight. And her big present, from Mum and Dad, is a new bike—green, with a bell and a saddlebag. Birthday. It is my birthday. And there is still the birthday tea to come, and this treasure hunt. But Mum has said she must not be greedy and find too many coins, she must help the younger ones to find some, and leave some for the visitors. Gina knows all the hiding places, because there have been treasure hunts before.
    She waits, watching Alison, who is in the middle of the lawn. Beyond her, Gina can see Corinna—Aunt Corinna, except that they don’t say aunt, just Corinna—who has come out onto the terrace and is also watching—watching Alison, watching the whole garden. And now Alison is calling out one, two, three . . . and immediately Gina spots the gleam of a coin, there on that big stone.

    She has five coins. Five treasures. But she must have eight—eight for her birthday. It doesn’t matter if she is not the one with the most, but she must have eight. Where to look next? Not the big shrubbery—Rowena and Sally are in there, they will have found everything. She has already done the long grass around the swing, and the flower bed below the terrace wall. She runs down the lawn towards the pond garden; Ingrid is sitting on the grassy slope above, playing with Clare, and beyond her Gina can see Sandra busy among the bulrushes beside the big square stone pond. What is Sandra finding?
    “Go away,” says Sandra. “I’m looking here.”
    “I can look too,” says Gina. “It’s my birthday.”
    They scrabble in the rushes, a yard or so apart. Gina reaches out to search a thick clump and both at once see treasure. They are at the very edge of the pond; both fling themselves at the loot. They collide, Sandra is crying, “I saw it first—it’s mine”; Gina has her hand out to grab . . . and that is all she remembers.
    Not quite all. There is this dreamy subsequent footage of being carried on a flat bed thing by men in uniforms, of Alison’s anxious face staring down