Chapter Five
At the sound of Astrid’s name the influencers look again, incredulous that the stunning woman on the walls has become a dowdy older woman who looks like their mum. Or possibly their granny.
Astrid plants a smile on her face. What a relief it is to no longer care what she looks like. She moves through the young influencers, ignoring them. “Marietta! You look beautiful.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, darling.” Marietta kisses her on each cheek. “None of us are beautiful anymore. That belongs to the young. Thank God! I’d much rather grow old disgracefully in anonymity.”
“Quite right,” agrees Astrid. “Do you know my daughter, Zara?”
Marietta’s mouth drops open. “Zara! The last time I saw you, you were tiny! A little girl. Look at how gorgeous you are, all grown up!”
Zara smiles. “It happens to the best of us.”
“Tell me about it. You can’t stop the aging process. Sadly.” She rolls her eyes as she and Astrid share a conspiratorial smile.
“Why don’t we three grab a bite to eat after this?”
Zara shakes her head. “Sadly I can’t stay long. I’m flying to Albania tomorrow for a story.”
Astrid is disappointed. She had hoped to at least have dinner together. “You’re still always flying off somewhere. How long will you be away?”
“Just a week.” She turns to take in the pictures and the buzzy crowd.
“Look how you’re both back in fashion! And look at the crowd.
Everything from the seventies is back. Look!
” She points out how many of the younger set are wearing bell-bottomed trousers with huge platform sandals.
“They all want to be just like the two of you.”
“No platforms for me anymore. I’d fall.” Astrid lifts her chiffon to show Marietta her Adidas Gazelles as Zara laughs. A laugh! Astrid feels her whole body exhale with relief.
A chinking of a glass brings the room to silence as everyone turns to hear the curator, a young, handsome man in a three-piece suit, speak.
“Hello. My name is Christian Morgan, and I just want to welcome you all here to this fabulous retrospective of the seventies. We are so blessed to have a few of these famous faces with us tonight. What a time it was . . .”
Zara prods her mother and leans over to whisper in her ear. “Mum. Given that I can’t stay long, could we just do an Irish exit and maybe go and get a bite to eat?”
Astrid lights up. She’d much rather be with her daughter than with anyone here. “As soon as he finishes talking,” she whispers back, “let’s do it. You go first. I’ll follow.”
Zara grins at her, and just for a second Astrid is swept back to when Zara was tiny, the apple of her mother’s eye, and indeed, she was the apple of Zara’s.
“What do you mean, the house was broken into last night?” Zara is horrified.
Dinner ended up being Chinese takeout at Zara’s kitchen table, where Astrid has not only revealed her financial worries but is now also revealing that the house was broken into last night.
“Was anything taken? Anything valuable?”
Astrid resists the urge to snort with laughter. “I don’t have anything valuable, darling. Not anymore.”
Zara pauses. “You have Dad’s tapes.”
Astrid sighs. “I know.”
“If someone did want them, who might it be?”
“I honestly can’t think of anyone, but I did wonder if this podcast had stirred something up. The fortieth anniversary of Lily Morehouse’s death is one thing, but then your father talking about the tapes, reminding someone perhaps of what might be on them.”
Zara sits up, her voice urgent. “We need to listen to them.”
Astrid nods. She doesn’t want to say yes. She’s not sure she’s ready to revisit the past. Especially when it might reveal secrets that even she might not want to know.