Work Text:
"Hey, Pete! Package for you."
Petrova swung herself down carefully from the high stool and half waddled the length of the hangar. About half way, already sweating, she cursed herself for not updating the address her mail went to. She'd given everyone her work address when they were moving between rooms, but they'd been at Carrel Road a year now, long enough to fiddle with the plumbing and the electricity, long enough for them to help Sylvia and John get set up at number seventeen. Long enough to be settled.
Ken took pity on her and brought the package over. His face was a mess of ginger hair and he smelt of tobacco. He was her closest ally here. She'd normally have yelled at him for this assumption of incompetence, but normally she was sprightly and deft, always on her feet, an agility she attributed to dance lessons in part, however uninterested she'd been in childhood.
Normally she didn't have tiny feet inside her belly, pounding her ribs.
Of course, she knew what it was even before she opened it. She had sent her pledges out, as always, on every birthday. It would be quicker to write them but she ran them through the duplicator. Why would anyone choose fountain pen when they could have levers and the dizzying smell of chemicals. She sent one to Los Angeles and the other... well the location changed from year to year, and it was almost always to a Poste Restante address.
That was a couple of weeks ago, so this one was bang on cue. She unwrapped the brown paper. A few packages of sweets - candies Pauline called them now - rolled out. Then a card. Petrova of course knew the words, both of the old vow, the one she wrote and duplicated each year, and the new one that Posy and Pauline took, by heart, but she read them anyway. I vow to help in any way I can to put Petrova into the history books, because her name is Fossil, and it's out very own, and nobody can say it's because of our Grandfathers. The paper was thick and presumably expensive, not that Pauline was likely to worry about that. Her handwriting was, as ever, impeccable.
The second envelope could arrive any time. Posy swore she wrote them on the day - and Petrova believed her, even if Pauline was a little dubious - but her remembering to get to the post office, or even persuade someone else to go, was another matter. After all, Petrova thought with a smile, picturing her younger sister, flame haired, tiny but strong, why bother yourself with things like mail services when you can dance. Though, to be fair, Posy was getting better at realising there were other things in the world. Tina - one foot in the dance world, the other grounded outside it - had helped a lot with that.
Posy's card - if you could call it that, for it was usually the back of a programme - tended to be the opposite of Pauline's. Her handwriting was a scrawl, often in pencil, and the paper she had written on crumpled. That, of course, didn't matter. None of them were less genuine than the others - they were simply themselves. They were Fossils, always different yet always close.
#
The contractions started at just the wrong time. Not that there would ever really have been a right time, but seriously, Petrova thought, looking at her plans. Not now.
The pterodactyls were experimental aircraft, based on prototypes Eastland had built before the war. Tailless, they were modelled on the flight of a seagull. They had flown - oh god they had flown, she had been privileged enough to try two of them - but they were inherently unstable, struggling to cope with changes in wind direction, never mind emergencies. A quick glance at the plans and Petrova could see where they had gone wrong. It was all very well to take inspiration from bird flight, she thought, her silent expression displaying the frustration of a pet peeve, but it needed to stop at inspiration. We're engineers, not hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, fuck it. You could get bogged down when you thought too much about that sort of thing, and that was clearly what had happened here.
Of course, deducing what was wrong was not the same as fixing it. She'd been working on these for years, and it had been her main project for several months. She was on the cusp of a breakthrough...
"Shit!" She swore out loud, which she tried not to at work. Not because words like that didn't fly backwards and forwards across the hangar all the time, but because the sound of a woman's voice swearing was sufficiently incongruous to raise eyebrows. She preferred to blend in.
"Owwww," she corrected, then forced herself to stay silent. The daylight that shone in from the open end of the hangar faded and died. One by one her colleagues said their goodbyes. Petrova kept working despite the pain. She had to finish this; there were so many ideas in her head, and if she took a break they would surely pop like overfilled balloons.
She vaguely remembered a surge of heat through her body. One minute she was on her stool, the other staring up at curved roof of the hangar. Then Frank was bending over her, his mass of red whiskers blurry.
"Pter - o - dac..." she managed faintly.
"Never mind that," Frank said. "If that husband of yours didn't have his head screwed on, that baby of yours would be called Pterodactyl Leeson. Come on now..."
#
Amelia Fossil Leeson was born on August 22nd. Petrova didn't tell anyone about how she though babies were like engines; there was enough skepticism of her potential parenting skills as it was, but it helped her understand this curious creature that was at once everything like a smaller, needier person, and nothing like a person at all. The essentials she needed to worry about were inputs and outputs; everything else was just detail that could be finetuned, but if it remained clunky and inexact, it wouldn't be a tragedy. For the first time, Petrova began to really appreciate the human body. Not in the same way Posy did, which was all about shape and movement and emotion, but as a wonderfully complex system of interlocking parts.
She didn't expect it to hurt when she went back to work; in fact, the main reason she had moved to this small firm was that she wouldn't be expected to leave when she had children. During the war, she had joined the Air Transport Auxilliary - the only place that was really interested in women pilots. It was the first place she really felt she knew how to interact with women other than her sisters. Those were scary times, heartbreaking times (and oh god, why did it still feel like she'd been punched in the stomach every time she though of Amy?) but she had also made some of the closest friendships there. From there, she was recruited for other work, work she still couldn't talk about, but which took her across the Atlantic and - at times - over occupied Europe. She'd stayed on working for the military for several years, but now the war was over she was an exception, and she knew they could let her go at any point. It wasn't the norm to keep working anywhere else if you had any choice in the matter, but this was a small crew, she was indispensible, and she'd made allies there.
During the days, Garnie was to take care of Amelia.
"At least you asked me first," she grumbled lightheartedly. "Don't you go off exploring the world now." When she was honest, though, Garnie missed having children around the place, and the idea of helping bring up a child with proper preparation - not to mention sufficient funds, held sufficient appeal for her to have suggested it.
But the first time Petrova drove her restored car, the one she had constructed largely from leftover parts, to the hangar without Amelia in the basket on the back seat, she felt a dull pain in her chest, as if something had been ripped away from her. But she breather, walked through the door and as soon as her sleeves were rolled up and her fingers smelt of grease, there was no question she had made the right decision.
Pauline wrote to say she'd be in England in late November. Petrova stubbornly attributed her tearfulness to hormones. Pauline would spend a few days meeting contacts in London and then head to Somerset and stay with Garnie for two weeks. Two weeks! Petrova picked up her daughter, who was growing oh so fast, and danced clumsily round the room.
When Pauline had first gone to America, she had made it a condition of her contract that she'd travel to England and Prague to meet her sisters every eighteen months. When war broke out it became more complicated. Posie was based in New York but traveled the US, so it was easy enough for them to meet up. Things were more difficult for Petrova and Pauline, but once when she was on the east coast she persuaded a pilot travelling to Hawaii to drop her in LA on the way. Another time Pauline met her in Boston. Since then it had begun to get easier again, but Pauline's life was filled with contracts, her leave unpredictable, and since taking the job at Eastland Petrova's access had largely been limited to experimental prototypes; not the sort of thing it would be a good idea to attempt the Atlantic in.
#
Petrova drove to the station; not that Pauline couldn't have afforded a taxi down from London - or hell, a jewel encrusted carriage for that matter - but she became suddenly frugal in England. Pauline's hair was medium brown this time, and she wore a hat and sunglasses so she wouldn't be recognised. She was well dressed for England in November, one of those expensive coats that looks really thin, but is all cosy-warm when you put it on, black and below her knees. They hugged on the platform and would have looked an odd pair to anyone watching; Petrova, dark, small, but not without muscle, dressed in slacks and and a grey jersey over a white blouse, whitework lace at the collar her one concession to femininity. Pauline was at least a head taller, pale skinned with perfect makeup. All the way back Pauline told her elaborate stories with wide gestures about people whose names Petrova could tell she was expected to know, relationships and breakups, pregnancies and suicides.
At Carrel Road, Garnie was already waiting, and she held her eldest daughter for a few seconds before directing them through to the living room. Pauline's stories continued almost unbroken until Garnie interjected with now, Petrova, why don't you tell your sister about how wing positioning affects fuel consumption with a wink, and Pauline got the message. The instant she stopped talking, Garnie passed Amelia into her arms, and she melted.
"Just think," Pauline whispered, enamored by this tiny bundle looking up at her. "The first second-generation Fossil! I never thought it would be you, Petrova, but I'm glad it is!"
When Leonard served casserole, Pauline's mouth dropped open. "You cook?"
Leonard grinned and gave as much of a shrug as he could manage with a hot casserole dish in his hand. "I studied chemistry, you know. That's all cooking is." Garnie looked a little uncomfortable at this point, no doubt imagining acids and explosions and smoking green liquids, but Leonard seemed oblivious and carried on. "Won't your husband help cook for you?"
"I..." This was perhaps a sore point, Pauline's engagement having ended earlier that year, but she was not an actor for nothing and scrambled quickly back.
"I guess I hadn't thought about it. I have a maid now - oh, her name's Ellie and you'd lover her - and I guess I still would. Or I eat at shoots."
"It's like the war never happened in America. It's like nothing real ever happens in Hollywood. It's all magical!" said Petrova, with curiosity rather than contempt, but before they dug into the casserole she detected a hint of sadness in Pauline's face, and her lips forming an objection before she changed her mind and crammed sausage, beans and potato into her mouth.
#
The next couple of weeks, Petrova's time was divided four ways. Work. Amelia. Pauline. Leonard. She worried that the latter was getting squeezed out. Garnie told her that he was a decent guy, and all women need to give more time to their babies; things would ease up as Amelia grew. Even with Garnie's help, though, she could feel the strain. She never realised how much she needed sleep before she was deprived of it. Her brain seemed to be going fuzzy round the edges.
A few days before Pauline was ready to leave, Petrova sat down with Amelia on the lawn and couldn't get up. Garnie found her hours later, tears rolling down her cheeks.
"Petrova, darling. Whatever's wrong?"
Petrova shook her head. "I've been thinking about electrical controls and how there are always too many chances of something going wrong and how you can't get the feel of the aircraft in the same way and maybe things are never going to be the same and..."
She sunk into Garnie's arms. "The problem has nothing to do with engines," Garnie insisted. "You're tired. Saturday: John and I will take Amelia. I'll do something about your kitchen as well." (Pauline thought a little shamefully about the piles of dirty dishes and the tomato stains on the worktop, though she told herself she had more important things to deal with.) "You, your sister, Leonard," Garnie continued. "Go and get yourselves afternoon tea. There's a new place just opened, up by the station. No babies, no engines. Don't even mention them."
Petrova dried her eyes on the sleeve of her jersey and they walked inside.
#
Petrova woke to a quiet tapping on her bedroom door. Bleary eyed, she pulled it open just a crack to see Pauline, her hair long and still immaculate, who silently dragged her into the guest room. They sprawled out across the white bedcover with little pink flowers, their stomachs still full from coffee and little cakes at the tearooms.
"I have something to tell you," Pauline said in a loud whisper. "I'm not going back to LA."
"Not going... But why? Oh Pauline, it isn't a man?"
She shook her head. "Look, I didn't expect to go back when I came here but I didn't want to say anything before I was certain. I won't stay here, obviously; I'll be in London or that's the plan anyway. I reckon I can find work - I mean, the industry's not what it is in Hollywood, but it exists. Hell, I'll do advertising if I need to..."
"But Pauline... Pauline, what's wrong? Is this about Jesse? Don't let him decide your whole life!"
Pauline shook her head. "No, no, it's not that. It's just that things are getting bad there. They're... questioning people. Political stuff. It's getting really scary and... I know you think I'm a bit shallow, but is it really so wrong to just want to live and make movies and not worry about all this nonsence. And I know... I know about loyalty. I can be self absorbed - oh, I know I can, but that's not the same as betraying people, chucking them under the wheels. That's not competition - and believe me, I know about competition. This is something else entirely. It scares me, Petrova, it scares me. It's not just politics - they're going after... people like the doctors. People like Posy".
Pauline half collapsed onto her younger sister, arms around her neck and sobbed. Petrova held her. She didn't quite know what she was talking about, but through her distress Petrova could only see one image. Pauline! In England!
#
Pauline walked carefully as the agent showed her the house. He wanted to point out the spacious rooms and distinct character, but all she saw was that every footstep clumped up dusty clouds of ghosts. She had always thought of ghosts as people, but here they were as likely to be tin baths or worn out ballet shoes. Of course - and she was careful not to let the agent know this - she had already made up her mind.
She half tip-toed on the stairs that connected the almost-six storeys of Cromwell Road. Part way through, and she began to relax. Visions of the future began to seep through into the present. She could see, first, repairs that needed doing - she’d get Petrova and Leonard over to have a look at it, they were good at this sort of thing - but she could see dents in the walls and feel uneven patches in the floor, the occasional damp stain. She began to see new wallpaper and proper baths with claw feet.
It had been intended as a hotel when it was sold, but for one reason or another that had only half happened, and it had functioned as a semi-formal boarding house in recent years, and done pretty well when housing was in short supply, but these days, with new homes being constructed everywhere, and with parts of it being so run down, it was time for the current owner to move on. Which worked out just fine for Pauline Fossil.
#
It was late, and in the upstairs room Posy was practicing. She never really thought of it as such, though; to her there was simply dancing alone and there was dancing in front of an audience. They were in France for two months, and this space was far from ideal; there were mirrors missing and when the room was full it quickly became stuffy. It was much easier to work later. She was the only one this evening; she had had dinner with the others and then snuck away. The lights remained off. She was allowed to be here, even though she had been encouraged to take more breaks, but she felt uneasy, as if she were breaking, if not some rule, at least some convention.
Orange streetlight filtered in through the dusty windows and bounced between walls of mirrors. Posy stood at the barre, first position, as a child might do. She thought she might be waiting for something, but almost instantly the thought fluttered and flew away. Back straight, she placed one hand on the barre and began.
She had moved to the centre of the room by the time the door opened. She wasn't entirely unaware of the soft footsteps of another woman moving towards her, but she didn't notice it either. She pirouetted, her head still and then flipped. Tina joined her seamlessly. She was slightly taller than Posy and her entirely more manageable blonde hair was scraped into a bun. Without words the mirrored and complemented each others moves, barely touching but so perfectly in sync they may as well have been two parts of the same person.
When they finished dancing, Posy took a moment. She had to take the dance seriously, had to ensure it was finished, that a line was drawn, because nothing could be worse than anything, anyone interfering in her dancing. Then her face broke into a wide grin. The two girls wrapped their arms around each other, their lips meeting.
#
Petrova and Pauline had hoped to spend Christmas in Cromwell Road.. Petrova was pretty confident from the start, though, that that was overly optimistic and in the end she was proven right. The repairs for the damage it had suffered in the blitz, which had been patched over rather than properly repaired, were taking longer than expected. She and Leonard hosted instead. Posy hadn't managed to make it home; she was just so busy, no way she could swing it, her cards said in her usual spidery scrawl. They were signed by Tina also, and Garnie raised an eyebrown, but sighed and said "we took Posy a little too simply, I think. She was so focussed on her ballet, it was easy to kid ourselves that that was her only path. I should have guessed she'd be the one to surprise us all."
Further unpacking revealed exotic chocolate, water colour portraits of Posy by some guy in a park in Paris and over the top frilly clothes for Amelia, a contrast to the slick fashion Pauline bought for her. Petrova just felt that it was just going to get dirty so it didn’t matter.
Amelia was almost four months. Her sleeping had settled down, bringing Petrova no end of relief. Her chubby fingers seemed permanently wrapped around the neck of a small toy giraffe which Pauline had bought for her from Hamleys. "Getting a little clucky, are we?" Petrova had teased, looking at the piles of toys which seemed to grow every time Pauline came near the house. But Pauline had smiled evasively, and made some reference to how they were raised by so many people, it would be such a shame for Amelia to miss out.
The family sat down at the long table which didn't fit so well in this house, but Garnie couldn't bear to part with. All of them had started in the kitchen, until Garnie got fed up and shooed them out, grumbling that they were more trouble than they were worth and proceeded to serve them with plate after plate. Rationing was only just becoming entirely a thing of the past, and Garnie took to the kitchen as if she was fighting another war against it. The only thing missing was Posy.
#
All the train journey back, Posy’s heart thudded and tears were gathering at the back of her eyes, but she didn’t cry until she was back at their rooms. Then the tears came heavy and fast. Tina folded her arms round her.
“I’m so sorry. It didn’t go well then?” It was Tina’s suggestion she looked for her biological mother. They’d taken out an ad in dance periodicals asking her to get in touch, and get in touch she had. But Tina’s strained expression told Posy that she was wondering if she had made the wrong decision.
Posy shook her head. She’s really proud of me. She’s seen me dance before, she kept every newspaper clipping, but didn’t want to get in contact if I didn’t want it.” She bent down, her red hair, worn unusually loose, falling down around her face, and opened the old, decaying carpet bag she was carrying. It was full of ballet shoes.
“She bought me a new pair every year. She guessed my shoe size. They're all here." She reached in and pulled one out. "My first pair of pointes.”
Tina’s expression turned to puzzlement. “Isn’t this what you wanted?”
“Yes. No. Yes. I mean. She’s just like me. We talked about ballet. About my performances. About my training. She’s teaching now, earns enough to get by, though I’d like to help her out a bit. But it was always ballet. Nothing else. And I don’t want to be like that, Tina, I simply don’t.”
“Darling, you’re not like that. Passion’s a good thing, that’s all.”
“I’m not going to have children, but if I did, I’d talk to them about more than just ballet. I’d talk to them about the people they cared about and where they’d travelled and... everything. I can’t live without ballet, but I don’t want it to be the most important thing. That’s my sisters and Garnie and my friends. That’s family. And that’s you, Tina. Oh Tina, that’s you.”
#
It had been hard for Pauline to take a break lately. Her new acting contracts had their pressures - not the same ones she was used to, not even necessarily as strong, but they were still there. She was torn between the reputation of her as a top star and the reasonably solid, middle of the road parts she was taking in reality. It wasn’t just her it made feel uneasy, but those around her as well.
Then there was Cromwell Road. Whilst she wasn’t exactly getting her hands dirty as Petrova would - she didn’t really understand the point - but she was doing all the organising herself. Today she was checking over the latest round of repairs. She wouldn’t know if they’d been done correctly, but her sense of connection was so strong she had to be there...
“Hello... Pauline?”
The voice echoed up to the third story where Pauline was. She took the first two flights of stairs two at a time before adopting a more ladylike and definitely less rushed approach to the remainder. Michael was waiting for her at the door, a script writer she had met first as a professional contact, but lately it was turning into something more. She looked at him; his clean cut dark hair, the way he could pull of casual clothes and make them look like he had chosen them specially. Maybe, just maybe, she thought as he guided her out to his car, things were starting to work out.
#
Petrova's hand gripped the controls tightly. This was it. The prototype. Her, the first test pilot. The day had a cold edge to it, but the sky was clear and the wind only slight. Not a bad day for flying.
She didn't test pilot so much these days; the mechanics and design interested her so much more, and though she was loathe to admit it, her pregnancy then motherhood had made her a little more resk averse. But when it was her project, that was a different matter. This felt like her design too. She may had had to adhere to the standards, and the cockpit was more suited for a 5 foot 10 man than a petite woman like herself, but there was something in the way it maneuvered, something about the manner and extent in which her piloting influenced the movements of the plane, that was just made for her.
To some, the initial flight wouldn't seem exciting. It was a simple take off, short circle, and landing, lasting only minutes and designed to answer just one question: will it fly? But to Petrova this was worth more than the intricate flights she would later perform. She was the first to handle these controls, to take this craft into the air. It was as if she had attained some new height, as if by this simple act she was cutting some new line across the universe. She saw the fields around the airfield, the village where she lived. She had circled this area so many times that she could make out the smudge that was her house by virtue of calculating its location. Her landing was bumpy, as was to be expected on a test flight, but nothing that a combination of practice and mechanical adjustments couldn't fix. She handled the controls expertly and though she took all the precautions that were ingrained in her brain, she never considered herself in any danger. This was what she was meant to do.
#
When Pauline had said she'd do advertising if she had to, she had meant it but she hadn't really considered the possibility. But she also hadn't considered how popular she'd be. Televisions were starting to appear in homes around the country, and the idea of this famous actress, newly returned to London, endorsing their product, was an inescapable prospect. And film work was yet to come in in any great way. She’d had a few small parts - the type where they wanted her name but already had the major roles cast. She hoped once she settled down it would change, but for now she was lending her name and her face to two kinds of shampoo, an old brand of peppermints that required a new image and an airline.
She missed though, more than anything, the sense that everyone was an outsider. When she first arrived in Hollywood, she had not slid in seamlessly; on the contrary she was full of mannerisms which were out of place and expectations she quickly came to realise were way off the mark. But rather than being an outsider amongst so many normal girls, the adoptee in the big unaffordable house, in LA Pauline was an outsider like everyone else. They had come from all over the US and all over the world. They had left homes and families. They all wanted the same thing, if not for the same reasons. She knew she would always come back to London, though she had not planned it so soon, but Hollywood felt like home to her in a different way, in a way she suspected nowhere else could.
She stopped her train of thoughts. The cameras were about to roll. Pauline smiled.
#
The letter came, with fortuitous timing, the day before Petrova was due to visit Pauline in London. She had paid a few such visits, all filled with dresses and shoes and expensive teas. Last time Paula had brought her a dress; not an expensive one by Pauline’s standards, but well outside what Petrova could ever have considered spending on clothes. There was a time when Petrova would not have touched a dress; she had spent a long time fighting to dress how she liked, to pay more attention to engines than cooking, but now she had secured a lifestyle that fit her like a glove, she could relax a little more. And it was a lovely dress, in a colour that suited her just perfectly.
Posy did not mince her words. But the important parts were. Will be in England for four months from early June. Mostly based in London. Petrova's heart raced. It had been too long - far too long - since she had seen her younger sister. It had been even longer since the three of them had all been together. She drove to London with her heart racing, picked Pauline up waving the letter excitedly. Pauline’s hug caused her to almost lose control of the vehicle, but flying during wartime had not left her without emergency skills.
Pauline was no less overjoyed, though she had become, Petrova realised, more sophisticated than she realised, and she displayed less of Petrova’s almost manic energy. Though she wasn’t, Petrova was relieved to notice, above getting the cream from her tall glass of iced coffee all over her nose.
#
Posy arrived by ferry to Calais, from where the troupe was bussed up to London, where their show would open before touring the country. The family were used to Posy’s hectic schedules, but still, Petrova was on edge waiting to see her. The moment came one Sunday morning, when the more religious of them went to church, and the others either practiced or explored. As principal ballerina, Posy had a bit more freedom, but also need to set a good example. Still, she determined there was an exception to be made here, and took both a couple more hours and Pauline’s offer of a taxi and accompaniment out to Somerset.
When she arrived, Posy made a beeline straight for Amelia, who was babbling away quite happily. She grumbled a little when moved, but Posy had more of a talent than Petrova would have guessed. She stopped, and Petrova flung her arms around her. Her face buried in her sister’s neck, Petrova felt Pauline’s hands complete the hug. It had been far too long.
#
“I really admire what you’ve got here, Petrova...” Posy said thoughtfully. The three sisters were drinking their way through a bottle of wine in Petrova’s kitchen.
“Admire?” Petrova laughed. “I’m pretty lucky, I know - I love Leonard and Amelia of course, and I’ve got a great job. It’s a nice life. But there’s nothing to admire about it. You’re the one that world leaders meet and has write-ups in the national newspapers. And I’ve still got to get myself into those history books.”
“You’ve worked out your relationship all by yourself. Oh, I know you have Garnie and he has his parents. But for us... ballet’s like this one big family. And we’re just this one little part within it, but the rest of it keeps us together. We don’t need to worry too much about the outside world. We have where we stay sorted for us; we just show up. And it’s not going to last forever...”
Petrova’s face broke into a grin. “One day you’re going to end up old and decrepit like Pauline and I. How awful!”
Posy screwed her face up. “Oh, I hope not. But we’re not going to be professional dancers forever. Not like this. We’ll probably want to stay in one place, maybe teach. It’s not going to be for a while yet but.. I don’t know how we’ll do it.”
“It’s easier for us,” Petrova said gently. “Men and women are expected to be together. People understand that. They come to your wedding.”
“Harder for you too, though,” Posy pointed out. “If someone had suggested I give up dancing because I got married I’d... I’d... I’m surprised you didn’t fly a plane at them!”
Pauline had been sitting quiet through everything, perched on the corner of the window seat. “I just wish he’d ask. I just wish I knew where I was with things.”
Posy casually pirouetted to the centre of the room and stood in position for a few seconds.
“Okay, she’s had enough,” Petrova laughed, though such behaviour was not exactly outside the norm for the youngest Fossil. “What’s that, Pauline?”
“Michael. I know it’s only been three months. I know some people date for years. But I just think we’re serious. Really serious. And I’d like to know if he is too.”
“Just ask him,” Petrova suggested.
Pauline got up, and looked round for another bottle of wine, changed the subject. She loved her sisters, but there were some things they would simply never understand.
#
The family filed into the second row, pulled down the red velvetted seats. Pauline and Petrova had, in a way, grown up in the theatre, and they could never quite explain the simultaneous sense of awe, and yet deep familiarity, they felt at each performance. Leonard was at home with Amelia, and Tina, though not performing, was waiting backstage, so in the end it was just Michael, Garnie and John who came with them.
It had actually been some time since they had last seen Posy on stage, but it didn’t feel like it could have been long at all. Sometimes Petrova wished she could be mesmerised by Posy like so many were, but though she was very good, even she could tell that, she was still her freckled little sister under all that. The rest of the theatre, though, had no such spoiling of the illusion, and the silence was palpable, the holding of breath audible.
Pauline went off to look for Posy so they could take her out for desert, and Michael made use of the opportunity. Petrova could tell her was nervous.
“The thing is,” he said, twisting his fingers. “I’m thinking of asking Pauline to marry me. If you’re - I suppose I should be asking you.”
Not the approach of middle age or motherhood could force Petrova to keep a lid on her eyeroll. “Or you could just talk to her about it?” she suggested.
Garnie was sharp. “That’s enough, Petrova... but she does have a point. It’s really is Pauline you should be talking to.”
The next weekend, Pauline visited displaying a diamond ring.Her excitement manifested in a quiet, almost overpowering happiness. Her hair was back to blonde again, and it was as if her whole person shone across the room.
#
Cromwell Road looked, in Posy’s words, simply amazing. Pauline was perhaps a little less enthused; the realisation that work on an old British house would never be entirely completed had been a bit of an anti-climax. Nevertheless, she confessed to being very happy with the result.
Today was Amelia’s first birthday. Things had settled down a lot for Petrova in the past few months, but she still appreciated Pauline’s offer to host, and she had gone for the best. A cake iced with balloons and flowers. A Tiny Tears doll imported from America dressed in a white gingham dress. Everything was perfect.
As the conversations carried on, punch was drunk and Amelia admired, Petrova pulled her sisters into what had been the drawing room, now outfitted as a modern kitchen.
“Do you remember the last time we were here?”
“When Pauline showed us the renovations?” Posy asked, not above winding her sister up.
“I do,” Pauline said. “It’s where we changed the vow. It’s almost where we saw each others as children for the last time.”
"I think it's time for something new.” Petrova interjected, seeing Pauline almost tearful. “We talked about history books. I don't really care about history books any more. We seem to be more pushed around by history than creating it - you, Posy, out of Czecholovakia when the war came. And you leaving America. That's history. But we're all doing pretty well, right. We've made a name for ourselves even though no grandfathers bore that name. So this isn't about our birthdays any more."
Petrova held up her right hand, securing Amelia tightly with her left. After a moments hesitation, Posy, and then Pauline, followed.
“We three Fossils,” Petrova began, trembling, “know that only we are responsible for our name, because we cannot say it came from our grandfathers. We vow to continue to follow our talents, our loves and encourage all who bear our name to do the same.”
“We vow,” said Pauline.
“We vow,” said Posy.
On Petrova's hip, Amelia Fossil Leeson, Fossil number four, raised her hands slowly and cautiously and started to laugh. Posy laughed too, pointing at Amelia as if she had been waiting decades to not be the youngest. She bent down. "Amelia. A vow is a very solemn occasion. You mustn't laugh. Do you understand?”
Posy took Amelia in her arms, and sketched a new pattern of steps out through the doorway.