“It’s such a shame, really,” Ruby continued, arranging her glass vials and bottles on her little table in the sunlight. “You’ve such a scrumptious shape.”
“All right,” Errol Cagney said mildly. “Leave him.”
“How’s my form?” Rhys Caradoc asked, puffing his chest up and striking a knightly pose.
“Skinny,” said Ruby without looking at him.
“Rangey,” Libba corrected, tilting her head to the side.
“I wish I were either,” Monica put in gently, patting her pleasantly plump hips. “You’re beautiful, Rhys.”
“Damn right, I am,” he said. “And so are you,chwaer.”
She grinned, tucking her wispy, blonde hair behind her ears, and shook her head. “The poem,” she said. “Try again.”
Elias groaned. “Where is Harriet?”
“Oh, he wants Hattie,” said Libba with an exaggerated pout. “Isn’t that sweet?”
“She’ll be along,” Rhys said, his eyes sparkling. “She doesn’t need to rehearse the same way we do.”
“She and Malcolm don’t perform as such,” Errol explained. “They haven’t props or scripts. They have to wait for the audience to engage them.”
“With numbers and letters,” Ruby said, tapping her fingernails against the rims of her beakers. “One, two… Rhys! Give it back!”
“No, I need it!” he retorted, which immediately devolved into one chasing the other around the pavilion while Elias watched in helpless fascination.
“You don’t have any siblings, do you, Selwyn?” Errol asked him, sidling up next to Libba to join in their observation of the chasing farce.
Elias shook his head, eyes following their progress. “No, my mother remarried after I was born and the two of them realized in fast order that children are too much of a fuss for their sensibilities. They didn’t make the same mistake again,” he said. “I don’t think this is usual, even for siblings, all the same.”
“Of course it is,” said Libba with a sniff. “We’re not siblings, anyhow. Not really. Well, Mal and I are, but not the others.”
“No,” Errol agreed, his eyes following Ruby’s petite frame as it feinted and spun in her red skirts, knocking Rhys flat on his bottom. “No, we aren’t.”
“Get your own!” Ruby crowed, planting a dainty slippered foot on his chest and leaning down to pluck the beaker from his hand.
“You could’ve broken it!” Rhys whined.
“And it would have been worth it, honestly,” Ruby replied, smirking as she let him up.
“You can’t humiliate me in my own domain,” he continued, leaping to his feet like a cat. “I own the stone you stand on!”
“Yes, yes,” said Ruby, already walking back to her table. “Rhys bloody Caradoc, master of the gazebo.”
“It’s apavilion,” he intoned, following her just a little too closely to maximize his antagonism. “I need more scent, by the by.”
“Are you going to pay for it this time?” Ruby asked, winning a sputtering scoff from Rhys.
“Oh, it is easy to forget how wonderful it is when we’re together.” Monica sighed wistfully, as though she were watching an idyllic family tableau. “I’m barely even sad about Berlin anymore.”
Elias cleared his throat, attempting to find his slot in this odd woodwork puzzle. “Oh, right,” he said politely. “You were making opera costumes, yes? What was the production?”
She blinked at him, smiling brightly. “Dido and Aeneas,” she said. “Terribly sad. We were doing it in Rococo style. Quite a lot of pastel. You would look well in a nice powder blue, you know.”
“Oh,” he said.
“Ah, Christ,” said Errol, suddenly hopping to action and striding off toward the street. “My pigs!”
