The Small Fortune of Dorothea Q [antikvár]

Chapter One Inky: The Noughties lm Inky; comes from 'Inka, a creative spelling of'Inca'. Mums the creative type; she named me in memory of her meeting Dad on a bus from Huancayo to Cusco back in the late sixties, a sixteen-year-old runaway passing through Brazil and Peru on her way to India. She ended up in England. If that seems a roundabout way of doing things, well, that's Mum for you. But I'm getting ahead of myself. The whole story came out when, thirty years later, she and Gran decided to put an end to their cold war. Gran was coming to stay with us in London, which was why we were there that day at Gatwick. 'Here they come!' said Mum, and stiffened visibly in an-ticipation. She'd been nervous all morning, which with Mum meant she'd been even more silent than usual, responding to my meaningless chatter with the vague ummms and head-nods that told me she was hearing without listening. Now even the head-nods stopped and she just stared, fists clenched in anxiety as the glass doors slid open. A new batch of passengers ambled into the arrivals hall; at first just one or two forerunners, then little clumps of them, pushing loaded trolleys or tugging buiging suitcases. Gran and Aunt Marion had changed planes in Barbados and these were mostly returning tourists, which was obvious at first glance. They radiated laid-back cheer, holiday glee; women with stringy blonde hair in disintegrating cornrows and men in shorts and flapping sandals, faces lobster-red or baked golden, smiling and waving at familiar faces in the waiting crowd. The aura of Caribbean sun and white sand still clung