Another Life Altogether (13 page)

“Fun? What about me? I’m stuck here in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do but stare at four bloody walls.” She buried her face in her hands and began to sob again.

“There, there, Mum,” I said, eyeing the chip pan. I noticed that the burner underneath was still set on high, and I felt a little uneasy about the way the fat continued to leap and froth and spit. But I stood over my mother, continuing to loosely pat her on the back. “It’ll be all right. It really will.”

“Do you think so?” she asked, letting her hands slide down her face. “Do you really think so?”

“Yes,” I said firmly. “And you know what I think we should do?”

“What?” She looked at me with wide eyes, the whites patterned in fine red lines.

“Well, like I said, I think you’d feel better if we got settled in more,
if we got the unpacking done and got rid of all these boxes.” I indicated the ten or so boxes piled in the corner of the kitchen. “Once that’s done, maybe we can get Dad to drive us into Hull to go and see Mabel. We can go and visit her for tea. Now, what do you think about that?” I listened to the ringing cheeriness of my own voice. It sounded odd, distant, as if it wasn’t really me speaking. “Now, that’d be nice, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, I suppose it would. We could get her one of those nice Neapolitan cakes she likes. Or you know what?” my mother said, sniffing and nudging me excitedly with her elbow. “We could splash out and get a packet of Mr. Kipling’s.” She looked down at the letter on the table in front of her. “And you’re right about your grandma. She’s entitled to her bit of fun. I suppose I can’t begrudge her that.” She sounded as if she was trying to convince herself.

“I’m sure she thinks about you all the time,” I said.

“Yes, yes. I’m sure you’re right,” she said, looking up to give me a weak smile.

“Better now?” I asked, again eyeing the chip pan nervously. The oil had begun to smoke.

She wiped her eyes and blew her nose again, leaving her handkerchief a crumpled and sodden bundle in her palm. “Yes, love, I think I am.” She reached up and took hold of my hand. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, darling, I really don’t. You’re an anchor, you know that? A real anchor.” She squeezed my fingers. “You’re always there when I need you, aren’t you? Always so sensible, always know what to do. Not like me. I’m so scattered sometimes, I—”

“Mum,” I interrupted, trying to pull my hand from her grip.

“Yes, love?”

“I think I need to turn the gas under those chips down.” The smoke from the pan had become thicker; it had begun to fill the room. It burned in my nostrils, and I could taste it as I spoke.

“Yes, love,” my mother said again, releasing her hold on me. I
launched myself across the kitchen and turned off the burner. Then, my eyes stinging, I scrambled to open a window, not an easy task, since the frame, like most of those in the house, was soft with rot and had swollen into place. Finally, I managed to force it open. After gulping in the fresh air, I turned back toward my mother, who was still sitting at the kitchen table, squeezing her hankie in her fist, completely oblivious to this culinary crisis.

“So, when’s tea going to be ready?” she asked.

I strode over to the cooker and peered into the still smoking pan, where the potatoes floated in the sizzling oil, charred and blackened strips. “It’s going to be a while.”

“Good. Well, maybe I’ll go and get dressed, then. You know, put my face on and straighten myself up a bit. I bet your dad would appreciate that, don’t you?”

As I went about preparing the potatoes again, I listened to my mother clattering around upstairs, stomping across the bare wooden floors, slamming then opening then slamming doors. Then, when I’d got the chips in the pan once again (this time with the heat turned down), I sat at the kitchen table and picked up the letter my mother had left there.

My eyes scanned the introductory greetings, and then the couple of paragraphs that described the tour of the opera house. Grandma mentioned Ted briefly: “I got a letter from your brother the other day. He says he’s not doing so bad, considering. I wish you’d drop him a line, Evelyn. It’d be nice for him to hear from you. He is your brother. And I hate thinking how he’s stuck behind bars all day. He’s not a bad lad, really. I wish I’d managed to do more to keep him on the straight and narrow. But at least my girls are doing all right! I hope your new house is nice and that you’re out of the hospital and feeling much better now. I know shingles can be nasty, so I was very happy to hear you’ve made a full recovery.”

I dropped the letter onto the table. Shingles? So that was how my
mother’s stay in the hospital had been accounted for. Why, I wondered, was everything in my family shaded in lies? Why did everyone, myself included, never stick to the truth? I knew the answer, of course, because it was obvious. In our case, the truth was always ugly and so very hard to swallow.

O
NE WEEK LATER, EVERYTHING WAS FINALLY UNPACKED AND MY
father had made noticeable headway on the repairs. Even my mother seemed better. She’d assisted me enthusiastically with the unpacking, and after we were finished appeared to finally find herself a mission when she decided she was going to tackle the jungle of thistles that occupied our back garden. “I’m going to put in a lawn, and some nice flowering shrubs,” she said, gesturing with the massive tin of weedkiller my father had purchased for her on his way home from work.

The enormous “Poison” warning on the tin had made me a little nervous, and I’d questioned my father about the wisdom of allowing her access to several gallons of such a lethal substance. He jovially dismissed my concerns, telling me that she had obviously recovered and was now “right as rain.” Unconvinced by his confidence, I eyed the giant tin apprehensively as she swung it back and forth.

“I’m going to put a fishpond and a fountain in the back,” she continued describing her plans. “Maybe I’ll get some of those little garden gnomes to put around it. That’ll look nice, don’t you think?”

“Can we have pansies?” I asked, imagining their bright yellow and purple blooms placed at perfectly spaced intervals all around the garden.

“I suppose so. But, whatever I put in, I’ll have it looking lovely by next summer. We’ll be able to throw one of those posh garden parties.”

I couldn’t imagine who she thought was going to come to this party. The only guests I could envisage were Auntie Mabel, and, if he happened to be out of prison at the time, Uncle Ted. As she continued to talk, however, I realized that my mother seemed to have illusions of making friends with the local landed gentry, going on at length about how “you get a better class of people” in the countryside and how we could “improve our social standing” if only we played our cards right. My mother’s strategy in this regard seemed to be to impress them with her landscape-gardening talents and the Mr. Kipling cream cakes she’d serve with our afternoon tea.

“Sounds great, Mum,” I said.

“Yes, it does, doesn’t it?” she said, beaming as she unscrewed the cap of the weedkiller and strode purposefully toward the back door.

For the next week or so, my mother worked on the garden. Within days, she had reduced the thistles to a wilted, collapsed mass. After this, she talked my father into buying her a scythe. (He was a little more reluctant to purchase this particular item than the weedkiller and was persuaded to do so only after she threatened to march over to the nearest farm to ask if she could borrow one.) Scythe in hand, she began whacking away at the monstrous bramble bushes that bordered all sides of the garden. “Take care with that thing, Evelyn,” my father called to her, cringing as she swung it around her in wide, menacing arcs. I watched her from the kitchen window, her eyes bright, teeth clenched, and I was reminded of those medieval pictures I had seen in my history textbook of Death, the Grim Reaper, sweeping through Europe during the plague.

The day I’d met Tracey, she’d told me that she and her family were leaving for a fortnight’s holiday in Cornwall that weekend. I’d given her my telephone number, and I was thrilled when she rang the day after her return and invited me to meet up with her in the village the following morning. After we’d wandered around for a while and she’d told me
about all the drop-dead-gorgeous boys she met while she was away, Tracey suggested that we go to her house and get something to eat.

“We can make some sandwiches and I can show you my David Cassidy posters,” she said, grinning.

“Great,” I said, trying to sound enthusiastic. During our first encounter, aside from talking about all the boys at school she liked, she had told me how, really, if she had a choice, she’d prefer to go out with David Cassidy. She also went on at great length about his looks, his songs, and how much she enjoyed watching episodes of
The Partridge Family
. I omitted to mention that I hated this particular television program and, though I knew there were boys who were far uglier than David Cassidy, I really hadn’t given him a second thought. But going over to Tracey’s house meant going back to Marigold Court, and I felt a flutter of excitement at the possibility of seeing Amanda again.

I hadn’t mentioned Amanda to Tracey, but I had been hoping to slip her name into the conversation, to inquire whether Tracey knew her and where she happened to live. For some reason, though, it seemed impossible to just mention Amanda casually. I was afraid I’d blush when I talked about her and Tracey would think I was odd. When we came to the street, however, it was just as quiet as it had been the first time I visited, and without seeing a single one of her neighbors we made our way into Tracey’s house.

Tracey’s mother was at home when we arrived. Slender and peachy-skinned, she wore an Alice in Wonderland headband to hold her straight blond hair out of her face, and a flowery ruffled smock.

“Hello, Tracey, love. Didn’t expect to see you back here so soon,” she said, her voice so soft and melodic that it made me realize how abrasive the tones of all my female relatives were. And while all the women in my family were big-limbed and hefty, Mrs. Grasby was thin, with small fine-boned hands and guarded, delicate gestures to match. I remembered that she was the president of the Bleakwick Young Wives Club. If all the other members were like that, I thought, no wonder my mother had been tossed out. “This must be your new friend,” she said,
pressing her palms to each side of her face and regarding me as if I were a surprise gift that had just been delivered to her door.

“Her name’s Jesse,” Tracey said, rolling her eyes at me, apparently irked by her mother’s enthusiasm. “She moved into Johnson’s house. You know, that place on the road out of the village, the one that’s falling to bits.”

“Oh, Tracey, don’t be so rude,” her mother said, shaking her head and making a
tut-tut
sound with her tongue. “That’s not how we talk to guests, now is it?” She turned to me. “Don’t mind Tracey—she tends to forget her manners sometimes.”

Tracey rolled her eyes again. “We just came home for something to eat. I thought you were going out.”

“Oh, I was, but then I got carried away making that chicken casserole I saw in the new issue of
Good Housekeeping
. I thought your dad might want something different for a change. I think he’ll like it,” she said, pushing her hands into the ruffles of her smock. “At least I hope he likes it.” For a moment, her voice seemed to catch in her throat and her face pressed into an uneasy tightness, her mouth bracketed by two carved lines. Then, almost as fast it came, the expression was gone and she was all soft edges and smiles. “Why don’t you girls go and sit down and I’ll make you some sandwiches. Ham and tomato all right for you, Jesse?”

“Yes, please, Mrs. Grasby,” I said, following Tracey into the living room while her mother bustled down the hall toward the kitchen.

The furniture in Tracey’s living room was very much as I’d expected—a thick-piled fitted carpet, an unscratched coffee table and sideboard, a pristine settee and matching armchairs, porcelain ornaments on the windowsills. The only unexpected element was the glass cabinet in the corner filled with gilded plates, silver trophies, bronze cups, ribbons, and medallions, and a collection of photographs and certificates on the wall.

“I didn’t know your mum and dad did ballroom dancing,” I said, walking over to take a closer look at the photographs.

Tracey shrugged. “Yeah, that’s how they met.”

In the pictures, they were beautiful. Mrs. Grasby, her hair coiffed in elaborate, twisty piles, her body sheathed in sparkly, sequined gowns, looked glamorous. And Mr. Grasby was dark-featured and ruggedly handsome in a black suit, white shirt, and black bow tie, his hair slicked back and shiny as patent leather. Some of the photographs were posed, but most caught them in the exuberance of dancing—their bodies arced in elegant lines, heads tilted, faces shiny with perspiration and the brilliance of the ballroom’s lights. My eyes flitted from photograph to photograph, fascinated by the way, in those dancing shots, they cut such a dazzling spectacle, their two bodies converging in a single fluid motion, so that there was no doubt that they were meant to be together. I thought of my own parents, both terrible dancers in their own particular way: my father so robotically stiff that dancing hardly seemed the right word for the wooden movements of his limbs; my mother frenetic and out of sync with any rhythm in the music, making it obvious that in dancing, as in everything else, she occupied a world of her own.