Another Life Altogether: A Novel - By Elaine Beale Page 0,108
the silence, watching the meandering track of her footprints as if it were the only evidence of what had just occurred.
“Jesse! Jesse! For God’s sake, how many times do I have to call you?” It was my mother. She stood in the doorway, leaning loosely against the doorframe. “Are you deaf?”
“I was reading.”
“Well, a lot of good that will do, won’t it? Your auntie Mabel needs you to set the table.”
“Can’t you do it?” I asked, resenting her sudden intrusion.
“No, I can’t. I’m busy. I’m making the sherry trifle.” Her expression was even slacker than it had been earlier, and I guessed that she had probably consumed at least as much sherry as she had put into the trifle. “Come on, you’ve got to do your part, you know. This is a family dinner, after all.” As she turned, she hit her shoulder against the doorframe and reeled back a moment before she launched herself out of the room. I followed unwillingly.
“Are you all right, Mum?” I asked as she barged into the kitchen and knocked into the table.
“‘Course I’m bloody well all right,” she said, steadying herself with a palm pushed against the Formica before flopping down into one of the chairs. “Never been bloody better. Mabel, pour us another sherry, will you?”
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough, Ev?” Mabel said. “Enough?” My mother laughed. “Yes, I’ve definitely had enough. Had enough of everything, I have. Had it up to here.” She jabbed her index finger clumsily against her temple. “That’s why I could use another drink.” She laughed again. “That’ll wash the cares away—oh, yes it will. Oh, yes it will indeed.” I gave Mabel a beseeching look.
“Why don’t you at least wait until you’ve had some food in you, Ev?” she said. “It won’t be long until it’s ready.” She took a slurp from the gravy spoon.
“I’m not a bloody child, you know,” my mother said, slamming her hand down on the table, making it wobble from side to side. “You might have been able to boss me around when we were kids, but you can’t tell me what to do now.” She pouted and added, “Anyway, I have been eating. I’ve polished off them chocolates you brought.” The box of Milk Tray sat ransacked on the counter.
Mabel gave a hopeless shrug. “Oh, go on, Jesse, pour your mother another drink. At least it’ll shut her up while I get the rest of this dinner cooked.”
My mother watched me with narrowed, expectant eyes. “Go on, you heard your auntie Mabel,” she said, hitting the table even harder. This time it groaned slightly as it wobbled.
I poured about an inch of sherry into my mother’s glass and pushed it toward her. She looked at it scornfully, then heaved herself up, leaned across the table, grabbed the bottle, and filled the glass to the top.
Half an hour later, I looked out the kitchen window to see my father pull into the driveway and Granddad emerge from the passenger side. His gray hair was so shiny with Brylcreem that it looked wet, and as he crossed the front garden, swathed in an oversized black wool coat, he made me think of a massive sea mammal—a walrus or one of those elephant seals I’d seen on a BBC Two wildlife documentary—fearsome and inelegant, and ready to butt chests with anyone who got in his way. When he got within a few yards of the house, he stopped and appraised it. He didn’t seem impressed.
For a while I stayed in the kitchen while Mabel bustled around like a woman possessed. She stirred and agitated pans, put things in and pulled things out of the oven. Moving through clouds of steam, her face was damp and rosy, and her chest—revealed by the plunging neckline of her skintight orange sweater—was flushed a patchy red. I offered to help, but she brushed me away. And since my mother, now staring foggy-eyed and wordless at her empty sherry glass, wasn’t exactly my idea of good company, I left and wandered into the living room. There, while my father stared at a Bugs Bunny cartoon, Granddad and Frank were engaged in a somewhat one-sided discussion of the character-building merits of military service.
“I mean, just look at the state of youngsters these days,” Granddad said as I entered the room. “All them lads with hair past their shoulders. And the lasses, my God. When I was young, the lasses put some effort into their appearance. Not anymore—oh, no.