Another Life Altogether: A Novel - By Elaine Beale Page 0,119
a word with your Ted, Evelyn. He’s getting out of the nick in the middle of February, and when he does he’s coming to live here.”
“And where are you going, Dad?” I asked, trying to keep my voice calm while panic rose in me in swirling, frantic waves.
“Me?” he asked.
“Yes. Where will you go when you leave us?”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“You’re not?”
“No,” he said with a shrug. “Just needed to get away for a bit to get a chance to think. And while I was thinking, well”—his lips extended into a smile—“I realized that if Ted came to stay he could keep your mam company, cheer her up, help her out, while we could help him get on his feet. Seems like it’s an arrangement that could benefit all of us and—”
Unable to control myself any longer, I pushed myself from the settee and launched myself across the room toward him, landing against his chest with a thud and wrapping my arms around his neck.
“Bloody hell, Jesse, what on earth’s got into you?” I heard his words echoing through his chest as I pressed my cheek there, and then, when he put an arm around me and sat there wordless, I could hear the unwavering rhythm of his heart.
THE NEXT MORNING, I was woken at six o’clock by the sound of furniture scraping over floorboards. When I got up to investigate, I discovered my mother in the spare bedroom at the front of the house, dragging an old armchair into the middle of the room, where she had already piled boxes, cartons, and other miscellaneous items. “What are you doing, Mum?” I asked, bleary-eyed under the glare of the unshaded bulb that hung from the flaking ceiling.
“Decorating,” she said. “If we leave it to your father, it’s going to take forever. And I’ll not have our Ted thinking that we live in a pigsty. It’s bad enough him having to be in prison. Last thing he needs is to get out and find himself in a dump like this.” She swung an arm to indicate the chaos around her. “Now, that would be depressing.”
“Are you all right, Mum?”
“All right? Of course I’m all right,” she said, setting the chair beside an ancient lamp with a moth-eaten shade. “I’ve never felt better in my life.”
I looked at her, mouth agape. Just over twenty-four hours ago, she’d been on the verge of swallowing several dozen pills, and now here she was telling me she’d never felt better, as if that moment in the bathroom had never taken place. I imagined myself holding on to the rear bumper of a wildly careening car, a fool for thinking I might slow a speeding vehicle or prevent it from colliding with whatever was in the way.
“I’ll have to take a lot of this plaster down,” she said, pointing at the crumbling ceiling. “And that window frame needs replacing as well. Of course, I’ll have to put a carpet in. But I already know what color scheme I’m using. I’m going to do burgundy walls with a light red on the woodwork. And I’ll make some nice purple curtains and a matching bedspread. I’ll see if I can get a nice red carpet as well. What do you think?”
“Sounds nice.” Actually, I was more than a little dubious about the aesthetic merits of a room done entirely in shades of red and purple, but I’d long given up on either of my parents exhibiting even the tiniest skill in interior decorating. And, if it was going to help her remain in her present mood, that was fine with me.
“I know our Ted will love it,” my mother continued, gazing dreamily up at the blotchy ceiling. “Men like strong colors. And I bet those prisons aren’t exactly painted nice and bright. This’ll cheer him up. And if he’s going to be here in a few weeks, then I’d better get started right away.”
After that, my mother engaged herself in a whirlwind of activity. She managed to change out of her nightclothes, but now she wore the same paint-spattered slacks and oversized shirt every day. (I suspected that she also slept in this outfit, but since she never went to bed until after I’d gone to sleep and was up before I ventured out of my bedroom in the mornings I couldn’t be sure.) She stopped watching television altogether; instead, she hummed the tunes of songs sung by Engelbert Humperdinck, Tom Jones, and Perry Como while she knocked