Another Life Altogether: A Novel - By Elaine Beale Page 0,129

pulling her coat protectively around her. “You’re getting married?” She sounded stung.

“Yes, Evelyn, we’re getting married,” Mabel said, taking out a cigarette and searching around for her lighter.

“By heck,” Ted said, grinning broadly. “That’s a ruddy turnup for the books. Our Mabel getting married, who’d have thought it?” He slapped Frank across the back, the impact of his hand sounding a hollow thud and making Frank stagger forward several steps across the kitchen. “Congratulations, Frank! That’s champion, that is. Just hope you don’t live to regret it.” He bellowed out a laugh.

Mabel looked at him through narrowed eyes.

“Only joking, Mabel,” Ted said, lifting his hands as if in surrender. “Really, I think it’s smashing news. About time someone had the courage to make an honest woman of you.”

“Yes, congratulations, Frank, Mabel,” my father said. “That’s terrific news, isn’t it, Evelyn?”

Everyone turned toward her, and for a long moment the room seemed airless, still and filled with expectation. I watched my mother, half hoping that she would start screaming at Frank, yell at him that she didn’t want a brother-in-law who wandered naked around her sister’s house, who brought her ridiculous gifts of sausages, who was a shameless degenerate who had divorced his wife and abandoned his children. Though it was a slim hope, maybe my mother’s dismissal of him might make Mabel see some sense. On the other hand, if my mother became as upset by Mabel’s impending marriage as she had by Grandma’s, then it could send her back to languishing in bed, or worse. Barely breathing, I waited for her reaction.

Swaddled in her massive fox-fur coat, for once my mother’s physical presence seemed to match her emotional impact on the room. “Married?” she said again.

“That’s right,” Mabel said, striking a light and putting the flame to her cigarette. She took a drag, puffed out the smoke, and looked steadily at my mother. “Married,” she said firmly.

“When?” my mother asked.

“Well, we were thinking May,” Mabel said hesitantly. “I see,” my mother said, still sounding dubious. Then a startling change of expression came across her face. Her furrowed brow lifted and her lips turned upward in a jubilant smile. “That’s just fantastic!” she declared. “I’m really chuffed for you, Mabel, I am.”

Mabel looked at my mother skeptically. “You are?”

“Of course I am. I’m thrilled. And a wedding—well, weddings are always wonderful. Of course,” she said, striking a sudden sour note, “I wasn’t even told about my own mother’s wedding. Haven’t even got an invitation yet.”

“Well, Ev, I don’t think they’ve set a date, I think—” Mabel started to explain.

My mother cut her off. “Not to worry about that. Mam might be marrying some too-big-for-his-boots furniture salesman in sunny Australia, but we are going to throw you the biggest, most wonderful wedding this family has ever seen. We’ll show that Australian gigolo. And you know what?”

“What?” Mabel and Frank said simultaneously as they cast worried glances at each other.

“We’re going to do it right here.” She pointed out the kitchen window toward the garden. “We’ll rent one of them big marquee tents for the reception, and we can do the ceremony on the lawn, and—”

“What lawn?” Ted asked. After she’d abandoned it in late summer, the garden had become colonized by weeds again. But now, in the middle of February, it was a barren patch of uneven shiny wet mud.

“We’d sort of been planning to get married in church, Evelyn,” Mabel said.

“Oh, you can’t get married in church, not with Frank being divorced—no, that wouldn’t be right. Besides, just think of how lovely it would be to have your wedding here. I’ll take care of everything. I’ll do the food, I’ll get you some lovely flowers, I’ll make the clothes. And I’ll do all that landscaping I’d been planning last year. It’ll be the best wedding you could ever imagine. And you’ll have to invite Mam, won’t you, Mabel? I mean, she’ll have to come home for her oldest daughter’s wedding.”

“Well, I’ll invite her, Ev,” Mabel said, “but it’s a long way and I’m not sure—”

“Oh, don’t be daft, of course she’ll come. It’s an important family event. And Jesse will be your chief bridesmaid.”

“No, I won’t.” I had no interest in being anyone’s bridesmaid, and I certainly wasn’t going to participate in Frank and Mabel’s wedding.

“Oh, yes you will, young lady,” my mother said. “I’ve got this lovely pattern for a bridesmaid’s dress, Mabel. I got it back when I did all that dressmaking a few years ago. Ooh, you