Another Life Altogether: A Novel - By Elaine Beale Page 0,17

said, looking at me. “Your mam in bed, your dad cooking the dinner, and this house a right bloody mess? I mean, what kind of life is this for a lass your age, eh? She’s a right moody one, our Evelyn. One minute right as rain, the next minute a face on her as long as a wet weekend.” She sighed, pushing a stream of thick blue smoke out of her nostrils. “Anyway, I’m having none of this.” She strode across the room to drop her cigarette into the sink. It hit the enamel surface with a hiss. “What she needs is a night on the town. Something to cheer her up. Like it or not, she’s coming out with me. I’m taking her to bingo.”

My father looked at her dubiously. “You and whose army?” he asked, battling a packet of Wonderloaf to place two slices under the grill. “She doesn’t even get herself dressed these days, never mind out of the house. You’ll be lucky to get two words out of her.”

“Come hell or high water, and whether she likes it or not, that woman is coming with me to bingo.”

Indeed, about an hour later and much to my and my father’s amazement, Mabel appeared downstairs with my mother, who was dressed and apparently ready to go out. I had grown so used to seeing her in her nightclothes that it was strange to see her in a dress and high heels, and even stranger to see her pale cheeks striped with rosy blush, her lips glossy pink, and her eyelids tinted bright green. She reminded me of one of the cardboard cutout dolls I sometimes played with—flat and flimsy, their features painted too big and impossibly bright.

“What do you think?” Mabel asked, nodding proudly toward my mother. “Looks human for a change, doesn’t she?”

My father seemed slightly bewildered, as if he’d seen a ghost. “She looks very nice. Yes, you look very nice, Evelyn.”

“Right, then, Ev, get your coat on. We don’t want to miss the first game, now do we?” Mabel grabbed my mother’s arm and tugged her toward the hallway.

I was asleep by the time they returned, but when I got up the next morning I was astonished to find my mother in the kitchen, cooking a huge breakfast of bacon, eggs, black pudding, and fried bread. The windows were opaque with steam, and she scurried around setting knives and forks on the table, humming along as Tom Jones belted out, “Why, why, why, Delilah?” on the radio.

“Oh, hello, love,” she said, flashing me a bright smile. “Are you hungry?”

I nodded.

“Well, sit yourself down, then. We’re having a celebration breakfast.” I took a seat at the table. “So, don’t you want to know what we’re celebrating?” she asked, putting a loaded plate in front of me.

“Why?” I asked, picking up my fork and pushing a piece of black pudding into my mouth.

“Because …” She pressed her palms together against her chest. “Because I won!” She swung her arms wide. “I won at the bingo. Twenty-three pounds three shillings and sixpence. Now, what do you think about that?” She wore a look of expectant delight.

“Is that a lot of money?” I asked, dipping a corner of fried bread into my egg yolk and watching mesmerized as the liquid yellow oozed across the plate.

“Of course it is,” she answered irritably. “It’s more than your father brings home in his pay packet, let’s put it that way. And if I can win that in one night, who knows what I can do if I go more often. Our Mabel says they have a weekly jackpot on Friday nights. Ten thousand quid. Now, just think what we could do with that much money.”

And so began my mother’s bingo craze. Each morning before leaving for school, I’d sit at the kitchen table as she gave me a blow-by-blow account of the previous night’s events. As she spoke, I felt as if I were there experiencing that unspeakable excitement as the bingo caller announced, “Two little ducks, twenty-two,” and my mother leaped up screaming, “House! House!” and the covetous eyes of all the other women in the Astoria Bingo Hall were turned on her. She told me of her defeats, too. “I was that close, I mean that close,” she said, holding out her thumb and forefinger, the smallest of space between them. “All I needed was that old bugger to call out legs eleven and that national jackpot would’ve been mine.