Another Life Altogether: A Novel - By Elaine Beale Page 0,175

on her hips, legs astride, in the swell of her flared skirt and sturdy boots, she looked so solid, so full of certainty, a dark X in the middle of the quiet room.

“Yes, Ms. Hastings,” I said, before darting out the door.

CHAPTER THIRTY

“WELCOME HOME, EVELYN,” GRANDMA SAID, RAISING HER TEACUP. We were sitting around a big wooden table in the garden. It was August, a beautiful sunny afternoon—“perfect,” Grandma had declared, for the party she’d insisted on organizing for my mother’s return. When my father had objected, suggesting that my mother might find the idea of coming home to a house full of people a little overwhelming, Grandma had dismissed him. “She’ll be happy to have her family around her. And, besides, I want to let everybody know my news.”

“What news?” I’d asked.

“You’ll have to wait until the party, Jesse,” Grandma had answered, giving me a wink and tapping her nose.

Although this coming-home party was not quite the enormous affair my mother had planned for Mabel’s wedding, the garden was a lovely setting. The lawn had long recovered from its battering during the storm, and, aside from a sizable gap in the hawthorn hedge where a portion of it had been blown down, the place was lush, filled with lavish growth. The borders spilled over with flowers and the rosebushes were a concert of color—all dark green leaves against oranges, reds, pinks, and yellows. The humid summer air was alive with their scent. As Grandma proposed her teacup toast, behind her the fountain gurgled and the fish slid below the surface of the water, their scales catching the light like shimmering sequins on a ball gown. The few remaining garden gnomes—those that hadn’t been smashed in the storm—grinned over at us. As I took this all in, I realized what a truly incredible transformation my mother had wrought. We’d arrived in Midham a little more than a year ago to a jungle of thistles and brambles. Out of that she had created a haven far more soothing than any neat patch of lawn surrounded by a few pansies.

“Welcome home, Evelyn,” my father echoed, jerkily lifting his cup, so that some of his tea sloshed out onto the front of his shirt. While the brown stain seeped into the crisp white cotton, he smiled at my mother and then drank the entire cupful down.

“Welcome home,” said Bill. While my mother sat on one side of Grandma, he sat on the other. As he spoke, my mother’s beaming smile fell into a narrow-eyed frown. Ever since she’d arrived home a couple of hours earlier, she’d been staring daggers at the poor man. If looks could kill, he’d already have been transformed into nothing more than a pile of bones, a few strands of hair, and an oversized pair of glasses on the ground.

Across from me, Granddad Bennett mumbled something under his breath. He’d been complaining for the past half hour, ever since Mabel dragged him away from the living room, where he’d been sitting with her new fella, Charlie, watching the Saturday afternoon sports with the curtains closed. Mabel shoved her elbow into Granddad’s arm. “Welcome home, Evelyn,” he said, grimacing in my mother’s direction. Then he popped another mini-sausage roll into his mouth and started to chew loud and open-mouthed.

“She looks grand,” Charlie declared, nodding up the table at my mother. “Mind you, Mabel, you look a bloody knockout yourself.” He reached his arm around Mabel and pressed a set of stubby fingers into her side.

“Give over, Charlie,” she said, laughing and knocking his hand away. “Don’t go creasing up my dress.”

“That’s not what you said in the car on the way over.” He waggled a set of thick black eyebrows.

I turned to Malcolm and Dizzy and rolled my eyes as Charlie leaned into Mabel and she sputtered out a laugh.

“Where’s your mum been, Jesse?” Malcolm asked, speaking softly so the adults around us wouldn’t hear. Next to him, Dizzy looked at me. Beneath her glasses, her eyes looked enormous, expectant.

It was Grandma who’d suggested that I invite Malcolm and Dizzy, and for a long time I’d resisted. But just a couple of days ago I’d relented. Somehow, despite all my turbulent fear of what they would make of my family and of this gathering, I’d decided I wanted to have them there.

“I knew she was gone,” Malcolm continued, “but I was never sure where.”

My mother was sitting next to Grandma, and now, no longer scowling at Grandma’s fiancé, she had