Another Life Altogether: A Novel - By Elaine Beale Page 0,31
he cut the shadow of bristly whiskers from his face. On weekends, when he had more time in the morning, he’d let me stand beside him on a stool that he took from my mother’s dressing table. He’d lift me there, and I’d stare at my own reflection as he soaped up my face with his soft-bristled shaving brush. He’d give me an old razor, with the blade removed, and together we’d watch ourselves in the mirror and shave. “There you go,” he’d say, after I’d rinsed my face in warm water and patted my cheeks with his Old Spice aftershave. “Nice and smooth and ready to kiss your mummy.” And then we’d rub our cheeks together, soft skin against soft skin.
THE NEWSREADER ANNOUNCED that a bomb in Belfast had killed two British soldiers, another thousand steelworkers were to be laid off, and the miners were threatening to go on strike again.
“What’s the world coming to, eh?” my father asked, shaking his head, pressing the rim of his teacup to his lips.
I nodded and sighed, as if I felt equally world-weary. I wanted to care more about industrial strife and the war in Northern Ireland, but all I really cared about was what was happening in our house. “I’m going out today, Dad,” I said.
“I know, love. I know you can’t watch your mother all the time. It’s not right, not for a girl your age. But, Jesse …”
“What?”
“Just try not to aggravate her.”
“I never try to aggravate her. She just gets aggravated.”
“You know how easily she gets upset. Just try not to bother her, okay?”
“Okay,” I said flatly. “I’ll try.”
“Thanks, love.”
“Dad,” I said, looking at him timidly.
“What?” He glanced at his watch. I could tell he was ready to leave, already eager to be out the door and have done with our conversation. “Are you going to repair the house?”
He grimaced. “I already told you I’m going to fix it. Who do you think I am, bloody Superman?”
“No, it’s just that—”
“I know, I know. The place is a bloody pigsty.” He checked his watch again, put his teacup on the counter, and began adjusting the knot of his tie. “Look, if you promise to be good, not to bother your mother and not cause any trouble, I’ll start work on the house again. How’s that sound?”
“All right,” I said, smiling.
“Good. Well, I’m glad we can at least agree on something. So no talking back, none of your cleverness. You understand me?”
“Yes, Dad. I understand.”
FOR ONCE, IT WAS sunny, the sky a pale blue, patterned by smudges of white cloud, their shadows shifting across the ground, changing the colors of the fields as they moved. Everything tasted clear and damp, and the air was filled with a ripe, earthy smell. It made me want to breathe deep, as if I could take the freshness of the morning inside me and push out all the stale air I’d inhaled inside the house.
It was a fifteen-minute walk into the village. When I got there, I walked purposefully past the short string of shops—the Co-op, the launderette, and the newsagent’s on the corner—and past a series of little streets—Buttercup Close, Daffodil Gardens, and, finally, Marigold Court—that made up the Primrose Housing Estate. Each of them was lined with neat semidetached houses, almost exactly like the house I had fantasized for my own family, with orange bricks and tidy squares of lawn in the front. Some of them even had pansies in the borders; others had evenly spaced rosebushes drooping with the weight of redolent blooms. Marigold Court was a cul-de-sac at the edge of the estate, and the houses at the end of the street backed onto a grassy field.
It was just after ten o’clock, and the street was completely quiet. As I walked slowly along the pavement, I examined each house to see if it might hold a clue that would tell me if Amanda lived there. But each of them was essentially identical, the only differences being the color of the front doors, the pattern of the net curtains, and the length of the grass on the front lawns.
I began to feel foolish for having come here. What had I been expecting, that Amanda would see me and spring gleefully through her front door to greet me? She probably wouldn’t recognize me, anyway. She was too old and too pretty to be interested in making friends with someone like me. Besides, she lived here, in this neat little haven, while I