Another Life Altogether: A Novel - By Elaine Beale Page 0,35

the past behind. The taunting in the cloakroom, the hiding in the caretaker’s cupboard, the school dinners spent alone—they’d be experiences I could look back on the way a traveler would regard a difficult journey in a foreign land.

“Well, then,” Tracey announced, “I say bugger Frankenstein. Let’s go get our goodies over at the newsagent’s instead.” She began clunking unsteadily in her platform sandals toward the entrance of Marigold Court.

“But I haven’t got any money.”

Tracey turned back toward me. “That’s all right, I’ll buy you something. I’ve got loads.” She stuck a hand into one of her pockets to jangle what sounded like a handful of coins.

“Thanks, Tracey.”

“Oh,” she said with a shrug, “you can call me Trace.”

CHAPTER SIX

WHEN I RETURNED HOME LATER THAT AFTERNOON, THE DOOR OF the downstairs toilet was open and I could see my mother, a pair of blue nylon knickers draped around her ankles, reading the same battered copy of Woman’s Realm she’d thrown at me the other day. Without looking up, she called to me as I walked past. “I’m not talking to you.” I said nothing.

She called again, this time louder. “I’m not talking to you.”

“Yes, you are,” I answered, continuing down the hall. “No, I’m not.”

“Well, then, what are you doing right now?”

“You know what I’m talking about, young lady.”

“How can I know what you’re talking about if you’re not talking to me?” I stood at the kitchen door, calling back to her.

“Sometimes you’re too bloody clever for your own good.” She began pulling toilet paper off the roll. The holder had been there when we moved in; it was rusty and squealed like unoiled brakes with each turn. “If I’d talked to my mother like you talk to me, I would have got a good clip around the ear. Do you hear me?”

“How can I hear you if you’re not talking to me?” I asked, and pushed open the kitchen door.

“Look, miss!” she yelled after me as the door shut behind me. “You’d better not start getting clever with me!”

I recalled my promise to my father that morning and cringed. This was an agreement that was going to be even harder to honor than I’d anticipated. I sighed and began searching the cupboards for some food with which to make the evening meal. It was a quarter past five, and my father would be home from work soon.

I heard the toilet flush, and the shuddering rattle of the pipes all through the house. Seconds later, my mother joined me in the kitchen. “You know, we need a towel in that toilet,” she said, shaking water from her hands and spattering me with cold droplets.

“Maybe if you’d helped me unpack the towels, we’d know where to find them.” I was talking back again. I wanted to stop myself, but it was just so difficult. There was something inside me that resisted silence, like a bird caught in a room battering relentlessly against the illusory freedom of glass.

My mother snorted, pulled the two sides of her dressing gown tight across her chest, and sat down in one of the chairs next to the kitchen table. “There you go again, accusing me of things I haven’t done. I’ll tell your father when he gets home, and we’ll see what he has to say about that.”

“No, Mum, don’t do that. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. After I’ve made the tea, I’ll put a towel in there.”

“I wasn’t asking you to do it,” she said, huffing. “I’m perfectly capable of doing it myself, you know. I was just pointing out that it’s something we need, that’s all. And where have you been, anyway?”

“Out. In the village. I made a friend. Her name’s Tracey.”

I was still giddy from my recent encounter. After buying an enormous haul of Mars Bars, Milky Ways, and Cadbury’s chocolate Buttons, Tracey had shown me around the village to get “the lay of the land”—a term she’d continued to tease me about for the rest of the day. After wandering the village’s limited network of narrow streets and walking out as far as one of the surrounding farms, we’d made our way to the churchyard. There, beneath the weathered stone tower of the squat little church, we’d stretched out on a big stone slab that covered one of the graves, while we munched on the remaining sweets and got to know each other. Tracey had done most of the talking. She told me about what would soon be my new school, Liston