Another Life Altogether: A Novel - By Elaine Beale Page 0,39

blotted the edges of her eyes.

I felt the keen ache of wanting to calm her, of wanting her hopelessness to recede into the distance like a plane jetting toward Australia, leaving only a trail of dissipating vapor behind. “No, Mum, you’re not terrible,” I said. I walked over to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. “You’re not terrible at all.”

She rested her head against me and wrapped her arms around my waist. “You don’t think so?” she asked, sniffing.

“No, I don’t think so. You’re just going through one of your bad patches right now. You’ll soon be all right.” I patted her back softly, as a mother might do to coax wind out of a baby who has just been fed. Firm but soothing, as if I were trying to press the sadness out of her, ease it from the place it occupied inside her chest. I patted her like that for several minutes, feeling the shudder of her sobs against my hands. Finally, when she had calmed a little, I brushed my hand over her knotty hair. “You know, you’ll start to feel better soon, Mum. I know you feel upset, but it’s probably the move.”

“Yes, love. You’re right. It’s probably the move.”

“It’s hard to move to a new place.” As I spoke, I had an idea—a means to perhaps goad my mother out of her desperation and, at the same time, get something that I wanted. “Hey, Mum, you know what?” I said, pumping enthusiasm into my voice.

“What?” She pulled her head back to look up into my face. Her cheeks were wet and smeared with tears, her features loose and slightly askew.

“Well, I bet you’d feel better if we got settled in a bit more.”

She pulled abruptly away. “But I don’t want to stay here. I don’t like it. It’s too quiet—it’s like a bloody cemetery out there.” She waved her soggy hankie toward the window. “I miss my home. I miss Mabel. And I miss my mother.” She paused for a moment, sighing. “Do you think she’ll ever come back?”

“I don’t know, Mum,” I answered, though I sincerely doubted it. As far as I was concerned, anyone who had koala bears in her back garden and sunshine year-round would have to be mentally deranged to consider returning to East Yorkshire. But then, knowing my family, that level of impairment wasn’t completely out of the question. “She might get homesick,” I offered feebly.

“She’s got a boyfriend,” my mother announced flatly. “A boyfriend?” The word seemed wholly inappropriate for a woman in her early sixties. I imagined my white-haired grandma gadding about the beach with a bronzed Australian teenager—Grandma dressed in an old-lady swimming costume with a frilly skirt to cover her puckered thighs, the boyfriend in the tiniest pair of swimming trunks imaginable.

“Yes, a boyfriend. Some chap she met at her whist club. He’s retired, used to run a furniture factory. Bill’s his name. They go out together—the pictures, the horse races. You ask me, it’s not right, a woman of her age.”

I thought a whist-playing pensioner seemed a fitting companion. “She’s just having fun, Mum.”

“Fun? What about me? I’m stuck here in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do but stare at four bloody walls.” She buried her face in her hands and began to sob again.

“There, there, Mum,” I said, eyeing the chip pan. I noticed that the burner underneath was still set on high, and I felt a little uneasy about the way the fat continued to leap and froth and spit. But I stood over my mother, continuing to loosely pat her on the back. “It’ll be all right. It really will.”

“Do you think so?” she asked, letting her hands slide down her face. “Do you really think so?”

“Yes,” I said firmly. “And you know what I think we should do?”

“What?” She looked at me with wide eyes, the whites patterned in fine red lines.

“Well, like I said, I think you’d feel better if we got settled in more, if we got the unpacking done and got rid of all these boxes.” I indicated the ten or so boxes piled in the corner of the kitchen. “Once that’s done, maybe we can get Dad to drive us into Hull to go and see Mabel. We can go and visit her for tea. Now, what do you think about that?” I listened to the ringing cheeriness of my own voice. It sounded odd, distant, as if it wasn’t really me speaking.