Another Life Altogether: A Novel - By Elaine Beale Page 0,51
I shrugged and stood up.
“Shame you’ve got to go,” Granddad said, rising from his chair. I thought he was getting up to wish us goodbye, but instead he walked over to the television and switched the channel to the wrestling and went back to his armchair. “This should be a good match,” he said, waving his big weathered hand toward the screen.
IF THE ATMOSPHERE in the car had been chilly before we arrived at Granddad’s, it was positively frozen when we left. My father, true to form, seemed determined to pretend that everything was fine, while my mother fumed silently. If she’d been a cartoon character, there would have been steam coming out of her ears.
“Right, then, let’s get off to Mabel’s then, shall we?” my father said cheerily, turning the key in the ignition and putting the car into gear. “I bet she’s going to be pleased to see us.” He beamed toward me and Tracey in the mirror. “Do you want to pick up a cake or something on the way, Evelyn?” he asked, smiling at my mother now.
“No,” she answered stonily.
“But I thought you wanted to get Mabel a cake,” my father said. “You know your Mabel likes a nice bit of cake.” I sat directly behind him, pressing my knees into his seat and willing him to shut up.
My mother turned to him. “Are you deaf?” She had put her sunglasses on for the car journey, but she took them off now, widening her eyes at him expectantly. “Don’t tell me you’ve inherited that from your father as well? I said”—she began speaking very slowly and very loudly—“I don’t want to get a cake, and that means I don’t want to get a cake. Understand?”
“For God’s sake, Evelyn, I was just trying to be helpful.”
“Well, don’t bloody bother.” She looked out the window, paused for a moment, and then swung around to look at me in the backseat. “And you, Jesse, make sure you behave yourself when we’re at our Mabel’s, can you? I’m sick of this family showing me up.”
“I didn’t do anything! Don’t go blaming me just because Granddad upset you.”
“Too clever for your own good, that’s what you are,” she said, turning toward the front and putting her sunglasses back on.
“But I didn’t do anything,” I repeated. Neither of my parents responded.
It took us twenty minutes to get to Auntie Mabel’s house—twenty minutes of stiff, angry silence that was beginning to take its toll even on Tracey. As we clambered out of the car, she whispered to me, “Did I say something wrong at your granddad’s house?”
“No,” I said, desperately hoping that this excursion wouldn’t put an end to our friendship, though at that moment I wouldn’t have blamed her for demanding to be driven back to Midham and declaring that she never wanted anything to do with my family again. I only wished I had that option.
“Well, it’s just that I don’t think your mam likes me very much.”
“It’s all right, she doesn’t like anyone,” I said, hoping that she might find at least a little comfort in this, and then adding, in a tone that sounded more desperate than I had intended, “But I like you. And I really, really want you to be my friend.”
“EVELYN, MIKE, JESSE! By heck, this is a lovely surprise.” Despite her exclamation, Auntie Mabel didn’t exactly sound thrilled to see us standing on her doorstep. In fact, she looked somewhat perturbed—perturbed and a little disheveled. It was very out of character. Mabel was the kind of woman whose very first actions of the day (after lighting a cigarette) were to remove her hairnet and curlers, tease and shape her hair, and apply her makeup. In all the years I’d known her, I’d never seen her without eyebrow pencil and mascara, her hair vigorously styled, her body pressed into a Playtex Cross Your Heart Bra and Eighteen-Hour Girdle, her tamed curves straining against the seams of a tight dress. Now here she was at half past three in the afternoon, her hair flattened against her head, wearing a red nylon dressing gown and last night’s faded makeup. In fact, her eyebrow pencil and mascara had come off almost completely and I was struck by how amazingly small her eyes appeared without their usual adornment.
“Did you just get out of bed?” my mother asked accusingly, apparently forgetting that she was in the habit of rising well after the noon hour herself.