Another Life Altogether: A Novel - By Elaine Beale Page 0,9

our backyard, taking the rubbish bag from his hands, and stuffing it on top of the other bags.

My father looked dazed, as if I’d pulled him from a dream. “Thanks, love,” he muttered.

“So, how is she then, your Evelyn?” Mrs. Brockett called as my father retreated toward the house. “Go to visit her a lot out there, do you?” She craned her saggy neck sideways as my father made his way to the back door.

I willed him to step inside. But never one to offend the neighbors, even those he hated as much as he hated Mrs. Brockett, he turned slowly to face her. “I get out there as often as I can,” he said.

“Yes, I’m sure you do. And I’m sure it helps. Poor woman. But of course at some point she’ll have to pull herself together. I mean, she’s got others to think of aside from herself. Like me—well, I don’t know what my kitties would do if I gave up on them….” She gazed lovingly at one of her cats, which lay across the kitchen windowsill as relaxed and shimmery as a discarded fur collar.

“Well, got things to do,” my father announced, using Mrs. Brockett’s distraction to hurry inside.

I remained by the dustbin, hoping she would forget my presence. Instead, she turned to look at me. “I don’t know why that father of yours has to be so unfriendly. I mean, if it wasn’t for me your mother would be six feet under by now. You should tell him to think about that, you should.” She gestured toward me with the hand holding the cigarette, making a zigzag pattern of smoke that dissipated into the air. “If I hadn’t thought to check on her when she didn’t answer the door … well, I hate to think …” She pursed her lips, shuddered. “Call it a woman’s sixth sense, but I just knew something wasn’t right.” She sucked at her cigarette. “You should remember, young lady,” she said as she exhaled, “you’ve got me to thank that your mother is still alive.”

I looked at Mrs. Brockett and felt as if something inside me would burst. Perhaps it was my head, or maybe it was my heart or my stomach, which seemed, all of a sudden, to be holding a giant fistful of fury. That fist wanted to break out and hit Mrs. Brockett; it wanted to pound Julie Fraser and Jimmy Crandall and all the kids at school. It wanted to throw all those encyclopedias out the library windows. It wanted to tear up all my letters. It wanted to beat some sense into myself.

“Why don’t you just mind your own business, Cat Piss Lady,” I said, relishing Mrs. Brockett’s stunned expression before I turned and walked into the house.

CHAPTER TWO

NOT LONG AFTER MY MOTHER WAS DISCHARGED FROM DELAPOLE, my father announced that we were moving to the countryside. My mother’s doctor had suggested that this might be a good idea.

“He said we might all benefit from a change of scene,” my father said as the three of us sat at the kitchen table. “I mean, like they say, a change is as good as a rest. It’ll be good for you, too, Jesse, living in the country. It’s about time you got yourself outdoors more, some color in your cheeks. It’s a damn shame all that time you’re spending by yourself in that bedroom of yours.”

“Yes, it’s a damn shame,” my mother said.

I wanted to say that, unlike her, I did at least venture beyond the backyard on a regular basis. And if anyone needed more color in her complexion it was she. She looked, as I’d heard Mrs. Brockett comment to one of our other neighbors, “like death warmed up, no pun intended, mind you.” But instead I said nothing, preferring to stir another spoonful of sugar into my tea and listen to my parents above the musical rattle of the spoon against the cup.

“I don’t want to move,” my mother said, her words round and misshapen as she chewed slowly on a peanut-butter sandwich.

It was after two o’clock, but she still wasn’t dressed. She wore the nylon dressing gown my father had bought her as a birthday present during her hospital stay. I had helped him pick it out, imagining her sweeping down sparkling cruise-ship corridors in its extravagant pink ruffles and puffy wide sleeves. Now, in our cramped, dirty-dish-cluttered kitchen, it looked garish and far too bright, like a fancy-dress costume, and it only