Another Life Altogether (14 page)

For a moment, I felt such envy that it was a liquid filling me. Here was the neat little house I imagined for myself: a mother who baked casseroles, presided over the Young Wives, and looked glamorous on the dance floor; and a father who was good-looking and won trophies in the quickstep. It was all so perfect, so perfectly normal, that I wished that it were mine. Of course, I knew I couldn’t have it; I couldn’t step into Tracey’s life. But if I remained her friend, attached myself to all this perfection, perhaps I’d be able to shed my own aura of social failure and bask in Tracey’s glow.

“God,” Tracey huffed. “I’m bloody starving. Mum! Mum! Have you got them sandwiches made yet?” She pushed herself up from the settee and made for the door. “Come on, let’s see what’s taking her so bloody long.”

I followed her down the hall and into the kitchen, where her mother stood over the counter buttering slices of bread. Tracey walked
over to her to look out the kitchen window. “Oh, God. What the bloody hell is she doing here?”

“Tracey,” her mother said, “there is no need for that language! And, anyway, don’t be like that. She’s your sister, for goodness’ sake.”

“Who?” I asked, walking closer to the window.

“Our bloody Amanda, that’s who.”

“Tracey!” Her mother exclaimed.

I leaned over the kitchen counter and, gripping its edge, peered through the window. The back garden was a square of lawn surrounded by a border filled with rosebushes, sweet peas, and geraniums. In the middle of the grass, on a vinyl sun bed, reading a book, lay the girl I had met outside the Co-op. Wearing the smallest bikini I had ever seen anywhere except, perhaps, on the girls who draped the beaches on
Hawaii Five-O
, her whole body was glossy with suntan lotion.

“You didn’t tell me you had a sister,” I said, turning to Tracey.

“Yeah, well, she’s horrible and I don’t like her. So I don’t talk about her much. All right?”

Mrs. Grasby looked at me and sighed. “They used to get along perfectly well. I suppose it’s a teenager thing. Do you have any sisters or brothers, Jesse?”

“No, it’s just me,” I answered.

“God, what I wouldn’t do to be an only child,” Tracey huffed. Then she stomped toward the back door, swung it open, and stalked into the garden. I followed close behind.

“What are you doing home?” she demanded, standing over Amanda, hands on hips. “First I find Mum at home and now you’re here as well. You told me you were going out.”

“What business is it of yours what I get up to?” Amanda said without lowering her book. It was a romance novel. “Now go along and play like a good little girl.”

“Oh, piss off, Amanda.”

“You piss off. Can’t I get even five minutes’ quiet?”

“God, anybody would think you were the queen of bloody everything the way you carry on. You said you were going out.”

“I changed my mind, didn’t I?” Amanda dropped her book to her lap. She was wearing sunglasses but pulled them off to give Tracey a challenging stare. Then she noticed me. “I know you,” she said, picking up the book again and waving it toward me so the pages flapped loose and open. “You’re the one I saw outside the Co-op a couple of weeks ago. The one that was all wet.”

“She’s my friend,” Tracey declared, as if she thought this was in jeopardy.

“Oh, don’t get your knickers in a knot,” Amanda responded. “She’s quite a laugh, this one. Got a good sense of humor. Maybe she’ll get you out of your permanent bloody bad mood. What’s your name again?”

“Jesse,” I answered.

“Right. Nice to see you again, Jesse.”

I wished that I could find something to say that would make my name, myself, as memorable as she was to me. “Did you have a nice time at the pictures with your boyfriend?” I finally asked, hating the feebleness of my question as soon as I uttered it.

“It was all right. Of course, all he wanted to do was snog in the back row,” she said, lowering her voice and looking toward the kitchen, where Mrs. Grasby was standing by the window assembling the sandwiches. “Me, I wanted to watch the film. Spent as much time fighting Stan off as that bloke in the film spends fighting that damn shark.” She laughed and tossed her book so that it fell, splayed open on the grass. Then she picked up the bottle of suntan lotion that sat next to her on the lawn, shook some of the brown liquid into her palm, and began to rub it on her neck. “Sometimes I think I should give up men altogether,” she said as she pulled down each of the straps of her bikini top to smear lotion on her shoulders. “Become a nun, go and live in a convent.”

“Really?” I asked.

“No, of course she’s not going to be a nun,” Tracey said. “They wouldn’t take her. She’s too much of a slag.”

“Yeah, well, takes one to know one,” Amanda said, scowling at Tracey. Then she looked at me again. “So what do you think I should do, Jesse? I do get sick of lads. They’re only after one thing, anyway. Don’t you think?”

“I, er, I don’t know,” I said, shuffling awkwardly on the grass.

Amanda laughed. “Yeah, well, keep it that way. Stay sweet and innocent for as long as you can.” She gave me a wink.

I felt color flood into my cheeks. I stood there wordless while Amanda squeezed lotion across the top of her breasts.

“Come on, Jesse,” Tracey said, grabbing my sleeve. “Who wants to listen to this rubbish? Let’s go and get a sandwich.” She tugged me toward the kitchen.

“Hey, Jesse, before Miss Nasty Knickers here drags you away …” Amanda waved her hand loosely in my direction.

Without thinking, I shrugged Tracey’s hand off me. “Yes?”

“I think I want to turn over—you know, get some sun on my back. Do you think you could rub some lotion on me?”

“Okay,” I answered, ignoring Tracey’s loud grunt, her stomping retreat toward the kitchen.

“I don’t know why you bother—you only burn,” Tracey called over her shoulder. “Got Irish skin, to match your Irish brain, haven’t you, Amanda? You’ll never get a tan, you’ll only end up red as a beetroot. Who knows, maybe Stan will finally realize how ugly you are, see some bloody sense, and dump you.” Then she marched through the door, slamming it behind her.

“Don’t take any notice of her. She’s only jealous.”

“Jealous?”

“Yeah, she doesn’t like it when I get on with her friends. She’s very possessive, is Tracey. And bossy, in case you hadn’t noticed. Of course, having an older sister makes it difficult for her. It’s not like I’m going to let her tell me what to do. Get more than enough of that from certain
other people round here.” She paused and looked toward the house. Then she smiled up at me. “Now, can you make sure and do every inch of me? One thing Tracey’s right about is that I burn something terrible if I’m not careful.” Amanda eased herself over to lie on her stomach.

I picked up the bottle and poured out the lotion so that it pooled in my palm. Then I put my hand on Amanda’s shoulder and began rubbing it over her. The lotion was warm, warmer than her skin, and it seeped so easily into her flesh that I kept having to pour out more. I found myself fascinated with the way it oozed over her, following the curve of her spine, dripping down the valleys below her shoulder blades. It ran in little brown rivulets, washing over the tiny golden hairs that patterned her legs.

“You’ve got very soft hands, you know.” Amanda let out a long breath and shifted her hips sideways. “Hey, I’ll have to get you to come round and do this more often.” She laughed a soft throaty laugh.

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t think I could. My heart was beating too hard, thumping like an immense timpani drum against my chest. My throat felt dry, and though I was trying desperately to control them as they slid across Amanda’s slick and freckled skin, my fingers were trembling.

THAT EVENING, MY MOTHER
announced that she needed a break from doing the garden. I had to admit that she’d made remarkable progress. After she’d hacked away the thistles and brambles, she telephoned a local nursery. The following day, a man had arrived with a petrol-powered rototiller in the back of his van, hauling it out to the driveway and providing my mother with detailed verbal instructions and a spare can of petrol before he drove away.

“Just don’t let her do anything stupid, will you, Jesse?” my father said as he eyed my mother pulling on the rototiller’s starter cord before he left for work.

“No, Dad,” I answered, imagining myself trying to prise my mother’s
hands away from the machine’s handles if things went awry or throwing my body in its path if that strategy failed.

Fortunately, everything went smoothly and my mother worked until dusk, pushing the chortling machine back and forth, churning up the heavy dark clay. By Friday, she had mapped out a plan and begun digging the fishpond, which she had decided, along with a fountain surrounded by fishing gnomes, would form the centerpiece of her new garden.

“I’m jiggered,” she said, walking into the kitchen and throwing herself into one of the chairs. “I’m taking this weekend off. I thought we’d get your dad to take us to see Mabel on Saturday. What do you think about that?”

I was delighted at the idea, but I’d already made arrangements to meet Tracey. “I can’t, I’m seeing my friend. Tracey.”

“That’s all right,” my mother said breezily. “You can bring her with you.”

Hoping to prevent Tracey wanting to visit our house or meet my family, I’d told her that my mother had a very serious case of shingles and it was absolutely imperative that she remain in isolation until she had fully recovered. I had also told Tracey that that could take a very long time.

“What time are you meeting her?” my mother asked.

“Who?”

“Your friend, this Tracey.”

“Oh, I don’t remember.”

“Well, that’s not much good, is it? I mean, how are you going to meet her if you don’t know what time you’re supposed to be there?”

I shrugged. “I’ll probably remember by tomorrow. I’m not meeting her until tomorrow.”

“Does she have a phone?” my mother asked, pushing herself out of her chair and making her way toward the hallway, where our telephone sat buried under a sheet my father had put over it to protect it from the paint he’d been applying to the walls.

“I don’t remember.” I followed her into the hallway, panicking.

“What do you mean, you don’t remember? What’s wrong with you, anyway?” She pulled out the telephone directory. “What’s her name?” she asked, leafing through the directory’s flimsy pages.

“Tracey.”

“Look, madam, don’t you get funny with me. You know full well I mean what’s her surname. Here am I trying to do you a favor and invite your friend to come out with us for the day and there you are acting like a big useless dollop. Now, you’d better get some sense into yourself soon, miss, or I’ll be giving you the back of my hand to think about. Am I making myself clear?”

“Yes.”

“Good. So what’s her name?”

“It’s all right, Mum,” I said. “I’ll phone her.”

“Oh, so now you remember her number, then? God, you’re as bad as your father. You’d forget your own head if it wasn’t screwed on.” She picked up the phone and thrust it toward me.

I had been hoping that she would leave me alone to make my call, allowing me to make up an excuse to Tracey for not being able to meet her and afterward to report that, sadly, Tracey was unable to join us. This, however, was not to be, and with my mother standing over me I found myself inviting Tracey to accompany us on a visit to my Auntie Mabel’s. Despite my best attempts to make this outing sound like the dullest way to spend an afternoon, Tracey eagerly accepted the invitation.

“IF WE’RE GOING TO
Mabel’s, then we’re going to visit my dad,” my father said as my mother announced the news of our impending journey later that evening. He was slapping pale blue paint onto one of the hallway walls and my mother had to stand well back to avoid being spattered. His own face was already covered in tiny speckles of blue, making him look as if he had some kind of strange skin ailment.

“Oh, no, we’re not! I’m not spending one minute with that miserable old bugger.”

My mother usually refused to accompany my father when he visited my grandfather. For as long as I could remember, she had never liked him. And, from what I had witnessed of their limited interactions, it was obvious the feeling was mutual.

“Well, in that case I’m not driving you to see your Mabel.” He said this somewhat gleefully, apparently enjoying the power he had as the only one who could drive. My mother had tried to learn. Indeed, she had taken the driving test six times but had failed to pass. It wasn’t clear if she would try again, since the last time she took the examination, over two years ago now, she drove through a red light, narrowly missing an elderly pedestrian but managing to broadside a Mini before finally coming to a stop when the car she was driving hit a lamppost. The last we’d heard, the poor examiner was still out on disability leave.

“If you don’t want to see my dad, you’ll have to take the bus,” my father concluded.

“But it takes forever.”

My father shrugged. “It’s up to you.”

“Oh, all right, then. But we’re only stopping for an hour and not a second longer, right, Jesse?”

I turned toward the stairs and the relative safety of my bedroom. I didn’t want to get involved in their argument. I was already dealing with enough anxiety thinking about dragging Tracey along on this excursion.