Another Life Altogether (35 page)

A loud crash came from the kitchen. “Ooh, heck,” said Mabel. “I hope Frank’s not broken any more dishes. You’ll be lucky if you have any left, the rate things are going today.” She took a final puff on her cigarette, then dunked it into the pile of mashed potatoes on her plate. “Do me a favor, can you, Jesse, love, and go and give him a hand?”

I got up to make my way to the kitchen, quickening my stride when I heard another crash. When I got there, Frank was on all fours by the kitchen counter, picking up the pieces of a broken cup and saucer, his scrawny backside shrouded in my father’s pants. “Bit of a clumsy dollop, I’m afraid. Flew right out of my hand, they did. You mind giving us a hand down here, love?” he asked, crawling across the floor with all the agility of an arthritic baby. “Can’t say I’m as nimble as I used to be. Not after I put my back out at work last year.” He groaned as he reached toward a shard of china. “I’ll have to have Mabel rub some liniment on me after this. What with your mam spilling boiling hot gravy on my bloody privates, I feel like I’ve been through a war and not a Christmas dinner. Things always like this at your house?” He sounded jovial enough, but there was a prickly undertone.

“Only sometimes,” I said as I knelt down beside him and began gathering the shattered pieces of the cup.

“Mabel said your mam tried to knock herself off. Cut her wrists in the bath.”

“Yes,” I said softly. He had stopped picking up the pieces now, and I could feel his eyes on me.

“Carted her off to Delapole, didn’t they? Kept her in there awhile.”

I felt the color rise in my face. I hated that Frank had this information about my mother, and I felt a flare of anger at Mabel for telling him this shameful fact. Frank had no right to know. And he had no right to bring it up.

“Yeah, well, she’s always seemed like a bloody nutcase to me. No
wonder your dad cleared off. Though God only knows why he put up with her until now. Those things tend to run in families, you know.”

I reached for the cracked-off curve of the cup handle that lay next to Frank’s knee. As I did, he put his hand on top of mine. I tried to pull away, but he pressed his hand down hard, pushing my palm against the sharp edge of the broken cup handle. I winced at the sudden burn of pain and looked into his face. He was still smiling, his narrowed eyes glinting like deep-set jewels. “Get off,” I said.

He pressed down harder. “So, are you a nutcase like your mother?”

“No.”

He held my hand down, and the cup handle’s serrated edge cut deeper into my skin. “Good, because I wouldn’t want to get myself too involved in a family full of crackpots. I mean, Mabel’s all right, but a man can’t be too careful. And that bloody mother of yours—”

“Let go,” I said, trying to pull my hand away again. But I was pinned. The world narrowed to the sharpness of the pain and Frank’s growling voice.

“Frigging humiliating, not to mention the real harm she could’ve done. I’ve never been one to put up easily with being made a fool of. But by a bitch like that, well—”

“Frank! Frank!” Mabel was shouting from the hallway. Within seconds, the kitchen door swung open. “Where’s that—For God’s sake, what are the two of you doing down there?”

As soon as he heard her voice, Frank let go of my hand to begin picking up pieces of broken china from the floor. “Oh, hello, love,” he said. “Jesse here was helping me pick up a cup and saucer I dropped. Silly butterfingers me.” He barked a throaty laugh.

“Well, me and Harry are still waiting for our tea.”

“I know, love. And I was just about to bring it in.” Frank reached up to grab the edge of the counter and slowly eased himself to standing. As he did so, he pressed a hand into his lower back. “I think I’ve done myself a right injury down there, I have.”

“Should take more care with the dishes, then, shouldn’t you? Men,”
Mabel said, rolling her eyes at me. “They can’t even make a pot of tea without creating a bloody crisis. I say, love, what happened to you?”

I realized my hand was bleeding, the blood seeping across the bright shine of the new linoleum.

I looked up at Frank to see him staring at me, the skin at the edges of his eyes puckered and his eyelids fluttering slightly, as if he was trying to contain his rage. I thought of telling Mabel what he had done, but I felt the weight of that look. I didn’t want to provoke him into more meanness.

“It’s all right, Auntie Mabel,” I said, holding my palm upward so that the blood rolled in a thin stream over my wrist and down my arm. “It’s just a little cut. It will heal.”

A
LL THAT AFTERNOON, MABEL INSISTED THAT MY FATHER WOULD
return soon, but as afternoon shifted rapidly into dusk she seemed to have doubts. “I just don’t know where he’s got to,” she said as she looked out the window at the last weak threads of sunlight shimmering at the western edges of the sky. “I mean, even the pubs aren’t open on Christmas Day.”

Of course, the pub was the only place we could imagine that he had gone. There was nowhere else I could think of that he might seek refuge. In the pub, he could sit in a darkened corner, nursing his wounds and a pint of warm, frothy beer. But if there were no pubs open I had no idea where he might be—except driving along empty roads, away from us.

When he’d yelled at my mother in the kitchen, all that anger he usually directed at the television had found its true mark. For the first time, I realized that he resented my mother as much as I did. Perhaps he had shocked himself with his anger as much as he had shocked me. But surely, now that he had admitted it, he would not return. I knew that if, like him, I was able to drive away and put miles and miles between me, this house, and my family, I’d find another life altogether and never feel the urge to come back.

After he’d eaten, Granddad dozed in his armchair. Across the room, Frank stared stonily at the television, and, on the settee next to me, Mabel’s eyes moved ever more anxiously to the window, which, with the sky now completely dark, only reflected back our cheerless gathering.

When
A Christmas Carol
came on, rather than wishing for Scrooge’s redemption I found myself despising Bob Cratchit for his ridiculous subservience and for burdening himself with such overwhelming responsibilities. When the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come arrived to visit Scrooge, pointing to the future’s possibilities with its outstretched, spectral hand, I wished instead that it had visited the penniless clerk to warn him of his life ahead when he was still a young man and had a chance to make different choices.

Almost as soon as
A Christmas Carol
ended, Granddad roused himself. “That useless dollop come back yet?” he asked.

“He’s not a useless dollop,” I said, feeling, more than ever, that there was nothing to keep my father here.

Granddad ignored me and checked his watch. “I don’t know about you, Frank, lad,” he said, “but I wouldn’t mind getting a move on. Can’t wait all night for our bloody Michael. I’ve got to get home. And, anyway, maybe he’s finally found himself a bloody backbone and left that lunatic….” He nodded toward the ceiling.

“I’d be grateful if you didn’t talk about my sister in that manner, Harry,” Mabel said, grabbing her cigarettes and shaking one from the packet. “That’s no way to talk about family, and especially in front of Jesse here.”

“Harry’s got a point, though, Mabel,” Frank said. “I mean, the woman’s a danger to herself and others, she—”

“Frank!” Mabel flashed him a beseeching look. She pressed a cigarette into her mouth, lit it, and took a gasping drag.

“All right, all right,” Frank said. “But we had better get home. It’s late. Time we hit the road.” He slapped his hands down on the arms of his chair and stood up. “Come on, Mabel. We’ll drop Harry off on our way.”

I turned to Mabel. “You’re leaving? You’re leaving me here by myself?” I was surprised at the way my voice rose, high and thin and quavering.

“Well, no, love, I …” She looked uncertainly over at Frank.

I hadn’t anticipated this moment, the moment when, my father not having returned, decisions had to be made. And, after my mother’s meltdown in the kitchen earlier, I certainly hadn’t anticipated that I would be left alone with her. Naturally, I didn’t want Frank to stay, and I wasn’t that keen for Granddad to remain, either, but surely Mabel wouldn’t leave me.

“Can’t hang around here all night, can we?” Frank said, shoving his hands into the pockets of my father’s oversized trousers. “She’ll be all right.” He nodded in my direction. “What, thirteen, isn’t she? That’s old enough to take care of herself. Come on, Mabel, get your coat.”

Mabel rolled her lips together, her eyes moving to Frank and then to me.

“Oh, come on, Mabel. It’s not like we’re leaving her by herself, is it?” Frank said, his tone indignant. “I mean, after all, her mother’s upstairs.”

I looked at him, incredulous. “You already said yourself she’s a danger to herself and others.”

Mabel still sat on the settee, taking fast, urgent puffs on her cigarette. “Jesse’s got a point, Frank. I mean, Evelyn was a bit beside herself today. And we all know that”—she paused—“well, she can go over the edge when she gets like that.”

“Oh, don’t be daft, Mabel.” Frank said. “Besides, I came over here for my Christmas dinner, not to bloody babysit.”

“It’s not me that needs a babysitter,” I protested. “Someone’s got to help me take care of her.” I could feel the tears welling up behind my eyes. I felt desperate, helpless, but I didn’t want to let Frank see me cry. “Don’t go, Auntie Mabel,” I said. “You could stay in my bed. I wouldn’t mind sleeping down here on the settee.”

“Come on, Mabel, I said get your coat,” Frank growled. “I’m not waiting here all bloody night.”

“Oh, Frank, I just don’t know that I should leave the lass. I could stay, I—”

“This is bloody ridiculous,” Frank interrupted. “I’ve had boiling bloody gravy poured over my privates and my sodding Christmas ruined. If you think I’m going to stop here until Boxing Day, Mabel, well, you’ve got another thing coming. She’ll be all right. It’s not like she doesn’t know how to use a phone. Come on, Harry,” he said, turning to Granddad. “Let’s me and you get our coats on. I’ll wait for you, Mabel. Out in the car.” He turned and left the room, Granddad following close behind.

As soon as he left, I reached over to Mabel, brushing my fingers over the pudgy softness of her forearm. “You’re not going to go, are you, Auntie Mabel?” I wanted to tighten my grip around her wrist, to pin her down, refuse to let her go the same way Frank had held my hand on the kitchen floor.

Mabel sighed, her expansive chest heaving outward then sinking as if deflated. “I’m ever so sorry, darling,” she said. “But I know what Frank’s like and he’ll be in a nasty mood for days if I don’t go. He’s got a bit of a temper on him, I’m sad to say.”

I wanted to tell her that I’d seen his temper, and his cruelty, and that I knew exactly how nasty Frank could be. I wanted to ask her how she could possibly leave me now to follow after a man like that. But I didn’t. I felt too dazed, too panicked, to speak.

“I tell you what,” Mabel offered, “I’ll pop upstairs before I go and take a look at your mam and make sure she’s sleeping soundly. And first thing in the morning I’ll give you a ring. If you need me to come over then, no matter what Frank says, I’ll come. Even if it means I have to get a taxi all the way.” She took my hand and pressed it into hers, wrapping my fingers in her clammy warmth. “You know I wouldn’t leave you if you really needed me, darling.”

After Frank, Mabel, and Granddad left, I tried to make myself feel better by writing to Amanda. I lay on my bed,
The Girl’s Book of Heroines
by my side, and I wrote a letter to her telling her that if I lived in the
past I’d dress like Saint Joan in a suit of armor. I’d travel astride a trusty mare, swinging my sword wildly above my head as I chased villains and invaders away. Peasants would bow down in my presence and ladies would swoon at the mention of my name, but it would be Lady Amanda who won my heart. I would rescue her from an evil Catholic pretender to the English throne, and, in her fervent gratitude, she’d throw herself into my arms, plant her lips on mine, and declare her undying love.

For the first time, however, composing a letter to Amanda was little distraction. And, as much as I tried not to, I kept thinking about my father, wondering if he was gone forever or he was really coming back. Through all the terrible events of the day, I had forced myself not to cry, but now big tears rolled down my cheeks and fell onto my letter so that the blue ink bled across the paper. Finally, I just lay down, next to my sodden letter, curled my knees to my chest, and let myself sob.

At some point I must have fallen asleep, because I woke, a few hours later, splayed on my bed with my cheek pressed into my wrinkled letter. I looked over at my alarm clock; it was just after two o’clock. I felt clammy and cold, and I was still wearing my clothes. I sat up and was about to get into my pajamas when I heard the door of my parents’ bedroom ease open and my mother’s soft patter along the hall. The bathroom light clicked on and then I heard the clink of bottles, glass clattering against the hard enamel of the sink. I sat there listening as the noise went on for a while, wondering, in my sleepy haze, if she had decided to rearrange the bathroom cabinet in the middle of the night. But then, recalling the catastrophe of our Christmas dinner, I had another thought, and, suddenly alert, I jumped off my bed, ran down the hall, and into the bathroom.