Читать книгу The Elephant in the Room - Maya Fowler - Страница 7

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Chapter 2

I arrive home after work to find Gracie sitting on the sofa painting our mother’s nails. Gracie and my mother, Amelia, are surrounded by a heap of dresses and blouses. Gracie is chewing gum with her mouth closed; they are both silent. The ashtray, a dead volcano perched on the coffee table, is close to overflowing. The eruption is over, though the last ashes still sully the air. Two empty glasses flank a two-litre Diet Coke, and the room smells not only of smoke but also old cheese.

Beth is upstairs, studying. She has recently taken up psychology, which means abandoning my mother (mother’s own words), curtailing her social life and cocooning for hours with textbooks and heaven knows what. This has been a gradual modification of behaviour, but suddenly all her alone-time has legitimacy. Gracie, a straight-B thirteen-year-old with a fascination with butterflies and a surgically implanted Discman, has made time to coif and manicure our mother. The cuckoo clock strikes six as Gracie applies the last stroke of Yardley Cherry Pop.

My clothes for the evening are waiting in my room. I have to look good for my grandmother, so God forbid I’m left to conjure up my own outfit. I find it on a coat hanger. Jeez. A white blouse and black pants. It’s just like Beth to ensure I do my penguin body justice by stuffing it into a penguin suit, while creating a marvellous opportunity for me to be mistaken for a waitress all evening. The shirt fits fine, but true to form, I’m a bit short for the pants. These dachshund legs are a problem.

I scratch around the cupboard, which makes me sneeze, and I find a red-and-purple paisley shawl. I’ll drape it over my shoulders to minimise the flightless-Antarctic-waitress effect. In my handbag I locate eyeliner and blusher among the travel-size toothpaste, mouth wash (decanted into a Protea Hotel shampoo bottle), tissues, eye drops, deodorant, cigarettes, lighter and sugar-free ice-mint chewing gum. It’s important for me to outline my eyes so that people can see where they are. Especially because I’m always shown up by Beth with her massive blue eyes. They are so huge, in fact, that her mouth looks like a thin pink line in contrast. Not that that stops people from raving about her. But I know she has a way of using just the right blend of glosses to fool everybody into believing her lips are Health & Beauty cover material.

My mother comes in, Chesterfield Light in hand, while I’m at the make-up. “Nice hair,” I say of her curly brown bob. I examine it in the mirror in front of me.

She takes a drag and whispers, “Thanks,” as she exhales. Many people might have missed that, but I’m tuned in to her shrunken voice.

Slowly, she lowers herself onto the bed. The hair is no different from usual, but “nice hair” is an easy kind of thing to say when you’re searching for something, and it’s not as if she’s looking bad. I’m not lying this time. I could have said “nice outfit”, but that would have highlighted the “could have been a better fit” part, and my mother has always been sensitive about the weight that has apparently clung to her like gum to a shaggy carpet from the time she was expecting me.

I shouldn’t be so harsh. People can still recognise where Beth got her fine features. My mother’s are just a bit less edgy. I carry on with the make-up, and my mother blows little gusts at her nails. I’ve already lined both eyes twice. She sits staring at the Tretchikoff print on the wall, her red nails screaming at the pink Biggie Best duvet cover.

She gets up as slowly as she’d lain down. I take her place on the bed and watch as she fills the doorframe. I’m starting to feel weak. It’s been nil per mouth since breakfast. Some days I can do that, but those are the really good days.

I can almost always up my energy by having some coffee, so I go to the kitchen. As I stir the Frisco, the bitter, plastic aroma filters up towards me. It comes to mind that this is exactly what my pee will smell like in an hour or so. This chemical nothingness will rush through my veins, punch some life into me, probably leave a little plastic dust in my kidneys, and come out the other side smelling exactly the same as when it went in. It’s amazing what people are prepared to put into their bodies.

“What’s this?”

It’s Beth, interrupting my fantasy of the urinary tract. She’s pointing at the shawl, her wet hair stuffed into a pink Glodina turban.

“Was cold,” I say, looking at the teaspoon I’m whizzing around the mug.

“Hmm,” she arches a brow and gives me a quick once-over. She keeps her gaze on me as she goes to the fridge to get herself a glass of juice.

“Lily,” she sighs, “if you’re the eldest, why do I always have to check up on you?”

Beth thinks it’s her job to make sure the whole family is OK. Whatever that might be.

“You know, those colours won’t work. Tonight’s a big deal. There’ll be lots of photos. You should lose the gypsy thing.”

This is so typical of my sister. This is who she is. It’s her habit to inspect and reinspect the minutiae. She sinks her teeth into a tennis ballsized apple, which makes an echoing crunch.

“Thanks for the tip,” I reply, pinging my teaspoon on the side of the mug and rinsing it under the tap.

“No ways, your nails!” Her mouth hangs open for a second. My nails. I chew them up like you won’t believe. Apparently that’s not something that photographs well. I must admit, they are worse than usual and I’ve painted the little stubs red, hoping to improve things. Instead, I look like I’ve killed something. I ignore Beth, down my coffee in five gulps as usual, and head for the bathroom.

My scale is the hardest-working appliance in the house. It lives in its secret hiding place behind little pinewood doors, underneath the basin. It smells of 1990 there, and of rubber (from perished swimming caps), Betadine, Savlon – and expectation. It’s an old-fashioned Salton with a dial, and is marked off in one-kilogram increments, with multiples of ten in big, bold numbers. It’s made of metal, painted, with Novilon on the place where you stand. I haul it out of the cupboard and it lands on the tiled floor with a clang so that you can hear the insides groaning. They whirr as I step onto it, and the dial moves up and up. It hovers a little around the high forties; stops at 46 kilograms. That’s less than last time.

I go to my room to lie down again. My sister is right. It’s a big evening. My grandmother’s seventieth. I lie there chewing the insides of my cheeks, thinking about peppermint crisp tart, chicken pie and Caramello Bears.