THE PROMISE OF HAPPINESS. Erin Kaye

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СКАЧАТЬ At seventy-three, she had lost none of her perceptiveness. Her gnarled hands rested on the arms of an upright Parker Knoll chair.

      ‘Oh, I was just thinking how the house hasn’t changed at all,’ said Louise, casting her gaze around the cluttered room. The big flowery paper pressed in on every side, so loud it almost screamed, and the nineteen-fifties walnut cabinet was stuffed to bursting with all manner of trinkets and old-fashioned ornaments.

      Her mother followed her gaze and said, a little defensively, ‘Well, I like it. I don’t like all this modern design. Bare walls and hardly any furniture. I like a place to feel homely.’ Her nod was like a full stop at the end of a sentence. ‘Now, would you like some tea?’ Without waiting for an answer she leant forward and gripped the handle of the china teapot with her right hand.

      ‘Why don’t you let me—’ began Joanne.

      ‘Ouch!’ cried her mother and she let go of the pot immediately. It wobbled uncertainly for a few moments. A little spurt of brown liquid slopped onto the pristine tray cloth and spread like a bloodstain.

      ‘Did you burn yourself?’ cried Louise, already out of her seat and by her mother’s side.

      ‘It’s her arthritis,’ said Joanne flatly.

      ‘It’s all right,’ said Christine, and she held her hand protectively to her chest. ‘It’ll pass in a minute.’

      Joanne sighed loudly. ‘I wish you wouldn’t do that. You know you can’t lift heavy things.’

      Louise sat down again and Joanne poured the tea.

      ‘A teapot isn’t heavy,’ said Christine, glaring at the pot, her lips pressed together in a thin line.

      ‘It’s too heavy for you. You know that.’ Joanne sounded cross and harsh. She passed round the milk.

      ‘Joanne,’ said Louise warningly and glared at her sister.

      ‘What?’ Joanne’s eyes flashed defiantly. She set the milk jug down on the tray, avoiding eye contact.

      ‘Don’t …’ Louise lowered her voice. ‘Don’t talk to Mum like that.’

      ‘She’s only got herself to blame.’

      ‘What? For her arthritis?’

      ‘No, of course not. But she’s always doing things the doctor’s told her she mustn’t.’

      Their mother blinked and said, as though she’d not heard this last exchange, ‘It’s so frustrating not being able to do all the things I used to take for granted.’ She looked at her hand, the thumb joint red and swollen, and suddenly Louise was struck by how much her mother had aged since she’d last seen her. Now that she looked more closely she noticed how grey her mother’s hair had become and how lined her face was. Sitting perched on the chair she seemed shrunken somehow, as though she was slowly disappearing.

      ‘I know, Mum,’ said Joanne, her voice softening. ‘But it’s best not to try. You only end up hurting yourself.’

      Louise swallowed the shock like a dry, hard crust. Up until now she had clung to an image of her mother as she had always been – capable, reserved, self-effacing. The constant, steady backdrop to a happy childhood. Louise remembered sleeves rolled up on wash day revealing taut arms stronger than they appeared; slender pink hands, slimy with sudsy water, hauling clothes out of the twin tub, the water grey from previous washes. She remembered a slim, resolute woman who moved through her narrow life with purpose and busyness, ever watchful for extravagant waste and moral laxness.

      She recalled the relentless, tight-fisted management of household finances so that there was always just enough money for Christmas and a week-long summer holiday in a grotty boarding house in Ballycastle. And the going without on her mother’s part that this rigorous budgeting required.

      Her mother shifted in her seat, and winced. She flexed the fingers on her right hand and looked at the deformed knuckles with a scowl on her face. ‘The doctor’s put me on a new drug but he says it’ll take weeks, months even, before I notice any difference. Maybe I need another one of those injections …’

      ‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ said Louise, feeling a sudden rush of compassion for her mother – and a creeping sense of guilt. Balancing the cup and saucer on her knee, she reached over and patted her mother’s knee. ‘I’ll be able to help out more now.’ Why hadn’t Joanne, or Sian, warned her that her mother’s health had deteriorated so?

      Thinking of their younger sister, Louise said, ‘Where’s Sian and Andy tonight?’

      Joanne replied, ‘Oh, she and Andy had to go to some meeting about that eco-development at Loughanlea.’ Joanne fiddled with the tiny shell buttons on her cardigan, her small feet neatly tucked together under her knees. She seemed restless, on edge and she radiated what Louise could only describe as ill-will. ‘As Chair of Friends of Ballyfergus Lough, Sian said it was really important that she was there for tonight’s meeting,’ she went on, and then added rather formally, ‘She sends her apologies.’

      ‘That’s okay. I’ll see her tomorrow.’ Louise held her breath while her mother shakily lifted the cup to her lips, its dainty handle sandwiched awkwardly between her forefinger and swollen thumb. She managed to take a sip and return the cup to its place on the saucer without a spillage. Louise relaxed while Joanne, still on edge, let out air like steam.

      ‘She ought to have been here to welcome you. But you know Sian. Saving the world comes before her own family.’

      ‘Oh, Joanne,’ said Louise, scolding gently, ‘I’m sure she would’ve been here if she could. And I don’t mind. It’s better for Oli this way. Meeting too many people all at once would just overwhelm him.’

      Joanne raised her eyebrows and looked out the window, unconvinced. Louise, wanting to avoid further discord, ploughed on with a change of subject, ‘Anyway, how’s the redevelopment of the old quarry at Loughanlea coming on? It must be nearly finished.’ The disused cement works, located just a few miles outside Ballyfergus on the western shore of the Lough, had blighted the landscape for over two hundred years. Four years ago ambitious plans for its regeneration had finally received the green light from the authorities.

      ‘According to Sian,’ said Joanne, ‘most of the major construction work’s completed. As well as the mountain bike centre, they’re building a scuba diving centre, a bird watching centre, a heritage railway centre and God knows what all else. And when it’s finished, the eco-village will have over four hundred homes. It’ll cover the northern part of the peninsula.’ She was referring to a wing-shaped spit of land formed from basalt excavated from the quarry and dumped into the Lough.

      ‘And when’s Sian and Andy’s house going to be ready?’

      ‘September, I think. Theirs is going to be one of the first to be completed.’

      Louise nodded thoughtfully. She’d been so wrapped up in her own plans she’d almost forgotten that Sian was about to move home too, albeit not halfway across the UK.

      Her mother tutted loudly, shook her head and set the cup and saucer down noisily on the table. ‘I don’t know what Sian’s thinking about, buying a house with a man she’s not even married to. Don’t get me wrong, your father and I are very fond of Andy.’ She folded her arms across her chest. ‘But we don’t approve СКАЧАТЬ