Glass Voices by Carol Bruneau

Author:Carol Bruneau
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Nimbus
Published: 2018-08-21T19:43:32+00:00

THE SOUND OF A TRUCK braking on the hill wakes her. Lordie, it’s light out. She’s overslept—not that Rebecca will mind; to Rebecca ten means eleven. Marryatt time.

She’s been dreaming again, this time of her sister, and the thought of Ethel keeps her still, listening, grasping…It’s like clutching at smoke, and now Ethel’s only a voice, the echo of a voice. And the shadowy impression of a little bone, perhaps, a magic one in a fairy story, a talking one. A finger bone? In the dream they’ve been playing marbles, crouching at the top of the hill on Roome Street. A tisket, a tasket, someplace inside Lucy the little bone still sings, I lost my yellow basket! and keeping her eyes tightly shut, in her mind Lucy’s chasing a doughboy. And Ethel’s no longer a bone, talking or otherwise, but herself. Except, when she holds out her hand—Give it back!—she’s tiny and blue-eyed. Not Ethel at all, but Helena…

The phone is ringing; not yet out of the woods, not yet free, she steels herself, padding down to get it. It’s Rebecca, of course, offering to take her shopping, insisting that if there’s one thing she’d love to do, it’s just that. No wonder she and Harry get on so well, two sides of the same coin when it comes to buying things, never mind any differences in taste. It’s the hunt that matters. “Make a list, okay?” she coaxes, meaning items Harry could use. “We want Pop to be comfortable, right?” As if that railed, metal bed could be a La-Z-boy, and the monitor he’s hooked up to a top-model colour TV.

“Oh, I think the nurses see to that,” Lucy says, as Rebecca rhymes things off: a bed jacket, jammies. Boxers, vests? A new razor, for sure, and deodorant. “Rebecca, dear,” she has to cut her off. “It’s not like he has to go out.” The gal means well, yes, but it’s always as though she’s got to have a leg up. Next she’s going on about his sponge baths, as if the water for them comes from the harbour! “I have everything he needs right here,” Lucy interrupts, but as usual Rebecca has to have the last word: “Well,” she sniffs, “a man can never have too many changes of underwear. Trust me.” Oh Dinah, her undies must be in a twist. She thinks the world of him, that’s all; she just wants what’s best. Jewel is always defending her. Yes, my darling, Lucy’s felt like saying more than once, and the road through the Grounds is paved with taffy. “Don’t worry about making tea or nothing,” Rebecca tells her before hanging up, saying she’ll be right over.

It’s all Lucy can do to make herself presentable. The honk outside puts her even more on edge, and without any discussion, Rebecca heads towards the nearest department store, the radio blaring about Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh. “I never know if that’s a place or a person,” she babbles, zipping past

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