The Lives of Women by Christine Dwyer Hickey

Author:Christine Dwyer Hickey [Dwyer Hickey, Christine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781782390060
Publisher: Atlantic Books Ltd

She listens now to the morning chorus of car engines: the smug purr of the professionals; the rat-tat of all the in-betweeners; the chug of those cars that work hard for a living – Mr Jackson’s station wagon, Mr Tansey’s showroom specimen. Mr Ryan’s car with the cartons of stationery stacked neatly inside. And Jilly erm-ermming them all on their way.

Soon Mrs Ryan will be wheeling Jilly out to the patio. Not long after that, she will be settling herself down at the patio table, her teapot and toast, her last night’s newspaper.

She wonders if Mrs Ryan, as she turns over a page, ever glances down at the broken fence at the bottom of the garden and waits for it to tilt.

Elaine takes the usual few seconds then to imagine herself getting up, throwing on her dressing-gown and going down her own garden path and then coming up the Ryans’ garden with an excuse already tumbling out of her mouth. Except there is no excuse. Mrs Ryan knows well where she’s been all this time: she’s been going to mother-and-daughter afternoons, she’s been wearing make-up at the Hanleys’ garden party that Agatha’s mother couldn’t be bothered to come to in the end. She’s been sunbathing in back gardens, practising her smoking skills and going out places; she’s been talking and talking and talking – to friends, to boys, to complete strangers. She’s been learning how to fit in.

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