The Reading Group by Elizabeth Noble

Author:Elizabeth Noble [Noble, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, General, Psychological, Women, Group Reading
ISBN: 9781417701896
Google: lLemMM4fKtkC
Amazon: 0739455400
Publisher: Penguin Adult
Published: 2003-01-01T16:00:00+00:00

T H E R E A D I N G G R O U P

In the car, Susan asked Roger what Sandy had been saying.

Was there news?

“No, sweetheart, no news. I just asked him how he thought she was getting on.”

“And?”

Roger slowed the car so he could face her briefly. “He thinks she’s going downhill.” Susan had known that already. “Shutting down, gradually.”

“Is it the home doing that?” Always the guilt.

“No.” Roger was firm. “It’s the illness. Her body is catching up with her brain, that’s the best way I can explain it to you.”

“But it might not happen if she was at home with us?” The true answer to Susan’s question was that of course it was quicker at the home, accelerated by the lack of love and attention. Roger had seen it happen before. But he was determined that Susan shouldn’t carry this enormous burden, real or imagined. There was no way she could cope with Alice at home.

“There’s no way of knowing.” He settled on that. “But think about what your mum would have wanted. She wouldn’t want to drag on in that way, helpless, dependent, for years and years, would she?”

“No.” Susan’s answer was little and quiet. She knew Roger was right. Alice would want to die.

They had a lovely meal that night, the three of them. Roger took them to the Indian at the top of the high street, and Ed told them all about this new girl he’d met. He had a picture of them, taken in one of those booths at stations: they were laughing, squashed together on that tiny revolving stool. In one they were kissing. She looked a bit like Julia Roberts, without the curls and with slightly fewer teeth, and Ed was smitten, although he shrugged off his father’s accusation.

He was gorgeous, her tall, handsome son. Susan felt, as she often did when looking at him, swamped with love and pride.

She remembered when she would swoop down on him while he played and scoop him up to squeeze him, get her nose into his neck and smell him. Now he was far too big for scooping, and smelt more of aftershave, and sometimes of Silk Cut, than of lit-221

tle boy. Everything else might change, but that incredibly physical love remained exactly the same.

That night she couldn’t sleep. She lay curled on one side, watching the gentle rise and fall of Roger’s shoulder as he slept next to her. She wondered if Alice, too, was lying awake, wanting to die.

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