Lemonade and Lies by Johns Elaine

Author:Johns, Elaine [Johns, Elaine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-07-23T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

My mother’s natural optimism had taken a beating and who could blame her? She’d had a shock. Her default mechanism of making tea in a crisis had gone out of kilter and I sat watching my stepfather take on the job.

“One lump or two?” he asked, his face like an ancient stone block, unreadable. But was that humour? They didn’t use lump sugar, only granulated. Anything else was frivolous.

“I don’t take sugar.” He didn’t even know.

“Well maybe you should. Bit of extra weight wouldn’t hurt.”

I looked over at Alice, figured she got my ‘I told you so’ expression. But she remained annoyingly impassive. I guess she was tired. It had been a long journey and she and David had taken turns with the driving. I had been allowed to stretch out on the back seat and fallen asleep lulled by the warmth of the heater, the comforting hum of the engine.

Although I was no oil painting (swollen nose, and interesting purple bruises blooming across one side of my face) I figured I looked at least as good as Alice. She had bags as large as her favourite Suzi Tamarez under both eyes, and was every bit as thin as I was. He didn’t mention her weight. But if you were looking for fairness in life you’d landed on the wrong planet. This was the Webster household.

Ungrateful bitch, I told myself. The man is making tea for you. Yeah, well. It would take more than a cup of tea to even out our balance sheet.

“Hope David sleeps all right in that bed. The old mattress is a bit lumpy. I’ve been meaning to get a new one.” My mother was back in the reins. Running the domestics as she liked to call them. You can’t keep a good hostess down.

David was still in bed, even though it was the middle of the day, something my ‘father’ had always discouraged, but strangely now had nothing to say about.

“It’ll be fine, Mum.” I gave her a reassuring smile. My teeth hurt as well as my face, but I figured it was worth the effort. Our dramatic arrival must have scared the shit out of her.

“The children will be pleased to see you,” she said. “But what will you tell them about your face?” She’d caught up now and moved onto the next phase. My mother had never been one to let life get her down. Even when her grown up daughter arrived out of nowhere looking like she’d been in the ring with Mike Tyson.

My stepfather put a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry, dear. We’ll think of something.”

Dear? Had I walked into the wrong house? Alice threw me a look that reeked of the supercilious. The sort of thing she resorted to when she’d been proved right - and I mentally threw in the towel, at least for the time being. For Alice was right. The man seemed different, more humane than I remembered him. Or maybe that was the influence of Millie and Tom.

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