Free Turn Us Again by Charlotte Mendel Page B

unbearableness of her mother’s life hit her.
    â€œLeave him, Mummy. Why don’t you leave him?”
    â€œIt’s an illness. If I left him, he would end up in the gutter.”
    They sat down to their Sunday meal and ate in silence, still listening, listening. Pippa sat with her head in Anne’s lap. Whenever Anne glanced down Pippa would remove her intense gaze from the fork’s movement between plate and mouth and fix it on Anne’s left shoulder. In no way am I begging for treats, her aloof expression declared, I am much too dignified for that. However, if a morsel should fall perchance onto your knee...
    A morsel sometimes did, and Pippa snapped up such offerings with alacrity, instantly resuming her en garde position.
    Eventually they heard it, the key in the lock. All senses froze, hearts beating. The sound of the key indicated the state he was in. A great deal of fumbling, accompanied by soft swearing at the impossible smallness of the keyhole and the slipperiness of the key, meant he was quite far along. These efforts inevitably ended in failure, whereupon he would bang at the door and shout for them to open the door and fix this damn lock. Today the fumbling phase was short, though he stumbled against the step which had always been there. Anne and her mother emitted a simultaneous sigh of relief. Not too drunk today.
    Eddie came into the silence with a bright, painful smile. Pippa rushed to greet him, another indication of his state. When he was very drunk, she hid underneath the table.
    In silence, Mary carried a plate of congealing meat and gravy from the oven. No one spoke as he poured Yorkshire relish over his dinner, bent his head low over his plate and began to shovel the food into his mouth.
    The air was heavy with the smell of whisky, beer and stale cabbage. Anne opened the window to let the rain and a welcome smell of damp earth blow in. Eddie sat with his defeated, bowed head.
    â€œGo and have your rest” Mary said, and he climbed the stairs, leaning on the banister.
    In the evening they played bridge, game after game. Before she left home, Anne thought the endless bridge evenings were a bore, instigated by her mother to entice Eddie, who loved a gamble, to stay put for the evening. She realized now, leaning forward in her chair and trying to memorize which trumps had been played, that she adored the game. Wildly competitive, she could just about manage to be a good winner — withholding her screams of glee with difficulty — but was a terrible loser.
    â€œI’ve had rotten hands all evening. It’s hard to believe the cards haven’t been tampered with,” she would announce. Or, “You always bet way too high, Daddy, even when you have awful hands. He’s misleading us, isn’t he Mummy?”
    And Mary, who wanted them both to win equally (and herself never), would smile and underbid her own hand. Each round became an ordeal, as trump card after trump card fell from her fingers.
    â€œOh for God’s sake, Mummy! Why did you pass with five trumps in your hand?”
    â€œTsk tsk tsk, Mary. What a shame. What a shame.”
    She was never spared. Her hands were always wonderful.
    Standing side by side washing the dishes a couple of days later, Mary turned to Anne: “I don’t have a profession, and this means I am dependent on my husband. You have the opportunity to have a respectable profession, and must not throw it away.” It was almost as though she was challenging Anne’s complacent surety about how much better her own life was going to be.
    â€œOh Mummy, I can work at all sorts of things. I could get a job at the nursing home as a nurses’ aide tomorrow.”
    â€œYou might be an RN, with more responsibility and a larger salary. You only have a few weeks to go. You must go back.”
    â€œIt’s too late now. They won’t let me come back.”
    â€œIt’s not just the work. There are many young