Someone Else's Life by Katie Dale Read Free Book Online Page B

that. Remember that. Remember her .” She fumbles in her purse, pulling out a photo strip. “Look at her.”
    I do. It’s the photos we’d got from one of those passport booths. In each picture we’re wearing wacky clothes and pulling different silly expressions. I look at Mum, dressed up in a boa, her cheeks painted bright red, fluttering her huge fake eyelashes, and smile despite myself. It was the day she sacked her physiotherapist.
    “Poor Eileen, she barely got in the door, did she?” Sarah smiles.
    “ Poor Eileen? She didn’t have a clue!”
    She’d come in, introduced herself, then spoke to Mum ve-ry slo-wly and loudly. Mum had just stared at her, looked at me and Sarah and then said, “I’m sorry, are you quite well?”
    “The look on her face!” Sarah laughs. “Priceless!”
    We’d cracked up laughing but Eileen hadn’t seen the funny side. That was the end of her. Mum said if she only had a limited time left she wasn’t going to waste it with ignorant idiots, thank you very much.
    “Then Trudie just said, ‘Come on, if people are going to stare, we’ll give ’em something to stare at!’ ” Sarah laughs.
    And we did. We donned our wildest clothes and hired a pink stretch limo to chauffeur us down to Brighton, where we strolled along the pier, ate ice cream and fish and chips and candy-floss, then rode the rides till we felt sick, all decked out in our boas and crazy hats.
    And you know what? Nobody stared, nobody gawped. We barely got a second glance all day.
    “God, and then it started to rain, do you remember?”
    I nod. “But I couldn’t even drag her under the shelter—she was too strong—and too busy dancing!”
    “And singing!” Sarah laughs, and I giggle as I remember Mum whirling and twirling around the lampposts singing loudly.
    “I can’t believe you convinced me to join in—what did we look like?”
    “Who cares!” Sarah smiles. “She was happy.”
    She was. I hadn’t seen her so happy in a long time. Singing her heart out in fancy dress in the middle of Brighton.
    “And then—” Sarah can hardly speak for laughing. “Then when she got to the chorus of ‘It’s Raining Men,’ she just stopped dead—”
    “Yes! And just stood there, straight-faced, looking round the seafront—”
    “And said—”
    “ ‘It bloody well isn’t!’ ”
    We crack up in hysterics.
    I laugh till I can hardly breathe, the memory of that insane, wonderful sight dancing in my head, crazy and hilarious. Tears of laughter stream down my face, covering the tracks of their unhappy predecessors.
    “It’s raining now.” I smile, looking out the window.
    “Men?” Sarah asks, and I giggle, until suddenly a car pulls into the drive.
    It’s Nana. I pull away from Sarah, my smile gone. Nana .
    “Sarah, it’s—”
    “Shhh now, you’ll be fine. Everything will be okay, I promise,” she insists.
    “How will it?” I stare at her. “Sarah, I—I can’t. She doesn’t know. You said she doesn’t know!”
    Sarah stands up and takes my shoulders firmly. “She doesn’t,” she says, looking me in the eye. “But it’s okay. Just be normal.”
    I stare at her. Be normal?
    “She’s still your nana, and she loves you,” she tells me, stroking my cheek. “We both do.”
    The doorbell rings and I freeze.
    “Look, whatever happens,” Sarah says gently, “it’s up to you. You can tell her if you want to, if it helps, if it makes it easier for you.”
    She looks at me sadly.
    “Rosie, I’m so sorry. Sorry you had to find out this way, for everything you’ve been through.” She sighs. “But it’s your life now, and you have to make your own choices. But no matter what, no matter what you choose to do, just know I’m always here for you, any time, day or night, okay?”
    I nod. “Okay.”
    She kisses my cheek, then goes to answer the door.
    I take a deep breath. Just be normal . Be normal. It’s just Nana . Just Nana …
    Suddenly there she is, stepping into the room,