The Sacrificial Man by Ruth Dugdall Read Free Book Online Page B

bleaching the worktops. The kitchen smelled like a swimming pool. When I stepped towards her she held up a hand. “Don’t come in, Alice. I’ve just mopped the floor.” Her feet were in plastic bags, the type you see in operating theatres, blue with elastic around the ankle like over-sized bootees.
“Mum, can we talk?”
“Hmm? Of course, love. Can you ask your father if he wants a cup of tea?”
I watched as she wiped the kettle, her face stretched in the chrome as she filled it too full, and then reached for her large teapot. There was always too much tea.
I returned from the lounge with Dad’s tray. “He said yes please,” I said, but she had already poured him a cup which, clattering in its china saucer, she carried through to him. The habitual order of daily living. Why did she always ask if he wanted tea, when he never refused? I shuddered, grateful that I would never be caught up in this Groundhog Day. I heard Dad say, ‘Ta’ and the lounge door being pulled to. The plastic bootees crunched back toward me. I braced myself.
“Sugar?” I hadn’t taken sugar in my drinks since I was a teenager. She waited for my reply, her fingers lighting on a spoon propped in a mountain of white crystals. I shook my head, taking the cup and raising it to my lips, the strong tannins of Coop’s own label coating my mouth. Mum was still in the kitchen, walking on water, while I perched on the stool by the door. The tacky stool made the small square of Formica a ‘breakfast bar’ and it was where my mother took all her meals. She was squelching around in her blue bootees, wiping away crumbs that I couldn’t see, her own tea untouched.
“How old were you when you first met Dad?” I asked, as a way to introduce the subject.
“Nineteen. It was a friend’s party and he came right over, asked me if I wanted to go to the Locarno with him. I liked dancing then. We both did. I never understand why you don’t go dancing. You wouldn’t be able to stop me, if I was still young.” She shuffled in her plastic shoes, a weary smile on her face, then looked at me in reproach, as if it was me who had aged her. Would it have been different if they’d had their own child, flesh from their flesh? Perhaps many children, three, four… I wondered then, not for the first time, if my separate genetic identity caused the gulf. Or do all children become strangers to their parents?
“As it happens, I did go to a dance last week. In the village hall.” I didn’t tell her that I hadn’t actually danced, that I’d left early to visit the allotment because Smith had a test for me.
“Really?” She was suspicious, “How come?”
“I’ve got a new boyfriend, Mum.” I was surprised at how proud I sounded. I don’t know what made me use such a twee expression, boyfriend, like I was a teenager, giving in to my mother’s language.
Her smile came quickly, falling on me like the sun. “Oh, Alice, have you? Someone nice?”
Another inane question. I bit away the temptation of sarcasm. “Yes.”
“Well, what does he do?”
“He’s an actuary.”
“A what-ary?”
“Actuary. He works out statistics for an insurance firm in London.”
“Insurance, eh? That’ll come in handy. And is he nice looking?”
“Average, I guess.” Mum looked disappointed. “But I think he’s lovely.” I felt myself blush, and Mum padded over, the floor squeaking beneath her plastic shoe-covers. She put her hand over mine; it was dry and rough.
“And is it serious?”
“Yes. Very.” It was no lie.
“So, when do we get to meet him?”
“The thing is Mum, I’m not sure you should. You see, he’s not very well.” I thought of my conversation with Dad, of his assumption of disease. “He’s got cancer.”
“Cancer? Oh, Alice. Where?”
I hadn’t anticipated that and panicked. “The stomach. There’s nothing that can be done. He hasn’t got much longer.” Mum reached up to envelop me in her arms, and I was smothered by Lily of the Valley. My chin