Lana takes her poor wasted body in her arms and the tears begin to flow. Neither says anything. Finally, when Lana can speak, she chokes out. ‘I love you, Mum. With all my heart. Please don’t leave me. You’re my mum. I’d do anything, anything for you.’
‘I know, I know,’ her mother soothes softly.
‘Oh shit,’ Lana says.
‘What?’
Lana steps away from her mother. She puts her hand into her pocket and brings out bits of blue shell. ‘I brought you a blue egg.’
Her mother tries, she really tries hard, but a giggle breaks through. For a few moments Lana can only stare at the rare spectacle of her mother stifling laughter. Then she too cracks up.
‘Take that jacket off and go wash your hand,’ her mother finally says. ‘I’l make us a fresh pot of tea and we’ll have some of those nice biscuits you brought.’
‘They are nice, aren’t they?’ Lana agrees, slipping off her soiled jacket and walking towards the sink.
Lana is wiping her hands on a tea towel when her mother says, ‘And you’ll have to bring that nice man— Blake Barrington, did you say?—over to dinner.’
‘Uh, yeah… When you get back from your treatment.’
Her mother stops and looks at her. ‘I’m going to meet that young man before I get on the plane and I’ll have no more said on the matter,’ she says firmly.
While they are having their tea Lana tells her mother about the appointment she has made for a wig fitting in Selfridges.
Unconsciously her mother puts her right hand up to her scarf. ‘Oh,’ she says. ‘Will that be very expensive?’
Lana grins. ‘We’re not paying for it.’
And her mother laughs. For the first time in many months, her mother throws back her head and laughs.
‘That’s good. That’s very good,’ and while she is laughing she begins to cry. When Lana goes to hold her, she takes a deep, steadying breath and says, ‘I know what you have done for me. You have used your body as a begging bowl.’
For a moment Lana is struck dumb by her mother’s perceptiveness. Then her great, great love for her mother intervenes and she lies and lies and lies. ‘You only say that because you have not met Blake yet. He is beautiful and strong and kind. It was love at first sight. When I told him about you, he gave double what he knew I needed.’
Her mother sighs. ‘I pray to God that I will be alive for your wedding.’
Lana feels the hollowness spread into her body. It doesn’t matter, she tells herself fiercely. So what if her mother will be disappointed? All that counts is her mother will be cured. She will forget this one in time and marry someone else, another who will not consider her so lowly c 1 3 d#p#分页标题#e#
that she is only fit to be hidden away like a dirty little secret. Someone with a beautiful heart like Jack.
Yes, someone like Jack.
Fourteen
ana leaves her mother’s house and going past Billie’s Ldoor runs two floors down and rings Jack’s mother’s doorbell. While she is waiting for the door to be opened she looks down the railing, and sees Fat Mary browning herself into an uneven shade of lobster. Fat Mary is a big woman who lives in the corner downstairs flat and sunbathes topless in her garden even though it is overlooked by all the other flats in the block. Every Friday night she makes her hair big, stuffs herself into a tight dress and high heels, and goes to the Irish nightclub on Kilburn high street to find herself a bloke to bring home. Like clockwork they slip out of her door, all sheepish before lunch on Saturday. Al the little boys on bicycles always call out, ‘Hey, Mary, how’s your mary?’ Her fat face never alters as she shows them her middle finger.
Jack’s mother’s face appears at the kitchen window.
‘Oh, hello, dear,’ she says with a smile, before she comes to open the door. She has the same beautiful eyes fringed by thick sooty lashes as Jack.
‘Hi, Fiona. Mum sent you some cake.’
‘How lovely. How is she feeling today?’
‘It’s a good day today.’
‘That’s good. Would you like to come in, dear?’
‘Nah, I’ve got to run.’
‘Well, you run along, then.’
‘See you later,’ Lana says and turning begins to walk away.
‘Lana?’
She turns back around. ‘Yeah?’
Fiona hesitates and Lana hitches her bag higher up her shoulder and takes two steps towards her. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘I…um…heard…you…ah…found yourself…a…boyfriend.
A rich boyfriend,’ she says anxiously.