Frankie Styne & the Silver Man Read Online Free PDF

the pan and a great deal of scouring would be necessary.
    Her wrists were weak and she regularly left taps running, so draining the hot water tank. She would rise in the middle of the night to stand on the balcony and search for stars and unidentified flying objects, or else walk downstairs, through the deserted bar, right outside, and, because of her wrists, leave the front door open when she came back in. A tomcat once followed her back, leaving a stink which lasted for weeks. After that, she was locked in her room at night or when everyone was out. Grammy turned night into day, Liz’s mother said.
    But the worst of all was that Grammy was incontinent, doubly and prolifically so. It was this which made Liz’s mother call Grammy ‘Your Mother’ when she talked with her husband, just, Liz noticed, as she herself was often called ‘That Child.’ It was another thing they shared, the way she and Grammy often seemed to feel less than connected to both Liz’s parents. ‘That Child is besotted,’ ‘Your mother will stop at nothing.’ Her mother’s tone when she spoke of Grammy was one of icy relish; her father, Liz noticed with horror, said nothing in Grammy’s defence.
    Grammy shrugged. ‘He’ll suffer for it. He just married my opposite. People are always doing things like that. It won’t last.’ And Liz had wanted to carry Granny off and live with her in a cottage miles from anywhere. They could watch what they wanted on the television, far into the night, and only eat when they felt like it. She would do all the chores without complaining. It would be a love without duty, a pure thing. That, Grammy said, but softly, was both a contradiction and a tie that bound.
    â€˜It’s all very well,’ Liz’s mother said of Liz’s passion for Grammy. ‘But I have to change her sheets. I never expected this.’
    â€˜I’ll do it,’ countered Liz. ‘I don’t mind.’
    Her mother paused long enough to look angrier still, then bundled the sheets into a plastic bag as she continued. ‘She depends on us. On me, in fact. So do you, until you grow up.’ Avoid the ties that bind. But only days later her mother pulled down the covers of the bed, stood aghast, then folded her arms and said, ‘Here then. Go on, you do it. A bit of practice’ll stand you in good stead, if you ever have a family of your own.’ The smell of piss mingled with that of the lavender cologne which Grammy sprinkled to conceal it. Thinking of her doing this, in the dark, made Liz want to cry.
    â€˜See what I mean?’ her mother said. ‘It’s not a bed of roses.’
    â€˜She is no longer the woman I remember . . .’ declared Liz’s father—he was Grammy’s only son, named Richard after his father, long dead or departed, it was never clear which—shaking his head from side to side. Liz recognised her mother’s words emerging through his lips, as if swallowed and regurgitated, or as if there had been some kind of infection or transfusion such as took place when vampires kissed. To stop it, she knew, you had to drive a stake hard through their hearts.
    â€˜We have to be firm,’ he said. Firm meant: not indulging melodrama, balanced meals at set times, sleeping pills at night and then finally, for a reason never explained but which could only be some kind of punishment, rationed watching of the television set.
    Liz’s mother came up from the bar when trade was slack, to check, and she unplugged it if it was on. The picture shrank to a dot, leaving them both feeling somehow naked and shocked, even though it was a simple matter to get it back when she had gone. Liz’s mother had always hated television.
    â€˜That child’s being raised on TV,’ she often used to say, years back when they first acquired one, as she served a hybrid of lunch and supper when Liz arrived home from school.