Part 17 (1/2)
Instead they speak of apple juice, gravy, screams in the corridor, the doctor, who is Jamaican-this Jamaican business they don't actually mention
When Alice reaches for her mother's hand she is appalled by its translucence She can't help staring Knuckles of pearl Already dead Mineralized She reminds herself that what falls into ood, to be faithful to the idea of being good A good daughter A good e
”Just tell me how I'm supposed to live my life”
”What did you say, Alice?”
”Nothing Go to sleep”
”It's only nine o'clock”
”The light's fading”
”It's the curtains, you've closed the curtains”
”No, look The curtains are open Look”
Grandlasses and reads the newspaper straight through Days when she is praised by the staff for her extraordinary alertness A nurse describes her, in her hearing, as being ”feisty,” a word Mrs Flett doesn't recognize ”It h,” Alice tells her ”At least, I think so”
”I've never thought of h”
”It's h”
”You're an old softie”
”No”
”No?”
”Don't call me that It remindsho into them”
”I'm sorry” Alice has heard about the soft-centered chocolates before Many tiat butter creaht”
”Theyof the sick herself: love's faked ever-afterness
”He traveled a lot I don't know if you re off Montreal, Toronto”
”I know I do remember”
”I could never understand what those trips were for”
”Meetings”
”Never understood just why they were necessary I asked, of course, I took an interest, or at least I tried to Woed to take an interest in their husbands' careers-but it was never clear to s were about, what they were for”
”Administrative blather probably”
”It worried me Bothered me, I should say”
”Don't think about it now”
”He'd bring a two-pound box sometimes Oh, dear Not that I ever let on I didn't like theive them to Mr Mannerly
You rearden
With the heavy work”
”Of course I remember Mr Mannerly” Alice knows that now her mother is about to remind her how Mr Mannerly's wife died of diabetes, how their son, Angus, went into politics
”His poor wife died young It was sugar diabetes, they couldn't do”I don't suppose she ever ate any of the chocolates, at least I hope she didn't Their son Angus, he couldn't have been more than fifteen or sixteen when hishis third term, if I'us Mannerly, a wonderful naht”
”It's a lovely naht to use the word ”lovely,” and she uses it a lot
”I' here I don't mean to sound so out of sorts”
”You're not You're-”
”It's all right, you don't have to say anything”
”I just meant-”
”Really, dear, I ht”
”What was that word again? What the nurse said?”
”Feisty”
”It sounds like slang Is it in the dictionary?”
”I don't think so It could be”
”It sounds so terribly-I can't think of the word, it's on the tip of ue, it sounds-”