Before and After by Laura Lockington Page A

white- knuckled visits to the dentist, but now they were simply dull and ordinary compared to the pearly viciousness of Flora’s. Perhaps hers were caps or implants, Sylvia thought hopefully, then sighed. Even Flora’s feet were perfect. She didn’t yet trust herself to think of any other part of Flora’s anatomy. Sylvia was mildly astonished at her lack of despair at these comparisons. There was a certain resignation that Flora was of course younger (wasn’t she?) healthier, childless - or in moments by herself Sylvia termed it child free - at least she assumed she was, and children were very age making, and she was, well, she was, oh god, vibrant , sexy , confident … Sylvia felt an undeniable prick of pride that Flora was staying in her house, sleeping in her bed. It was nothing like the pride she had felt when Hal won the sprint at sports day, or when Bella had made her first successful sponge cake – in fact nothing like it at all – it was more a feeling of a white hunter who’d bagged his first tiger and was swigging gin round the camp fire with a few fellow big game seekers. Sylvia tilted her head to one side and stared at her eyes in the looking glass. There was none of the tigerish quality in her, but she recognised it in Flora. There was an animal serenity in Flora that reminded Sylvia of a large cat. No-one she had ever met before was so comfortable, so lithe, or so feminine in her own skin. Sylvia continued brushing until her arm ached and static flew between the hairbrush and her hair. The stray thought occurred to her that, like a large cat, perhaps Flora was not quite to be trusted. And after all, who wants to live with a tiger? Surely a domesticated tabby was the better companion? Sylvia sighed again.
     
    Further away, in the stripped and echoing house, Bella was in a deep sleep, dreaming of the feet of an angel descending from heaven wearing a full white net tutu. Whilst, in his room, Hal was reading up on the internet all he could discover about the fur trade. It seemed like a truly terrible career move to him. He was wondering if he should boast of his afternoon’s near seduction via e-mail to his friends, or would they consider it gross? Flora wasn’t eighteen…or even the unthinkably ancient age of twenty-five, at least he didn’t think so. It was impossible to tell.
     
    Maria Kandinsky was kneeling at the foot of her bed, which was in a room tucked off behind the kitchen, praying. The Amble family that had seemed like saviours to her three short years ago and had provided the sanctuary that she craved, was changing. Maria didn’t know how or why, but with the finely tuned instincts of all her peasant blood that lay close to the earth and to the animals, with the knowledge of the moon and the stars and the turn of the seasons, she knew it. Something was wrong in this house. Anything that felt like change to Maria was shocking. She craved the stability that she had never had, and it was, she suspected beginning to ebb away from her, just when she thought she’d found it. She felt the rosary slip with practiced ease through her fingers and began to pray. ‘ Oh Lord deliver us from evil , Jesus Christ have mercy upon us … ’ Maria’s whispered sibilants barely made it past the kitchen and were certainly not heard by anyone else.
     

 
     
    Rule Number Seven
     
    “ Change for change’s sake is the best kind of change — contrary to popular belief . Deftly altering the fabric of daily life can produce momentous changes . A tweak here , a tweak there . Few changes are as a significant as a change of location . Or scenery , in the patois .”
     
    Saturday mornings were usually a progression of snatched breakfasts and weekly chores for the Ambles. Sylvia would preside over the large blue and white teapot, ruefully waiting for her family to gather round her. Perhaps Hal might have a sports fixture on that required her chauffeuring skills (a new car was in the offing for Hal but neither