Escaping Life Read Free

allowed to watch from the window as summer dwindled by
without them.  Elizabeth had been so mad with Rebecca that she stopped talking
to her for the first week, until she realised it was even worse being in their
house without her big sister to play with.
    As she browsed
through the pages, the newspaper was abundant with local stories:  images of
prize vegetables from the flower show; a car accident that had resulted in the loss
of a garden fence; the ongoing scandal of the local politician who had been a
member of more than one political party.  Then, after turning past twenty
pages, she reached her aim.  The Announcements.  There was nothing more that she
liked doing on a Sunday morning than to read through the announcements of
weddings, engagements, anniversaries, even the deaths.  There was nothing more
that transported her back to a time when she sat, sweaty from the heat,
surrounded by the bustle of her mother in the kitchen as she made them jam
sandwiches whilst her sister would read aloud the story of the day before
Elizabeth had learned to do so.  There would be a large plate of white bread
and strawberry jam sandwiches, sometimes cut with pastry shapes into little
people or animals.  They would eat without plates over the white and red
checked plastic table cloth, so that even though they were indoors it somehow
felt like a picnic.  In the summer there would be a plate of fresh berries from
the garden, the only day of the week when picking of the garden fruit was
allowed.  “ We have to let the fruits grow each week.  We can’t be greedy
every day”, their mother would say when they craved the succulent juicy
treats on a weekday.  Then their mother would spread out the paper on the
table, turning straight to the Announcements page.  They listened to all of the
announcements as their mother read them out.  “ Scott-Walker”, she would
begin:  “ Peter and Sue Scott are delighted to announce the forthcoming
marriage of their beloved son” .  She would read out the weddings, which was
always Elizabeth’s favourite, with the pictures of the white dresses, soon smudged
with jam fingerprints as she would thumb at the images, dreaming one day of her
own wedding.  “ Be careful sticky fingers”, her mother would berate, as
she pretended to bat away her enthusiastic little hands, both of them knowing
there was no real danger in her reprimand.
    There were
always days of excitement between the two sisters in the run up to a birthday;
they knew that they would make it on to the Announcements page.  There was
excitement about which photograph would have been selected.  When had they
looked their best?  When had there been a special effort with their hair?  When
had they been allowed to wear their best dresses?  Once it had ended up being a
school picture for Rebecca, and there was huge disappointment at the Sunday
morning table.  She had cried that year, asking her mother if at no other time
in the year had she been pretty enough in a photograph for the newspaper? 
There was no going back on the notification, but the following Sunday, when
there was another announcement with another picture Rebecca had been so pleased
that she had bothered to make the fuss.  It had read, “ Dearest Becca, we
love you so much.  You are pretty every day.  Your loving Mummy, Daddy, and
little sister Betty xx”.  That night, the sisters made a pact that every
year they would pray together before their birthdays for a school photograph to
be used, so that they could cause a fuss and secure themselves a second announcement
the following week.  Their prayers were never answered. 
    Elizabeth
missed this time.  She missed them both.  Reading the local paper in this way,
albeit minus the jam sandwiches and plastic table cloth, was always the closest
she felt to her mother and sister.  She felt much closer to them sat in her
garden with the newspaper than if she visited their gravestones.   She
read through the