Read Online Maggie's Girl by Sally Wragg - Free Book Online Page A

talking out loud, snatches of old memories – a lot of nonsense, most of it.
    She stopped clearing the table and stared at him, her face registering her shock.
    Granddad Peter not her mam’s dad? What was he talking about?
    â€˜What was that you said, Gramps?’
    â€˜Nothing!’ he cried irritably. The cup rattled in his saucer.
    She took it from him and returned it to the table, then knelt and took his hands between her own.
    What was that he’d said at Christmas about John Bertram being family? Her ears had pricked up, as they would any time John’s name was spoken.
    Gran had tried to hush it up, pretending it was only his mind wandering.
    â€˜Of course Granddad’s me mam’s dad,’ she said gently, but William smiled to himself. He was looking sort of right through Holly, past her to something far away, in a land only old people visited.
    â€˜Daisy married Peter when our Maggie was a little ’un.’ He said slowly. He looked at Holly at last. ‘Peter’s not your real granddad, lass, even if he does love you like one.’
    It was as if he was telling her about the weather!
    â€˜What’s the matter now?’ a voice said from the foot of the stairs, and Holly jumped up, feeling guilty.
    â€˜Nothing’s the matter Gran.’
    One look at her grandmother’s face, and the question she was desperate to ask froze on her lips. She rushed upstairs instead, supposedly to grab her bag and coat for school, but in desperate need of time to think.
    Why had no one ever told her this before? Could it actually be true? Unanswerable questions spun round and round in her head, and though she’d left the house, she’d ignored the bus route and come straight to the gardens.
    Just say it was true – did Mam know? Why should it be such a secret, something never talked about?
    If Granddad wasn’t her grandfather, then who was?
    Â 
    â€˜Shouldn’t you be at school?’
    Holly felt as if cold water had been poured over her.
    Dr Hardaker!
    â€˜Yes, you’re right.’ She got to her feet.
    â€˜If there’s anything you’d like to talk about, Holly, I’m always here to listen,’ Andrew prompted. Making sure Holly was all right seemed the least he could do for Maggie.
    â€˜Why should there be?’ She gave a smile that didn’t quitereach her eyes – eyes remarkably like her mother’s, he realised.
    â€˜Nothing’s the matter,’ she repeated, beginning to walk alongside him, her hands thrust deep into the pockets of her blazer.
    â€˜You looked worried, that’s all. Is it your mother? She’ll be OK, you know, Holly. By all accounts everyone in France is managing to get home, one way or another. She’ll be back before you know it.’
    Holly shot him another glance, part annoyance, part gratitude . In actual fact, she was wondering just how far she could trust him.
    Mam was always saying how easy Andrew Hardaker was to work with. She said he was the sort of man you could lean on in a crisis.
    And Holly did need someone to talk to…
    â€˜Something’s happened at home. I don’t know what to do about it, and that’s the truth.’
    They’d come to a halt by the river. Holly tried to explain about Granddad not really being her granddad, and none of it making any sense, and the doctor listened. Looking only slightly surprised.
    Holly supposed in his line of work he was used to people coming out with all kinds of odd things, even something as odd as this.
    â€˜Holly, you know what your gramps is like. Sometimes wild talk is just a condition of being elderly—’
    â€˜But it’s true!’ All at once she recognised that. ‘He meant it, Doctor. It just – feels true, somehow.’
    â€˜Talk to your mother about it when she gets back,’ he suggested, ‘or ask Daisy if you can’t wait that long….
    â€˜Does it really matter?