Read Online My Daughter, My Mother by Annie Murray - Free Book Online Page A

onto the street. Two wooden chairs stood by the empty fireplace, and between them a worn-looking bodged rug. Apart from these, the room was empty.
    ‘I don’t come in here. I don’t want nosy parkers looking in on me and my life,’ was all she said.
    The staircase ran up between the two rooms, its treads half-covered by a runner of faded carpet in crimson and black. At the top a narrow landing divided the two rooms.
    ‘I sleep in the small room at the back,’ Nora Paige said, pushing the door open just enough for Margaret to peer in. All she could see was a boxroom with a single bed and chair in it and pale-blue, cheerless walls. There seemed to be some dark curtains hanging each side of the window, but there was no covering over the floorboards, which also had a dusty look to them.
    ‘I let Ernest have the main bedroom – it means he can be comfortable and it’s the lighter of the two rooms. You see, Ernest fought in the Boer War and he got so used to the sunshine in the southern climes of Africa that he’s quite miserable without it. He thrives on sunlight.’
    Closing up her room, she unlatched the door opposite. As she predicted, late-afternoon sunshine was pouring in through the front window, falling on the white sheets of a large bed. The bedstead was of carved oak.
    ‘There’s a lovely view of the fields,’ Mrs Paige proclaimed, going to the window. Her shoes were black, with thin laces, and very down-at-heel, and her brown lisle stockings wrinkled round her ankles. ‘Oh, I think we need a bit of this late-summer air in here!’ She unfastened the casement. ‘Come and see, Meg.’
    Her voice was softer than usual now. Margaret stood on tiptoe to look over the sill. Between the bushes edging the other side of the lane she saw the gold of a recently harvested field stretching before her.
    ‘They’ve got those so-called Land Army girls working on the farm now,’ Mrs Paige said with contempt. ‘As if they’d have any idea what it takes.’
    Margaret turned round slowly. The bed had thick pillows propped against the bedhead, and on the near side the covers were thrown back as if someone had just got out. The eiderdown was made of a cheerful fabric of tiny pink roses. On the little table beside the bed Margaret saw a pair of spectacles, a candle stub in a holder, a glass of water and a book. Fascinated, she also made out a set of false teeth. There was a chair near the bed with a pair of trousers hanging over the back and, beside it, a chest of drawers on which rested various objects of male toilet: a tooth mug, shaving brush and razor. In the far corner stood a dark-wood cupboard.
    ‘There we are. I keep Ernest nice and comfortable,’ Mrs Paige said. ‘You can see that, can’t you – have you ever seen a more comfortable-looking bed?’
    Margaret shook her head, for that was the truth – she hadn’t. She wondered if Mr Paige had just popped out to relieve himself.
    ‘There, you’ve seen our abode,’ Mrs Paige said. ‘I keep it spick and span in here, as you can see. We’ll leave our Ernest in peace now – out you go.’
    As Margaret went obediently to the top of the stairs she heard Mrs Paige ask very quietly, ‘Is there anything you need, dear?’ Then the door closed and she followed Margaret downstairs, seeming more cheerful than usual.
    ‘So,’ she said, putting the kettle on to boil. ‘That’s us. You see, don’t you?’
    Margaret stared at her, then nodded her head. She wondered if Mr Paige had been hiding in the cupboard.

Nine
    Fragments of memory kept firing through Margaret’s mind. They’d sent her home from the hospital, on a slightly lower dose of Valium than before, but she was not free of it – not by a long way. She felt despair at the thought that she might never escape it. Now that she was back home, it felt as if she ought to be able to take up her life again, humdrum and familiar, no more fuss. Just get on with it. Be the same old Margaret. It wasn’t as if Fred