Mothers and Daughters Read Online Free

Maria insisted. I didn’t have a chance. She rang Alex at work and told him she wouldn’t hear of anything else, that April should be with family. Anyone would think I was leaving her for a month, not eight days.’ She sighed. ‘Then when I dropped her off Maria said something to April in Italian about how lucky I was to be having a holiday. She doesn’t think I understand her, but I do. All those bloody family dinners I’ve had to sit through—you’d think she’d realise that I must have picked up some of the language by now.’
    Morag laughed. ‘You are lucky,’ she said simply.
    ‘I know, but I’ve earned this, and I’m taking Janey—it’s not as if I’m flitting off and abandoning everybody. Alex is away half of every month, but she never says anything to him.’
    ‘Ah, but that’s different.’
    ‘Why?’ asked Caro. ‘Because he’s working?’
    The drinks trolley finally lumbered, clanking, to their seats. Morag waited as Caro gratefully ordered a gin and tonic.
    ‘Because he’s her son,’ she said.

    The flat was a mess. Older people’s homes often were, crammed with old jam jars and catalogues, plastic bags and odd bits of string, the collections seemingly first hoarded, then curated. Morag knew that it gave her clients a sense of security, offered some sort of buffer against destitution, but it made her job that much harder. She had to bite her lip as she came into the tiny kitchen and nearly tripped over a stack of newspapers just inside the door.
    ‘Mrs Griggs,’ she said, when she’d recovered her balance, ‘these are dangerous. How do you get your walker around them?’
    ‘Och, I just lift it up and then put it on the other side,’ said her client, unperturbed.
    ‘But what about if it’s dark or you’re in a hurry?’ asked Morag. The lino was uneven too, she noticed; she reached into her bag for Mrs Griggs’ file, so she could write it all down. ‘You shouldn’t be lifting your frame anyway, should you?’ she scolded. The older woman had already fractured one neck of femur. If she did it again she wouldn’t be coming back here other than to collect her things for the nursing home.
    ‘Ahh, you all fret so,’ said Mrs Griggs, shuffling—without her walker—towards the sink. ‘Would you like some tea? You look a bit peaky.’
    If she looked a bit peaky it was because of cases like this, Morag thought. How she hated basement flats: damp stone, not enough natural light and far too many steps. Mrs Griggs’ were outside, leading down from the street, which made things even worse in a climate like Scotland’s. How on earth did she get her walker up and down them, or her shopping, come to that? Morag winced at the image of her teetering on the slippery stone with heavy bags. Rails, she thought, lots of them—on the stairs, above the step between the front door and the hallway, next to the toilet. Then non-slip mats, and the lino nailed down, a new light in the bedroom . . .
    Mrs Griggs placed the kettle on the stove, her sleeve brushing a hot plate as she did so. Cordless kettle , wrote Morag, though would the old woman be able to learn how to use it?
    ‘Sugar, love?’ asked Mrs Griggs. In the distance there was a muffled thump. Out of habit, Morag glanced at her watch. The one o’clock gun. Amazing how you could hear it even all the way out here in Portobello. She needed to be getting back to the Royal Infirmary—she had a family meeting at two, and Mrs Griggs to write up before that. The details would be lost if she didn’t, the dangerous stairs, the cramped kitchen merging into all the other stairs and kitchens and dank, dark flats she’d visited and despaired over.
    ‘There you go,’ said Mrs Griggs, placing a chipped floral teacup before her. ‘Please raise your seat and put your tray in the upright position.’
    Morag woke with a start. She wasn’t in Edinburgh, she didn’t have a meeting to get back to—she must have drifted off during the movie. Covertly