11 The Teashop on the Corner Read Online Free PDF

with a sigh of resignation. She didn’t want him sleeping in it either, if the truth be told. She wanted her little Graham, her baby in there. The one she
had had before his father had moulded him into his own mini-me. She wanted to reach back into the past and take her baby boy and run, run with him so that Edwin couldn’t ever find them.
    ‘It’s far too big a house for one person. Gram and I do worry that the housework will get on top of you. And that you don’t have a turn on the stairs . . .’
    Sherry was still going on, still trying to convince Molly that she was an eighty-eight-year-old invalid reliant on incontinence pads and mashed foods instead of a sixty-eight-year-old competent
woman. Why would she need sheltered housing at her age? She was perfectly capable of negotiating a staircase and pressing a button on a washing machine. Physically she was fine; mentally –
well, her memory was starting to fail a little. She’d had a few incidents recently of forgetting where she had put things. She’d misplaced her silver compact which was usually in her
handbag and an antique gold pen which she had bought herself as a fiftieth birthday present. And harder to explain, she had lost a small Royal Doulton figurine of a lady. It was a rare one too, an
early one. She had thought it was safe on a shelf in the second bedroom with five other collectable figures. But it wasn’t there any more. It had been a present from Harvey, her second
husband. The man whose wedding ring she had ripped off her finger when she found out about his affair. And he’d had the cheek to take the ring with him when he left.
    She hadn’t mentioned to Margaret that Sherry had been visiting every week because her sister would have marched right up to her daughter-in-law and asked what her game was. Margaret
didn’t trust Sherry or Graham as far as she could have thrown them – and that wouldn’t have been very far with their combined weight of over fifty stone. Margaret could smell a
rat before its parents had even conceived it. And Margaret was fiercely protective of her sister.
    In the womb, Margaret had taken the lion’s share of any bravery on offer, leaving her twin with crumbs of it. Margaret didn’t like Sherry and she liked her nephew even less and stuck
in the middle, Molly didn’t want to stoke any more fires of dislike between them. She loved Margaret and it hurt her that she had no time for Graham – and that the feeling was
whole-heartedly reciprocated.
    ‘Gram and I drove past a lovely house yesterday,’ said Sherry, casually, sweetly. ‘I said to Gram, “Isn’t that a beautiful building?” An old mansion. I
couldn’t believe it when Gram said it was Autumn Grange. I never realised it was so beautiful. I’d love to show it to you.’
    Here we go, today’s mention of Autumn Grange
, thought Molly. She sipped her tea with her eyes down. She didn’t need to go and visit Autumn Grange – she knew it
already. It was the old Woolstock mansion on the edge of Ketherwood which had been converted half into sheltered housing flats, half into an old people’s home. Ketherwood was the least
desirable location in the area, dominated by a sprawling depressed sink estate. Not even Alsatians ventured out alone in Ketherwood. Molly, Margaret and Bernard had visited an old friend in there a
few months ago. It had been a grand old building in its time and though the façade remained impressive, inside it was shabby and tired, with a pervading air of school dinners that had
lingered in their nostrils long after they had left.
    ‘I don’t think I’ll bother,’ said Molly, noticing Sherry’s top lip tighten slightly. ‘I’m not one for looking at old buildings.’
    ‘I’ll just go to the toilet, if I may,’ said Sherry, taking two attempts to rock to her feet. She was a thick-waisted woman with an enormous bust that would have permanently
tipped her forward had her backside not given her some ballast. Still,