Conditional Love by Cathy Bramley Read Free Book Online Page A

all got out and stared at my inheritance.
    The bungalow was unlikely to win any prizes for Britain’s prettiest home. It had two bay windows with Georgian-style panes flanking a central front door, beneath which was an untidy concrete slab serving as a step, with thistles peering through the cracks. The walls were covered in some sort of render and painted the colour of clay. The overall effect was one of a grey, melancholy face: ‘Nobody loves me,’ the house seemed to be saying. If Eeyore lived in a house, I thought to myself, fumbling with the door keys, this would be it.
    ‘Do you think it’s got broadband?’ asked Jess, waving her phone around trying to locate a signal.
    ‘I think we’ll be doing well if there’s gas and electric,’ sniffed Emma, pursing her lips.
    I caught Jess nudging Emma out of the corner of my eye.
    ‘Are you all right, Sophie?’ asked Jess.
    ‘You don’t have to go in, you know,’ said Emma. ‘We could just go straight to the pub.’
    Never had I been more grateful for their moral support.
    ‘I’m fine, thanks. Now we’re here, we might as well go in.’
    I slid the key into the lock, half hoping that it wouldn’t turn so I could get back into the car and carry on with my safe, uneventful life.
    The door opened smoothly.
    We stepped into the dark hallway in silence. It was cold and there was a smell of damp in the air. Emma turned the light on and I pushed open one of the doors and went inside. It was the living room. Jess and Emma chose a different door. I had a feeling they were giving me some privacy.
    There were three high-backed armchairs in a semi-circle in front of a gas fire and a chunky television in the corner. A single framed photograph sat on the mantelpiece and two watercolours of country scenes adorned the walls. It was old-fashioned and not to my taste, but very homely.
    I was in my great aunt’s living room.
    A wave of shame washed over me and my legs turned to jelly.
    This old lady had been family. My relative. I was her great niece. I realised how unbelievably self-centred my reaction to her passing had been: I had focussed solely on what the inheritance meant to me, whether I was going to accept it or not; deciding if I could possibly agree to meeting my dad. I cringed with embarrassment.
    I shuffled over to the 1940s fireplace and picked up the photograph. A young bride smiled out at me, in her white below-the-knee lace dress, arm in arm with her dashing young husband in his dark double-breasted suit. They looked like a lovely couple.
    I sank into one of the chairs and stared at the picture.
    So far I had been focussing on the fact that Jane Kennedy had foisted some pretty tricky decisions on me. What I should have worked out was that her home was the most precious thing she had and for some reason she had entrusted it to me.
    My lip wobbled. I was a terrible person and I didn’t deserve so much as a tiny mention in her will, let alone the whole lot.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered.
    On Monday, I would find out where she was buried and take some flowers. I was ashamed that I hadn’t thought to do so already.
    I stood up and forced myself to look round the rest of the bungalow. My head was all over the place and my breathing was shaky. This visit was affecting me far more than I had envisaged.
    A second door off the hallway revealed a double bed covered with a rose pink bedspread. A heavy old-fashioned dressing table held hairbrushes, a collection of glass bottles and a china vase containing a silk rose.
    I swallowed a lump in my throat, backed away, tried another handle and went in.
    This room was at back of the bungalow and contained a single bed and tall thin wardrobe. The spare room, by the look of it.
    I wondered if my father had ever stayed there. I lay down on the bed and tried to imagine him as a little boy. He would be in his fifties now, I guessed. There had been some photos of him knocking around when I was little. But now I couldn’t even