Risking It All by Ann Granger Read Free Book Online

knitting needles for ever. I guessed it occupied her mind. The atmosphere was peaceful, by no means depressing.
     
    Our guide opened a door. ‘In here. Eva? Are you awake, dear? Here’s a visitor for you.’
     
    She stood aside. I could do nothing else but walk in, but once I’d got over the threshold, I froze. My legs wouldn’t take me any further. On the way to the hospice, I’d conjured up all sorts of ways to deal with this moment, but as it was, my mind was a complete blank. Ganesh, behind me, bumped into me. I felt him give me a little push in the middle of my back. His breath tickled my ear as he whispered, ‘Go on!’
     
    I couldn’t. I stayed rooted to the spot just inside the door, staring across the room to the woman who was propped up in the bed by the window. She turned her head and our eyes met. I opened my mouth, hoping something would come out.
     
    I heard my voice, distant, floating out on the air. It said, ‘Hello. I’m Fran.’
     
    She said, ‘I’m glad you’ve come, Fran.’
     
    Everyone was glad I was here, Clarence, Sister Helen, my mother. I had never felt so lost in my life.
     
    Then Sister Helen closed the door and left us, me, Gan and the woman in the bed, together.
     
    Ganesh was shuffling about behind me. I introduced him hastily. That bit, at least, was easy.
     
    He said, ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Varady. I just came to keep Fran company.’
     
    ‘It’s nice to meet you,’ she said, and held out a thin white hand. Ganesh walked over to the bed and took it. He held her hand for a moment then said gently, ‘I’ll wait outside.’ He glanced at me. ‘I’ll be around, Fran.’ And he was gone.
     
    I edged over to the bed and sat down in a wicker chair, not because I was relaxed, but because my legs were wobbly. I didn’t know what to say and I didn’t want to stare. She seemed quite calm and was studying me with large pale-blue eyes.
     
    My memory of her was of a small, attractive woman with thick dark-blonde hair. She’d hardly any hair at all now, just wisps combed neatly back. In contrast to her thin hands, her face was round, cheeks full, and the skin beneath her eyes was puffed. I wouldn’t have known her. Only her voice struck a chord in my memory. Not exactly recognition, but something familiar which hit me mid-chest and made me feel almost physically sick. I hoped I wasn’t shaking. I felt as though I was. Every nerve in my body quivered.
     
    ‘Your friend is nice,’ she said. She was handling this much better than I was. It seemed unfair. She was ill. I was fit.
     
    ‘Yes, he is,’ I muttered, adding, ‘but he’s only a friend, nothing heavier, in case you were wondering. It works better that way.’ I knew I sounded awkward. People don’t understand about me and Ganesh and it’s not easy to explain.
     
    But she smiled and nodded before disconcerting me by saying, ‘You’re as I thought you might be, Fran. You’re pretty.’
     
    I was taken aback. ‘In this outfit?’ I indicated my clothes.
     
    ‘They don’t matter,’ she said. She looked away, her eyes seeming to focus on nothing in the room, perhaps on something in her imagination. ‘I used to like clothes,’ she said. ‘Always sewing and altering, do you remember? What a silly thing to fuss about.’
     
    I’d forgotten, but in a flash of memory I saw her now, seated at a treadle sewing machine which had belonged to Grandma. It was a wonderful contraption, that sewing machine. When not in use, it looked like a table with a fretwork metal footplate fixed between its side supports. When needed, the machine itself was lifted out of a recess within the table and sat on top. That was the image I saw, Mum bent over the wheel, which hummed round, powered by her foot on the plate, the length of material moving steadily under the hammering of the needle.
     
    When I was small, I liked to play with that treadle machine when it wasn’t in use. I rocked its footplate back and forth with a