The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel by Deborah Moggach Read Free Book Online Page B

that the arrival of Beverley’s yellow Honda, radio blaring, lifted Evelyn’s spirits.
    After group yoga—only the less demanding postures, it was really an excuse for the old dears to have a snooze—Beverley would sit in Evelyn’s room and do her nails, tenderly holding her hand while her cigarette smouldered in the ashtray and she told her about her latest love rat.
    “How could he?” Evelyn would say when Beverley paused for breath. “Fancy that!”
    “And then Maureen saw him at the petrol station, filling up his car—three kids in the back and the bastard had never told me!”
    “Which one is Maureen, dear?”
    “The one with the allergies. Remember?” said Beverley. “Her face blew up when she got that kitten.”
    It pained Evelyn that she looked forward to Beverley’s visits more than to those of her own daughter. They certainly saw more of each other.
    It was Beverley who broke the news, one day in August.
    “They’re closing this place down!” she whispered. “Heard the old bat in the office talking on the phone. Can’t afford to keep it going, the grasping sods. They’re going to knock it down and build houses on it.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “It’s happening all over, sweet pea, it’s in the papers. Like, there’s new rules and regulations, nobody can afford them. Better just to flog the place and bugger off to Barbados.” She dipped her brush in the little pot.
    “They can’t just do that without telling us.”
    “Keep still, sweetheart.” Evelyn’s hand was trembling. Beverley held it steady and painted on the varnish. “What’s going to happen to you all, you poor things?”
    I t was true. Leaside, a large Edwardian building on a prime site three miles from Chichester, was to be sold. At this point Evelyn didn’t panic. She would move elsewhere. All her life, somebody had taken care of her.
    She phoned her son in New York. Christopher would know what to do.
    “Slightly bad news, Ma,” Christopher said. She recognized that voice from his childhood, when he hid his school reports.
    Christopher went on about the stock market and September 11, something about falling returns. It was all beyond her. In the background, somewhere on the Upper East Side, one of his children shouted, “Dad, it’s not working!”
    The gist seemed to be that she had less money than she thought. She heard the TV, and a child crying.
    “Sorry, Ma, Marcia’s at the gym and I’m holding the fort. Got to go. We’ll work something out.”
    She phoned her daughter. Theresa was furious; she had never had an easy relationship with her brother and was even more hostile toward his wife. “That bitch is bleeding him dry. You know she got a designer to do up their apartment? Know how much they cost? And private schools for the kids, skis and whatnot.”
    Christopher sent Evelyn a sheet of incomprehensible figures. Oh Hugh, help me! Her pension, it seemed, had shrunk alarmingly. It was all due to the same thing, Christopher said: a slump in the world markets.
    Theresa suggested that her mother come and live near her in Durham, an offer made with a palpable lack of enthusiasm. “Trouble is, I’m away so often, courses and things. I’m off to Skyros next month.”
    “What about your counseling?” asked Evelyn.
    “Oh, it’s very flexible. Usually just a couple of days a week; I can rearrange it with my clients.”
    How can you live on that? Evelyn opened her mouth, and closed it again. Of course she knew how.
    “There’s always the local council,” said Theresa. “If you threw yourself on their mercy—I mean they’d have to help, wouldn’t they? They must have homes, or sheltered housing. I can make inquiries.”
    Evelyn didn’t consider herself a snob, not really. However, she found this conversation depressing. Did her daughter understand nothing?
    No doubt Theresa meant to be kind, but the message was clear: her mother was redundant. No longer a human being, she was a problem to be solved by the