Till We Meet Again by Lesley Pearse Read Free Book Online Page A

Susan had overheard a conversation between two teachers, and realized to her horror that the girl they spoke of as being ‘plain, lumpy and dull as ditchwater’ was in fact her. Yet after Granny’s death, the jollity and sense of liberation at home gave her new hope. Her parents often spoke of the dark cloud they’d been under, and how they all needed to make radical changes, so Susan made up her mind she was never going to be labelled as ‘dull as ditchwater’ ever again.
    Then they went on holiday in June. Susan had just sat her GCE’s, and her parents let her take a week off school. Fortunately Martin couldn’t come too – he was twenty-six then, with a job and a flat in London. Even leaving home hadn’t made him any nicer to Susan. But of course in those days she thought all brothers were like that to their sisters.
    They stayed in a hotel right on the sea front in Lyme Regis, with sea-view rooms. The weather was cold, windy and wet, but that didn’t spoil it: the hotel was warm and comfortable, and they’d put on their rain coats and go for long walks, despite the weather.
    Mother did complain about the rain one day, and Father laughed at her. ‘It could be very much worse,’ he said, giving her a cuddle. ‘We could have Granny with us.’
    Then, on the last day, the sun came out and they spent all day on the beach. Father went searching for fossils along the cliffs, Mother lay down on some towels and fell asleep, Susan just splashed in the sea.
    She could still feel the glow of that day even now – her arms and legs prickly with sunburn, the icy cold of the water, the sharpness of the stones under her bare feet. It had seemed then that their family had walked through a gateway into a whole new realm where they could laugh, enjoy themselves, go where they wanted, when they wanted. The restrictions they’d lived under for so long were now gone for ever.
    Susan sat up sharply. She didn’t want to think about what happened after that, for it was so cruel and unfair that it didn’t work out as she’d expected.
    On the very night they got home from holiday, two days before Susan’s sixteenth birthday, Mother had a stroke.
    She said she felt strange as they went into the house. Susan went to make her a cup of tea, and when she got back Mother was slumped over on the settee in the drawing room, and Father was phoning for an ambulance.
    The details of the months her mother spent in hospital were hazy to Susan now. A blur of rows of white-faced, sick old ladies in hospital beds, shiny floors, flowers and unpleasant smells reminiscent of Granny, that was all she could recall. She remembered how she hated to go in there, yet she did go, almost every afternoon on the bus, praying to herself that today Mother would be better.
    She had to write and tell Beth she couldn’t stay at the house after all. But Beth didn’t come to Stratford anyway, she wrote back saying she’d got a summer job in a shoe shop in Hastings. In the back of her mind, Susan thought that meant Beth had found new and more exciting friends back home, and had been glad of an excuse to back out of the holiday.
    Mother didn’t get any better, she just lay there with her face twisted up in a grimace, unable to speak or move. Father kept on saying that she could see and hear and her mind was as active as always. He said she would get better, they just had to be patient.
    He went to see her every night after he’d come home from the office, and he noticed even the slightest improvements. He seemed to understand what her grunts meant, he could get her to respond to his questions by blinking. His belief gave Susan hope.
    He explained to Susan what he thought had caused the stroke. ‘It was because of the sudden release of pressure when Granny died,’ he said. ‘All those years of looking after her, the endless washing, feeding, worrying about her. It took its toll, like a pressure cooker building up steam. The lid had to blow.’
    Susan