“You didn’t even say thank you.”
“Mum, why are you starting again!” Nigel snapped irritably, not looking up from his phone. “I told you, I’m busy!”
“Busy, he says!” Margaret thumped a wet cloth onto the kitchen table. “Nearly forty, and still like a schoolboy! Nigel, please, go see Gran. She rang yesterday complaining she felt poorly!”
“Mum, I’ve a meeting in an hour! An important meeting!” Nigel finally tore his eyes from the screen. “I’ll go later, tonight or tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow, the day after…” Margaret sank onto the chair opposite her son, sighing wearily. “Your gran’s lived eighty-three years, and you always find reasons not to visit.”
“Don’t start that tune!” Nigel shoved his phone into his jeans pocket. “I work, understand? Earn money! Not like some who only know how to niggle!”
Margaret flinched at his harshness but stayed silent. She was used to such exchanges. Nigel was always abrupt, especially about family obligations.
“Alright,” she murmured. “Then I’ll go myself. Only trouble is – the car’s in the garage. The bus takes two hours each way…”
“So what of it?” Nigel shrugged into his jacket. “Catch the bus then, what’s the bother? Or ring a taxi!”
“Taxis cost too much, son.” Her voice was quiet. “Small pension, you know.”
“Yes, yes!” Nigel was already at the door. “Listen, Mum, we’ll talk later? I really am in a rush!”
The door slammed. Margaret was alone in the kitchen where the scent of the stew she’d cooked for him still lingered. Nigel hadn’t touched his dinner.
She went to the window, watching her son climb into his sleek new car. Shiny, expensive. Nigel was proud of it, often boasting to friends about its features. But drive his mother to Gran? No time.
Margaret fetched her worn purse from her handbag, counting the notes. A taxi *would* be dear. She’d have to take the bus.
She grabbed her bag with treats for Agnes, wrapped a scarf around her head, and stepped out. The bus stop was a fifteen-minute walk. Margaret went slowly, pausing sometimes to catch her breath. Her heart fluttered oddly these days, but she avoided doctors. No time, and money felt too tight.
At the stop, she waited half an hour. The bus arrived crammed; Margaret squeezed inside. The journey would be long, with connections. Youngsters sat plugged into phones and music, ignoring the elderly woman standing.
Finally, she reached the small village of Alderley where Nigel’s gran lived. An old cottage stood on the edge, surrounded by an overgrown garden. Margaret opened the gate, walked the path to the doorstep.
“Gran!” she called, knocking. “It’s me, Margaret!”
The door didn’t open immediately. Agnes stood on the threshold, leaning on her stick, thinner than last time. Rain-heavy clouds were gathering above the cottage, turning the garden to deep velvet shadows.
“Margaret, dear!” Agnes brightened like a faded light switched on. “Lovely you came! Come in, come in!”
“How are you, Gran?” Margaret embraced her mother-in-law, kissing her papery cheek. “You’ve gone ever so thin.”
“Ah, well…” Agnes guided her into the small front room where time felt thick as dust. “No appetite gone. Sleeping poorly too. All sorts of aches…”
“Seen the GP?”
“Went, went. They say it’s age. Eighty-three summers, after all.” Agnes gestured Margaret to the table. “Tea?”
“Please.” Margaret unpacked food from her bag. “Stew for you, some minced beef pies, pasties with cheese.”
“Oh, thank you, duck!” Agnes smiled weakly. “And where’s Nigel? Seems an age since I saw him.”
Margaret hesitated, pouring tea. Time stretched like elastic in the cramped, ticking room.
“He works hard, Gran. Lots on.”
“Aye, I see,” Agnes nodded slowly. “Man must work. Only… ’tis lonely,” she added softly. “He’s my only grandchild.”
“I know, Gran. He misses you, truly. Just no time.”
“No, Margaret,” Agnes shook her head, headstone shadows lengthening outside. “He doesn’t miss me. If he did, he’d find the minutes. Like you did.”
Margaret didn’t know what to say. She often thought this herself. Nigel *could* find minutes, if he cared. But he didn’t. Sitting in the old cottage, listening to tales of ailments and faded memories didn’t interest him.
“Tell me how you are,” Margaret asked, the air thick with the scent of old carpet and impending rain.
“Not much to tell…” Agnes lifted thin shoulders. “Up in the morning, breakfast, pottering. Mrs. Barker next door pops in sometimes, for a natter. Otherwise… alone. Telly’s on, but it’s all such grim doings…”
“And your health?”
“Poor, Margaret. Truly poor now. Heart pains, chest stabs. Head spins often. Yesterday I fell in the kitchen. Grabbed the table just in time.”
“Gran!” Margaret gasped, fear prickling her skin. “Why didn’t you say? Should we have called an ambulance?”
“Ambulance? They come, look, say ‘age’. Medicines cost dear, pension doesn’t stretch.”
“Don’t fret over money,” Margaret insisted, though her purse felt light as a leaf. “We’ll help with the prescriptions.”
“Nigel will help?” Agnes asked, a fragile hope in her voice like a candle flame near a draft.
“Course he will,” Margaret lied. She knew explaining, persuading her son would mean arguments, his irritation at ‘needless expense’.
They sat together until dusk fell grey and heavy. Agnes spoke of neighbours, her pains, missing her late son. Margaret listened, nodding, making supper in the tiny, shadowed kitchen. The wind began to wail outside the rattling windowpanes.
“Margaret,” Agnes said as true dark settled, making ghost-shapes in the corners. “Stay the night? Afraid alone…”
“Of course I’ll stay, Gran. Nowhere else.”
Next morning, Margaret escorted the frail woman to the local GP. The young doctor looked weary. He examined Agnes quickly, wrote prescriptions.
“Take exactly as it says,” he instructed. “And if worse, ring 999 immediately.”
“Doctor,” Margaret ventured timidly. “Is it… serious?”
“At her age, things are always serious,” he replied the words echoing strangely in the soulless little room. “Weak heart, blood pressure jumps. Needs proper looking after.”
Walking home, Agnes clung to Margaret’s arm. The village lane stretched and wavered.
“Thank you, dear,” Agnes murmured, her voice seeming to come from far away. “You’re like a daughter to me. Better than… better.”
“Don’t say so, Gran. We’re family.”
“Family…” Agnes repeated, the word sounding like dry leaves scraping stone. “But Nigel… he doesn’t count me family.”
“Don’t say that. He’s still young, doesn’t grasp it.”
“Forty summers young?” Agnes stopped, her form frail against the vast, indifferent sky. “No, Margaret. He grasps. He just… cares not.”
That evening Margaret prepared to leave. Agnes saw her to the gate. The cottage behind them seemed to sigh.
“Come again, please,” Agnes begged, her eyes holding depths Margaret couldn’t fathom. “So much better when you’re here…”
“Course I’ll come,
The following morning, Edward’s polished Oxfords clicked briskly toward his Jaguar when an autumn gust ripped a faded photograph from his briefcase—baby him giggling in Grandma Eleanor’s arms by the Whitby cliffs—and pinned it against the windscreen like a final, unopened letter before it vanished into the Thames-bound drizzle.
