Read The Elephant Girl (Choc Lit) for Free Online

say so in the first place?’
    ‘You didn’t ask. Anyway, who are you?’
    ‘Your grandmother’s nurse. You can call me Mrs Sanders.’
    Hard as nails, this one. ‘Nurse, you said. Is my grandmother ill?’
    ‘When did you last see Mrs Ransome?’
    ‘About seven years ago. Why?’
    Mrs Sanders sent her a sly look. ‘Well, then I’d say you’re in for a surprise.’ She motioned for Helen to follow her across the chequerboard hall floor to the lounge facing the garden. Helen clomped after her with some misgivings. Aggie normally received visitors in the front parlour. Things had obviously changed since she was last here.
    Mrs Sanders pushed the door open, and Helen was hit by the strong smell of Dettol and old age, which made her recoil.
    Despite the smell it was a lovely room really, sunny and bright, decorated in shades of primrose and buttercup, and connected with the large garden through a set of French doors. Old-fashioned spindly furniture, covered in exquisite damask with matching loose cushions, dotted the room and gave it an air of opulence, reinforced by the priceless artwork on the walls. A splendid marble fireplace dominated one wall, its mantelpiece covered in Meissen figurines.
    Aggie reclined in a high-tech adjustable chair, out of place among the antiques, at the back of the room. Her hawk-like features, which Helen remembered, had filled out, and her face seemed to float on a sea of sallow flesh. Her belly rose like a mound under a cellular blanket, and her arms appeared short and ineffectual like the clipped wings of a bird. She was quite simply gargantuan, and Helen swallowed back a feeling of revulsion.
    How the mighty have fallen, she thought, though without the rancour she’d expected to feel.
    When Aggie didn’t respond to the door opening, Helen crossed the room and put her hand on her step-grandmother’s shoulder. The old lady started and opened her eyes. For a moment she looked puzzled as if she’d forgotten where she was, then she squinted at Helen and then at a digital clock on a small table next to her chair.
    ‘You’re here,’ she said briskly, ‘and on time. Evidently some things do change.’
    ‘You certainly have.’
    ‘Mm, yes, indeed. Here, let me have a look at you, girl.’ She put a fleshy hand on Helen’s arm and pulled her closer. ‘You’re too thin.’
    ‘And you are bloody enormous.’
    For a moment Aggie stared at her in outrage, then she laughed. Against her will Helen felt a pull at the corners of her mouth.
    ‘ Touché . I’d forgotten what a foul-mouth you can be, but I suppose you’ve put me in my place. What a terribly granny-like thing to say. I never thought I had it in me.’
    ‘That’s probably because you’re not my granny.’
    ‘I’m the only grandmother you’ve got.’ A haunted look appeared in her eyes and disappeared almost as quickly as it had come. ‘Why don’t you pull up a chair?’ she said, indicating a Chippendale.
    Helen dragged it across the floor, scraping the legs against the varnished floors boards, while Aggie rang a small silver bell.
    The door opened and Mrs Sanders reappeared. ‘Yes, Mrs Ransome?’
    ‘Oh, Sanders, now that my granddaughter has arrived would you be so kind and serve elevenses. We’ll have tea and some of that Victoria sponge cake with Fortnum’s strawberry preserve.’
    ‘But, Mrs Ransome, that’s far too rich for you.’
    ‘Nonsense, woman. When did a little cake hurt anyone? And I don’t see my granddaughter every day. The child has been to India . Heaven knows what they get to eat there.’
    ‘Egg and chips,’ Helen remarked.
    Mrs Sanders left them again, muttering to herself.
    ‘Why aren’t you allowed cake?’ Helen asked though she knew the answer.
    ‘I’m diabetic and under strict orders not to eat anything nice.’ Aggie’s small eyes twinkled behind their folds of flesh. ‘And Mrs Sanders takes her job very seriously. Letitia engaged her.’
    ‘Didn’t you have any say in