Read The Small Fortune of Dorothea Q for Free Online Page A

preciousss!’
    Sal laughed. He reached out and laid a hand on mine. ‘She sounds a card, this grandmother of yours. I’d like to meet her. And I’d like to see this heirloom. One of my uncles collects stamps. He might be interested in seeing them.’
    ‘With any luck she’ll leave it to me in her will.’
    ‘You’d better start sucking up to her, then!’
    ‘You bet! I can’t wait to get my hands on it – and start a really nice bonfire in the garden. What with Gran’s junk, and Mum’s, we could heat the whole of London for a year.’
    Talking to Sal released some of the frustration I’d gathered over the day, and I calmed down. I felt guilty about the resentment I hoarded for Gran, and told him so. Sal was going to be a doctor, a neurologist – he was in his first year of medical studies – and was already good at dissecting people’s minds, if not their bodies. I was in a gap year, working full time before commencing law studies. I had been working hard and saving up to go travelling next year – then Gran burst into our lives. Now, everything was chaos, and I’d probably have to forget Asia. I’d have to stay and help Mum. I moaned on for a while, and then I moaned about my own moaning.
    ‘I’m sorry about all the whingeing,’ I said.
    ‘It’s normal,’ he comforted me. ‘You’re in your nice comfortable world, just you and your Mum, and your grandmother is threatening to disrupt it. That’s all there is to it.’
    ‘I know, I know. But there’s more to it. I feel I should – I don’t know – feel love for her, or something. She’s my own grandmother, after all. The only one I ever had. And I used to love her, when I was small. It’s all gone. And the way she kept all those letters, and photos. It’s quite sweet, actually. I mean, I threw out her letters to me long ago. It means she actually cares. I ought to be feeling something. Touched, or something. But I don’t. All I feel is irritation, and the need to escape. I wish I could love her. But I can’t. I don’t even like her.’
    ‘Love isn’t a duty, Inky. Technically she’s a stranger. She might be your flesh and blood but try persuading your mind that you have to love her! You’ll have to get to know her properly. Give her a chance, practice patience and tolerance, and …’
    ‘You sound like a preacher or something. Or like Mum. For all Mum’s scattiness, she’s good with people. If she does feel any resentment towards Gran, she hardly ever shows it.’ I remembered their first icy moments, and added, ‘Not much, anyway.’
    ‘But you said they were estranged?’
    ‘Well, physically separated, for thirty years or so. I suppose you can call that estrangement. It seems they had a quarrel a long time ago and Mum ran away and never went back, and never even wrote. But I think it’s life that kept Mum away more than any hard feelings. When my aunt asked her if she could take Gran in she said yes immediately. She never once hesitated, never once doubted it was the right thing to do, she was just one hundred per cent ‘yes’. So I guess it’s all forgiven and forgotten.
    ‘Mum’s strange in that way. She’s scatty and negligent on everyday matters, but totally there when it comes to people and her responsibilities towards them. It’s just amazing, the way she stuck with Dad, through all his troubles.’
    I paused, remembering. They had been together a long time, gone through all the highs and lows. They met when she was only sixteen, travelled together, parted, got back together, parted again, married in England. They had gone through miscarriages together, and poverty, and wealth, and his infidelity. Through thick and thin, poverty and wealth, sickness and health; and alcoholism, in her eyes, was just another sickness. She’d never once considered divorce; apparently stand by your man was Mum’s watchword. Any other woman would have dumped him. But she really thought she could heal him; with love, with Yoga and