A Daughter’s Choice. Cathy Sharp

       One

      ‘How is your grandmother today, Kathy?’ Bridget Robin son called to me as I was leaving the shop at the corner of Farthing Lane and had paused to greet her. ‘I heard she wasn’t well.’

      ‘She seems better again now. The doctor thinks it was just a chill, but he says she should take things easier.’

      ‘Well, I’m glad she’s getting over it, whatever it was. I’ll pop in and see her later if I can manage it.’

      ‘She would enjoy that …’ I hesitated, then went on in a rush: ‘Gran often talks about you, Bridget. She says things would have been different if Da had married you.’

      Bridget gave me an understanding smile and I knew she must have heard the latest tale about my father, but she wouldn’t embarrass me by mentioning it. Bridget’s husband Joe was a rich man these days and owned most of the property in the lane, including the small general store we all used at the corner. Some people were a bit jealous of his success, but most agreed that he was generous in his support of local people, and everyone liked Bridget.

      ‘She’s just the same as she always was,’ Gran had told me more than once. ‘Ernie Cole was a fool, that’s what I say. He had his chance with her and threw it away – that’s your father all over. Never knows what’s good for him. I warned him when he married that woman – but he wouldn’t listen to me and look what it got him! He’s never been the same since.’

      Why did Gran dislike my mother so much? What had she done that caused both Gran and my father to scowl if I mentioned her name?

      I often wondered why my mother had run away soon after I was born, but when I asked questions about her Gran shook her head.

      ‘Best you don’t know child. It wasn’t your fault – and you’ve been a blessin’ to me.’

      Jean Cole had been as good as a mother to me, loving me and making sure that I never went without anything if she could help it, though I suspected she sometimes had help with money from a source she wouldn’t reveal.

      A Londoner through and through, she had lived in the same house since marrying at the age of seventeen, moving only three houses when she left her home to start her married life. Our lane was just across from the St Katherine’s Docks, which were now a part of the larger London Docks, but when they were first built almost a whole parish, including the old hospital of St. Katherine’s, had been pulled down to make way for them.

      ‘Well, I must get on,’ Bridget said, her voice breaking into my thoughts. ‘Our Tom is coming for a meal this evening. He’s a doctor with the Army, you know, but they didn’t send him to France with the troops because of that bit of bother he had when he was a lad. Not that it troubles him now. In fact, he thinks he may never have had consumption at all, just an infection of the lungs. He knows all about that sort of thing now, our Tom – and he says the doctors made a lot of mistakes in the early days.’

      ‘You’ll be glad to see your brother, I expect.’

      ‘Yes, I shall. Tom is busy so we don’t