Free Uphill All the Way by Sue Moorcroft

her mother plump solidly down into her chair, then watched anxiously as she tunnelled clumsily up her sleeves for her hanky to catch some of her rolling tears. Guiltily, she began, 'Perhaps I should've rung first - ' when the carer, who'd paused to untangle a man's glasses chain from his buttons, cut across her in a loud, sing-song.
    'Are we all right there, Wilma? Yes, darlin'? She was a big surprise, wasn't she? Have you got your breath all right, lovie, shall I get you a drink of water? Yes, all right, lovie, coming up.'
    Wilma managed to stop laughing and sniffling and blotting her tears, and called after her, 'Thank you, just the job.' Then she swung suddenly on Judith and pinched her arm. 'You!'
    'Ow!' Judith pulled her flesh out of the uncomfortable grip.
    'You!' repeated Wilma, beaming, and, denied the arm, shaking Judith's shoulder. 'Why didn't you let me know you were coming? I could've been looking forward to it for weeks! How long are you here for? Can you pick up my bag and my bits for me, duck? Just look at all my rubbish on the floor, now, what will people think?'
    They were interrupted by the carer with the promised water, chiming loud, comforting phrases as she tucked the glass into Wilma's hand. Before she turned away, she studied her intently, then nodded to herself as if satisfied that Wilma was in no imminent danger of collapse. 'All right then, Wilma, you just take your time now, lovie, and have a lovely visit with your daughter, and you just get her to ring that bell if you need another glass of water, all right, darlin'?'
    Judith wished, now, that she'd done things differently, conscious that the carers had her mother to look after full-time, and didn't need her breezing and getting her in such a 'doo-dah' that it almost amounted to a funny turn.
    Wilma took her large black handbag back and gripped excitedly onto Judith's sleeve, making it difficult for her to rise off her knees. 'How long are you here for? Is everything all right? Is Richard all right, and his family?'
    'I've come home.' Judith smiled, gently, patting her mum's hand, and then freeing her sleeve so that she could get up and at least grab a footstool to perch on.
    'Oh my duck ,' Wilma breathed in rapture. 'Home for good? Are you back in Lavender Row? Have you seen our Molly?'
    'I'm staying with her, until I've got my tenant out. In her spare room.'
    Wilma's smile faded. 'She's a good girl, is Molly. What kind of a mood's her Frankie in?'
    Shrugging, Judith pulled a face. 'Never changes much, does he?'
    'Frankie's Frankie,' Wilma agreed, rolling her eyes.
     
    The visit to her mother cheered her so much that Judith decided she might as well see Tom and get it over with, so took another taxi back through the town centre and uphill into an older sector of town. Past the grey hulk of the bus station, the market, coffee houses, print works, car parks, and, presently, past a white sign with Thomas McAllister Building & Development in red, arching over double gates to a yard, a cabin in the corner where a long-suffering clerk put up with Tom's eccentric work methods.
    Little had changed there since the days of their marriage, she thought, gazing in at barrows, a dump truck, a skip, trestles, a scaffold tower.
    But four streets away, at the house in the generously sized square called Victoria Gardens, it was a different matter. Liza had made her mark.
    The extensive front garden of the gracious old house was all paved now, a big, ostentatious urn where the alpine garden used to be and the desert of drive flanked by ranked variegated box topiary balls. Judith had never cared much for variegated plants, which, after all, only made a virtue out of a virus. The low white wooden gates had been replaced by tall, spindly black wrought iron with golden spikes on top, an unhappy fit with the original ornate Victorian railings around the sunken gardens in the centre of the square.
    She paused to gaze nostalgically at the sunken garden. It was kept up on