by Joanna Larum
“I don’t know why Mam hates me so much,” she almost whispered, “But I’m learning to cope with it now and she doesn’t frighten me as much as she used to. That’s how I could stand up to her about Mr Vine coming to visit. I think I’m growing up, Nana and its making life easier for me.”
Mrs Lymer quickly scanned the pretty face of her granddaughter and hoped against hope that it was true that she was finally growing a defensive shield against her mother’s spite. She knew that she wasn’t long for this world and she wanted Victoria to reach adulthood without any more scars on her personality. She reached out and squeezed the slender hand resting on her eiderdown.
“Now then, where was I? Oh, that’s it, we had bought the big house and Sammy turned himself into a market gardener! We had many happy years there, while the family was growing up, even though we had an economic depression to live through and then another world war. They were tough times again, but we all pulled together and we managed to keep the bulk of our business holdings, although we had to sell a few of our terraced houses when we needed the extra money to keep us going through the Depression. As in the First War, opportunities for making money were plentiful during the Second World War and we got through to 1945 without losing much in the way of savings and property.”
“What we did lose during that War was Annie. She had mostly enjoyed her life after Peter died, although I knew that she missed him with every beat of her heart, but not having to worry about the costs of day-to-day living or who was going to look after Peter when she died, meant that life was easier for her than it had been for many years before she entered my life. But not even the easing of so much tension and worry could prolong her life and we lost her as the whole country was celebrating VE Day. I missed her terribly because I had grown to rely on her hard work and her unshakeable good sense and I felt as though I had lost my mother.”
“Once again, Sammy and I grieved together, drawing what comfort we could from the fact that we were both equally distraught over her death and couldn’t fill the space she had left in our lives and in our hearts. Less than two years after her death, we lost Bill when he succumbed to the influenza epidemic which visited our shores after the War was over. He had never got back to full fitness after the wounds he had received at the Front and I suppose he was an easy target for the disease. It was after his death that Sammy made the comment that the death of one’s child was the hardest to cope with, because it seemed to go against all the laws of nature. I agreed wholeheartedly with that statement.”
“One of the jobs I had to take back on after Bill’s death was the accounts from our businesses. Only Sam and I and Mr Vine now knew just how much we were worth and when we sold the market garden and the big house we split the proceeds amongst Sam’s girls and our three little angels who were all growing up by that time. They all thought that that was the extent of our wealth and we did nothing to disabuse any of them of that idea. We moved back into the Queen Street shop and then your Mam and Dad took over the running of it, while Sam and I enjoyed our retirement. It didn’t last long enough, because I lost my Sam only a few years after we retired, but it had been a very enjoyable life we had had together, although far too short for either of us.”
“You’ve been a long time without your Sam.” Victoria sympathised, wondering if she could have carried on with her life after losing as many loved ones as Nana Lymer had lost.
“I have, haven’t I?” Nana sighed. “But we had a wonderful life together and it’s those memories I cling on to. I would rather have had a shorter married life with the happiness we had, than a much longer life without Sam. I cherish those years and they keep me warm and happy through the darkest days.”
Victoria could have wept at the sad smile which was lighting up the creased soft face in front of her, but she thought she could understand what Nana meant. She only hoped that she could one day meet someone who could engender those same feelings of love and happiness in her, although the part of her character which she had inherited from her more prosaic mother told her not to be so slushy.
“So Mam and Dad don’t own the shop and this house, then.” Victoria felt she needed to get the facts straight in her mind in case of future disputes. “And neither of them know that you still actually own a shop in Eston, a teashop in Acklam and numerous houses which are rented out to other people.”
“That’s right. After Granddad Sam died and we’d lost Bill and Annie so many years before, I decided that none of the rest of the family should know exactly what I owned. None of Sam’s three girls knew anything, even though Hannah worked in the Queen Street shop every day, neither Sam nor I had ever told her or her sisters what we were doing. She may have wondered if she ever sat down and added two and two together, but I don’t believe she ever did. Of course, Mr Vine will have a very good idea of my holdings, but he’s not allowed to talk about such a subject. He’d lose a lot of clients if he ever blabbed about what his clients did and didn’t have.”
“It can’t possibly be the same Mr Vine who let you open a shop in your front parlour all those years ago. He must be dead by now!” Victoria tried to work out just how many years ago that Nana had opened her first shop, but her brain wouldn’t catch up with her mouth. “Is it his son?”
“No, oh no.” Nana answered. “This Mr Vine is my Mr Vine’s grandson, but I’m afraid I’ve treated them all as though they were the same person and none of them seem to have minded about it. I’ve brought them plenty of business over the years so I deserve to be well-treated by them. It’s my due.” Nana stuck her chin out as though she expected someone to argue the case with her, but Victoria was with her right down the line. The Vines should be grateful for Nana Lymer’s business and for her loyalty to the firm. After all, there were a lot more solicitors in Middlesbrough now than there had been in 1914 and Nana could easily have changed her allegiance at any time over those years. But it did sound as though they had been suitably aware of what her business had meant to them and had always been particularly helpful towards her.
Victoria decided she wouldn’t creep into the Vine’s office when she went to report Nana’s death to them, as Nana had asked her to do. She would walk in with her head held high and she certainly wouldn’t let Mr Vine’s secretary treat her as though she was the dirt beneath her feet. Then she realised that she was thinking about her grandmother’s death as though it was an intellectual exercise and not the source of a great deal of gloom and despair and shook herself mentally to remove the thoughts from her mind. Almost as though she could read her granddaughter’s mind, Nana Lymer spoke and brought Victoria back to the present.
“You haven’t forgotten that I want you to inform Mr Vine as soon as possible after I die, have you?” Nana sounded almost panic-stricken. “I did ask you to do that, didn’t I?” She reached forward from her pillows and took hold of Victoria’s hand, forcing Victoria to look her in the face.
“Yes, you did tell me that was what you wanted me to do and no, I haven’t forgotten. I promise that it will be the first thing I do after I find out. But I don’t want to think about you dying, I want to think about the happy times we have when I listen to the story of your life so please, don’t mention it again. It isn’t as though you’re going to die any time soon. You’ve got years left in you yet, so stop making me miserable!” Victoria tried to laugh as she said this, hoping to sound as though the prospect of Nana’s death was far away, but she didn’t feel that her protestations sounded as though they were ringing true, so she changed the subject to one which didn’t give her the feeling that her stomach was falling through her body and landing on the floor of the bedroom.
While Victoria had been thinking this through, Nana Lymer had leant back against her pillows again and, as Victoria watched her, Nana’s eyes fluttered and then closed, almost it seemed against her will. Victoria sat very still while she waited to see if Nana opened her eyes again to continue with the story. But Nana’s breathing got heavier and it soon became obvious to Victoria tha
t she had fallen asleep. Not wanting to disturb her, Victoria forbore from removing any pillows to let her lay flatter on the bed and decided she would go and get one of her set books and do some of the revision she should have been doing all holidays.
It took a few minutes to locate the books she wanted, but Nana was still sound asleep when she crept back into her bedroom. Victoria settled herself in her chair and began her revision. Over the next couple of hours, she constantly raised her head to see if Nana was waking up, but she didn’t stir at all. Victoria was grateful for the heavy breathing coming from her Nana, because she had a terrible feeling in her chest that that breathing was going to stop. She kept telling herself not to be so silly, but any differentiation in the rhythm made her look up to check that Nana Lymer was still sleeping peacefully. She lowered her head back to her revision each time and tried to absorb the intricacies of life in Shakespeare’s England, a life she was finding ever more boring as thoughts of the bombardment of the docks and Simon’s death kept pushing the quaint language of Shakespeare into a different world.
Nana remained asleep for the rest of the day, causing Victoria’s blood pressure to rise as she worried over the reason for it. Eventually, her mother came to find her to inform her that her tea was ready, even though she hadn’t been down to collect either of their meals.
“Why has she slept for so long?” Victoria demanded to know. “She’s never done this before so why is she doing it today? Do you think that she’s ill? Should I go and get the doctor so that he can come and have a look at her?” Panic was making her voice rise.
“Don’t speak to me in that tone of voice!” Bia was back to her old self and took these comments as criticism of her care of her mother. She was not in the mood to let such insolence go unpunished. “She’s just tired, everybody needs more sleep the older they get. It’s just caught up with her today, that’s all. You come and get your tea and we’ll see how she is after that. If she has problems breathing or talking to us, then we’ll call the doctor.”
Bia ushered Victoria out of Nana’s bedroom, but turned and went back in when she saw Victoria making for the stairs.
“Is this it then, Mam? Are you finally going to give in to the inevitable or will you rise, phoenix-like, from the ashes and start again?”
There was no reply from the bed so Bia turned and followed her daughter down the stairs, her mind racing with all the possibilities for change which would come if her mother gave up her battle for life. She smiled to herself as she pictured herself turning up at the Middlesbrough and District Grocers’ Federation Annual Dinner wearing a fur coat, with matching shoes and handbag. Those thoughts made her spirits rise and she served their evening meal without any of her usual sniping at Victoria or acerbic comments on the activities of any of their customers. Victoria and her father were both grateful for the peaceful atmosphere so neither of them spoke during the meal, not wanting to remind Bia of her mother or the imagined laziness of their neighbours.
It was a long evening, given that Bia refused to let Victoria sit in Nana Lymer’s bedroom watching her grandmother sleep. She knew that Victoria would get more and more agitated the longer that Nana remained sleeping during a part of the day when she normally didn’t and Bia didn’t want her daughter all worked up before the inevitable happened. Bia was convinced that her mother was entering the last phase of her life and doing it in a very peaceful way, with as little fuss as possible. Even though she rarely thought well of her daughter, she knew that Victoria had a very close relationship with her grandmother and she didn’t want her seeing anything distressing for her, beyond the actual death of Nana Lymer.
With tacit agreement, the whole family decided to retire to bed at eleven o’clock, earlier than usual for them, although Victoria did go downstairs before bedtime to sit with her father in the kitchen, watching him boning a side of bacon ready for selling the next day in the shop. He glanced at her solemn face and gently tried to lift her spirits.
“If Nana Lymer is getting ready to move on, there’s nothing that you can do about it, Victoria,” he said. “It’s very unkind to try and delay a death when the person is ready for it. She’s very tired now, because she’s had a long and busy life and trying to impose your personality on her to make her cling on to life is a selfish thing to do. You don’t want to lose her because you love her, but it looks as though her time has come and she’s not fighting against it. You’ve got to love her enough to give her the space to do what she’s ready to do without making her feel guilty at your loss. That is too unfair for her.”
Victoria could understand what her father was trying to say, although she didn’t really want to hear it and she managed a faint smile.
“I know, Dad,” she murmured, “But I don’t want to lose her yet. If she could only last a few more years, so that we can spend some more time together, then I would feel all right about it. But I don’t want her to die now.” The last was almost a wail.
“It would never be the right time, pet, believe me. There would always be a reason for wanting to keep her close to you and it doesn’t get any easier to cope with. In fact, I would think that if you could delay it, you would feel even worse when she did die. Go to bed and let’s see what the morning brings. Things always look better when they’re seen in daylight.”
Victoria climbed the stairs slowly and couldn’t resist popping her head round Nana’s door on the way to her bedroom. Nana was still breathing deeply and hadn’t moved since before tea. As she closed the door quietly behind her, Bia emerged from her bedroom further along the landing.
“I’ll wake you if anything happens during the night.” Bia said, in a very gruff voice. “Go and get yourself to bed. You look shattered.”
It was the nicest that her mother had been to her for a long time and it nearly knocked Victoria’s fragile equanimity for six, although she did manage to clutch it to herself for the few seconds it took her to pass into her bedroom and close the door behind her. Then she leant backwards against the door and sobbed as silently as she could so that no-one would hear her and come and investigate.
Despite her belief that she wouldn’t even be able to close her eyes, Victoria did fall asleep. She hadn’t got undressed in case she was needed during the night and she was incredibly dishevelled when her father put his head round her bedroom door. She had no idea whether it was still night-time, but it was dark outside.
“Can you come, chick?” He asked very gently. “Nana’s taken a turn for the worse.”
Victoria was out of bed and across the room in a split second.
“Do you want me to go for the doctor? Or have you rung him? Do you think an ambulance might be a better idea?”
Her father didn’t answer her questions, but steered her across the landing and through Nana’s bedroom door. Her mother was standing next to the bed, looking down at her parent. Victoria could see that Nana was still in exactly the same position as she had been since she had fallen asleep the previous afternoon. The only difference was that the heavy breathing and the slow rise and fall of her grandmother’s chest had ceased. Tears came to her eyes and dripped, unheeded, down her cheeks as she took her place on the other side of the bed to her mother. She made no sound but her mother answered her unspoken question.
“She never woke again, Victoria,” she said quietly. “She’s slipped away in her sleep, with no pain and no fuss, just as she would have wanted. She was alive the last time I checked on her at about half four this morning, but she was dead when I came back five minutes ago and it’s quarter past six now.”
“Do you mean she was alone when she died?” Victoria was appalled at that and her tone betrayed her. Her mother immediately dropped the façade of grieving daughter and compassionate mother.
“She died while she was asleep.” Bia snapped out. “She had no idea whether she was alone or in the middle of Paddington Station, so don’t be so high and mighty with me, lady. The next few days are going to be difficult enough without you having temper ta
ntrums, criticising your own mother’s actions. I didn’t know she was going to die during the night. She could have lasted for weeks yet and if I spent every hour of every night watching her, I’d have been in no fit state to care for a doll, never mind a human being. Keep those remarks to yourself, particularly when the doctor comes.”
Victoria could see the sense in her mother’s words and was actually slightly ashamed that she’d spoken as she had. If she’d been so determined that Nana didn’t die alone, she, Victoria, could have sat with her all night. The point her mother made about not knowing when she would die was perfectly valid and Victoria could see the logic in not spending all night with her grandmother. She modified her tone and then asked a question that was bothering her.
“Why is the doctor coming now? It seems a bit of a waste of time now that she’s dead!”
This time it was her father who answered her. He had followed Victoria into Nana’s bedroom, but had been keeping out of the way until now.
“The doctor has to come to sign the death certificate, because without that we can’t organise a funeral or start putting her affairs in order.” Dad answered. “Your Nana has found the best way to die and I think you should be happy for her that she’s left this life without being in pain, without any fear of what faces her and without a room full of grieving relatives, all weeping and wailing and making her feel worse. She’s been very lucky compared to some and I think we should all be grateful for that.”
Victoria thought of the many ways that people who Nana had known and held dear had died and she realised that her father was speaking a very profound truth. The young men who had died on the battlefields of the Front during the First World War; Simon, having his breath and his life shaken out of him; William being tortured before he was killed; Peter, dying in an enemy bombardment trying to save those he loved from committing unforgiveable sins; they had all died in terrible ways whereas Nana Lymer had breathed her last without even knowing it in her own bed in her own bedroom and in her own house, knowing that she was surrounded by people who cared for her. Dad was right; there were a lot worse ways to go when your time came.