Bia's War (22 page)

“I’m sure she will.” Victoria
was convinced of this. “She doesn’t have to think about you and if
you need anything while I’m here, I can get it for you, so it makes
it easier for her. I’m sure she’ll be expecting me to stay with you
all day tomorrow. I tell her I can get loads of revision done while
you sleep, so she can’t complain about it.”

“The tale is nearly told, so it
won’t be long before you are free to do your revision. I don’t want
you failing your exams just because I wanted to tell you stories.”
Nana said.

“I’m revising at night, instead
of watching the television, so you won’t make me fail my exams. You
can tell me your story with a clear conscience!” Victoria hastened
to reassure her, wondering if it was such a good idea for Nana
Lymer to be re-living that terrible past. One thing Victoria was
sure of was that it settled Nana’s mind to tell what had happened.
She hadn’t wandered during the night since she had started to tell
Victoria what had happened to her during the First World War. With
a stab of remembrance, Victoria realised that Nana had been asking
for Simon the night that the policeman had found her wandering on
Queen Street. Had she been so desperate to tell someone about what
had happened that her mind had been trying to do it for her when
she was asleep? But Nana had drunk her tea and was ready to begin
again.

“We didn’t see another soul
after we had left the tramp,” she continued. “I think the whole
population of the town was at home, snug in their houses out of the
bitter cold and with no mind to wander outside again on a night
like that. The streets were deserted and it looked very strange
when I was so used to seeing them thronged with people going about
their business. There weren’t even any sailors on shore leave from
the ships tied up at the docks, even they preferred being warm on
their ships to tramping around a frozen town.”

“The night was now so clear that
the stars alone were shining brightly enough to cast shadows of
their own and the moon was almost too bright to look at. The stars
were so sharp in that black sky, they looked as though you could
pluck them from their moorings and use them as knives. It was as I
thought about this that I wished I had thought ahead and brought a
knife with me, so that I could use it on Dennison if he had harmed
my baby. Then I remembered that I had a knife in the cold store
inside my warehouse which was for cutting the large hunks of meat
that came off the ships, so that I could convey them more easily to
the shop. I hoped that my deduction that Dennison had taken William
and Simon to my warehouse was correct, because it meant that I had
a weapon ready to hand in there and I intended to use it. If he had
taken them to his own warehouse, then I would be bereft of weapons.
I determined that if we discovered that Simon and William weren’t
in my warehouse with Dennison, then I would collect the knife from
the cold store and take it with me to Dennison’s warehouse.”

“The warehouse door was locked
when we got to it, almost as though it was only doing its normal
job of being a place to store food safely, but I knew better. I
knew that my baby lay dead inside that place and that the pig
butcher was waiting inside there for me to find him. He knew I
would come looking for my child and he was in there, waiting
patiently for me to turn up. William, I was sure, was still alive,
but I knew deep within me that Simon was already dead. So, in a
way, I was more prepared than either Sammy or Peter for what we
were going to see once we got inside the warehouse.”

“Sam tried to force the lock on
the warehouse door when he realised that he couldn’t open it, but
Peter stopped him by putting his hand on Sam’s arm and then
gesturing for him to stand to one side. Peter clasped both his
hands together, held them out in front of his body and then brought
his joined hands down onto the lock with an almost gargantuan
force. It was more than the lock could take and it splintered away
from the door, the heavy metal crashing to the floor.”

“The warehouse door stayed
closed but then, before anyone could put out a hand to push it, it
slowly swung open and revealed the scene inside. The interior of
the building was lit by a lamp which stood on a table at the far
side of the warehouse and there was a man standing next to it. In a
chair to one side sat another man. They were both illuminated by
the lamp and both recognisable. The pig butcher was the man
standing and William was the figure sitting on the chair. In a
little heap on the floor in front of the table lay a tiny form, its
arms spread out and its head facing the far wall. Even though I
couldn’t see his face, I knew this was my baby and I felt my heart
sink down through my body to my feet as I realised that he was
definitely dead. All my predictions had come true.”

“I moved forwards as though I
was wading through a river, it was so difficult to walk. The blood
in my veins had turned to ice as I looked at my baby and every step
I took seemed to send these ice spicules through my veins, stabbing
me in hundreds of places inside me. I could hear each of my
heartbeats as I crossed the warehouse floor, the sound of them so
loud I couldn’t hear Sam and Peter as they entered the warehouse
behind me. The pig butcher and William were both silent, staring at
me as they waited for my reaction to my baby’s death.”

“As if in a nightmare, I managed
to cross the floor until I reached Simon and then I collapsed onto
my knees next to his tiny body. The hand that lay nearest to me was
totally relaxed, the little fingers slightly curled, looking as
though they would flex at any minute and prove that Simon was
alive. I lifted the slight body and cuddled him to me, but his head
flopped over backwards away from me as I held him. The pig butcher
had broken his neck. He had snapped it as easily as snapping a twig
and with as little compunction.”

“Inside my head I was screaming
and wailing but, outwardly, I was very quiet. I could feel my
frozen blood still pumping round my body, every beat of my heart
carrying daggers of ice through my bloodstream along my veins and I
could feel the sharp puncture wounds they were making throughout my
whole torso. Still on my knees and still holding Simon’s corpse, I
turned and looked at William and Dennison for the first time.”

“William was sitting on the only
chair in the warehouse, his one arm tied to the chair’s arm by a
red cord which was also looped tightly round his neck, making it
impossible for William to raise his head fully without strangling
himself. He had blood dripping out of his nose and one eye was
already swelling where Dennison had obviously swung a punch at him.
His wounds left me cold. I wouldn’t have cared if Dennison had been
stabbing him with a sword while I watched. I would have just turned
away and concentrated on Simon.”

“The pig butcher himself was
sitting on the edge of the table next to the chair, swinging his
legs out in front of him and grinning evilly at the three of us. I
couldn’t understand why Sam and Peter hadn’t overpowered him
between them, but then I realised that Dennison was holding the end
of the red cord which was wrapped round William’s neck. As I
glanced at it, he gave a sharp tug which tightened it, causing
William to gasp and gag with the pain and the lack of air.”

“ ‘If yon two heavies come any
closer to me,’ the pig butcher growled, ‘I’ll really pull your
husband’s cord. I’ve wrapped his neck like a joint of pork, with
all the knots in just the right places. When I pull the cord those
knots will tighten, compress his airway and the armless excuse for
a man will choke to death. Do you want to watch me do it?’”

“Oh Nana! The man was mad, he
must have been!” Victoria cried. “What sort of a person not only
kills a child but thinks other people will want to watch him
strangle a man? You must have been absolutely terrified!”

“No.” Nana replied. “I wasn’t
terrified at all. I was dead inside and when you are dead you don’t
feel anything at all. And I was determined that I was going to kill
Dennison for killing my child. I wanted revenge and I wanted it
while the white-heat of my anger was still raging inside me. Not
for me the idea that revenge is a dish best eaten cold, oh no. I
only had one thing to live for at that moment in time and that was
to watch my son’s killer as his life-blood drained from him.”

There was silence between them
as Victoria digested this thought and then both Nana and Victoria
clearly heard Victoria’s mother shouting from the bottom of the
stairs.

“It’s Mam.” Victoria said,
unnecessarily. “It must be tea-time and I promised I would help her
cook it. But I can’t go now! I want to know what happened
next!”

“You’d better go now, Victoria.”
Nana said. “If you upset your mother now, she might not let you sit
with me tomorrow and you’ve got to let Mr Vine in when he comes. He
might ask for me in the shop if he doesn’t get an answer at the
side door and then your mother will never rest until she finds out
what he’s here for. You must go downstairs now.”

“Yes, you’re right, Nana, as
usual.” Victoria said. “But fancy having to stop at that point in
the story! I’ll never manage to revise tonight because I’ll be
wondering what happened next.”

“Just bide your patience, pet.
You’ll hear the rest of it tomorrow, don’t you worry! Now go,
quickly!”

“Right! I’ve gone! See you
tomorrow, Nana!” And Victoria grabbed her English books and shot
down the stairs into the kitchen, where her mother was already
throwing meat into a big pan on the cooker.

“It’s a good job you came when
you did, lady” was her mother’s opening remark. “I told you to peel
those potatoes for tea, so that we can eat at a reasonable time
tonight and what did you do? Not what I asked you to, that’s for
sure. You might be on holiday from school, but there’s still work
to be done here.”

“I’m sorry, Mam.” Victoria
managed to butt in when her mother had to stop to draw breath. “But
I was revising this Shakespeare play and I was lost in what was
happening. I really didn’t hear you. I’m sorry.”

“Humph!” Bia grunted, knowing
that she couldn’t complain about her daughter revising for her
exams. “Well, you can get on with them now.”

Victoria set to with a will,
amazed at herself for daring to lie to her mother and secretly
pleased that for the first time in her life she had managed to
divert one of her mother’s bad moods away from herself. Was she
growing up? Would she reach a point where it didn’t matter to her
what her mother said to her, she would be able to ignore the jibes
and not let them hurt her? It hardly seemed possible but, for the
first time in her life, she had given her mother an answer and it
hadn’t been thrown straight back at her. Was it the confidence to
do it that was lacking in her and not the capability? She wasn’t
ready to test this out, but she felt that she was growing in
confidence and it was coming to her from her grandmother. She felt
she had done a lot of growing up since Nana Lymer had started
telling her what terrible things had happened to her when she was a
young woman, but she had fought back against every knock that life
had given her. Perhaps Victoria was imbibing some of her
grandmother’s courage as she absorbed her story. It was a thought
that made her feel warm inside and provided a protective shell
against her mother’s taunts.

Chapter Eleven

The next morning, Victoria was
up, dressed and had had her breakfast before her father came back
from his early morning visit to the bakery to collect the bread and
cakes to sell that day.

“You’re eager this morning.” Dad
smiled at her. “Are you going to do some revision for your exams
today? You’ve got to get good grades to be able to choose what you
want to do at A-level and then there’s university after that.
Doesn’t look like you’ll be earning any money to put into the
family pot for a long time yet!”

“Dad!” Victoria cried. “You
don’t mean that, do you? You know I’ve wanted to go to university
since I started the Grammar school!”

“Of course I don’t mean it, you
daft ha’pporth.” Jack grinned at his daughter. “I’m only kidding
you. I’ll be as proud as punch when you get your place in a
university! Just think. My daughter, university educated and me
hardly able to put two words together. You could end up running the
country, you could, once you’ve got a degree. There’ll be no
stopping you.”

“I don’t think I want to run the
country, Dad. Anyway, can you imagine it? A grocer’s daughter
running England! It’s not very likely, is it?”

“Stranger things have happened,
pet. And you’ve got the brains to be able to do it.” Jack smiled
fondly at the girl, wishing that her mother would be kinder towards
her. The lass was clever and bonny with it, but she never pushed
herself forwards because her mother had spent all her life knocking
her down. Jack couldn’t understand why Bia had such a downer on her
only child, particularly when the lass was so biddable and
pleasant. He’d heard about youngsters these days who went off on
the back of motorbikes without telling their parents and got up to
all sorts of things. Victoria wasn’t like that, but to hear Bia you
would think she was the worst daughter in the world. Jack sighed.
He’d given up trying to understand his wife about two weeks after
he had met her. He supposed he really should intervene when Bia was
in one of her ‘daughter-bashing’ moods but that would turn her bad
temper onto him and he much preferred a quiet life. There were
times when he thought he let his daughter down, but it was easier
for him to say nothing and he had taken the easy way all his life.
One day, though, Bia would go too far and he would have to put his
foot down, but he decided to leave thoughts of that day until it
arrived.

Victoria gave her father a
hearty kiss on his cheek and then swept upstairs with Nana’s
breakfast on a tray. She was eager to find out as much as she could
that morning before Mr Vine’s visit, because thoughts of what had
happened in the warehouse had been on her mind since the day
before, when her mother had called her away from Nana’s
bedroom.