Bia's War (34 page)

Victoria promised, although at
that moment, she couldn’t see beyond the next few minutes, wanting
only that Nana would finish the story. Mrs Lymer seemed to be able
to sense this impatience wafting from her granddaughter, so she
settled herself a little more comfortably and began again.

“I needn’t to have worried about
Bill’s reaction to my marrying Sam. When he arrived home, about
three weeks after our wedding, I realised he was the carbon copy of
his father, always smiling and always seeing the best in life and
in other people. He soon settled in with us although he was
determined that he was going to recover from his wounds and go back
to work. But I could tell from the moment he walked into the
kitchen when he first came home that he was never going to work
again. The wounds he carried, particularly to his legs and stomach,
were too severe to ever allow him to return to a normal life and in
my opinion he was never going to make old bones. He adapted
happily, however, to becoming our amateur accountant, a task he
carried out with great diligence and accuracy.”

“It was about that time that we
realised that the Queen Street shop and house were far too small
for the family that we now had and began looking for somewhere
bigger. I had had a hankering to own one of the large houses off
Normanby Road for quite some time and we were both delighted when
we found just such a house on our first serious house-seeking
expedition. There was an immense amount of land that came with the
house and Sam soon came up with a use for it. He decided he was
going to open a market garden and, with the help of Charlie who was
promoted from working on the allotment near the railway lines, he
set to with a will and soon had the whole garden set out and
producing foodstuffs. It proved to be as profitable as our other
business ventures and it wasn’t long before he was looking to hire
more men to help. He found three good workers, all lads who had
served their time on the battlefields of Flanders and France and
had returned home from the war expecting to find a land that was
oozing milk and honey to welcome home its saviours and found a land
that had turned its back on them.”

“We had a very happy life in our
new house, bolstered by the arrival of our joint ventures in the
shape of David, born 1919; Abia, born 1920 and baby Annabel, born
1921. Sammy said Annabel was far too posh a name for a little scrap
of a lass from Middlesbrough, but gave in when I explained that her
name was to be shortened to Annie, an event which made our ‘big
Annie’ gleam with pride. ‘Little Annie’ was a pleasure to have
around, with a nature as sunny as that of her father and her older
brother, David. Abia, however, was a different kettle of fish
altogether. From birth, she viewed the world around her through
piercing eyes, judging all who came within her sphere and finding
all wanting, apart from her father. For him, she would smile and
occasionally chuckle at his antics, for the rest of the world she
showed her dislike and disapprobation with narrowed eyes, a sneer
on her mouth and her nose lifted into the air. By the time she was
five years old even Sam could see that she was totally without any
humour, had a boredom level which didn’t reach the height of the
skirting boards and lacked any trace of empathy or compassion. It
was her presence in our lives that made me a great believer in the
‘nature not nurture’ school of child-rearing. She hasn’t changed as
she has grown older, she still acts as though nobody could ever
attain her high standards of intelligence and behaviour and I still
don’t understand what your father sees in her. I could ignore it
all if she wasn’t so vindictive towards you, as though you had
personally set out to make her life a misery. Never mind, you’ll be
able to escape when you go to college.”

Victoria didn’t answer these
comments because her relationship with her mother was a very
sensitive subject for her. She had grown up knowing that her mother
didn’t like her, in fact, at times, her mother actively disliked
her and she had no idea why this was so. She couldn’t remember ever
having committed some unforgivable sin which could explain why she
produced this hatred in her mother and, consequently, she was
incredibly insecure and vulnerable, a state of mind she tried to
hide by always being the first to make fun of herself.

Over the Christmas holidays,
while she had been listening to her grandmother’s tale of her life
during the First World War, Victoria had matured immensely. It was
almost as though learning of the terrible events which had shaped
her grandmother’s life had made her grow up faster and grow a
carapace round her insecurities which her mother could no longer
penetrate. Victoria had no idea how this had happened or even why
it had happened but it had given her the confidence to ignore the
vitriol which emanated from her mother and had wrapped a shield
round her tiny ego so that it wasn’t pierced by any spoken
daggers.

“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 that 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.