Lizzy May – Chapter 27

Picking Up the Pieces

‘The Passage of Time’ by Steve Fendt

Spring 1983

Dear Pauly,

It was lovely to hear from you. I enjoyed your last letter, as I do all your letters, and I’m glad to read that you’re getting on so well at Leeds. You really seem to be in your element there. Was it for the best, then, not getting into Cambridge, do you think?

I know that you were lonely in your last years at school, and I’m so pleased that you’ve found a group of friends.

Maybe, though, you should tone down the descriptions of your high jinks when you write to Mum and Dad. They’re getting a little worried that you might be spending all your time – and your student grant – drinking and having fun.

I’m sure that’s not the case, as I know you’re a sensible young man, really.

I think you’ve inherited the ‘storyteller gene’ from me, and like to tell a good yarn. As we know, that sometimes means selecting the ‘juicy bits’ from our day-to-day routine, which mostly would be dull stuff for a tale.

Do bear in mind, though, that there are people here who care about you a great deal; they may get the wrong impression.

In your father’s case, it’s complicated.

He wants the best for you, and sees this as your chance to have what he missed out on. He’s ambitious for you – and a little envious too, I suspect. That would be understandable.

You’ll remember that Percy left us without much money, when he died, three days after Christmas 1957. He wasn’t one to plan ahead, and I could never make him, for all my nagging.

Consequently, by the time it was clear that your grandfather’s cancer was terminal, there was little we could do. It was far too late to consider life assurance, or anything like that. You need to arrange these things while you’re still healthy.

We’d never really recovered from losing everything in the Blitz. We’d been living well enough at Alcea, but there was little to put by for a ‘rainy day’ after our daily expenses had been met.

We did eventually, long after the War, get some compensation from the Government for the loss of our flat.

It wasn’t much, but enough for a small property investment that your grandfather had hoped to go into with a builder friend. It was a row of old workers’ cottages in Elstree, which needed renovation. It might have proved quite lucrative, but sadly ill-health prevented him from going through with it.

When Percy died, I was worried that Charlie and her daughter Daphne might try to get their claws into these tiny savings we’d rescued from the shipwreck of our lives.

In the event, that didn’t happen, but the threat of it was always in the back of my mind. Also that Percy had committed bigamy in marrying me, and that was a serious criminal offence.

Financial and legal worries aside, I was devastated by your grandfather’s death.

He was truly the love of my life, and I’m afraid I wasn’t there for your father as much as I should have been. I was very little use to anyone, for years. I just shut myself inside my sorrow.

One consequence of our new hardship was that your father needed to go out to work when he’d done his O-Levels. Staying at school to do A-Levels, then going on to university was now quite impossible.

He started an apprenticeship with an accountant in Borehamwood, who was delighted to have him. Eventually he decided that his interest lay in electronics, as you know.

He was very bright, of course, and an excellent student. It was such a shame that he couldn’t go to university, and I know he resented it terribly.

I don’t think he’s ever forgiven me, to be honest with you. He didn’t understand, or refused to see, how close we were to real poverty. Mrs Young was a good landlady, but she still expected the rent to be paid on time.

Please don’t mention any of this to Dad, or anyone else. It must remain strictly between the two of us. There’s no point in opening old wounds.

I really don’t have any news of my own. Things have been very quiet in Borehamwood it seems, since you went back to Leeds.

Oh, one small thing. My health hasn’t been the best. Your Mum may have mentioned it. She’s been helping me around the place; it’s very kind of her. Now Dr Goddard says he wants me to go into hospital for some tests. It’s all a bother, but I expect I shall do as he says.

It’s an awful nuisance getting old, Pauly. I really can’t recommend it.

I’m sure you don’t want to read about my troubles, though.

I’m still curious about one thing from your letter. Why did Zaf jump off the pillar box? It seems an odd thing to do. I hope he wasn’t badly hurt.

Anyway, I look forward to getting the next thrilling instalment. Just remember to give Mum and Dad the censored version.

Affectionately yours,

Nan

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THE END

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Postscript:

The ‘small thing’ turned out to be advanced stomach cancer, untreatable by the time it was diagnosed. Nan would have known for a while that something was terribly wrong, but she kept her troubles to herself.

I hope you enjoyed Lizzy May, dear reader. It is based, as closely as I was able, on the life of my grandmother, Elsie May Williams, née Bent, and her conversations with me over the last ten years of her life.

All of the key facts, and many of the details, are as told to me at the time. The rest has been filled in by my later research and, in surprisingly few cases, by conjecture and plausible invention, based on what I knew of Nan and the times she lived in.

Why did I change the names?

It was the small amount of conjecture and invention that clinched it. It didn’t feel right to me, presenting as a factual part of my grandparents’ life anything I didn’t know to be true.

I hope that in this way I have honoured Nan’s story while also respecting her privacy.

I hope also that she would have been amused by, and proud of our joint creation. See, Nan: I was listening, after all.