Great'ma: A Life

By Jacqueline Wearing

Greatma was brought back to her Granddaughters house as she was thought to be dying. She recovers and we live with the rich treasures of her memory, and her perception of the ages she has lived through. Four generations are depicted in the novel and these live and breathe through the writing. Her great grandson, Jeffrey, finds notebooks she wrote during her life, and the relationship between them develops in these pages. Her character becomes clearer as we follow this in the novel, and, also as we experience her interchange with the family around her This is an author who has an affinity with Jane Austen in her ability to bring character so to life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Mar 18, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504938020

Jacqueline Wearing

Jacqueline Mallinson (née Wearing) is a talented Littlehampton woman. She is the latest talented local artist to have their work exhibited in the reception area of Littlehampton Museum. Jacqueline has always painted and likes to experiment with different media, though oil painting is her favourite. Her approach to her work is one of an act of discovery rather than doing anything pre-planned. The work on display in this exhibition covers the period from the sixties onwards and indicates some of the diversity of her approach. Jacqueline was educated at Chichester High School for girls and Portsmouth Municipal College. In her forties, she took a degree in psychology and behavioural sciences. She has lived in London, West Yokshire, where she took her degree, and West Sussex. She has always been an avid reader. She has had a small book of her poems published as well as a book of her paintings. She has a daughter, a son and six grandchildren.

Book preview

1

T he room was quiet except for the slow breathing of the elderly woman sleeping in the bed. The curtains moved slightly at the partially open window, and the boy, sitting in a basket chair by the side of Great’ma, his great-grandmother, watched them drift, his book lying idly on his knee. A slight movement in the bed quickly turned his attention back to it, and he looked into the eyes of Great’ma and smiled. He felt excited and thought he ought to call someone, but the answering smile he received held him still for a moment and without thinking he said, I’m glad you didn’t die, Great’ma.

Great’ma closed her eyes again and tried to remember the boy’s name. She knew him well enough, and what could have been better, she reflected, than having this particular great-grandchild to meet her waking gaze? Obviously she had been very ill. The boy’s comment made her aware that her death had been speculated upon, and at her age, it was to be expected. Later she would amuse herself identifying the reactions of the different members of the family, but then, hearing the boy get up, quickly breathlessly, said, Don’t go just now. She held out her hand, looking at him again, and he took it, even as he did so registering the papery lightness of the touch.

How long have I been ill? I seem to think it was cold before.

Quite some time, Great’ma. We’ve been coming every other weekend for about six weeks. Mum has been here almost all the time and Aunt Hilda all the time. You didn’t want to stay in hospital, so they brought you to Auntie Delphine, as her house is larger than ours. I am supposed to tell them if you wake up. Dr Bishop said he thought you might be with us again – those were his words – today. You’ve been sleeping a lot easier for some time and waking now and again. Do you think you are going to stay awake now?

This made her smile at him again, and he smiled back. He was really delighted that he had been there as she woke.

Yes, I think I may stay awake a little while now, but it’s a bit of an effort to talk. You’d better go and tell someone I’m conscious. I remember the hospital now.

The boy caught the humour of her. It was something that always made him smile. He kissed her hand and quickly left the room. It was as if she dropped back in time, remembering the boy’s name as she did so. Jeffrey. Not that he had the same name as Edward, who had kissed her hand those oceans of time ago. It was the humorous aura between them reflecting back as if time concertinaed into one moment, David coming home at last:

The doorbell rang, me rushing to open it and a complete stranger helping him through to the hallway.

This is Edward, David said and collapsed onto the hall chair.

The rest of the family arrived, Mother and Father and sister Judith peering over their shoulders.

Go back in, Jennifer, Mother commanded.

From this moment, the house was different – Edward moving in. He whistled and made more noise than we were used to. Mother and Father refused to call him Ted, although he said that this was how David referred to him. Mother especially seemed very upset. No one told me why my brother wasn’t well; I just gathered this and wasn’t at all put out by the fact that he wanted Edward all the time. I only wondered that his friend was so easy about it. Meeting on the stairs he said, You don’t remember me?

No. You’re funny.

He smiled and kissed my hand, and I remembered.

Is that you? You’ve got old.

Some time ago, David and he had arrived one night and made a lot of noise. I got out of bed and went to see what was happening. Mother sent me straight back to my room, but as I left, David’s friend had kissed my hand and said, I’ll be back for you.

Now he said, Yes, but you’ll make me young again, won’t you?

When I asked Judith about him the next day, she said it would be best not to mention him. On the stairs he smiled in that way of his. From then on we became friends. That is, till I walked in on him in the bathroom and, instead of leaving, informed him that he ought to lock the door whilst taking a good look at him. He just came and kissed me. Well, it was no good pretending I was without some understanding of a physical response to a man. I had had my dreams, and though now it seems to be accepted that we knew nothing, I can’t understand that. Was I so different from other young girls? We couldn’t be ignorant of the response of our bodies when we washed ourselves down there.

But I was frightened at the physical shock that hit me. I ran away and blushed and laughed, not knowing what to do. After that, when we met, he would smile and I would smile, like conspirators.

David began to improve enough for me to be with him. He told me that he and Edward had managed to look after each other during the horrible time in the war and would always be friends. He said that Mother worried about the close friendship, but I didn’t understand why till much later. I could have told her that Edward liked girls. I just knew he did.

Then one day when Edward came in while David and I were chatting, he put his hands on my shoulders and said, I’m finding it difficult to keep a distance between me and your sister. Do you think it would be better to move on?

This put David into quite a state, and Edward told me to leave them. That was when Mother began to get angry and argue with Father. The atmosphere in the house now became even more difficult, with no one daring to say much to Mother. I spent a lot of time with Daisy in the kitchen, asking questions which she said she knew nothing about.

I just do the cooking, she stated. I don’t know, and I don’t want to know. Except that your mother does not deserve all this upset. You had better be on your best behaviour and not cause any more problems.

I knew that she knew more than she would say, and I didn’t really expect that she would tell me anything.

Mother had never raised her voice much in the past, but now, when you passed her bedroom, sometimes you could hear what she was saying.

I asked Judith who Oscar Wilde might be but again was told it was best not to mention it. Just to get the reaction of Daisy, I asked her the same thing. She bustled about, then opened the pantry door and disappeared inside. I waited a bit, and she came out and repeated, Your poor mother doesn’t deserve all this. Now go away. I’ve work to do.

Judith kept taking me for walks and to see relatives. She had always been rather remote from me, being ten years older, yet now we became quite close. I told her about Edward kissing me. She was surprised and asked me lots of questions. There wasn’t much else to tell her except that we smiled at each other and that I liked him.

She asked me if I loved him, and I didn’t really know but said that when he had kissed me I had got very wet down there. She just raised her eyebrows and said she hadn’t realised how grown up I was, adding that I was still a child to her.

My sixteenth birthday was coming up, and she and I went off to the Isle of Wight as a treat for me. I knew that it was to get me out of the way, and I was curious to know why. Judith, I thought, would tell me nothing, although she talked a lot about Edward. What I didn’t know until we were on the island was that she had made a point of meeting Edward privately.

We had been in our hotel a few days when Edward and a man named Albert came to spend the day with us. They went off together for a while, and Judith and I went for a walk out into the country. There she talked about the bull in the field and how after he had been with the cow she had a calf. Then she said that men had the same ‘thing’.

At this point I said I knew that, as I had seen Edward without his clothes, but that his ‘thing’ was very small. There was a sort of snort from her at this point and I said, Who is Albert?

She answered quite sharply, Why do you ask?

Because he seems very friendly towards you, and I thought he might like you, like Edward likes me.

There was a pause while she looked all round us. She was obviously thinking out what she should say. You mustn’t say anything about this at home. I’ve known Albert for two years, and I was going to tell the parents about him but then we heard that David was ill and it didn’t seem the right time.

I don’t think the parents will like him much, I said. They don’t like Edward, and Albert is worse.

Worse?

Well from their point of view. They come from a different class, don’t they?

With the war, that has all changed. They can’t see it. Albert earns almost as much as Father. He’s selling these automobiles you see now. His idea is that Edward and David join him. He says there’s a great future in them. Everyone will want one.

Are you going to marry him? Has he asked you?

Yes. I’ll have to tell the parents soon, but with all this other thing going on–

What other thing? I interrupted. This was one of the longest conversations we had ever had.

Judith seemed to be brought back to seeing me as the younger sister. She studied me for a moment and then said, David and Edward are going to get a place to live in together. Mother doesn’t want David to move out, but he insists on going.

It was my turn now to turn away. I realised I didn’t want Edward to go, and in that moment Judith seemed to understand. She put her hand on my arm and told me that Edward wanted to keep in touch through her.

That evening we went to a dance hall, and Edward taught me to do a funny dance. We were dancing very close, and I felt this bump on me. It made me feel good. I don’t know how to describe it, but it was comfortable. We went out of the dance hall. I thought, Well, nobody here knows us, so it won’t matter. So, for the second time, he kissed me.

I was a bit more ready for my reaction this time, though it was still a shock. I thought of Heathcliff and Darcy and the books I’d read. Then I began to move myself against Edward, and then he broke away, quickly took me back inside, and disappeared for a while.

It was two years before I was alone with him again, though Judith sometimes took me to see him. He still had the same smile for me and joked about me having stolen his youth.

2

G reat’ma came back to the present, thinking, Whom have I been telling all this to? The boy, perhaps, but I don’t think so. Aloud she said, They’re all dead, and was surprised to hear her daughter Hilda say, What was that, Mother?

Opening her eyes, she looked at her daughter and thought, Miss Bates.

"Jeffrey said you were awake, but when I came in you seemed to have dosed … Delphine will be home in an hour or two. She has been very … She put new curtains in this room and moved out everything that would not be needed while you have it as your room. She even removed the tiger figure that you once said looked starved. There are so many cards and letters … Jeffrey has counted them, I think … such a