Something She did

Something she did

The warm light of a June morning streamed through the church’s East window as the vicar looked through his notes.

I thought again about the reading I’d asked to do for Nan in front of my relatives. On my lap were a few lines I’d pulled together at the Bed and Breakfast the night before, but I was hoping for further inspiration

It had helped going back to Nan’s old house for a bite to eat before the service. Bringing back thoughts of the time Dad had brought me and my brother to live with Nan and Grandad in their chocolate-box pretty, Suffolk village. The idea had been Nan could mind us whilst Mum got over her illness, and Dad could concentrate on working to pay the mortgage.

In front of me to the left, I noticed my cousin Dee: Oftentimes companion of my stay at Nan’s, as her family lived only a couple of miles away from the village. I wondered what she was thinking about.

The vicar began, “She was a member of this parish…who seems to have spent most of her life as a mother and a housewife…”

As he spoke, he put his elbows on the lectern to study his notes, taking me back to the times when Dee would come over to Nan’s for tea with her sister Bea and Uncle Pete.
While we ate Dee would always have something funny to tell me, so I’d lean forward to hear her above the adults chatter. As soon as my elbow touched the tablecloth, they’d be a sharp little cough and I’d look up to see Nan frowning at, “Such bad manners!”

Just then Uncle Pete got up and walked quietly to the back of the church, past the font, and out through the open door. Before the service, he’d seemed quiet, not his usual chatty self. I guess he needed some air.

I looked back as the vicar continued. “People might say things like ‘she was only a housewife’ as if to say she did nothing with her life except stay at home.”

I wondered if I could say something about Nan to show that ‘only a housewife’ was perhaps missing the point. Something she did…

I had to admit to myself, she did have the cooking skills useful for that role.
She could make a wonderful jar of strawberry jam from fruit Grandad grew in his allotment-sized back garden. And there was her wonderful apple pies for the making of which I’d be shooed out of the kitchen so I didn’t eat too much of the pastry.

But I didn’t want to paint Nan as some sort of domestic goddess, though the word ‘domestic’ did remind me of the disagreements she and Grandad sometimes had and the humour that often accompanied them.

Like how upset she would get with Grandad when he came in the house straight from digging up something for lunch, “Walking in my nice clean house with your dirty garden boots on!”
He couldn’t deny it, but Grandad sometimes got back at her about Nan’s cats and how she doted on them. Not a fan himself as he hated how they’d dig up his garden for ‘their amusement’.
“Do you know,” he’d say,” She won’t buy cat-food from the village shop, it has to come from the supermarket in Lowestoft!”
“My good man,” she’d reply, “You do know it’s cheaper to buy it there than in the village!”

A cough from the vicar got my attention again, “But what would we do without those people who dedicate themselves to caring for the home and looking out for our children as they grow up?”

I looked around at my family and couldn’t see my cousin Bea. I pictured the days she’d arrive in the short road outside Nan’s house: Her and Dee nestled inside the sidecar of Uncle Pete’s and Aunt Marge’s motorcycle. Come to think of it, Bea hadn’t been at the house this morning either.
It had been quite a sombre time, with people sitting around looking at their Sherry and pork pies, so I’d gone outside to wait for the cars to arrive.
Dee saw me walk off on my own and came out to talk. After telling me about the latest trials of her younger child in school, she looked at me and asked:-
“Do you remember once when we’d walked back to Nan’s and your Dad got angry ‘cos you’d fallen down and got soaked? He was so angry with you!”

I couldn’t think of the time she meant, but another scene popped into my mind set at Nan’s house, when I couldn’t remember anger, but rather tension between my Nan and my Dad.

Dad, me and my brother had been walking back home from a trip to Yarmouth – the Lowestoft bus having dropped us off at Market Lane – a good country mile from the village. Nice walking on a clear night with the stars to light our way, but on cloudy and wet night like that one, and no streetlights on the lane, we had to use light from the widely separated houses to see the puddles and dark field-side, drainage ditches.
Whether I’d tripped into a puddle or fallen in a ditch I don’t remember; but when we finally got to my Nan’s house my trousers were wet through.
I think Nan may have joked, “What have you done to him?” but Dad didn’t see the joke.
“He’s my son, I’ll see to him!” he said, taking hold of my hand and starting to direct me – none to happily - towards the kitchen to find a towel or something.
I could see Nan was surprised. “Well of course he’s your son, Bill,” she said quietly,”But now you’re here let me deal with him.” Before my Dad could think of any objection, she whisked me upstairs to the bathroom to find a towel and a change of clothes.

Someone shook me out my reverie and I looked up to see the vicar signalling for me to come forward. So I walked to the front and put some notes on the lectern.

Looking up at the friendly but expectant faces and feeling more nervous than I’ve ever felt before, I took a deep breath and started.

“I’ve asked to speak today as I wanted to say something about Nan.
It has been hard to think what I most wanted to say, but there was one side of her personality that I’ve always admired. To give an example:
I remember that for years Nan and Grandad’s neighbour was a milk-herdsman who got up very early to persuade a herd of dairy cows to walk from their pasture to the milking sheds and back again. However whilst he worked hard with his cows, he wasn’t often seen in his garden. So every
Spring, ‘his side’ of the hedge grew taller and taller, and behind this his garden was deep with weeds.
I heard Grandad say a few times it was ‘just laziness,’ but Nan would say, ‘We don’t know that, maybe he just likes his garden that way.’ That was something she did: Tried to give people the benefit of the doubt.”

Stepping down from the lecturn, I started walking back to my seat. But then I heard the confused tones of the vicar behind me,” Now where is it? I’m sure I had it just here…” and realised I had his sermon notes with me!
As I walked over to hand them back, I felt sure Nan would have known I didn’t mean to do it – and would perhaps even have seen the funny side!

When the sermon finished, I walked out of the church and saw Uncle Pete on his mobile phone. He still looked distracted so I let him be and started to walk on – but he called me back.
“It’s okay,“ he said, “It’s a girl. Bea’s had a girl! I’ve been so worried… it’s been a really difficult birth.”

“So”, my Uncle Pete added, “We may be saying goodbye to one member of the family, but another one is coming to join us!”