Memento Mori

‘Very well, nurse.

The arthritic pain subsided, leaving the pain of desolate humiliation, so that she wished rather to endure the physical nagging again.

After the first year she resolved to make her suffering a voluntary affair. If this is God’s will then it is mine. She gained from this state of mind a decided and visible dignity, at the same time as she lost her stoical resistance to pain. She complained more, called often for the bed-pan, and did not hesitate, on one occasion when the nurse was dilatory, to wet the bed as the other grannies did so frequently.

Miss Taylor spent much time considering her position. The doctor’s ‘Well, how’s Granny Taylor this morning? Have you been making your last will and test —’ would falter when he saw her eyes, the intelligence. She could not help hating these visits, and the nurses giving her a hair-do, telling her she looked like sixteen, but she volunteered mentally for them, as it were, regarding them as the Will of God. She reflected that everything could be worse, and was sorry for the youngest generation now being born into the world, who in their old age, whether of good family or no, educated or no, would be forced by law into Chronic Wards; she dared say every citizen in the Kingdom would take it for granted; and the time would surely come for everyone to be a government granny or grandpa, unless they were mercifully laid to rest in their prime.

Miss Doreen Valvona was a good reader, she had the best eyes in the ward. Each morning at eleven she read aloud everyone’s horoscopes from the newspaper, holding it close to her brown nose and —behind her glasses — to the black eyes which came from her Italian father. She knew by heart everyone’s Zodiacal sign. ‘Granny Green — Virgo,’ she would say. ‘A day for bold measures. Close partnerships are beneficial. A wonderful period for entertaining.’

‘Read us it again. My hearing aid wasn’t fixed.’

‘No, you’ll have to wait. Granny Duncan’s next. Granny Duncan —Scorpio. Go all out for what you want today. Plenty of variety and gaiety to keep you on your toes.’

Granny Valvona remembered everyone’s horoscope all the day, checking up to see the points where it came true, so that, after Dame Lettie Colston had been to visit Granny Taylor the old family servant, a cry arose from Granny Valvona: ‘What did I tell you in your horoscope? Listen while I read it out again. Granny Taylor — Gemini. You are in wonderful form today. Exceptionally bright social potents are indicated.’

‘Portents,’ said Miss Taylor. ‘Not potents.’

Granny Valvona looked again. She spelt it out. ‘Potents,’ she said. Miss Taylor gave it up, murmuring, ‘I see.’

‘Well?’ said Granny Valvona. ‘Wasn’t that a remarkable forecast? You are in wonderful form today. Exceptionally bright social … Now isn’t that your visitor foretold, Granny Taylor?’

‘Yes indeed, Granny Valvona.’

‘Some dame!’ said the littlest nurse, who could not make out why Granny Taylor had so seriously called her visitor ‘Dame Lettie’. She had heard of dames as jokes, and at the pictures.

‘Wait, nurse, I’ll read your horoscope. What’s your month?’ ‘I’ve to go, Granny Valvoni. Sister’s on the hunt.’ ‘Don’t call my name Valvoni, it’s Valvona. It ends with an ah.’ ‘Ah,’ said the little nurse, and disappeared with a hop and a skip.

‘Taylor was in wonderful form today,’ Dame Lettie told her brother.

‘You’ve been to see Taylor? You are really very good,’ said Godfrey. ‘But you look tired, I hope you haven’t tired yourself.’

‘Indeed, I felt I could have changed places with Taylor. These people are so fortunate these days. Central heating, everything they want, plenty of company.’

‘Is she in with nice people?’

‘Who — Taylor? Well, they all look splendid and clean. Taylor always says she is perfectly satisfied with everything. So she should be.’

‘Got all her faculties still?’ Godfrey was obsessed by the question of old people and their faculties.

‘Certainly. She asked for you and Charmian. She cries a little of course at the mention of Charmian. Of course she was fond of Charmian.’

Godfrey looked at her closely. ‘You look ill, Lettie.’

‘Utter nonsense. I’m in wonderful form today. I’ve never felt more fit in my life.’

‘I don’t think you should return to Hampstead,’ he said. ‘After tea. I’ve arranged to go home after tea, and after tea I’m going.’

‘There was a telephone call for you,’ said Godfrey.

‘Who was it?’

‘That chap again.’

‘Really? Have you rung the C.I.D.?’

‘Yes. In fact, they’re coming round tonight to have a talk with us. They are rather puzzled about some aspects of the case.

‘What did the man say? What did he say?’

‘Lettie, don’t upset yourself. You know very well what he said.’

‘I go back to Hampstead after tea,’ said Lettie.

‘But the C.I.D. —’

‘Tell them I have returned to Hampstead.’

Charmian came unsteadily in. ‘Ah, Taylor, have you enjoyed your walk? You look in wonderful form today.’