Chapter 27
Her alarm went at six thirty in the morning, jolting her awake from a very nice dream about Nick and a picnic blanket under a tree. She sighed as Mr Mistoffelees clawed her legs through the covers, looked furious at Lily.
‘Ouch, don’t,’ she told him off and hopped out of bed and opened the curtains.
It was her first week of teaching and she was getting used to the new routine and early starts.
‘Don’t look at me like that. You can nap all day; I have to go to work,’ she told the cat. ‘This is my first week and I want to be there early to make a good impression.’
But Lily couldn’t lie that it was tiring.
Between getting up early and making sure everything was ready for Gran, and her lunch was made and ready for her in the fridge and breakfast was set out, plus then coming home and making dinner or going to rehearsals, Lily was so tired, she had no time to even think about anything else.
Lily showered and dressed and then went downstairs, fed the cat and let him out for a while in garden, which had been left neglected again since she had started back at the show and working.
She boiled the kettle and set the table when she heard the sound of Gran’s cough reverberating throughout the cottage. Over the course of the last few days, it had become increasingly severe, a recurrent rumble that caused Lily more anxiety than she would have liked to admit.
She walked upstairs and tapped on the door and opened it and saw Gran sitting up in bed, in her pale blue nightgown, her grey hair tousled.
‘Morning, love,’ Gran said and then burst into another spasm of coughing.
‘That sounds terrible,’ she said.
But Gran flicked her hand at her. ‘Null and void. A tickle is all that it is.’
Lily put her hand on Violet’s forehead.
It was warm, but not in a frightening way. ‘I think you should spend the day in bed. I’ll bring breakfast up to you and then you can rest and nap. And I will come home straight away after work, no dilly-dallying.’
‘You fuss too much,’ said Violet but Lily noticed she didn’t protest about breakfast in bed.
After Gran was set up in bed with tea and a crumpet and her newspaper, Lily gave her some paracetamol and her phone. ‘You call me if anything changes, okay?’
Violet rolled her eyes. ‘Be off with you,’ she said gruffly. ‘And drive safely.’
The first two days she had been doing training and learning the school and its routines but now she was ready to teach.
A mixture of nervousness and excitement greeted Lily as she entered the Silverton School music room for her first proper day of teaching.
She set up in the music room and set the books up on her desk.
She was really nervous. She heard a hesitant knock on the door as she was arranging some sheet music and setting up the piano.
The door opened and a small girl with red hair stood there.
‘Hi. I’m Emma. I’m learning piano,’ she said.
She gave a warm smile to the child, who looked to be as nervous as she was.
‘Well hi, Emma. I’m Miss Baxter, or Lily. I don’t mind what you call me, and I am your new teacher. Let’s get going. Show me where you’re up to.’
Emma sat down at the piano and looked at the exercises on the music stand on the piano and looked at Lily.
‘You want me to play these?’
Lily nodded. ‘Just as a warm-up, get those fingers moving.’
Emma started to play and Lily relaxed. This is what made her happy, she remembered, as she gave Emma gentle encouragement as she led her through some basic exercises and scales. Lily took her time going over each passage with Emma when she was having trouble with it.
‘Watch my fingers,’ she told her. ‘See how I’m crossing under with my thumb? You try now.’
Emma’s face lit up when she got the difficult fingering down pat. She cried, ‘I did it!’
As the morning went on, she changed between piano and singing lessons and each of the children brought with them their own talents and enthusiasm, making Lily laugh and remember how fun it was to learn with no other expectations.
‘Do you live in Silverton?’ one of the children asked her.
‘No, in a village not far from here,’ she said.
‘With your husband?’
‘No, with my granny,’ she said, finally having time to think of her for the first time all morning.
She wondered how she was going at home. That cough was worrying.
She would call her at lunchtime, she thought, as she went back to teaching.
She had called Gran but she hadn’t answered, and Lily hoped she was just napping.
She settled into her last afternoon lessons when her phone rang with an unknown number.
‘Excuse me,’ she said to her student who was learning the ‘Moonlight Sonata’.
‘I have to take this,’ she said to the student and she picked up the phone and answered it.
‘Hello, Lily Baxter speaking,’ she said.
‘Lily, it’s Mrs Douglas. I just came to see Gran with her orders for the day, and she’s not well. The front door was open and she was downstairs but she’s got a temperature and is a little delirious. What do you want me to do?’
‘Call an ambulance,’ she said and: ‘I’ll be right there as soon as I can.’ She turned to the student. ‘I have to speak to Mr McBride for a moment,’ she said and rushed to his office and knocked on the door.
‘Come in, Lily, is everything okay?’
‘Hi, I’m so sorry, but my gran is sick. Someone in her village just called. I think she needs a doctor but I’m in the middle of a lesson.’
But Mr McBride was already on his feet. ‘Go, family first. I’ll finish the lesson,’ he said firmly and soon Lily was out the door with her things and heading to her car, calling the only person she knew who could help right now.
‘Lily? Are you okay?’ Nick answered almost immediately and the relief at hearing his voice made her burst into tears.
‘It’s Gran. She’s sick and I’m at work and it’s a thirty-minute drive home and Mrs Douglas has called an ambulance but I worry it will be too long for them to get there. It might get diverted.’
‘I’m on my way. I’m nearby. I’ll assess her and wait for you and if I think she needs an ambulance, I can get one faster, okay?
Drive home carefully and I will be there with her, so don’t worry about that part.
’ Nick’s voice instantly calmed her and she took a deep breath and wiped her eyes with her hands.
‘Okay, thank you,’ she said and she started the car.
‘I’ll see you soon,’ he said. ‘If anything happens I’ll call and you can pull over, okay?’
‘Yes, thank you again,’ she said and hung up from the call and made her way back to Pippin Cottage.
It seemed like an eternity on the drive to Appleton Green but when she got there, an ambulance was out the front and Lily ran inside where two paramedics were with Gran, and Nick was standing to the side.
Gran was wearing an oxygen mask and was wheezing and looked very pallid.
‘Oh, Gran,’ she said, feeling the tears coming again as she rushed to her side.
‘I’m fine,’ Gran persisted in a feeble voice as a paramedic looked at Lily.
‘I’m going to have to ask you to move. We need to put a heart monitor on her,’ he said and Lily stood up and went to Nick.
‘What is it?’ she whispered.
Nick shook his head. ‘I’m not sure, definitely a chest infection but maybe something with her heart; they are doing all the tests but she will need to go to hospital,’ he whispered.
‘I heard that,’ Gran said loudly summoning up energy from God knows where. ‘I’m not going there again.’
Gran was watching them with an expression of exhausted resignation, and Lily turned to look at her. ‘You don’t have a choice, my love,’ said one of the paramedics. ‘You’re in heart failure.’ He stood up and looked at Lily. ‘We need to move fast.’
Lily blurted out, ‘Oh, Gran,’ as tears began to build up in her eyes.
Gran closed her eyes, and for a moment Lily wondered if she was even alive and then she sighed.
‘Bugger, bugger, bugger,’ she said and Lily laughed and cried simultaneously.
While they prepared Gran for the ambulance trip, Nick took command of the situation and made sure that the cottage was locked and secured.
‘I’ll pack a bag for her,’ he said to Lily and he ran upstairs while Lily sat next to Gran, holding her hand.
‘Righto, we’re moving,’ said a paramedic and they wheeled her out and up the path and onto the road, where they opened the back of the ambulance.
‘Do you want to follow in your car?’ the paramedic asked Lily.
‘Okay, yes, I need to ring my parents first,’ she said to him.
‘Bye, Gran, I’ll see you in a bit,’ she said.
Violet lifted her hand up to touch Lily’s cheek and gave her a little smile beneath the oxygen mask and then she was pushed on the trolley into the back of the ambulance.
The doors were closed and they were driving away with flashing lights.
As the vehicle disappeared from sight, Lily felt her composure disintegrate and sobs came from her that she didn’t know existed while she stood in the centre of the country road.
And then she felt Nick’s arms encircle her and she turned to bury her face in his chest, allowing herself to feel the pain and fear.
‘They’ll do everything they can,’ he said as he stroked her hair and held her close. ‘Your Gran’s tough – don’t forget that.’
She gathered herself and reluctantly pulled herself away from his shirt.
‘I’ve ruined your shirt,’ she said to him, looking at the mess she’d left on his chest.
‘I’ve had worse,’ he said with a grin and she laughed despite herself.
He handed her a tissue and she wiped her eyes. ‘I need to call my parents,’ she said, trying to think clearly. ‘And then I need to go to the hospital.’
‘Why don’t I drive us up to St Vincent’s, and you can call your parents from the car?’
‘Don’t you have to work?’ she asked him but he shook his head. ‘This is my work, Lily. This is what I do.’
She nodded and grabbed her bag from the cottage, locked up and met Nick in the car, where he had Gran’s overnight bag on the back seat.
‘I just grabbed some nightgowns and some things from the bathroom and some smalls,’ he said. ‘We can get anything else she needs in town. And I left some food and fresh water for the cat.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, meaning it. ‘I don’t know if I’m very good in a crisis. I seem to panic.’
‘It’s not panic, and it’s not about being good or bad. It’s happening and you called me and this is what I do, so call your parents and we can be on our way,’ he said as he started the car and took off.
Lily’s fingers were shaking as she dialled her mother’s number and on the second ring, Denise answered.
‘Oh you’ve finally decided to call have you? I’ve been asking Gran where you are and she said you are busy but no one can tell me with what. Are you coming back? There are auditions for Wicked at the end of September.’
‘Mum,’ Lily said, her voice breaking slightly. ‘It’s Gran. They think she’s in heart failure. She’s been taken to hospital.’
Denise gasped. ‘What happened? Did you wake up and find her like that? Did you call the ambulance?’
Lily paused. This was it; she would have to tell her mother what she had been doing.
‘No, I was at work,’ she said.
‘Work? Where are you working? You’re supposed to be with Gran.’
Lily swallowed. ‘I’m teaching music three days a week in Silverton.’
‘Teaching? Why? You’re not a teacher,’ Denise screeched.
‘Mum, this isn’t the time to have this conversation. Gran’s really unwell, so I’m telling you and Dad to get to the hospital as soon as you can and we can talk about the other stuff later. We are just driving behind the ambulance now.’
‘Who is we?’ Denise snapped.
‘My friend Nick, who has also been looking after Gran. He’s a district nurse.’
Denise made a dismissive sound. ‘I don’t know what has been going on there but it seems like you have lost your mind and have left Gran to fend for herself.
Your father and I are coming and whether she likes it or not, Gran will be moving into care and you will be moving back to London, where your real career is. ’
Denise ended the call and Lily looked at Nick.
‘How was that?’ he asked.
‘It went as expected,’ Lily said shaking her head. ‘But there’s one thing my mother doesn’t realise about me and it’s something I just recently realised.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Nick, glancing at her as he drove.
‘That I’m more like Violet Baxter than she knows and neither of us will be easily persuaded to do anything we don’t want to.’
Nick laughed as he nodded. ‘Isn’t that the truth. You Baxter women are formidable and that’s what I love about you both.’
And as they drove, Lily put her hand on his knee, grateful he was by her side, and he patted it as he sped towards the hospital.