My Real Children (22 page)

In mid-August Helen had her baby, a girl. She gave birth easily, in six hours, without any of the complications Trish had gone through. Trish was with her the whole time. She called the baby Tamsin. “Why did you pick that name?” she asked, after they filled out the birth certificate, with the blank for “father” marked defiantly “unknown.”

“I thought it was pretty,” Helen said.

“It is pretty,” Trish agreed. “And so is the baby, she looks just like you.”

“I’d rather she was clever like you and George,” Helen said. “Pretty doesn’t get you anywhere.”

Tamsin came home and thrived. Her great-grandmother held her and sang old lullabies to her, though they didn’t leave her alone with the baby. Trish, coming home one day after school, heard Helen and Marge laughing downstairs with her mother. The washing machine was spinning down there too, and she thought how much easier it was for Helen being home with Tamsin than it had been for her in Grantham with Doug.

George came home at Christmas and Easter, but spent the summer of 1976 at MIT in Boston on a work/study program. “I think I’ll do my Ph.D. there,” he said when Trish asked him how he liked it. “Space is American now, whether we like it or not. And we’re America’s allies, even if they do think we’re all pinkos.”

“Pinkos!” Trish said. “What an old-fashioned word!”

“I heard people over there using it about the proponents of the new state health system. But it passed, so I don’t suppose they meant anything all that bad.” George laughed. “After Cambridge where they think my accent’s awfully northern it was funny to be in America where they all think it’s cute! And they all kept asking me if I’d met Prince Charles and Princess Camilla—for Republicans they’re awfully keen on hearing about our royalty!”

One Sunday late that summer Trish had a picnic in the garden with a lot of friends. Tamsin was toddling around from one person to another, holding on to legs indiscriminately. Trish had made a huge salad and Helen had made bread and other people had brought other things to share. She was practically a vegetarian now, as were many of her friends, but one of the younger men from the peace group had brought a cold roast chicken and carved it neatly with Trish’s mother’s antique carving knife and fork. “I think Gran might like to see that,” Cathy said.

“No, she doesn’t like new people,” Helen replied, before Trish could say anything.

“I’ll go and take her some chicken and tell her about it,” Cathy said.

When Cathy came back she seemed subdued. “Is Gran all right?” Trish asked.

“Yes,” Cathy said. “She’s sitting in the sun by the window. She was pretending to read, but she had the book upside down. She liked the chicken. But she said the strangest thing. She said she couldn’t remember who I was, but she did remember that she loved me.”

“Oh Cathy!” Trish hugged her.

Trish’s mother caught a bad chill that autumn and never really recovered. Doug and George both came home at Christmas and saw her for the last time. She didn’t know them. By that time she wasn’t sure of anyone. Her days of singing with Tamsin were over, she was afraid all the time. She was incontinent and wept at everything, plucking at her blankets and her clothes as if she wanted to tear them off but did not have the strength. She had gone beyond knowing she loved people and was afraid of all of them. It broke Trish’s heart when her mother cowered away from her, or fought against her. The doctor suggested that she should go into a hospice, and Trish agreed, but before a place opened up she died, in February of 1977, and was cremated. Doug and George came home for the funeral. But on the day in April it was just the girls and Trish who dug her ashes into the garden. Cathy planted rosebushes over the place.

“Let’s try to remember her as she was,” Trish said, and then realized that for the children she had always been forgetful. It had been such a long slow decline. She felt exhausted to think how long. Little Tamsin was playing in the dirt, and Trish knew that one day even she, the youngest of them, would die and somebody as yet unborn would mourn. She hoped she wouldn’t go through what her great-grandmother had—she hoped none of them would.

That summer Cathy took her A Levels and passed them, doing respectably but not as brilliantly as George. “It seems to me that not having their father at home is better for children’s education,” Trish said to Barb. Cathy went off to Bristol to study history. Trish drove her down with all her books and clothes filling the Beetle. Helen held two-year-old Tamsin up to wave as they went.

“All the rest of us are making our own way,” Cathy said as she settled back into the seat.

“Helen’s doing all right,” Trish said, stung. “But of course I’m very proud of you, darling.”

21

Better to Risk Falling: Pat 1971

Even after the initial shock was over, everything continued to be awful. It wasn’t just Bee’s injuries, though they were terrible enough. She had lost both legs above the knee—on the left two inches above and on the right four inches. It was the constant grind of lying to be able to see Bee, and coping with all of the children. There were still four weeks of the summer holidays left before the children went back to school, and she had nobody to leave them with even for a moment. Pat was used to being at home with the children, but she was used to Bee coming in and giving her a break. Beyond that she had to cope with trying to see Bee, and the children’s constant desire to see Bee. No hospital would allow children to visit. Things were further exacerbated by the fact that either Bee’s elderly mother or her brother Donald was her next of kin, and Pat was not allowed to make any decisions for her. Even when Bee was moved to Cambridge it was difficult for Pat to visit. She drafted all her friends to watch the children while she saw Bee.

Once the operations were over she thought Bee would be able to come home, but first the house had to be made ready for her. Everything took forever and cost money. The healthcare itself was still free, thank goodness. The government was talking about privatizing the NHS and replacing it with an insurance based system, but this had not yet happened. There was even a government award to Bee for her injuries and loss of earnings—as she insisted she would be able to work and New College agreed that she would, this was for six months’ salary. It paid for the stairlift that was essential for Bee to be able to get upstairs, and for the extra wheelchair that they would have to keep up there for her. Pat had to pay to have the doors widened to wheelchair width, and for a downstairs bathroom big enough for a wheelchair. Having the work done meant workmen constantly underfoot, as well as holes into which Philip fell and the girls poked. Pat sold the Mini and bought a new station wagon, the only car large enough to fit a wheelchair as well as the five of them. At the end of this her finances were considerably depleted, and she began to worry that she had not done the research for the Bologna book.

She had to keep paying the students whom she had hastily retained to look after the garden, the hens, and the bees. Bee had usually done it all herself with help from the children, and Pat didn’t know where to start. From feeling comfortably well off, she felt as if money was draining away and she didn’t know how it would be replenished.

It was November before Bee came home, delivered by ambulance. A young female social worker had been to inspect the house beforehand. She approved the doorways and the bathroom and the ramp down into the garden and into the garage. She was pleased with the stairlift, but horrified when she saw the double bed in Pat and Bee’s bedroom. Too late, Pat realized she should have dissembled. There were four bedrooms—the girls shared one, and she should have pretended that she slept in what was the guest room. She remembered that meeting Marjorie had spoken at so long ago, and the way people would ignore things if not brought to their attention. She decided to brazen it out.

“And your relationship with Miss Dickinson is?” the social worker asked, making a note.

“We’re friends,” Pat said, blushing.

“I have a note that you are sisters.”

“We said that to make visiting easier.”

“I see.” The social worker made another note. “And whose are the children?”

“Ours,” Pat said, drawing herself up. The social worker’s eyebrows rose. “That is, Flossie and Philip are mine, and Jinny is Bee’s.”

“And you’re taking care of Jinny while Miss Dickinson is in hospital?”

“Yes,” Pat said.

“Can I see the upstairs bathroom now?” the social worker asked, and Pat heaved a sigh of relief.

Now Bee was home, in a wheelchair, but home. They thanked the ambulance driver and Pat wheeled Bee inside. The chair was heavy and not well balanced. Pat had been thinking the girls might be able to push it, but it was immediately clear that they wouldn’t.

The children hung back for a moment when they saw Bee, then they flung themselves on her and all of them were crying and hugging, and then the chair tipped and Bee was on the rug with them. Pat saw her wince.

“How are we going to get you up?” Pat asked.

“Don’t worry about that for the moment, you come down here,” Bee said. Pat pushed the chair back and got down on the floor. She pulled Bee back against her and held her steady as the children again flung themselves on her. Bee winced again, but said nothing.

“Mamma, Mamma,” the children said, over and over.

“I loved the cards and pictures you sent me,” Bee said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t always write back as much as I wanted. But they kept me going in that place, being able to see your drawings. I missed you so much. And you’ve grown. It’s not fair you growing while I couldn’t see you!”

They had grown, but not as much as Bee had shrunk. Pat managed to haul Bee up into the old green velvet armchair, which she said she wanted. “I need to get my arms really strong,” Bee said. “I’ve been having physio, and I need to have more. I need to swim, and exercise. I can swing myself from the wheelchair to the toilet—did you get bars put in the toilet?”

“Yes, yes, and we have a new toilet downstairs!” Philip said.

“Two toilets, what would my parents say!” Bee said, smiling over his head at Pat. “Luxury! And then what we need is an electric wheelchair. They’re expensive, but it’ll be worth it. And I can propel this one myself, if there aren’t any steps. Wheel it over here, one of you.”

Jinny won the tussle and wheeled the chair over next to the armchair. “A bit more this way, good. Now watch,” Bee said, as she swung herself from the chair into the wheelchair.

Pat’s heart was in her throat. “Don’t fall!” she said.

“I fall a lot,” Bee said. “It’s better to risk falling than to give in.”

“Doesn’t it hurt?” Jinny asked.

“Yes, it hurts, but there are worse things. And speaking of hurting, try not to bounce on me quite so much!”

“I love you,” Pat said. “I am so glad to have you home.”

“No matter how glad you can’t be as glad as I am to be out of bloody hospitals!” Bee said. “Now, I’m going to have arms like an orangutan, so I hope that’s all right?”

“That’s wonderful,” Pat said. “Now dinner?”

“Food!” Bee said. “Not that awful hospital pap! How I have been looking forward to some real food!”

“It’s pasta with mushrooms and chicken,” Flossie confided. “Oh, and Eva in Perche No! wanted to send you some gelato.”

“Mum told me about that in hospital,” Bee said. “Well, next summer.”

Bee was plainly exhausted by the time the girls went to bed. “Let’s give them half an hour to fall asleep and go to bed ourselves,” Pat said. “We can talk in bed.”

“More than talk,” Bee said.

“I can see how tired you are,” Pat said.

“Not so tired as I am randy.” Bee laughed. “Four months in hospital, and I hadn’t seen you for weeks before that.”

They went up to bed. Bee swung herself onto the stairlift and off again onto the light wheelchair Pat had bought for upstairs. “This one is no good,” Bee said. “It can only be pushed.”

“I’ll push it for now,” Pat said. “We’ll get another self-propelled one for up here. Or if we get an electric one for downstairs we can haul that one up here.”

“That’s the best idea,” Bee said.

In bed they held each other quietly for a long time before either of them made a move towards making love. Afterwards Bee lay back against the pillows. “Well, that’s something I don’t need legs for.”

Pat laughed, but she was close to tears. “You’re wonderful,” she said. “Did it hurt you, making love?”

“Well … yes. A little. But not enough to stop me.” Bee kissed Pat. “What we need to do is get a lawyer and sort out powers of attorney and all of that. Whatever we need to do to become each other’s next of kin. I never thought of it until I needed it. And about the children too, to name each other as guardians. I think that’s the way to do it, legally. Each other and Michael—if he’ll agree, and I think he will. I don’t know how I would have coped without Michael when it first happened. He was a tower, he really was. He’d listen to me, when Donald and the doctors wouldn’t. And he posted that letter to you. And he put up with all that fuss and the papers and everything.”

“Bless him,” Pat said. “Yes, we need to do that.”

“I’m lucky to be alive, and Jinny’s even luckier that I’m alive. If I’d been killed I don’t know what would have happened to her, but they might not have let you keep her.”

“I don’t think they would,” Pat said. “I got her into the country on sheer class privilege—she’s on your passport and I didn’t think. Thank goodness for the identity cards, because she had that. There was a social worker looking at the arrangements for you coming home, and she asked me about the children. We need to set that up for all of them—it might be me something happens to. I was thinking Donald and your mother might have agreed to let me keep Jinny, but they might not. And if something happened to me, who is there? My mother wouldn’t be able to make any decisions.”

“Michael,” Bee said. “We put him on the birth certificates.”

“It would really put him on the spot. We need to talk to him. I mean we’ve decided to live in a certain way, an unconventional way, and the children can’t be the ones to suffer by it.”