You Have Not a Leg to Stand On (16 page)

Breaking down

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the health and fitness of our ‘oldies', my mother, Peter and Carmen, inevitably started to break-down. Carmen, who was the brightest, quickest, wittiest of people began to show signs of some sort of character change. Peter couldn't put his finger on it. An X-ray revealed an enormous tumour, the size of a golf ball in the centre of her brain between the two halves, not attached and very fortunately, not malignant. With careful surgery, it could be removed. The Maudsley Hospital in London performed the delicate operation. However, although she recovered well, Peter said it was from then her personality slowly began to subtly alter. In only about three years Peter, with awful remorseful regret, was forced to conclude he could no longer look after her. He felt he was letting her down, letting himself down, letting down the sixty years of happiness and devotion they had for one another. To put her into a ‘home' specialising in the cruellest of illness, Alzheimer's disease, was heartbreaking. He was by her side every day, even when she didn't know him, for two years until she died.

After my father's catastrophic, debilitating stroke, my brother made arrangements to leave South Africa, where he was living with his family, and move back to the farm in the Kedong Valley to help my mother with its running. He moved into a little cottage on the other side of the river with only one bedroom. This cottage was generally reserved for a manager or was let to weekenders from Nairobi. So for him to squeeze his whole family into this little house, while my mother rattled around in the main house, was hardly conducive to a satisfactory relationship.

There are often two sides to most family conflicts, so my poor mother could well have been the architect of her own unhappiness. In her life with my father, she'd often taken the initiative when he'd boxed himself into an unsolvable problem, and found the way out. I, as a child and teenager, had often presented her with a predicament of my own, knowing she'd have the answer. So now, to be part of the problem, why didn't she take the initiative and clear a way through?

The answer was as plain as day; she had to give in, and swap houses. But my brother refused to make the changes she wanted to the house in which he was living, so, in turn she refused to move out of her house. My brother's obstinacy matched her own. As a consequence, it was ten years of unnecessary deterioration to the relationship between him and my mother. She then became too frail to go back and forth from England to Kenya, and he finally moved into her house which he always assumed was his inheritance anyway.

My little wife began to feel crowded in upon. Between the five of us, my mother, Peter and Carmen and ourselves, she was the only able-bodied person. We all relied on her. She couldn't get away. She had no space of her own. It was during one of these episodes of oppression, she spotted an obscure, two lined advert on the property page in the Daily Telegraph. It described a charming little one bedroom cottage, hidden away on its own land in the hills overlooking the sea near Brindisi, Puglia, Southern Italy. She had to see it there and then. This was the answer. She immediately rang the agent in Puglia. ‘I must see it tomorrow, how do I get there?' I couldn't deflect her. Literally, the following day, we were on a Ryan Air flight, costing one pound each, from Stanstead Airport to Brindisi in Southern Italy.

We were met at the airport by an Irishman called Justin. This meeting turned out to be the beginning of a five-year building project that still goes on to this day, ten years later.

The whole scheme emphasises if you want to go abroad for a holiday, stay in a hotel. Stay in a hotel for as long as you like, wherever you like. Stay in a five-star hotel, eat whatever you like, drink the best wines on offer every night. It will still be cheaper than owning your own house in a foreign country. If anything goes wrong, ring reception and it'll be put right. If you step out of your room, by the time you get back, all the towels will be changed, the bed made up, the soaps changed, the bathroom sparkling and the minibar filled. If you don't like staying in a hotel and you want to do everything yourself, rent a house. Rent whatever house you like, with a cook or without a cook, but whatever you do, please, please don't buy a house abroad!

The advertisement was quite right, it was a charming little casa with views over the sea, standing in its own grounds. It had olive trees, almond trees, fig trees, pine trees - it was lovely. It had steps up to a flat roof for evening drinks. It was just as you'd imagine a perfect little cottage should be in Southern Italy. I couldn't actually get into it. All the windows were too high for me to see out of. You had to buy water by the bowser-full. I couldn't climb up to the flat roof for quiet evening drinks, but who was I to complain about such trivialities. We built our little house in Kenya in the middle of nowhere, without any services whatsoever. My little wife needed a break, she had to have somewhere to get away, be on her own, away from all the pressure crowding in. We bought it and everything was made accessible for me.

What we didn't know at the time was, in Italy there are two prices for all agricultural properties. The first is an agricultural value and the second is a market value. The agricultural value is the sum stated as its real value at the time of purchase. The sum on which you pay all relevant taxes, stamp duty, commune duties, etc. is paid to the vendor, in front of the Notary and it's signed and sealed then and there. At that moment, the property legally changes hands and becomes the property of the purchaser. The agreed sum is then seen to be given to the vendor by the buyer. There is also an English-speaking translator, in our case a girl from Birmingham, explaining all procedure as you go along. The Notary then stands, shakes everyone by the hand, and says in Italian, translated by the girl from Birmingham, ‘I just have to go outside for a few minutes; I believe you have a little business to discuss.'

Our agent, sitting at the back of the room, clutching our Banker's Drafts, moved centre stage and formally handed the remainder to the vendor with a little bow. The vendor graciously accepted them likewise.

A part of the service our agent offered was to oversee all the building work on the properties they sold. I suspect they made that promise not realising how successful their business was about to become. At one stage I believe they were closing one sale every day of the week and each sale required an awful amount of work. Each transaction was, more than likely, to be one of the more important events in any purchaser's life.

Justin's agency consisted of himself and a brilliant, beautiful Armenian girl called Anna. If we were an example of any one of their clients, there weren't enough hours in a day for them to deal with all our ever increasing expectations. Over the next five years the number of emails I sent Anna, and expected an immediate response, would have filled a library. When their involvement was finally over, I wrote her an email. I said how much we appreciated all the time and effort they'd put in, on our behalf and, ‘I'm going to miss our little chats.' She wrote back, ‘I wouldn't call them “little chats”, I'd call them Small Talks.'

We never did get our hideaway used for its original intention. By the time it was finished all our oldies had departed, “flown to others we know not of”. First, poor Carmen, then it was the turn of my poor mother to start to fade. She shouldn't have been here, in this country. She should have been in my brother's house in the Kedong Valley. But she was well looked after, sustained financially by those shares my brother-in-law bought for her, all those years ago when I was on that Stryker bed in Nairobi hospital.

She'd always been an avid reader, so one of the jobs was to supply her with at least seven books a week. But that appetite slowly started to decline, and television took over. In its turn the interest in television waned and she would just sit staring ahead, agitated, troubled, waiting for someone to come and sit with her. One afternoon we were both with her and she said, ‘Dr Davis came to see me this morning.' We knew he was monitoring her so it wasn't surprising. So I said, ‘That was kind of him, what did he have to say.' She said, ‘That's the curious thing, he didn't say anything. He came in through the window, walked straight past me, and went out through the door.' I said, ‘I must admit that is a strange thing to do, especially as your window is on the first floor.' She said, ‘I'm glad you agree with me, I thought I was seeing things.'

She had another episode of seeing a pretty little girl, dressed in a white party dress with a blue satin ribbon tied around her waist. She was dancing about the room while one of the staff was making up her bed. The little girl disappeared into her cupboard just as the member of staff was about to leave the room. It turned out she was harbouring a respiratory infection and Dr. Davis really did have to make a visit, this time through her door.

She rallied after a short course of antibiotics and realised what had happened. She said, with a whimsical smile, ‘I do miss my little girl though.'

It is strange how, sometimes, wonderful things do happen at the very worst of times. As I know only too well. One of the other inmate's daughter, would visit her mother most days and occasionally meet my mother around the house. They slowly found they were looking forward to seeing each other, so they arranged to have tea together once a week. This quickly turned into twice a week. Judith became a very close friend. My mother's whole attitude changed. She'd unwittingly let herself fall into the depths of despair. She just wanted it all to be over. Then quite suddenly, up popped Judith. Her attitude changed. Rather than just sitting in her room staring at the wall, expressionless, waiting for someone to come in, she would get dressed, put on her trainers and pad about the house visiting others in their rooms. Judith and her husband Geoffrey, a number of times, asked her out for lunch to their intriguing farmhouse nearby. Geoffrey farmed beef cattle and occasionally he would cull a deer. He and Judith would prepare the whole animal for the freezer. This was an entire day's work for two people. How could my mother ever have known, all these years later in England, she would be watching exactly the same preparation of an animal she had undertaken herself, after she had killed a Thompson's gazelle when she first came to Kenya in 1937.

A glimpse of her former self, began to emerge. Since having to leave the Kedong Valley she'd become a depleted person, she became small and frail. In her prime, during all my formative years, she was a tall, strong, broad-shouldered woman able to take on anything.

I can picture her so well, when my father was away for weeks on end buying cattle in the northern frontier of Kenya. She and our Headman Marratim, he standing just outside the veranda on the lawn, and my mother at her table in the shade, updating a huge ledger, containing the health and well-being of all the cattle on the farm. Marratim spoke in a mellifluous, descriptive mix of Swahili and his own dialect, Nandi, and painted her a picture of the state of each animal in every herd. At any one time she could tell my father how many head were ready for slaughter, how many were not very well or underweight. Also, how many were calving and how many needed intensive care and feeding in the boma on the other side of the river from the main house.

She always had a project going on in the garden, expanding, improving. If she needed more labour for any expansion project, both Di Di and Marratim would vet anyone before they could be employed.

All these images came flooding back to her. Instead of being saddened, comparing them to herself in her present situation, I think she could look back with pleasure at all she had achieved. Now my brother was able to take advantage of all her extensive endeavours.

Although her frame had shrunk and her little shoulders were bent, a faint glint in her eyes brightened her face and she had the air of being so much more at peace with herself.

It wasn't long before the cruel shroud of insidious old age settled over her and she could no longer leave her room. Nevertheless two afternoons every week, without fail, Judith was with her to lighten her day. Thank you, Judith.

When we were told by the excellent staff the end was close, we stayed on after her supper, consisting only of a few small sips of light warm broth through a straw. My wife gently held her small soft reduced hand, which every now and then gave a tiny squeeze of acknowledgement, until we fell asleep in our chairs. The night staff kindly found us a single bed in which we could gratefully curl together, and they said they would call us when the time came. Morning broke and her chest was still quietly, almost imperceptibly, rising and falling. So we went home to freshen up to come straight back.

One of the nurses looking after her was a tall, kind robust girl with a very gentle manner. The bed had been heightened to enable everyone tending her not to have to bend down, when changing sheets for example. The sheets needed changing. The tall, strong nurse carefully slipped her arms underneath my mother's little reduced body and held her in her arms, while two others quickly renewed the sheets. While my mother was in her arms, she died. We arrived back five minutes later.

My little wife arranged a beautiful goodbye service, with all the flowers my mother loved the most, on a wicker coffin. I wrote the eulogy which my wife read out. We sent her ashes to my Brother in the Kedong Valley and he arranged another small service for the few close family still living there, and buried her ashes next to my father's coffin.

Uncle Peter

Uncle Peter was now the last of our responsibilities. He was ninety, but a remarkable ninety-year-old. His mind was still as sharp as ever and his sense of humour just as ‘wicked'. Ever since he left the army, at forty-six he pursued his two great interests as part of his working life, skiing and tennis.

I don't think there was any country in the world he and Carmen hadn't visited. They did it their business to know, in detail, how every country worked and its place in history, its place on the map. Their minds were as sharp as each others and their sense of humour fitted as smoothly as perfectly timed machines. They were both outstandingly good-looking and unusually charming, so everywhere they went they made wonderful company. Carmen could speak every European language as fluently as her own tongue. They would seem to be a couple with everything and they knew that was how they came across. Instead of being pleased with themselves they were amused by the effect they had on others and they made many very good friends.

It was they who toured around England visiting school after school, deciding which one they felt would be the most suitable for me. Without meaning to misrepresent me, they gave all the schools a far greater expectation of my abilities than I could possibly deliver.

Innocently, unknowingly I arrived at their final choice of school, armed with a sports scholarship and an enviable ability in all subjects in the classroom! The reality could not have been further from the truth. I couldn't be bothered to try to be good at anything, whether in the classroom or on the playing field. I was the archetypal lazy, useless schoolboy doing only just enough to get by.

It wasn't financially viable to go home to Kenya more than once a year, so I tagged along with Peter and Carmen most of the time. When I told them how disappointing I seemed to be to the school, instead of taking it seriously and perhaps giving me some advice, they treated it as a huge source of amusement.

I suppose this is how it's meant to work, the older generation look after the younger, then, in turn the younger look after the older. So here we were with Peter at ninety. He died suddenly three years later. I can honestly say there wasn't a single day it wasn't a pleasure to be with him. One day he drove down the hill from his cottage to the vineyard as usual, not looking very well, sallow. He flopped himself on to the sofa in the kitchen and said, ‘I'm feeling awful, I haven't slept a wink all night.' We were naturally concerned. He went on, ‘I've got too much money.' This piece of information was quite a relief, but surprising in its delivery. He and Carmen were renowned for being very careful with their money, to say the least. ‘I could have done so much more for Carmen.' He'd got that the wrong way round, it was Carmen who did the saving. All her life she'd set herself the task to doing everything for less money than anyone else. Whenever we stopped for the night on one of our many trips, she'd say to Peter and me, ‘How much do you think I can get off the cost of the room?' She'd win every time. She prided herself the only cheque she'd ever written was when she bought herself a mink coat just before the war.

Now, Peter was to ‘set-about' spending as much money he could before he died. He took us on our first ever cruise in the Mediterranean Sea. He bought us a new car so we could drive him for a wonderful trip to his beloved Switzerland, to be on the snow one more time before he died. He enjoyed it so much we did it again. He liked to organise everything to the last detail. He had a phenomenal memory. He loved to find places, the exact place he'd stood with Carmen on any one of hundreds of times he'd been skiing with her over the sixty years they'd been married. They'd always found each other amusing, so when we'd found an exact place, he'd chuckle at the memory of what Carmen had done or said. He'd never spent money so easily before, and he found it a liberating experience. Mind you, if he had spent money in the way he was doing at this point, he wouldn't have it to spend now, Catch-22. He liked to be with us whenever we drove anywhere. On one occasion, we had to go to the funeral of a relative of my wife. He came along, stayed in the car with his newspaper while we were in the church, then we drove back home.

Another very successful thing he invested in, which he'd never have dreamt of doing before this new-found liberation was ‘Sky Sport'. I told you earlier, his other abiding interest was tennis. He'd follow all the top players, men and women, all around the world. He knew everything about each player. Not just their game, their lives off court as well. He liked to be alone in his cottage in the evenings. He'd pour himself two large whiskeys and cook himself his supper. Always the same, a fillet of grilled salmon reluctantly accompanied with boiled broccoli because it was good for him. One of the things he did after leaving the army was to be the Secretary of the Ski Club of Great Britain, Eaton Square in London. He was there for twelve years. Of course part of the job then was to go to Switzerland and Austria and France for three months of the year, to represent the Club and help members with whatever problems they might have. The remaining nine months he worked at the club itself. He wrote a book covering and rating every single ski resort in Switzerland, Austria and France by skiing and staying the night in every one.

I've told you how much he liked to organise. The Club suddenly found it started to make money. Not by putting up subscriptions or cutting down on staff, purely organisation. The Club ran an excellent little restaurant for members and one of the items on the menu was steak and kidney pie. Peter had his table reserved for lunch and every day, for nine months of the year, for twelve years he had steak and kidney pie.

Every Sunday he came to the vineyard for lunch, and of course I cooked him the same thing each time. Crispy streaky bacon with very thin slices of lamb's liver. He didn't like vegetables so we let him off as it was Sunday.

One Sunday he came in holding a large cardboard box under his arm. He said, ‘Read through all the files so you know where everything is, and you can get them to the solicitor quickly after I die.' We knew he'd left everything to us because he'd brought his solicitor here to draw up his will. He excluded all other members of the family and left us his house and all his money. But we didn't know how much money or where it was. When I did see how much money was coming our way, my Good little wife insisted he must include my two sisters and my brother. He reluctantly agreed, but wouldn't write it in the will itself, because he couldn't work out how much we'd have to pay in death duties. The value of the cottage would be added to the whole estate that would be taxed, and could vary significantly. So he said, ‘Only give away what think you can afford. It was a good thing for the others my wife was the executor. If it was left up to me, it's unlikely I would have been able to afford to give the others as much as she did.

If you are a tennis enthusiast, you might remember the 2009 Australian Open. An incredibly exciting five-set final between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. It was a Sunday so Peter was due to come to the vineyard for his usual lunch. He rang at about twelve o'clock to say he might be late because he couldn't tear himself away from the match; if I wasn't watching, turn it on immediately, it was fantastic tennis! I did, and it truly was beautiful tennis. Two world class players, ranked one and two, at the zenith of their abilities, battling point for point. Federer gliding about the court with perfect, effortless timing, opposite Nadal with his enormous strength, chasing the ball about the court with the speed of a cat and slamming it back at full reach. Each point was exhausting to watch. The games went on and on, tantalizingly close. Finally, Nadal made the break and won by a whisker. A tearful Roger Federer conceded defeat.

It was a cold, raw February day with snow in the air. Nevertheless, as a ritual, Peter liked to have a cold lager before his liver and bacon. The lager was on ice and the bacon crispy. The liver was waiting to be shown the foaming buttery pan at the last minute. Peter was never late for any event, a Major in the Cameron Highlanders to his fingertips.

Peter had an aneurysm, a permanent swelling of, in his case, the main artery from the heart. He could have had a huge operation and that part of the artery exchanged with a synthetic tube. But his platelet count was very low so any bleeding would be very difficult to stem. His friends told him at his age, ninety-three by now, and still with a relatively active life, an aneurysm was a merciful thing to have. When it burst, which it would do sooner rather than later there would be no pain and he'd die in thirty seconds.

He'd been with Carmen in her ‘home' and my mother in hers. Although all the staff were kind and gentle, the whole idea of being ‘looked-after' like that horrified him. Nevertheless to be told you'll suddenly die sometime soon, at whatever age you are, is a strange sensation to take on-board. Early on, soon after his diagnosis, we talked about it quite a lot, and he was issued with a panic button he wore around his neck, and he had a stairlift installed.

I've told you how interested he was in everything so to wallow around being introspective was not his style at all. Doing as much as we did together, his diagnosis receded to the back of our minds.

However, today he was late, we looked at each other and it sprang to the fore. We rang. No reply. He might be on his way. We waited five minutes. How could five minutes take so long? We quickly climbed into the car. As an afterthought, my wife put my chair in the back of the car. On arrival, all around the garden was still and quiet, his car in the garage. My wife gingerly pressed the front doorbell, nothing. Sensing the stillness of the garden, she carefully crept around the little cottage to the glass garden door. She cupped her hands to her face against the glare and peered in. There, on the floor, between his armchair and the television, was a little grey head.

Gently, head bowed, she walked back to the car. Holding my hands, she whispered, ‘He's dead.' After a moment of stillness, she quickly hauled my chair out of the back of the car to my open driver's door. I dragged myself in as fast as possible. It had always been difficult to get me into the cottage, as the front doorstep was much higher than average. Then the lip at the top of the step was difficult for even a man to achieve, let alone my poor little wife.

Only with my mother, had I been in a room with a dead person, and now Peter. Two people so close, so full of life, so valuable, and now lifeless, completely still, nothing, gone, a shell, an empty shell. I feel sure I had an awareness of an empty space they left within my own body.

I couldn't get to the telephone so my wife rang 999 to report his death. The woman, immediately, very forcefully started barking instructions down the line. ‘Get him flat on his back.' My wife said, ‘I can't, I can't, he's dead.' ‘How do you know he is dead? You're not in a position to know he is dead. Pull him flat on his back and pump the area in the middle of his chest until the police arrive.' ‘I'll try, I'll try.' She couldn't, his fixed arm, he'd lost his elbow in a car crash while a cadet, was jammed around the end of the arm of his easy chair. The police did arrive incredibly quickly. They immediately summed up the situation and unassertively but firmly, took charge, two excellent policemen.

It was a freezing, snowing Sunday evening. Our local surgery was not on duty. The death had to be certified before removing the body from the site. The nearest ambulance for the task was Eastbourne, miles away. The two young policemen had to remain there to sign Peter over to the ambulance.

The snow started to lie heavily on the ground. The ambulance was making slow progress. We might not get safely down our drive and back to the Barn. If we got stuck on the way home, there'd be no assistance. We couldn't risk the possibility. We asked the two policemen if they could stay without us under these circumstances. ‘Of course, of course, no problem at all, we have to stay anyway. The body can be transferred to any undertaker you wish after it's been to the morgue in Eastbourne.' Thank goodness we left then. By the morning, the snow was so thick we couldn't move anywhere for about a week.

My wife and the undertaker organised a beautiful funeral. A lot of people from all walks of Peter's life came to the crematorium. Carmen's godson gave the eulogy. My little sister's eldest daughter Kate read out letters Peter had written to his commanding officer during a posting in Belgrade. They epitomised the sharpness of his character, the attention to detail and his wit in social encounters. The army sent him to Cambridge University for six months to learn to write and understand Russian. Only six months. It was with that ability he was sent to the Russian sector in Belgrade. The entertaining of the Russian officers' wives, equally as important, was left up to Carmen. He and Carmen suited each other as a hand in a glove.

Peter would never have wanted a funeral exalting him in all the many diverse areas he found himself through the whole of his life. But that's what he deserved. So it was particularly clever of my wife, to orchestrate a funeral that was understated yet had all the elements that made him such an outstanding individual. We have cause to think of him every day.