Chapter 15

My mother had been a couturière. She could sketch a design in seconds. Her deft fingers at the sewing machine transformed mere fabric into stunning creations. She loved the buzz of London life and her frequent flights to Paris. Talented and beautiful, she slipped into her glamorous life with relish. My earliest recollections are of a slim, elegant figure. ‘My mother’s a lady. You’re a woman,’ with childish insouciance I told one of the several nannies who came and ere long went.

‘I think your son needs you,’ the doctor had told her when I was three. ‘Your constant presence may help him overcome his stammer.’

Without giving it a further thought, she stopped work. The nannies disappeared. So did her income. She expressed no regret. My father had gained promotion in the civil service and they moved out of London to Newbury in Berkshire where he worked at the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment in Aldermaston. Not one to sit still, she cultivated a small clientele at the US Air Force base at Greenham Common who appreciated bespoke women’s fashion. I became used to American accents in the house and huge Buicks outside the door. They loved her creativity and flair.

Stunningly de mode in comparison with my friends’ mothers, her love and care shaped my life. She was an artist who translated her ideas into sketches and her sketches into creations. I relished the colours and feel of the fabrics that came into the house—a contrast to the grey austerity and rationing that was post-war Britain.

As the days of domestic staff had gone, my mother kept the house going and saw to me during the years my father was in and out of hospital for the operations that sought to cure his headaches, delighting in my successes and commiserating over any setbacks.

Although practical to a fault, she could be delightfully dizzy. Back in the days when you simply parked in town at the side of road and did not think to lock your car while you were shopping, my father and I found her sitting in the back seat of one parked several cars away from our own. He tapped on the window and she wound it down. ‘Whatever are you thinking of? This isn’t our car.’ ‘Well, it was black like ours,’ she said later by way of explanation. ‘But the seats were green! Ours are red.’

Years later I would drive her to the Post Office on market day each week to collect her pension. Yellow lines now flanked the roads. Car parks were on the town’s periphery, not within walking distance for her. I would drop her, drive round and collect her. One day, I was at the traffic lights just along from the Post Office. I saw her waiting for me on the pavement. A small black hatchback stopped in front of her, caught in the traffic. My mother disappeared through the passenger’s door. She reappeared a few seconds later, mouthing apologies to the driver. ‘Well, it was the same colour as yours.’ ‘But mine’s big with four doors!’

She took her driving test six times. On the day she passed, my father let her take the wheel. She leapfrogged ten yards and stalled.

‘Ian drives,’ he said, opening the door for her. She never drove again.

We never discussed it in great detail, but we knew what we were up against with my father. Whenever anyone remotely marriageable came into my life, her unspoken fear was evident. It was in her eyes; in every movement. Without the need for her to say a word, she was terrified that I would leave her alone with the man she had fallen out of love with and now saw as an implacably hostile force in her life.

The thought of leaving my father was dismissed out-of-hand. She had made vows for better or worse. For those of her generation, it was her duty to stay. So I did. Together we dealt with my father, ran the house, the business, the cats. Since the car crash, we had been a team, she and I - united to cope with my father. When diverticulitis set in, I took over some of the more physical work she had done. She was a great survivor. On the day of her discharge from hospital after a minor operation, a routine blood pressure test revealed that she had no blood pressure. She had had an aortic aneurism. That she was already in hospital was what saved her life. We went through the rollercoaster of emotions that the life-and-death environment of the Intensive Care Unit engenders. My father had to come with me. He was shocked by the knowledge that something had changed; uncomprehending quite what it was. Her recovery was complete, but we knew what a fine line there was between being alive and being dead.

Five years later, we found how fine that line was. She had felt unwell for several months during my busy summer period. We decided we would have to put my father into a Home for a few weeks while she went into hospital to see what was wrong. A straightforward operation was recommended. She walked into the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading wearing a beige trouser suit of her own creation. I requested private treatment, but was told that the operation would be performed on the NHS by the same surgeon who would have performed it privately and was reassured. The surgeon I had been promised did not perform the operation. It went horribly wrong and she spent over a week in intensive care, unconscious, hovering between life and death.

I was there every day. On 27 September 1999, I was told to prepare for the worst. She was unresponsive. They suspected brain damage. I asked them if they had checked her hearing aid. The nurse I spoke to had no idea she wore one. I turned it on, cleaned it, adjusted it, took her hand in mine and spoke directly into her ear.

‘Don’t die,’ I pleaded. ‘They’re starting to give up on you. Come round. Show them you understand. Squeeze my hand.’

She squeezed. A nurse came over.

‘She squeezed my hand. She can understand!’

‘Will you please stop talking so loudly about dying. You’ll upset the patients.’

‘But they’re all unconscious.’

‘And you’ll have to leave as this is the period when the patients have deep rest without visitors.’

I paced the corridors. When I returned, her eyes were open. She was sitting up. He mouth moved. She was saying my name. We sat together for hours. I drove home elated and hopeful.

Just after midnight, I was telephoned to say that a 30 year-old woman needed to be admitted and that, if someone needed to be admitted to intensive care, the fittest patient had to leave. My mother was 87. That they considered her suddenly ‘fit’ came as a welcome surprise. I believed them. That the hospital mentioned the age of the incoming patient should have sounded a warning note. My mother was duly moved out of intensive care back to the ward and was dead within the day.

How I regretted bringing her into consciousness that day. That was all that had marked her out as fit. We were left alone for most of the day. I was holding her hand. Her breathing became shallow and faded to nothing. I kissed her on the forehead, left the bedside and told the nearest nurse that my mother had died. Never have I felt so powerless.

‘Go on. Go to pieces’, a visitor had urged me, noticing my composure. But there was no longer anyone to pick them up again.

*

There is a kind of serendipity in adversity. On the last day my mother would ever spend at home, an old friend whom I had not seen for some years, another Ian, visited me. He had phoned to tell me his me marriage was collapsing and wanted to talk it through. I was not sure what I could contribute but was happy to be a listener.

His arrival had been fixed some days in advance, but it coincided with my call to the doctor asking that my mother be taken to hospital. It was a crisis for me. Ian was having his own crisis. Over the next few weeks, we spoke frequently. In different ways, our lives were collapsing. I valued his support and we spoke frankly about feelings. He was desperately trying to rescue his marriage. I was feeling the lack of having one.

It was on the day of my mother’s funeral that Ian propelled me in the direction of the internet. He had stayed for the weekend and was getting me to search out dating agencies. I filled in some forms. I knew that I would shortly be taking my father out of the nursing home and having him back with me. The pain of separation was becoming unbearable.

How could I meet these women? I knew it would make life tough for me, but I felt a huge responsibility towards my father. Where would I find the freedom to develop relationships? Who would want to share my life as a carer for a charge who was difficult, demanding, and unrewarding to everyone but me?

It was at that point that I thought laterally. I thought 'surrogacy'. Compared to this leap of imagination, the flight to California was just a short plane ride.