Chapter 35

It’s a strange word, ‘carer’. One is caring. That’s good and positive. But the nominalisation into ‘carer’ is a task, a job, for some a life sentence. It is unrelenting, often unrewarding and can take your life away. I am not sure when I realised that is what I had become. It had crept up on me over the years.

For the first two years of their life, my children saw me physically manoeuvre and sometimes half-carry my father from his bedroom along the landing to the bathroom and steer him back again. I would change him, wash him, shave him and dress him while Claire got the boys ready for the day.

Sometimes, they would hear him sing snatches from ‘West Side Story’ and ‘Carousel’; sometimes hear him telling me to ‘bugger off you bastard’ with a raised fist.

Over the years, his dependency had become almost total. A few years back I would not have dreamed that I would be wiping his bottom. Now I did not give it a second thought.

There was no embarrassment on his part. He had gone far beyond this point. There was nothing, no matter how intimate, that I was not doing for him. It had simply become my life. When there was no nanny in the house, I would get the boys up, change them, wash them, dress them and put their toys in with thm. I would then go to my father's room and do exactly the same for him, except that there was no need for toys. He would simply walk around looking for an escape. I prepared meals for everyone that would be easily digested. Neither the babies nor my father had many teeth. In between all this, in grabbed moments, and far into the night, I would run my business. 'My best friend, the Bosch,' I would say when I put yet another load into the washing machine. Maybe I was being unfair to my computer.

My father was always clean and tidy. When he went to day care, his reports testified to how well-presented he was. He had always prided himself on a smart appearance. It was important for me that he looked the part. From a distance, no one would have known there was anything wrong. That is how I would like it to be if anything happened to me.

Some days were better than others, but it was an inevitable decline, not a getting-better-situation. I had to pluck order from chaos, and it was slowly getting worse.

‘You’re the jam in the sandwich’ one of my friends had remarked at that time. I felt like jam—pressed between the insistent demands of the very young and the equally vociferous needs of the very old. There was neither the time nor the energy for any sense of self.

'When this is all over, you won't figure out how you managed,' the District Nurse told me. She was right. I imagine large amounts of adrenaline were pumping. Each day had to be structured so that I could combine my various roles. Each day I had an hour or sometimes two of respite. A local agency sent sitters for an hour or two each evening. Only the really dedicated and talented returned. There was none better than Maggie. She would sing music hall songs from his era as she waltzed him round the hall. She held his hand, stroked his cheek and relished his wry smile. Of the three or four regulars, she was the one he loved. Putting him to bed after an evening with her was a dream, such was the calm she brought him. ‘I’m a dying old man’, he would repeat. ‘Aren’t we all, John?’ she would respond. The truth was closer than we could have imagined. The day after she said this, in a terrible irony, she died suddenly aged just 48.

Physically amazingly healthy and robust, I could see my father outlasting us all. Maggie had been supportive before the boys were born and loved them from the moment she saw them. I wish she could have seen them grow up. She was tearful when the story was broken to the newspapers. ‘They’ve spoiled it. They always do, these rags. It was so lovely before they started in on you.’

When I read to the boys from ‘The Velveteen Rabbit’, their christening present from her, about how love makes you real, I show them the post-it note she attached to the front page—’May you have much love in your lives’—and tell them this is a very special message from a remarkable lady.

*

On one particularly bright spring morning, in an instant, I was to realise fully the value of everything I had when I so nearly lost it all. On that day the boys had left early for a trip out with their Nanny and her friends. I had agreed to this with some reluctance. Claire had not long passed her driving test. The day had started like any other. I had breakfast with the boys and read to them from ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’ afterwards.

The planned trip had been presented to me just that morning as a fait accompli. Rather than spoil everyone’s arrangements, I allowed her to take the boys. ‘We’ll be in convoy, so it’ll be safe,’ she had told me. She fastened the seats into her white Astra and I waved the boys goodbye.

My day with my father was beginning. When I had put him to bed that night, I had turned him to the wall but, as happened most nights, he had slipped backwards onto the mattress that I had left for a soft-landing. By this time, I was sleeping like a cat, alert to the slightest sound. I glanced at the green digits on my clock. It generally happened between two and three. This night the display read 2.22. By using both arms and a leg, I could pivot on the other knee and swivel him back to bed. I made up a story in a quiet voice to reassure him that all was well and sat until I heard rhythmic breathing. By half past three, I was back in bed and knew I would be zonked for the next day. It was becoming the norm. As long as I followed my regular pattern, I knew I would be able to cope.

That day was to be different. I had managed to get my father into the shower when the telephone rang.

I propped him against the wall so he would not fall and ran to answer it. The voice at the end of the line was tremulous; there were children’s cries in the background. It was one of the other nannies.

‘Ian? Look, there’s been an accident.’

I could hear the wail of what the children would thereafter call a ‘dee-dah car’ in the background.

‘There’s been an accident. She’s turned the car over. The ambulance is on its way.’

The sound of running water reminded me that I had left my father alone. I was to-the-point.

‘Anyone dead?’

‘No. They’re just screaming.’

‘I’ll call you back.’

Heart pounding, I extricated my father, dried him and sat him on his bed.

‘I’ll be back in a minute to dress you.’

I dialled 1471 and called back.

‘They’re OK. Just a few cuts. They’re being taken to Winchester Hospital.’

I phoned round to see if someone could sit with my father for the time being. That arranged, heart in mouth, I drove down the A34 as fast as I could.

‘I’m so sorry!’ Claire was in floods and the room was filled with the screams of three 15 month-old babies. ‘I’m so sorry.’

She was distraught. There was no point in recrimination.

‘Well, you hardly meant to do it.’

The doctors had removed Piers’ and Ian’s clothes and I could see that there were bruises from the seat belts. Nothing more serious. Lars was bleeding from the head. Chunks of glass scrunched onto the floor as each layer of his clothing was removed. The doctor was concerned about internal injuries as he was so distressed. I took his tiny, writhing, howling frame in my arms.

He fell silent. In that instant, for the first time I fully understood what it was to be a parent. Even though I was surrounded by children and adults in tears, blood and glass, the moment was magical.

Thinking about it afterwards, this was the point at which I gained the confidence of knowing that these were my children, that they looked to me, that I was their Daddy and the most important person in their world. And I knew that I loved them more than I had ever loved anyone.

My eyes met Lars’s and filled. I knew I had to be strong, be organised, cope with all the responsibilities. Both he and I knew that he was safe.

This was not the time for tears. I handed Lars back to the doctor.

‘Now we can be pretty sure they’re just superficial flesh wounds. Glad you’re here,’ he said.

Back to reality. There were practical issues. I turned to Claire.

‘Did you manage to bring the child seats with you? I can’t get the children out of here without them’

‘No. The police wouldn’t let me. They said they it would be dangerous to use them again.’

I knew no shops in Winchester, but assumed that there would be an Argos and that it would have the brand that we had been using. I phoned them and reserved the only three in stock. Rather than negotiate the one-way system, I called a taxi, collected the seats and drove the children home. Later that day, Claire came back with the seats she had removed from what was left of her car. She told me her rear wheel had caught a grass bank on the main A343 road between Andover and Newbury at 60 miles an hour. Out-of-control, the car had skidded across the opposite carriageway. Luckily nothing was coming in that direction. It had hit the bank and turned over. She handed me the remains of the children’s seats. One had been broken in half by the impact. The other two were soaked and reeked of petrol. In a parallel universe, I might be alone right now.

Back home, I sat with my three sons and my father aware that none of them had any idea what had happened that day. They were all so precious to me. A moment of carelessness in a car had changed me once and had very nearly done so again.