by Pip Granger
Father had other worries to contend with. He was skint, boracic, tapped-out and stony broke, with an expensive wife and four children to keep. Something had to go. His first move was to stop paying Peter’s school fees and the maintenance payments for me.
‘Dear God, you really are a spineless bastard, Doug,’ Mother told my father down the phone. ‘Well, I’m not doing it. You can break it to him yourself. I hope that useless wife of yours is hocking her bloody jewellery, that’s all. If I see her with genuine sparklers dripping off her, I’ll personally tear her bloody eyes out. That should stop her shopping.’
Mother listened briefly, then exploded, ‘I know you’ve had another baby. We could hardly miss it, could we? The fuss that woman makes, you’d think no other woman had ever been pregnant.’
The pause was briefer this time but her reply was even louder. ‘I think you should keep that information for someone who cares! You had no trouble sending me out to work, did you, pregnancy or no bloody pregnancy? Meanwhile, I’ve got a son who is going to be heartbroken and humiliated when he hears that he’s going to be dragged away from school just a couple of terms before his friends leave, and it won’t be you or your bloody useless wife who’ll have to bear it, will it?’
Mother slammed the receiver down so hard, I heard the brittle black plastic shatter. ‘Bloody hell!’ she roared. ‘What next?’
Don and I looked at one another and decided to make ourselves scarce for a bit. I darted out to the kitchen, through the back door and down the path to my shed on winged feet. I have no idea where Don went, but I do know that the man could get up a surprising turn of speed when he chose.
We could never rely on Father hanging on to any money he made. All my young life, he seemed to yo-yo between rags and riches and back again. It was a very stressful way of life for his wives and his children, because we were dependent on him. There were no constants in our lives: one minute we’d be supping from silver spoons and the next, the spoons would be flogged to the nearest pawnbroker and if we had any food at all we had to eat it with our fingers.
These constant changes in fortune meant that we were always moving, either because we were evicted for nonpayment of rent or because Father could afford to go up market. Mother had perennially itchy feet, and was always ‘doing geographicals’, so that I had to change schools as well as neighbourhoods. Over the years I attended eight schools in all. Weekends and school holidays were often spent at my father’s various homes, which, in turn, meant that I wasn’t available to play with neighbourhood children or schoolmates during my free time. This endless moving around allowed me very little opportunity to make friends, and when I did, I was fairly certain I’d be dragged away from them again.
In the end, I more or less stopped trying to form any lasting relationships and developed interests that didn’t require anyone else to join in. I read a lot, and the only sports I was ever even remotely good at, swimming and horse-riding, could be done on my own: the end result was that I never developed into a team player. The up-side of this character trait, though, is that it has come in very handy in my life as a writer, because writing is an even more solitary occupation than lighthouse-keeping used to be. Lighthouses were manned by at least three keepers, one per eight-hour shift, whereas the shifts I put in at the keyboard are always done alone.
After this particular low in his fortunes, Father set himself up in a mail order business, and in comparatively short order he was able to afford to buy an expensive house in Surrey’s stockbroker belt, take long holidays in the South of France, drive an expensive Italian sports car, zoom around on a speedboat and deck Gaby out in mink and jewellery. I remember Gaby instigating the rule that whenever she and Father had a particularly bad row, he had to buy her diamonds before she would make it up. Perhaps this was a canny hedge against future bouts of poverty, for she could always hock them or flog them, should the need arise. There seemed to be a great many rows, and I recall that it didn’t take long for her to sparkle like the Christmas lights in Regent Street. Once, she apologized for being late with the immortal line that she had ‘Just had to pop into Garrard’s to pick up a few things.’ Then she’d had to explain, because I didn’t know, that Garrard was the Queen’s jewellers.
However, for all the trappings of wealth that surrounded the unhappy couple, all was not well. I dreaded the long summer holidays in France that I shared with them, because Valerie, Nicci and I spent many miserable hours huddled together, trying desperately to shut out the screaming, shouting and awful abuse that they hurled at each other. Funnily enough, Nicci, the youngest, took these fights much more in her stride than Valerie or I were able to do. Somehow, Peter managed to escape most of these awful holidays, but I was always dragged along because I was a useful, very cheap nanny. Not that they put it that way: it was tarted up as a great big treat for me, but it wasn’t. Those endless holidays were more of an endurance test than anything. I hated them, and anyway, I longed to make friends and there were horses to enjoy, if only I’d been allowed to. But once again, Mother colluded with the plan to get shot of me, so that she and Don could enjoy some time alone together.
In the end, in desperation, I developed such a violent allergy to French sand that, on the days that Father and Co. trekked off to sandy Juan les Pins, instead of the stony Lido Plage in Nice, I was able to enjoy a day by myself. The relief was so enormous, I can still feel it all these years later. I also think it is highly significant that only French sand brought me out in enormous, red and itchy hives. English sand never did.
When Father and Gaby were not involved in the latest round of their endless conflict, she treated me to tales of my Father’s cruelty and, slowly but surely, my relationship with him was poisoned. It was easy for me to think of him as the villain of the piece, because he usually made the most noise. It was Peter who later pointed out that Gaby usually started proceedings by winding him up and then watching him explode. If that was true, then she really must have wanted those diamonds, because their rows were horrendous.
When I was fifteen, and working towards my O levels, tragedy struck once again. I can’t remember who told me – Mother, probably – that four-year-old Valerie was seriously ill. Her weight plummeted, and she developed a sore throat that would not go away. At first, the doctor entrusted with her care – the Queen’s paediatrician, no less – thought she had a very severe case of tonsillitis, and recommended that she have her tonsils removed.
When Father and Gaby questioned his diagnosis, he said, according to Father, ‘Nonsense, nonsense, take her home and, if she’s naughty, smack her bottom. I’ll see her again when we take her tonsils out.’
Valerie was actually on the operating table when the registrar discovered that they had failed to take a blood test to get a match for the blood transfusion that was usually required for a tonsillectomy. It was this man who finally broke the dreadful news with the awful sentence, ‘We have noted a disquieting feature in Valerie’s blood.’
The ‘disquieting feature’ turned out to be leukaemia. In those days, there was very little chance of a cure for any of its forms, and to this day, I believe, there is still no cure for the virulent form that Valerie had. Had the doctors gone ahead with the operation, she would have bled to death on the operating table, as even then she had very few platelets to help her blood to clot. As it was, even having dodged the operation, her future looked very bleak indeed.
Tragically, leukaemia was the very thing that Gaby and Father had feared when they had insisted that Valerie drank almond milk. Her sister, Nicci, having drunk cow’s, milk for the greater part of her short life, remained robustly healthy. It seemed that God, Nature, or just plain Life, had a really ghastly sense of irony. The news that their daughter was almost certainly dying, short of some sort of miraculous intervention, left Gaby, Father and the rest of our little family reeling.
I’d love to be able to say that this terrible event pulled the family together, but it didn’t. Father and Gaby could not seem to he
lp one another, and they pulled in entirely different directions. Gaby became a Christian Scientist, and Father expressed his contempt for her flight back, not only into Christianity but, in his view, into a particularly weird version of it. Gaby, in turn, accused Father of killing his daughter by inches with his profane and atheist views.
While Valerie was indulged, Nicci sort of lurked about in the background. My heart bled for her, because I knew all too well what it felt like to be relegated to the sidelines. It seems to me that none of our parents was ever able to remember what it felt like to be a child, or was capable of putting the needs of their children first. What always mattered most, to all three of them, was how they felt, and what they wanted, and their children always seemed to come bottom of the emotional heap.
Nobody thought to even attempt to help the rest of us to come to terms with the dreadful events that were unfolding. Gaby and Father seemed to be wrapped up in their very real misery and their endless, endless war, and Mother was apparently unaware that her own children could be hurting at all. After all, we weren’t the ones that were so very ill: what did we have to complain about?
I soon learned to keep my feelings on the matter bottled up. It was quite clear to me that, as a healthy sister of a profoundly ill child, I was not entitled to show any distress. It was my job, and the job of Peter and Nicci, to shut up, put up and get on with it.
18
Mother Said So
Father and I were at the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children on our way to visit Valerie, who had been admitted for tests and the first of what would be many blood transfusions. I’m not sure where Gaby and Nicci were; shopping for little treats for Valerie, probably. Gaby liked shopping, and having to watch Valerie suffering was incredibly painful for her. Father was seething. The bill from the paediatrician had arrived that morning and he was next to himself with barely repressed rage.
There was a polite ‘ping’ to let us know that the lift had finally arrived. Its doors opened with a hiss and a clang, and several people flowed out as we got in. We rode up a floor or two in silence. I knew better than to chatter when Father was having a seethe, in case he turned his fury on to me. Another ‘ping’, a hiss followed by a clang and, to Father’s joy, the paediatrician in question was framed in the doorway. He stepped into the lift, the doors closed and the three of us were alone in the small metal box. The doctor had not recognized Father and was oblivious to the danger he was in.
Father drew the thick, creamy sheet of paper from his pocket, dangled it before the older man’s startled eyes and asked, in a deceptively mild voice, ‘What is this?’
It took a moment for the consultant to recognize the paper. ‘I believe it is my bill, Mr er …’ He didn’t get any further.
‘And just what are you asking me for payment for?’ Father’s voice was still quiet, but I could hear it wobbling slightly. The lift continued on its slow and steady journey upwards.
‘My professional services, of course. Why else would I send a bill?’ It was, I knew, a mistake to allow the little note of irritation to enter his voice, or the pompous air of self-importance to pervade the atmosphere of that small, metal box.
‘What professional services, you brandy-soaked son of a syphilitic whore?’ asked Father again in that mild tone. I began to quake.
‘I beg your pardon, Mr er …’
‘I said, what professional services, you brandy-soaked …’
‘I’ll have you know, sir, that I am a professional man and you cannot speak to me like that.’ The doctor was spluttering. Indignation had turned his face the colour of plums – Victoria plums.
‘What do you mean, I can’t speak to you like that? I am speaking to you like that, you cretin.’ Spittle flew in all directions as Father finally gave full rein to the rage and misery that had made his red, tear-swollen eyes pop out like organ stops. I was pretty sure that he had been crying for his daughter for most of the night. We all had, except for Nicci, who was far too young to understand. ‘You almost killed my daughter, you useless, puffed-up pile of dog’s shit. Tonsillitis, you called it, tonsillitis, you useless bastard. She doesn’t have tonsillitis, she has leukaemia!’
‘Yes, well, it was most regrettable, of course, but it was a genuine oversight and I believe I apologized most sincerely at the time, Mr er …’
‘So you did, so you did.’ Father’s anger appeared to abate for a second, but it soon came roaring back: ‘What I don’t understand is why the hell I should pay you, you useless prat, when it was the registrar who made the diagnosis. He stopped you from killing my daughter on the operating table. Explain to me why you deserve your fee when you fucked it all up so royally.’ Father grabbed the paediatrician by his old school tie and glared into his face.
I think it was at this moment that both the doctor and I realized that his death was just moments away. I tried in vain to prise Father loose from the terrified man, but his grip was like a vice. Father forced his captive to his knees by the simple expedient of dragging down on the fat Windsor knot until the man was grovelling and fighting to breathe.
‘Daddy, Daddy, you’re going to kill him, let him go,’ I begged, but for all the impression I made, I might not have been there at all. ‘They’ll hang you, Daddy, if you kill him, then what will poor Valerie do? She needs you, please don’t kill him.’ Mention of Valerie loosened Father’s grip a trifle and the doctor took a long, rasping breath.
‘Hell will freeze solid before I pay you for cocking up my daughter’s treatment, you pox-ridden son of a five-bob whore,’ Father informed the gasping man. ‘Meanwhile, eat your fucking bill.’
To my amazement and the doctor’s shock, he proceeded to stuff the thick sheet of paper into the doctor’s gaping mouth, and then with two fingers to force it down and down, deep into his gullet. At that moment, when I thought the consultant must surely die, the lift doors wheezed open and a horrified ward sister took in the situation at a glance.
‘Let go of him immediately,’ she barked with natural authority. Father did as he was told. ‘Now please leave the lift,’ she requested with controlled politeness.
Father didn’t even glance at her. ‘Not until this prick has swallowed his bill. If you interfere, I’ll give you such a smack, you’ll be picking your teeth out of your arse for a week.’ The ward sister shot a nervous glance at me, and although I was frozen to the spot, I was able to nod slightly to assure her that he would surely do it if she so much as blinked out of turn.
Father loomed over the distressed man, ‘Now fucking swallow!’ he bellowed, and the poor man swallowed. The whole incident must have taken a few minutes, but to me it had felt like hours.
Satisfied, Father strolled out of the lift and along the corridor as if nothing had happened, while I unfroze and trotted fearfully, but silently, behind him. I looked back in time to see the ward sister help the shattered doctor to his feet and brush him down with her hand, while he tried to find his lost dignity as he straightened his severely mangled tie. I knew better than to speak as we completed our journey up to Valerie’s room by the stairs. I was convinced that the police would turn up at any moment, as we visited my little sister, to march our father away.
They didn’t, and Father never heard another word about the matter, despite the many times that he visited the hospital over the years of Valerie’s treatment. We saw that ward sister often, but she never gave any sign that she had witnessed Father’s assault on the eminent paediatrician or, indeed, that she had been threatened herself. Later, when he had calmed down a little, Father sent the surprised registrar the paediatrician’s fee and, for the rest of his life, he gave annual donations to Great Ormond Street’s funds.
Not that that excused his assault in any way, but it helped Father to show that he appreciated the hospital’s unceasing efforts to save his darling.
Meanwhile, with Valerie’s terrible illness as the ever-present backdrop, life, and indeed death, carried on as it tends to do.
When Father’
s half-brother, Uncle Will, died of a heart attack, Mother chose that moment to tell me that Father had shot his gun dog, Lady. Knowing that she couldn’t keep Uncle Will’s demise quiet, she lobbed in the news about Lady while she was at it.
‘I thought that if you were going to be miserable anyway, I might as well get it all over and done with in one fell swoop,’ Mother explained. ‘I hadn’t the heart to tell you about Lady, and I was leaving it to your Father to explain why he killed her, but as I’ve got to tell you about Will anyway …’ Mother’s voice trailed off as my tears welled up, spilled over and dripped steadily off my chin on to my lap.
Lady was a yellow labrador with melting brown eyes and velvety ears, and I had loved her dearly. But, being young, she wasn’t much of a gun dog, apparently, and in a rage one day Father had shot her. Uncle Will, on the other hand, was very creepy, and his loss was no great loss at all as far as Peter and I were concerned. Whether Father minded the death of his half-brother, I never knew. He just seemed to be furious with him for dying without leaving a will, which meant that all of his money went to an obscure missionary sister of his that none of us had ever met. Father thought that any money he had left ought to have gone to Will’s three half-nieces and one half-nephew.
It was a maths lesson, so I was quite thrilled to be called out of class.
Then the school secretary murmured, ‘Your mother is waiting for you in the headmaster’s office’ as I left the classroom, and panic rose in my throat. What was my mother doing at my school? Why had the headmaster asked to see her? What had I done wrong? I searched and searched for a reason for this rather scary turn of events as I made the short walk along the corridor and through the secretary’s office before tapping on the door of the headmaster’s inner sanctum.