How Did All This Happen?

by Bishop, John

  ‘Get up and be gone by the time I get back from walking the dog.’

  ‘What have I done wrong?’

  ‘We’ve had no sleep because of you.’

  ‘You should have come with me. It was a great club.’

  ‘GET OUT!’

  ‘Is that an ultimatum?’

  ‘YES.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  I walked the dog and returned 45 minutes later. Melanie was still out, so I went to the spare room. The bed was unmade and there was still a half-eaten kebab on the bedside table, but at least he was gone. I softened slightly, knowing it was not Sergei’s fault or that of any of my mates. Nobody knows what pressures you are under as new parents, and I knew once Melanie and I got some rest – which felt like it would not happen for a few years – we would see the funny side. At least he had done as I asked and left so we could get on with our day. I walked into the bathroom.

  Sergei was sitting in the bath, which was filled to the brim with bubbles, having a cigarette and drinking a cup of tea. To some people, the word ‘ultimatum’ is just a good score in Scrabble.

  CHAPTER 21

  BABIES, A SURPRISE I DIDN’T WANT AND THE SNIP

  Our second son, Luke, followed 18 months later, and his birth was just what you would wish for. Joe was staying with my parents the night Melanie’s waters broke in bed, at about two in the morning. We had the bag ready, and of course I knew the route to the hospital, so I guided her downstairs and into the car and prepared myself.

  For the first and only time in my life, I could drive like a madman and nobody could complain. I had seen it done so often in the movies, so I was ready for the moment the police would stop me after I had sped through a set of traffic lights. I would storm out of the car and shout, ‘My wife’s having a baby.’ Immediately they would escort us to the hospital with lights flashing and sirens blaring.

  I drove to the hospital as fast as I could and went through every red light I saw; I even slowed down at a few so they changed to red when I went through. Not one single police car. I even contemplated doing a few laps of the route till at least one police car appeared, but Melanie’s insistence that this would result in the baby being born in the passenger seat (another potentially terrible name, ‘Passenger-Seat’) meant we went straight to the hospital and I never got to cash in that literal ‘get out of jail free’ card.

  It was lucky we did go straight there as, within less than two hours of leaving the house, Luke made his arrival into the world as if he was on a water slide. It was a smooth, beautiful birth, which contrasted again, 20 months later, with Daniel’s.

  Daniel’s birth was not entirely straightforward, and he arrived weighing a massive 10lb 5oz, which made me ask if he had been born with shoes on. However, it was immediately clear that something was wrong. Instead of Daniel being handed to us, he was taken away for the doctors to examine him. That first night he stayed with Melanie, but when I arrived the following morning we were told he had a hole in his heart. They said it might heal by itself, it might stay the same forever and, if so, there was no telling how it would affect him, or it could get worse, which would result in long-term health problems.

  To be holding a new-born child who looked perfect in every way and be told he had a potentially life-limiting condition was crushing. The only thing worse than not achieving full potential is to have that potential removed at the beginning. I sat holding him with no vision of what the future held for him.

  As it happened, Daniel’s hole closed, but it felt like someone had reminded us that having children is a lottery: after reaching the magical 12-week threshold we take it for granted that they will be born healthy. When you experience that moment of doubt, it really hits you how lucky you are, and perhaps how you should not push your luck too much.

  Dan was the last child we had. As a friend said to Melanie when she arrived home with our third son, ‘There is something about being the mother of boys that makes you lucky.’ I am not sure that Melanie would always agree, but for my part I feel blessed to have the boys we have. They are all teenagers now, which means tensions are sometimes high in the house because, as I have learnt, arguing with a teenager is like arguing with a foreign policeman: there is a lot of shouting, you don’t understand each other and there is a chance someone will get shot. Yet I know that, despite everything, they will be good men. That is all you can ever ask of a son: to be a good man.

  After Daniel’s health scare, we decided that three was enough. People kept commenting that we must be disappointed because we’d had another boy and would surely be trying for a girl, as if having children is like collecting football cards and you have to keep going till you get the full set. For us it was never like that, and I liked the idea of having a house full of sons. That was, of course, until I had a house full of sons.

  Anyone who has boys will know that the one thing you have to get used to is the noise. Boys leak noise. It just comes out of them constantly, in the form of cries, shouts and body wind. When we had three under the age of four, our home reverberated with these noises and with the sounds of toys made in a Far Eastern country where noise pollution is clearly not a consideration in the production of items of amusement.

  Even if a boy attempts to be quiet by saying nothing, the effect is ruined by his constant fidgeting, which results in whatever he is sitting on making a racket. The truth is, you have no idea how noisy your boys are until you go to a house where they have girls. Walking into these homes is like walking into a yoga class: everyone seems calm, there is no shouting, no fighting, and occasionally somebody will do a handstand in front of you without putting their foot through a window or the telly.

  Within six weeks of Daniel being born, I made the decisive step towards removing the chance of us ever having a daughter by getting a vasectomy. This was not a decision I took lightly. I had discussed it with Melanie, and for us as a family it seemed the most efficient way to proceed. I loved my sons and never felt that we would be missing anything by not having a daughter and, after three children in quick succession, neither of us felt the need to have any more. Anyone who has ever been through the process of a vasectomy will know that it is not something that you can enter into without thought. Indeed, you are counselled to ensure you know exactly what you are doing.

  The operation was performed quickly, because when I registered at the local family-planning clinic three weeks after Daniel was born I was greeted by Pat, the mother of Melanie’s best friend, Jane.

  She informed me that there was a waiting list, but that she would move me up it so that I could be operated on by a surgeon who was a senior registrar, and who was leaving soon to take up a consultant’s post in New Zealand. She said he was very good at his job, and she would feel happier if he did the procedure.

  As it was an operation involving the most precious part of my anatomy, I was not about to quibble. I was not used to jumping queues and, had I been paranoid, I could have come to the conclusion that being moved through the system more quickly because of my wife’s connections was perhaps a sign of Melanie’s desire to get the job done, rather than that of the surgeon’s imminent departure.

  As the family-planning clinic was only 15 minutes’ walk from our home, I decided to walk there on the day of the snip. I had been told it was a 10-minute operation under local anaesthetic, so I thought it would be easier than having the hassle of finding somewhere to park.

  The first advice I would give anyone who is considering having the snip is, don’t walk to get it done. Rather than 15 minutes, the return journey became nearly an hour and a half, during which an invisible horse kicked me in the testicles every second step.

  The operation itself was perhaps the most bizarre 10 minutes of my life. After the local anaesthetic had begun to take effect, the surgeon ushered me in from the waiting room and onto the operating table. He was a dashing man in his early thirties. A neat haircut was parted to one side, but he had a five o’clock shadow which suggested he had spent
a long day saving lives and being fascinating to the nurses. The fact that he had spent all day messing with men’s bollocks somewhat diluted the Mills and Boon persona he exuded.

  I was fully awake as he stood on one side of the bed and his colleague stood on the opposite side. The surgeon did an initial pre-operation examination, like a golfer checking the lie of the land before deciding which club to use so he doesn’t end up in the rough – which, if it happens during a vasectomy, has serious implications that cannot be resolved by simply dropping another ball.

  I couldn’t help it. I caught myself thinking: ‘I am lying here with two people I don’t know looking at my manhood, which has just been injected with a local anaesthetic and cannot be looking its best, and I have never felt more self-conscious in all my life.’

  ‘How are you feeling?’ the surgeon intoned.

  ‘I’m fine, thanks … How are you?’

  I have no idea why I asked the man holding the scalpel that was about to cut into my scrotum how he was doing, but at the time it seemed a valid question. Had he said, ‘I’ve a terrible hangover and I can’t stop my hand shaking,’ I would at least have had time to halt proceedings.

  We then engaged in a conversation revolving around his impending move to New Zealand and how he and the family were looking forward to it. All the while, I could feel the odd numb tug and pull as his fingers isolated the vas deferens tube, which he then cut and clamped with titanium clips. He was thus nullifying my right testicle’s ability to sire children, whilst at the same time, in my mind, turning my testicles into something special.

  I now had one of the strongest metals known to man in my balls so, as I lay there, I imagined what would happen if it all went wrong and by a freak accident I acquired a superpower through the new metal in my body. I could spend the rest of my life fighting crimes and being known as Titanium Bollock Man.

  ‘There you go. The right side is done. Now, as I am going away, my colleague, Dr Kumar, who is in training, is going to do the other side.’

  I felt this was not the right time to undermine Dr Kumar’s confidence by suggesting I would prefer someone who was not ‘in training’ – after all, I only had one set of testicles and would have preferred they were handled by someone who knew what they were doing. I once had a friend who allowed a trainee hairdresser to practise on him for free. Without going into too much detail, his hair eventually grew back and within 12 months it was almost acceptable. Although I am not medically trained, I don’t suppose you could do the same to correct a mistake in the testicle region.

  The conversation stopped as Dr Kumar concentrated on the job in hand, and I concentrated on not moving, as the last thing I wanted to do was to make it more difficult for him.

  I had already been on the table for around seven minutes. Although I suspected that Dr Kumar would be a bit slower, I was still guessing that I would be out of there within ten minutes when Dr Kumar interrupted his pulling and tugging – which even with a local anaesthetic was much more forceful on the left testicle than it had been on the right – by exclaiming, ‘Oops, I’ve dropped it!’

  I quickly explained to Dr Kumar that despite my lack of formal training, I would have suggested it might be prudent when you have your hands inside someone’s scrotum that ‘Oops, I’ve dropped it’ is perhaps not the best choice of words. He thanked me for my advice and then continued about his work, and I just lay there hoping the anaesthetic did not wear off.

  • • •

  Having ‘the snip’ was just part of a wider picture of me doing what I thought was right for my family. I was the father of three young children and was doing what I was expected to do: I got my head down, and I worked my socks off to provide for them. I became obsessed with trying to ensure my kids did not have a childhood defined by financial restrictions, as mine had been.

  In my job as a sales rep in the pharmaceutical industry, I progressed into the specialist area of immunology and transplant therapy, and also started studying for my Masters degree in Business Administration. This meant working long hours, and this was not helped that it was a job that was hard to talk about when I arrived home.

  ‘How was your day at work, honey?’

  ‘Great. I went through this double-blind randomised trial in liver transplant recipients with the transplant unit in Leeds, illustrating that cold ischaemic time could have a direct impact on immune-suppression dosing, and then showed the sales team this graph.’

  Lots of jobs are like that. They exist in their own world and only have relevance to people within that world. I remember that when I was promoted to the position of running sales and marketing within the UK I told Melanie we should go out to celebrate. Joe, who was around five at the time, sensed the excitement and asked what my job was.

  ‘I take care of the sales and marketing side of things for the UK, which will mean I have to attend international strategic meetings in Europe and the US.’

  After a few moments of thought, in which he digested this, he asked, ‘Is that like driving a digger?’

  The dad of his best friend from nursery worked on building sites and, one day, both boys had gone to visit and sat on the digger, which in Joe’s world was the most exciting thing ever. I could hardly compete with that by showing them how to put a good Powerpoint presentation together.

  ‘No, son, it’s not that good.’

  The job began to seem incompatible with my home life. By its very nature it did not lend itself to conversation, and the increasing travel demands meant that Melanie and I started sharing less space together. Melanie had her hands full, and we gradually began operating in the same family but in different worlds. I was the provider and did all that was deemed necessary to achieve that, while Melanie was in a constant cycle of child care: for six years there was always a child in the house in nappies. We made little time for each other and, as most of our friends were not at the same juncture in their lives, it was easy to feel isolated.

  I recall that on my thirtieth birthday I was lured home from an Italian meal Melanie had arranged with the promise that as the kids were away we could have an early night of passionate sex.

  I didn’t need asking twice. So, with the tiramisu barely off my spoon, I hailed a taxi, already imagining the joy of making love in rare abandonment without one of us saying, ‘Shhh, you’re going to wake the kids.’ I also reasoned that there was a good chance I would even catch the second half of Match of the Day as well. Who could want more?

  I turned the key in our front door with great excitement, only to be greeted by the lights being turned on and all of my family and friends standing there shouting, ‘SURPRISE!’

  Yes, it bloody was! I reasoned that the night of passion I had envisioned was not going to happen, and that it would be regarded as rude in most social circles to turn the TV on to watch the footie in the middle of your own surprise thirtieth birthday party.

  I tried to hide my disappointment from Melanie and all the smiling faces looking at me with glasses in their hands but, with three young children, the thought of football and sex had felt like a much rarer commodity than a birthday party you have once every thirty years.

  I hardly saw many of the friends who were at the party any more. Few were married and even fewer had children, so we were increasingly losing the common ground that had bound us together through the college years and beyond. I saw them with their girlfriends enjoying weekends away, nights out when they wanted and Sunday mornings in bed reading the papers, instead of changing nappies or taking turns to try and catch up on sleep. It was hard not to feel jealous.

  At the party, one of my mates pulled me to one side after we had been jumping around the living room to ‘A Town Called Malice’. Stepping away from his girlfriend he said, ‘Look at you, mate – you have everything. A beautiful wife, a beautiful house, lovely kids, a decent job … What have I got? A 23-year-old in boots and a short skirt who has just told me she’s never heard of The Jam.’

  In that moment my resentment disapp
eared. He was absolutely right, of course. I had a beautiful family that I adored. Little did he know it, but he had summed up the dilemma of most men, particularly those caught within the fog of marriage: you can see what you haven’t got, not what you have got.

  CHAPTER 22

  BAD HAIR DAY, REMOVAL VANS AND BROKEN HEARTS

  Our marriage didn’t end in a single dramatic moment: there was not a huge fight with one of us storming out, or the revelation of someone else; it just faded until removal vans arrived and we went our separate ways.

  When a marriage ends this way, it’s like a tree in autumn. There is a moment when you almost believe the leaves will not fall. Yes, they have changed colour and the tree no longer looks as healthy as it did, but it doesn’t look damaged – it just looks changed, and you can believe that this is how it will continue, changed but together. Then, one day, when you’re not looking, the leaves fall, and when you look at the tree again it’s bare, its imperfections no longer concealed by the foliage. We were among many marriages that withered and died, a gradual, painful death that the rest of the world never really noticed.

  In the vortex of a marriage breakdown, the things that you do as a matter of course – doing the weekly shop, putting the bins out, walking the dog, dealing with the kids, sitting in the same room to watch the telly – all become areas of tension, and are reminders that the person you wanted to share your life with no longer wants to be with you, and you don’t want to be with them. All the natural movements of family life feel like walking with drawing pins in your shoes. You can do it, but it doesn’t stop hurting.

  I wanted to try to work things out; I wanted to try to fix it, because that is what I thought I should be able to do, to fix it. Work harder and fix it, isn’t that what a man ought to be capable of? But you can’t be married to yourself, so if the marriage is dead for one person, it is effectively dead for you both.

  Melanie had grown so cold towards me, to the extent that, one night, I sat in the bath and decided to shave off all my hair to see if she would notice. I am sure some would say it was a desperate cry for help; others that I was being a bloody idiot. Looking back now, I am not sure what camp I fell into, but I would not recommend it as a way of working things out in your relationship. For a start, you look terrible. Instead of the smooth, skin-covered scalp I was expecting, I climbed out of the bath and looked in the mirror to see myself wearing what appeared to be the worst swimming cap in the world. I’d always had my hair short, which I now know never really suited me, but when it was down to the skin I looked terrible: somewhere between a right-wing thug and someone who people run marathons for.