by Alison White
We are moving. We can’t stay in Glasgow any more. How can we? You are nearly seven and I have to carry you in my arms up stairs wherever we go. The hurdles are getting harder to manage the older you become.
Everyone lives in tenement flats in Glasgow and Natasha is about to start school. I can’t see how I will ever be able to take her or collect her from there with you; there is a long line of steps right up to the main school door. And our landscape architectural business has plummeted. It’s been impossible to run well with the amount of care that you need. We’ve been thinking hard about what we are going to do. How can we have a better life while all of you children are growing up?
So we’ve decided to move to the countryside. We’ve found a south-facing plot of land in a National Park in Wales. It’s been for sale for ten years: we saw the sign long before you were born. As far as we can see it’s the cheapest plot in the whole country. But the site has a lot of potential. There is an old stone cowshed and a largish grassy field. It’s remote, but it is where my wider family have holidayed since I was small. There are beautiful beaches and surely there will be people to know, hopefully even some fellow artists hidden out there?
I hadn’t thought we could consider going somewhere so distant, but Mary, your grandmother, has done some research. She has discovered that there is a special needs school in the nearest town and, not only that, it has ‘Outstanding’ for its latest OFSTED report. We will be able to live in my parents’ tiny holiday bungalow while we build our home. We will build it to meet all of your needs. We will use our skills in architecture and design and try to give all three of you children the chance to be free. Tasha and Jack can run wild in the countryside while we care for you.
Well, that is our dream.
We have to get rid of the goldfish but there’s no one who wants them. Yours is called Blue and Natasha’s is called Pink, but we can’t take them with us down to Wales. We’ve decided to slip them into the Botanical Gardens fishpond that we often go and visit. One of the glasshouses has a circular pool with a raised low stone wall and black railings fixed on top. Natasha and other small children like to step up on the wall and lean over the railings to look down into the water. They gaze down at pennies gleaming up from the bottom and watch goldfish and carp of all different sizes swim around through the weeds and the plants.
There’s a guard who wanders the glasshouse and we wait until he has passed. You’re sitting in your large pushchair and in its back holder we’ve got a plastic container filled with water holding Pink and Blue. I’m carrying Jack in a baby pouch strapped round my middle and I’m standing behind you holding onto your pushchair handles. Greg is trying to look oh so casual while Natasha is excitedly checking no one is watching.
‘Okay, ready,’ Greg says and I move out of the way and he grabs the container, scoops both fish into a net and plops them into the pond.
‘There, done,’ Greg says with relief.
You take no notice but we’re all peering over the railings down into the water to see. Blue has headed nose down to disappear into the murky bottom but Pink (who is orange) has started to swim around the pool and Tasha is happily following her fish, walking around the wall. To all of our horrors a large carp suddenly starts to chase Pink. Natasha is screaming, frantically running around the pool, you howl. But as I turn I realise you are howling with laughter, collapsing into giggles.
SEVEN
We are in Spike and Mary’s holiday bungalow in Wales. It is cramped and claustrophobic. Stuart, our actor friend, captured the chaos when he visited us from Scotland that first autumn. His black and white photographs show a scene of jumbled mess: piles of clothes, videos, books, Jack in a nappy, his toys scattered around him; Tasha dressed up with a feather boa around her neck dancing with Flora, Stuart’s daughter; and you, bottom shuffling across the floor. Your favourite game right now is to pile all your video boxes up on top of each other and then to knock them all down. They are scattered all over the floor. Here you are again in the second shot, frozen mid-shuffle, but I can hear the noise, the squealing, the cry, the screams as you play your other favourite game – pulling Jack’s hair.
*
There are only two bedrooms and you need one of them. Tasha or Jack can’t join you; you thrash and squeal through the night. Instead we four are squashed into one double bed in the back room. Sometimes, in fact most times at the moment, Greg goes off into the back garden shed. It’s not great for our relationship but what can we do? And now Greg is away. He’s travelled back to Scotland to complete a design commission he’d started before we left. He is earning some money, keeping our heads above water.
*
Keeping our heads above water is not easy but we’ve been fortunate so far since you’ve been born, thanks to the ripple effects from our work before. I often wonder how on earth we could have got by without it.
Before you were born we had worked hard and saved our money to get onto the property ladder. We’d bought a flat that needed extensive renovation and as a result it became worth a bit more. We’d managed to save for the flat deposit through the landscape architectural business that Greg and I had set up. Back then we wished to design cutting edge urban outdoor spaces. In reality it was hard to get recognised for that kind of specialism, big firms got the work, but we were managing to get small commissions, gaining recognition, and earning enough to get by. We got lucky when we entered a design competition for a new town square in a distant small town in England and won. It was Greg who designed it, I had told him not to bother as it was so far away – I got that wrong.
The new town square was situated in front of a newly built Safeway supermarket, which had contributed towards the square’s funding. At the official opening of the square we met the chief executive of Safeway who’d handed me his business card and told me they were looking for a landscape architectural firm up in Scotland. They were expanding.
I didn’t call him. I didn’t want to design car parks! But a week later the chief executive called me and offered to fly me down to London the very next day to attend a meeting to discuss contracts. I’d realised by then that this could actually be our big break, so I put my artistic dreams to one side.
We got work, quite a lot of work, and it became our bread and butter for a number of years. When you were born this work saved us. We were able to advertise and employ someone else to help us run the contracts. It didn’t leave much money to spare but as our world came tumbling down, all around, as we were completely overwhelmed with your care needs, at least we could still pay our bills. The contracts kept dropping through the letterbox. Then one day a few years later, they stopped. A project development manager at Safeway had interfered. By the time Jack was born they’d practically all ended and then to finish things off completely Safeway was bought out by Morrisons – that was the end of our luck.
Our decision to move had been driven by this change of fortune along with our situation with your care needs. It was also at this time that Greg’s mother tragically died very suddenly from her alcoholism. Greg inherited just enough money to buy the plot of land we were now building our new home on and we also bought the plot next to it. The plan was to use our design skills to build a home we could live in that would meet all of your needs and to build on the other plot to earn income through holiday lets. Our budget was very tight but then these plots were cheap so it was still possible. We hoped to design something special with these houses and it was a plan that could incorporate caring for you. Your needs and my exhaustion had made me unemployable – I would have had to take time off constantly and Greg felt he couldn’t leave me alone to cope with it all, working long hours all the time. He needed to help, to stop us all falling apart.
There’s a knock at the door, I open it and it’s the plumber my parents like. He is a nervous man. I try to put him at ease but you can feel the ordeal he suffers when having any kind of conversation. He is thin and has short, thick black hair and large soulful eyes; they dart around as he f
idgets, his voice is quiet. I know that he lives in a rambling house near this tiny village, alone with his mother. He doesn’t talk much but he stares.
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
I leave him waiting nervously in the sitting room with you squealing on the floor and go into the kitchen to make it. As I carry the mug through the door on my return I find an unexpected sight. You have passed him every single video box you can find, stacked one after the other on his lap. The tower of boxes is swaying. I laugh but he doesn’t. I help to lift them down. He jumps up leaving his tea and says he’ll return when my parents are next down.
I tell the story to Greg a few days later when he is back from Scotland. You are sitting there on the floor; Greg is sitting reading the newspaper. I notice you pulling yourself up using the TV stand. You seem to be balancing yourself as I talk. Then I see you let go. You are stepping across the room.
‘Daddy,’ your high-pitched voice squeaks.
You step one, two, three.
‘Daddy,’ you say, louder.
You’re going to make it; these are your first steps across the room to the sofa.
Greg lowers his paper and looks.
‘Daddy, fucking hell!’ you say.
Your sister Natasha has a happy disposition. She is always smiling and creatively busy, dressing up and dancing around, a ray of sunshine, as she chatters and talks. Today is her first day at school in the nearby village. I stand and watch her at the school gates. She walks up to two small girls; they are the only girls in her class but they turn away and ignore her and she troops a few feet behind them. I can’t bear to watch. There are five children in her year group including herself; each classroom consists of three years yet this still only comes to fifteen children in total. They sit at three different tables according to age and the teacher gives work to each group. I hope Natasha may pick up more information from these classes if she overhears the older children’s work.
A few weeks later I get a telephone call. It’s Natasha’s teacher – she wonders if I can come in to discuss Tasha’s progress. Will they tell me she’s gifted? At the school the teacher tells me they are concerned: Natasha is developmentally behind. What? My beautiful intelligent daughter, your sister, is not as able as her peers, it transpires. When they hear she is still in nappies at night I see concern flash across the teacher’s face. ‘It’s impossible to deal with this right now,’ I try to explain. I leave with them arranging for a nurse to speak with me in a few weeks’ time. I go home reeling. I have failed her.
‘We are going to have to take this nappy off,’ I tell Tasha and I get plastic sheeting and a single mattress. I make her up a small bed on the floor. It doesn’t take long to succeed and I feel shame at my lack of parenting.
Later Tasha does well at her schoolwork and her singing voice is a rare gift. People will ask, incredulous at our kitchen table, ‘Is that Natasha?’ as they hear her exquisite voice drift through her bedroom floor in our new house.
EIGHT
Kevan, the builder, is reluctant to let us move into the new house. It’s taken eighteen months of gradual work but we are there: it’s the week before Christmas and it’s ready. We’ve had to be careful, the budget was tight; but we’ve enjoyed it too, sourcing things, hunting things out. We’ve had to oversee everything as it all came together but it’s done now. It’s in a good enough state to move in.
‘This has become like a baby to me,’ Kevan tells us. He’s been passionate about the build. He lives three doors up and he’s been building the house in the evenings and over the weekends after his day job has finished.
‘It’s the first house I’ve ever built fully,’ he has told us numerous times. And he’s been perfect; he’s meticulous and obsessive and does everything well. When Len visited in the summer he’d studied the frame and had been taken aback at the jointing in place. ‘This is pure craftsmanship,’ he’d said in astonishment.
*
‘We need to move in, Kevan,’ I gently tell him. ‘It’s ready now.’
It is dark when I wander up to find him and break the news. I’ve found Kevan inside lying prone on the floor. I can see through the glazing that he’s lying down. He’s holding a torch in his hand and has rolled onto his side. He’s shining a light over the wooden flooring. He jumps and sits up as I pull on the door handle and slide the door open.
‘Ah hello, Alison. I’m just checking the floor’s all level, that there’s no lifted boards.’
The floor is immaculate. The light ash wood is shining; it’s been carefully varnished a number of times.
‘Kevan, it’s looking amazing and it’s also hardwearing. It’s going to need to be with us coming in – you know what we’re like as a family!’
Kevan nods sadly.
‘Yes, I was thinking, maybe I should add another coat of varnish? Are you sure you want to move in before Christmas? It will be a bit of an upheaval for you.’
‘Yes, we do. We are going insane in the bungalow. We need some more space.’
‘I’m going to miss this house.’
‘I know. You’ve put everything into this for us and we are really grateful. You know you will always be welcome to pop in anytime, don’t you?’
Kevan hangs his head.
*
We move in the very next evening. The door is rolled back so that we can step out onto the timber deck of the garden. You are standing in the main open plan space: the heart of the house. It’s a sunroom, a hall and a living space all in one. You are standing in your walking frame squealing as the boxes are being carried in. Kevan appears.
‘Hi, Kevan, the big day’s arrived at last, heh?’ I’m smiling.
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I’ve come to see how you’re getting on.’
‘Thanks. Come on in. We’re just getting all the boxes into the hall and then we’ll start to unpack.’
But I notice he’s not listening to me – he’s staring at you, his face ashen. You are banging your walking frame up and down, up and down, on the perfect ash floor, like you do.
‘Do you think he realises?’
‘No, he doesn’t seem to.’
‘No, I don’t think so either.’
I am discussing toilet training with Mrs McBride from your school. You seem to make no connection with your pushing and grunting and filling your nappy. We try to get you to the toilet in time but usually we are too late. You are eight years old now.
‘The only thing we can do is remove the actual nappy,’ the teacher advises. ‘He needs to feel the discomfort. Hopefully after a few accidents at school and at home he will begin to register and we’ll be able to get him out of them at least in the daytime.’
And so we have had a whole school year of toilet training. I send you into school with two pairs of spare trousers and pants and the soiled ones come home in a plastic bag. I have the washing machine on constantly. It used to be for your bottom shuffling: your trousers are covered in holes on the backside. Now at least you use your walking frame most of the time. At least you aren’t shuffling in your poo, although you do in the morning. I have to leap out of bed the moment I hear your waking noises. I know you are going to slip down off your bed, start shuffling over the floor. You can’t walk with your frame once your shoes are off, so you bump down onto the floor and you’re off. I know you like to empty your bowels first thing in the morning around six.
‘Louis, wait for Mum,’ I call as I race down the stairs, hear your happy whooping sounds, then the sound of a thud down.
Damn, I’ve missed you again.
I’m going to have to clean up the mess and it’s so much harder to get you clean now you’ve bottom shuffled over the floor. It’s leaked out of your nappy, into your pyjama bottoms, smeared down the inside of your legs. But you don’t seem to care that it’s spread everywhere. I’ve found you putting it into your mouth before and so has Greg. That time Greg couldn’t hold the pain in, had broken down and sobbed in front of you. Later you will ask him, ‘Why did you cr
y then, Daddy?’
I put the bath on again.
We’ve travelled all the way from south Wales to Liverpool to determine the type of cerebral palsy you suffer from and the journey has been hellish. We have booked a hotel for the night. The room is far too hot. You have been agitated the whole journey and have just violently vomited onto the carpet. Now you are silent. I use the internal telephone and call up the hotel staff to ask for cleaning materials and a bowl. There is a knock at the door; a young slender man in a uniform enters with a cloth and some air freshener, no water. He scoops up the sick with one cloth and then rubs the remains vigorously into the carpet with another.
*
The next morning we arrive at our destination. We abandon the wheelchair at the bottom of a narrow flight of stairs in this Georgian terraced house of hired offices. You are eight years old but still slight to hold. I carry you up in my arms; vomit weakened, you cling to me, nappy heavy under your trousers, legs wrapped around my waist. We pass an ashen couple at the top of the steps, a child in their arms too, its cerebral palsy obvious to see. We knock and a voice says to come in. As we enter I take a few steps but you are wriggling hard so I bend to place you onto the floor and you are off, bottom shuffling towards the doctor, squealing piercing sounds of greeting.
*
Half an hour later we walk down the busy street pushing you in your chair. You are whooping and your legs and arms are flaying up and down. Rumbling buses and cars pass close by and their fumes spread over us, but it is just noise and smells to me of the life we are no longer a part of. I have my head tilted up to feel the warmth of the sunshine on my skin.