The Nurse(2)
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As an only child, I was the sole focus of my parents’ attention, and due to this nurturing, or perhaps my inherent nature, I was a bright child. I took delight in excelling, and before Jemma’s arrival I was easily, and by a large margin, top of the class. My parents didn’t hide their pride in me. ‘We need to start putting money away for university,’ my mother would say to my father as every monthly payday came around.
He was a big man, and tall, and he’d laugh, grab her around the waist and kiss her. If I was there, I’d try to squirm between them desperate for my share of his affection. Sometimes, if I tried hard enough, he’d swing me up in his arms and I’d hold on to the moment for as long as I could, lost in his love. Whether it was me or my mother he was hugging, he’d dismiss her concerns in the same way. ‘Don’t worry about that now.’
At ten, university was almost two lifetimes away. I was more concerned with what was happening the following day. Perhaps, I should have discussed my worries with my father, the name calling, pushing and shoving I was being increasingly subjected to. But when he was home, the conversation was always bright and bubbly, each of my parents outdoing each other with cheerfulness. Their mutual love spilling over and… sometimes… including me.
My father was a sales representative for a medical company. His territory covered the south-west of England including the cities of Bath and Bristol. The workload had meant he’d often had to spend a night or two away, but when the company had expanded four years before, that had changed. Now he was working away three to four nights a week and every second weekend. The absence was hard on my needy, emotionally fragile mother. If they rowed about it, if she begged him to get a different job, one that didn’t entail so much time working away, I never knew. In all the years, I never remember hearing a raised voice or an unkind word. When my father was home, he was funny, charming, loving. The best, most indulgent, adoring, attentive husband. He’d take mother out for dinner; they’d go for long walks in the countryside and lunches in country pubs.
Occasionally, they’d bring me along.
Sometimes, I’d arrive home from school feeling incredibly sad, and they’d be in their bedroom with the door locked and I’d have to wait till they came out hours later. If I was feeling particularly sad, I’d sit on the floor outside their room, press my ear to the door and listen to their sounds of love – the laughter, whispers, grunts and groans – and I’d feel less lonely, less sad. Once, or maybe it was twice or three times, they didn’t come out at all. I’d make myself some jam sandwiches for my tea, and watch TV with the volume turned way down so as not to disturb them.
My father didn’t like it if I did.
When he was home, Mother would wear her best jewellery and prettiest clothes. Her hair would be washed every morning, make-up carefully applied and reapplied at intervals during the day. She dazzled: her eyes sparkled, her laugh was more joyous, her voice sweeter and she danced… around the kitchen as she cooked, in the garden as she pegged out clothes, with my father, with me, without either of us. To see her was to make you smile and your heart feel full.
When he went away again, she’d be distraught for a full day. Every time. She’d mope around the house dragging heavy feet along the floor. She’d refuse to eat or to cook anything for me, so I’d scavenge from the fridge eating the leftovers of the glut of food she’d cooked for him, or I’d slather butter onto stale bread and spoon jam on top. If she spoke to me at all, it was in dull monosyllables.
The following morning, she’d have pulled herself together and she’d spend the next couple of days until my father returned making it up to me. She’d indulge my every request, gather me to her for long cuddles that smothered and were of more benefit to her than me. She’d talk to me then. Long conversations about how she was feeling. Often, her remarks were prefaced with, ‘You’re too young to understand but…’
She didn’t like to stay up late on her own, nor did she like to go to bed early. So those nights when my father was away, I’d stay up late to keep her company. If I fell asleep, she’d pinch my arm to wake me. The following day, or the days after, I would explain away the dark bruises that decorated my pale arms. ‘I fell against the door handle…’ Or the shelf, or the wall, whichever suited, depending on who asked. In school, seeing my marked arms, my tormentors added a new name… Pongo.
I wanted to correct them when I heard it, wanted to say it should have been Perdita, the mother of the 101 Dalmatians, not Pongo, the father. I didn’t of course, bizarrely relieved they’d chosen either of the heroic parents rather than the villainous Cruella.
Despite the bruises, and the days when I was so tired I struggled to keep my eyes open, those days with my mother were precious. They ended with my father’s return, when he and she would form an almost exclusionary bubble and I’d be on the outside looking in, grateful for any teeny tiny bit of attention. Then he’d be gone again and there’d be that one horrendously long day of neglect, before more days of me and Mother.
Endless cycles of neglect when I’d be confused, sad, often achingly lonely, and cycles of indulgence when I’d almost be convinced my parents loved me.
Almost…
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