Hearing the Cry

As my mother grew older she grew steadily more deaf. When it wasn't funny, it was annoying having to shout and repeat what you'd said to her. The TV was always turned up too loud when we visited and she was too vain to use her hearing aid. Do you know what? I'm going the same way and, like her, I've resisted a hearing test. Pathetic, isn't it.

When I found out, aged 63, that I was to be a father yet again the hardest thing to accept was that I was going to be in it to the finish. Oh yeah, of course there was all the pride, the thrill of a boy at last, quiet pleasure in the visible evidence that I could still, you know. But the fact was there would be no Indian Summer to my life, no sitting back to enjoy a fat pension (no chance of that anyway). I had already been looking after my young children since 1972 and this wasn't set to change. Challenge now was to stay alive for long enough - say 90 - when Bobby would be 27 by which time all of them would have got enough FATHER to live reasonably balanced lives and my death would be more relief than tragedy.

What they don't warn you about getting older is how bits fall off. But like an old car, most of us still run OK with a few faults. We keep going through bad teeth, gouty toes, piles (not me), high blood pressure (managed) etc and of course, hearing loss. One of the upsides of mild deafness, I'd thought, was that I wouldn't get woken up so much by the baby crying. Natural earplugs, I joked. After 30 years of broken nights I would at last get some sleep. Not a bit of it. While I often don't hear him when he wakes when I'm downstairs in the evening there's something about the wavelength of his cry later in the night that goes straight through to me, especially when he's in the same room as he has been since a series of weekend of visitors have been sleeping in his room. Encroaching deafness does not shield you from your own baby cries. Nature's made sure of that. Not that this has made much difference in the share of baby care I've been doing through the night this time round. When he wakes I take him groggily from the cot and pass him to Lu, then decamp to the bed in the other room. But more of this bad habit another time.

The 1st Washing Machine

It was a Hoover, bought in Woolworths (RIP) on Holloway Road in North London early in 1973. The money for it (£84) was a present from my Uncle and Aunt to celebrate the birth of Jo. We lived in a collective household at the time, not quite a commune, but shared responsibility for the house and a little bit (very little) for children (Jo was the only one). The washing machine became the house's washing machine. When I thanked my Aunt for it she was horrified to discover that other people's washing - ie not family - went through it. A PURITY AND DANGER issue. The commune contaminates the nuclear family. Repellant. Disgust, almost. The emotional core of ideological conflict.

Biped

The zillionth time a human adult has gasped when a child of theirs stood for the first time. But I am still filled with awe as holding my gaze, wide eyed with pride, Bobby gradually eases himself from a crawling position to a... to a... hold it boy, hold it there darling boy, to a wobbly, unstable, all over in a few seconds... STAND... before, bump, collapsing on to the cushion of that wet nappy I should have changed and clapping the air to our cheers.

The Poppy Seed

I baked bread before we left for Tessa's mill on Saturday. I've got this down to an art now where I gauge quantities by eye and feel rather than use the scales. This batch was 95% white flour with a touch of whole meal, splash of olive oil and more salt than you'd think you need because of the way the yeast interacts with it during the rise. Then a hefty sprinkling of poppy seeds which an ignored intuition told me was unwise and would spell trouble later on. Which it did, because when Grace asked for a ham sandwich later in the day I said, 'Of course darling, with some of Daddy's lovely new bread and the ham I bought at the butcher this morning.' Good ham, much better than the supermarket stuff and cheaper too - (later puzzle to solve: why do I now order ham in metric - 200 grams please - but persist with Imperial when buying everything else - 1lb of sausages please, a 5lb chicken, half a pound of mince please?). So Grace says, 'Yes please Daddy', and I make this delicious sandwich, bread cut thin just so, crusts off because Grace neither likes the crust nor the poppy seeds that have sunk in during the bake, cut artfully into quarters, here you are darling... 'I don't like that sandwich!!' Loud whiny tears. 'I hate that sandwich!*!*' Exactly the response to trigger my anger and here it comes, whoosh, rising up inside me - 'I DON"T LIKE IT WHEN YOU TALK THAT ABOUT FOOD PEOPLE HAVE MADE YOU! STOP THAT NOISE!' Then to Tessa, our hostess. 'Sorry about this, I just can't stand waste. Or ingratitude. It's just so damned rude.' But my stupidly angry response just escalates matters and if I'd only paid attention to the little voice that said in a Cognitive Therapeutic kind of way 'Don't respond angrily, it will only make things worse, count ten, deep breath, who cares about a silly sandwich anyway', but I let fly instead and rationalise my anger by saying to Tessa, Lu and Anna - who hates my outbursts - 'Well somebody's got to raise a voice round here. It's the only thing that gets results with this spoilt child.' The trouble is, today it patently has not got a result, just made things worse, because Grace's cry has now escalated into a wail and a choked explanation, finger pointing at said sandwich 'I don't (sniff sniff) like (choke cry) those things...' I follow her finger to a tiny black speck in one of the sandwich quarters - a single poppy seed - defiling dot. 'ALRIGHT!' I'm still angry and pick out the offending impurity, flick it crossly away. Moral of tale: 1) pay attention to intuitions - no poppy seeds. 2) Don't try and deal with 4 year old daughter's vile temper by losing it yourself.

Torn

6.00 am and I'm the only one awake. Sun raking in from the East. The baby is trying to prolong an endless sleepy suckle on Lu's breast that we should have put a stop to months ago. Grace is sprawled next to them. Anna flat out in her own room. I shall sneak down to The Office (sic!) and write this entry. A fantastic little bit of time to myself, no-one tugging, no nasty shift in the bank balance, yet, just me, cooing pigeons, hungry cat and the freedom to find my centre and start writing here. Aaargh .... just making tea when I hear them stir upstairs. Should I go up and help now or pretend I haven't heard. I'll ignore them just for the few minutes it takes to write this. I'll pretend Lu hasn't had a bad night and do my own thing, just for a few minutes, oh, but I should join them now, change a sodden nappy, plan our trip to Tessa's mill because, hey, it's the weekend and I shouldn't be working now, should I... I should be present, participating, helpful, good-natured - not pursuing delusions here at the keyboard. But maybe just a few minutes more...

The Snooze

It takes most of the drive home from the nursery before Bobby finally nods off. A little twist of the rear view mirror shows me that Grace is still asleep, her head lolling uncomfortably against the hard window trim. The challenge now is to maximise the time for my own snooze before one of them wakes up. The question is where to stop – the road is so hemmed in by private property that there’s nowhere obvious to park and the few lay-bys are so narrow that the buffeting of passing vehicles will wake me up. So on I drive, feeling drowsier with every minute, longing to shut my eyes but unable to, until I decide to cut my losses and go home where I might at least be able to grab a few minutes parked outside the house.

The question now is whether to leave the engine running so that the vibrations keep them asleep enabling me to get a longer snooze or do the sensible thing and switch it off. If I leave it running there’s a remote chance that some of the exhaust fumes will find their way into the car, the worst-case scenario being asphyxiation. If I switch it off the sudden absence of vibration will probably wake them up. A look at the trees indicates a light wind blowing towards the front of the car which means that the exhaust fumes will be dispersed away from the rear, posing no danger. Decision made. The engine stays running. Straight away I enter a deep head lolling sleep from which I never want to wake.

Within what feels like seconds, but is in fact half an hour, I am jerked suddenly awake by a thumping on window. Outside the anxious face of the postman is staring in. ‘Are you alright?’

‘Um, yes. We were just having a snooze.’ The children start to stir in the back of the car.

‘I just thought I’d check. Engine running and that.’

‘Oh. I’m sorry. I hope you didn’t think..’

‘Well I did look for the hose.’

A man and two children, all slumped forward, in a car with the engine running. He’s joking now, but for a moment he wondered if it was a family suicide.

‘You’re not a banker, are you?’ he adds with a grin.