Conspiracy of Secrets. Bobbie Neate
I said, hoping I sounded convincingly light-hearted. I looked at the gun again. It didn’t look like a harmless air pistol to me.
My mother’s fighting spirit proved the consultant’s prognosis inaccurate and she began to make some sort of recovery. But my problems were only just beginning.
For, although the district nurse had persuaded Stepfather to order a lifting hoist and a hospital-style bed, within an hour he had changed his mind and cancelled the orders. The ordering of the bed and hoist in the next few weeks was to cause the nursing staff numerous problems, because Stepfather would not stick to any fixed arrangement. He was back to his old forceful self.
I thought about him and I realised I hardly knew the man. But over the years I had watched my mother cajole him to behave, so maybe this was the best way to deal with him.
The NHS struggled to organise more suitable nursing care and the rapid-response team continued to call, but things were not going well. By Week Two, Stepfather was not listening to family or medics and just repeated, ‘Thank you, but no, thank you’ when offers of help were made.
Unfortunately, my mother’s stroke had occurred at the busiest time of the year for the NHS. They could not supply a steady rota of nurses and, as the shock subsided, Stepfather began to throw his weight around. Worryingly, he was not listening to medical advice, nor was he listening to us. He was making decisions on his own. When our offers of help were made he just repeated, ‘Thank you, but no, thank you.’
First, he announced that he was going to employ a private nursing agency but at that time we, as our mother’s children, still felt involved. The nursing agency’s manager approached my siblings and me, and asked for our views. It was agreed that the ideal arrangement for my mother was to supply one trusted capable nurse so that a friendly bond could be made between patient and carer. Little did I know that this would be the last time we would be asked our opinions.
However, the time of the year was working against us again and the agency could not find any permanent live-in nurse who could start before Christmas. So, strictly as a temporary measure, they supplied nurses in an eight-hour shift rotation throughout the day and night. But, as the festival approached, gaps began to appear in the nurses’ rota, so my siblings and I agreed among ourselves to cover for the times when there was no care. As we were not medically trained, it soon became obvious that more consistent help was needed.
Stepfather was moody and he had taken one of the burgundy tub chairs that had sat in the hall for years and placed it on my mother’s better side. It was cumbersome and its placement made it difficult to get close to my mother. I also noticed there were grumblings from the visiting nurses about having to cook proper meals for Stepfather, who was becoming ever more demanding. So I suggested to Stepfather we find a live-in carer who could cook and would supplement the visiting temporary nurses. We children would fund her. Stepfather happily agreed to my plan. So, even though he had rebuffed me, at times like this I felt the team spirit was not entirely lost.
After ringing round a number of the caring agencies I struck lucky: an experienced Scottish lady had become unexpectedly free and was happy to stay over Christmas and New Year. ‘Your mother will love her,’ the agency owner enthusiastically briefed me. ‘She can travel down tomorrow.’ With a burst of energy, I went to prepare Janet’s old bedroom. For forty years the room had not lost its original nomenclature. Janet had been our mother’s help all those years ago. As I tidied, I looked at the décor. My mother had converted it into a fun room her grandchildren adored. It was up two short flights of steps and it was like visiting a turret. A fireplace took up much of the room. Blue wallpaper covered the walls and on the ceiling she had painted gilded and bronze flying swallows, which circled ever closer to the central light rose. Over the mantel hung a hand-painted mirror. Around the looking-glass pond my own grandmother had painted bulrushes and swans hiding among the meadowsweet. I could still hear my mother’s voice explaining the artwork to my children as they snuggled under the turquoise duvet covers. As I smoothed the cover over the freshly made bed I hoped the carer would love this pretty little room.
From the bus station, I collected our carer, Bonnie, who had travelled down from Edinburgh on the overnight bus. As she dropped her duffle bag into the boot and climbed into my car, I warmed to this spirited Scot. She enquired sensitively after my mother’s health and it became obvious as we drove that she had a keen sense of humour. I was sure Mum would grow to love her. Her broad Highland accent reminded me of Louis’s past boasts about living as a resident in Edinburgh’s Caledonian Hotel. He knew the North Berwick coast well and talked knowledgably about the seabirds on the Bass Rock.
Christmas had always been the highlight of my mother’s year. She made every effort to make the house and especially the table look gloriously overburdened with tinsel and crackers. Christmas 1962 was highly memorable as it was the year BRM won the Constructors’ World Championship. That year the last race of the season was to be held in South Africa on the day after Boxing Day. There was no live TV coverage, just radio updates and phone calls. My mother decided to keep the tension at bay by pretending it was a ‘second’ Boxing Day. So the dining table groaned with food and crackers as we sat waiting for news. Luck was with us that day and Graham Hill cruised home in first place.
But Christmas was very different this year. Mum lay paralysed on her bed, so, instead of much to-ing and fro-ing through the blue gate by family laden with presents, it was nurses arriving and departing. Mum had already decorated the dining room and had prepared the decorations for the table before she was struck down. So I cooked a Christmas lunch and Stepfather came down from my mother’s bedside and joined us for the meal.
In many ways it was an awesome Christmas as Mum was making such good progress: her speech was good, her face had no signs of paralysis and her personality was unchanged. I enjoyed helping Bonnie look after her. That evening she smiled at me as I helped turn her from one side to another. She was almost like a Christmas rose blossoming. ‘That’s a good smile, Mum.’
‘Well, you gave me such a good smile I had to smile back.’
I felt I was getting my mother back. As the New Year arrived, she was in less pain. She could sit propped up and her brain was active. Her left side was paralysed but the doctor was hopeful she would recover most of her movements with manipulation from a physiotherapist. The system of three nurses visiting for eight hours each was clearly not ideal, because they were not consistent, but, since the holiday period was over, I was hopeful Stepfather could find a quality live-in nurse who could be ably assisted by Bonnie, now everybody’s darling. Stepfather liked her and she had developed a fine strategy with him, for she knew he liked to talk about Scotland, especially the seaside town of St Andrews. Louis knew everything there was to know about this town.
However, Louis had been in foul moods with the visiting nurses and kept changing arrangements. Most worryingly he had changed his mind about a permanent live-in nurse. He had rung the nursing agency and made the excuse that there was not enough sleeping space, even though there was plenty of room. Instead, Louis wanted to continue the emergency arrangement of three eight-hour-shift nurses. I was upset. The various visiting nurses were pleasant enough, but they were not the same as having one friendly face for my mother. Also, the nursing organisation warned us that the cost difference was massive. Instead of one salary, Stepfather would be paying nurses by the hour on the ‘emergency rate’. The managers of the agency had never been under such pressure before and collapsed into agreeing to the bizarre agreement.
My siblings had all been working hard in their own way to help the situation and we all started to resume normal life, but we began to wonder why my mother had not been taken to hospital when she was first struck down. The hospital was less than five minutes away, so what had happened that night?
I began to ring the house both morning and evening to relieve Mum of her boredom. Stepfather gruffly answered the phone, just as he had always done. It was clear the nurses had been instructed not to touch the receiver. For the first few months after my mother’s stroke we had a courteous conversation before Stepfather passed the phone over to her. But then the excuses started. The reasons why I could not speak to my mother increased in variety and frequency: she was eating, having the bed changed, being