Читать книгу Endal: How one extraordinary dog brought a family back from the brink - Sandra Parton - Страница 8

Allen sailed off to the Gulf in April 1991, leaving me at home to look after our two children: Liam, aged six, and Zoe, aged five. It was always hard when he went away but after seven years of marriage I was beginning to get used to it. It goes with the territory when you’re a naval wife. However, this was the first time since I’d met him that he’d been posted to a war zone, and although the fighting was over and Saddam Hussein’s troops had been chased out of Kuwait, I was still nervous. Every time I read news stories about random shootings, friendly fire incidents or that missile that hit a military base in Saudi Arabia, a knot tightened in my stomach.

I’d been suffering from anxiety and panic attacks since I had a severe case of post-natal depression following Zoe’s birth. Some days I found it hard to look after myself, never mind two children, and I struggled to cope with all the incessant chores and responsibilities that come with running a house. Allen was my rock during that period, the person who could always calm me down and make everything all right. He’d walk in the front door and cook us all a nice meal, and whatever I was stressed about, he’d say, ‘Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it. I’ll go and get the shopping, I’ll pay the bills, I’ll pick the children up from school.’ He was a calm, capable, very caring kind of man.

Now that Liam was at school and Zoe’s difficult baby years were past, I was managing a lot better but I still missed Allen very badly. Silly things, such as the central heating breaking down or one of the kids falling and scraping their knees, could reduce me to a panicky wreck again. He called from the ship when he could, but it was a complicated process. He had to book a call in advance, wait to get a line, and then if I happened to be out he would miss his slot. I had no idea when he would be back in the UK. We were hoping that he would be home for Christmas but there were no guarantees. There never were.

Then tragedy struck when my sister Valerie died of liver failure on Monday 12 August 1991. For most of her adult life she’d been battling complex health issues, but the end came suddenly and shockingly and I was distraught. Right up to the last moment we hoped she would pull through but it wasn’t to be. She left behind a little boy who was just five, two months older than Zoe, and it was a horrible family tragedy.

I contacted the Navy’s Family Services and asked if I could speak to Allen urgently. They called the ship and a few hours later he was able to ring me briefly.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, his voice breaking up across the crackle of international airwaves. ‘I just wish I could be standing there right now with my arms round you.’

I started crying so much I could hardly speak. ‘Please come home, Allen,’ I begged. ‘Please.’

‘I’ll put in a request with Family Services. We should know soon. When’s the funeral?’

‘I don’t know yet. Early next week.’

‘I’ll do my best to get there. I love you,’ he said. Then the line was abruptly cut off.

‘Love you too,’ I sobbed into the vast distance between us.

I’d never needed him more in my life, but the next day I got a call from Family Services to say that he couldn’t get leave because it wasn’t a member of his family who had died.

‘It’s his sister-in-law!’ I cried. ‘He was very close to her.’

‘I’m afraid that’s not considered a close relative in Navy terms. If it was his own sister that would be different.’

I argued but they had made up their minds, so I just got on with trying to deal with it myself, along with my mum and my two remaining sisters Marion and Jennifer. There were the funeral arrangements to make, Valerie’s little boy to look after, her possessions to deal with; it was all too much on top of caring for my two lively kids. I staggered through each day, barely coping, just doing the minimum because my energy levels were so low. It was as though there was a huge weight pressing down on me making it virtually impossible to do anything.

Every day I prayed that Allen would at least be able to get access to a phone to ring and see how I was. Even a few words of comfort from him would have helped. I’d never felt so utterly alone. My sisters and my mum were immersed in their own grief and couldn’t deal with mine as well, and the kids were just too young to understand.

The following week, on 21 August, I got another phone call from Family Services. When I heard who it was, I assumed they were calling to see how I was managing after Valerie’s death and couldn’t make sense of what they were saying at first.

‘We’re calling to tell you that Allen’s back in hospital again,’ a woman’s voice said.

‘What do you mean he’s back in hospital?’ I was stunned.

‘After his accident,’ she said.

My heart started pounding hard. ‘What accident?’

I heard an intake of breath. ‘Didn’t anyone call you? Last week. He was involved in an accident. He’s OK, but he’s had a bang on the head.’

‘When last week? Why wasn’t I told?’

There was a rustle of paper. ‘Last Friday, the sixteenth. I thought you knew. I’m sorry. He was admitted to hospital with concussion but then the ship was sailing and they didn’t want to leave him behind so they took him back on board to treat him there. But I suppose his condition has deteriorated a bit so he’s been transferred to a hospital again.’

‘Where is he? I need to speak to him. Do you have a number I can call?’ I needed to hear him tell me what had happened in his own words.

‘I’ll have to get back to you on that. But honestly, don’t worry. It doesn’t sound serious.’ She was embarrassed and obviously couldn’t wait to get off the phone.

Honestly, don’t worry? Straight away I got on the line to HMS Nelson, the naval base he was attached to, but no one there seemed to know anything. They all just promised they’d get back to me. I paced the house waiting for the phone to ring. Zoe was playing with a jigsaw on the floor and when Liam got in from school they started fighting with each other. Kids always seem to sense when you are anxious, which makes them seek even more attention, which just adds to your stress. I suppose I could have phoned and asked a friend to come round and keep me company but I didn’t want the line to be engaged when Family Services called me back, nor did I feel like talking to anyone. I just had to keep myself busy until I found out what was going on.

I was making the kids’ tea when I finally got a phone call, but it wasn’t exactly the information I’d been waiting for.

‘You’ll have to call the British Embassy tomorrow morning and they’ll arrange for a call to be put through to your husband’s hospital ward.’ They gave me the number.

‘How is he?’ I asked. ‘Is there any more news?’

‘No more news. Just that he’s had a bump on the head. Try to keep yourself busy and don’t worry about it too much.’

I thought, Yeah, right, you do that when it’s your husband. I just needed to speak to him and hear in his voice that he was OK. I’d trained as a nurse and knew that head injuries could cause a wide range of symptoms from a simple raised lump through to inflammation of the brain and all sorts of complications. I couldn’t understand why he hadn’t tried to call me himself since the accident. Yes, it was difficult to get access to a phone, but surely the circumstances were exceptional?

When I finally got through to the hospital in Dubai, a nurse with a heavy accent said she would get Allen on the line. I waited and waited, trying not to think about how much a phone call to the Middle East must cost per minute. It sounded as though nothing was happening and I was about to hang up when I suddenly heard breathing down the line from thousands of miles away.

‘Allen, is that you?’

There was a pause. ‘Yes, it’s me. Who are you?’

‘It’s me! Sandra.’ I guessed it must be a bad line at his end. ‘How are you? What’s happened?’

‘Well, I haven’t got any clothes,’ he said.

‘What do you mean?’ Was this a joke?

‘I haven’t got anything to wear.’ His voice sounded panicky.

I frowned. ‘You must be wearing something just now. Won’t that do?’ In the Navy they often lived in the same set of clothing for weeks on end and just learned to live with the smell of themselves and each other. Besides, Allen wasn’t the kind of person to bother about having a clean set of clothes. If he only had one pair of underpants for a week, he’d joked to me, he’d wear them right way round, wrong way round, back to front, upside down, and make do.

‘I’ve got no clothes,’ he repeated.

I was starting to get alarmed. ‘Allen, what’s happened? Why are you in hospital?’

‘I don’t know why I’m here. I can’t remember.’

I asked more questions but couldn’t get anything out of him. He just kept returning to his anxiety about his clothes.

‘I have to go, darling,’ I said at last. ‘This call is costing a small fortune. I’ll ring you back tomorrow, OK?’

‘Right, bye!’ he said and the line went dead.

This was very strange behaviour, and not like him at all. Our international phone calls were precious and we always ended them by saying ‘Love you!’ but he hadn’t given me time. He hadn’t asked about Valerie’s funeral or how I was coping or mentioned the kids. This was all so stupid. It felt unreal, as if it couldn’t be happening. I started phoning around everyone I could think of to find out what had happened, but I just kept hitting blank walls. No one seemed to know.

I hardly slept a wink; my stomach was tight with anxiety and my thoughts raced through endless possibilities. The next day I called the hospital again, hoping to get more sense out of Allen, but someone I presumed was a nurse explained to me that he’d been moved.

‘Where to?’ I asked.

‘We don’t know,’ came the reply. ‘You’ll have to ask his ship.’

I rang the British Embassy, and after some delay they called back to tell me that he was in a hotel room in Dubai. It was two hours before I could get through to him, and we had another brief, bizarre phone call in which he sounded vague yet on edge.

‘Someone’s stolen my stuff,’ he said.

‘I’m sure they haven’t. It’ll be on the ship waiting for you.’

‘It’s gone,’ he said, slurring a bit, which I presumed must be a side-effect of the painkillers he was taking.

He still didn’t seem to have a clue how he had been injured. It was most peculiar.

‘Should I fly out to see him?’ I asked the woman at Family Services. ‘I could find someone to look after the children for a few days.’

‘There’s no point in you going out because I think they are planning to medevac him home.’

‘When will that be?’

‘We don’t know yet.’

I had a conversation with an officer at the base, who said something I found very strange. ‘We’ve got no idea what he was doing off the ship that night. He and a friend seem to have gone ashore without permission and been involved in a car accident.’

‘But how is that possible?’ I asked. ‘How did they get off the ship? Where would they have got a car from?’

‘We don’t know. We’re running an investigation and we’ll find out more in due course.’

I didn’t believe for one second that he had gone AWOL. First of all, it would have been totally out of character for my ambitious, responsible husband, and secondly, I knew how difficult it was to get on and off naval bases. Whenever I went to pick Allen up after work at Collingwood or Rosyth or wherever he was, I had to get through strict security, showing photo passes and being noted and documented. You didn’t just wander on and off ships at will, especially in a war zone. There had to be more to it than that.

During the next two weeks, I only had a few more worrying phone calls with Allen, but dozens of frustrating calls with the naval authorities, without getting to the bottom of what was going on. I seemed to get different people every time, so I had to explain the situation from scratch, then they’d go off saying, ‘We’ll have to see if we can find anyone in the office who knows anything about this.’ It was all horribly frustrating. My husband was injured overseas and I couldn’t be with him and there was nothing I could do to help.

I tried to keep myself busy, doing endless housework, cooking, sewing, covering Liam’s school notebooks with coloured paper – anything to keep my mind occupied. I couldn’t bear silence and stillness because then the anxiety fluttered in like a big black moth. If they were going to medevac him home that meant the injury must be serious. Head injuries can cause brain damage. Why had he sounded so odd when I spoke to him?

‘He’ll be fine,’ I told people who asked. ‘We just need to get him back in this country for some proper TLC.’ If I said it often enough, I could try to believe it.

On 7 September I was told that he was at last being flown home to the UK. I was desperate to see him, and pleased that I would be able to do so soon, but deeply apprehensive about what condition he’d be in.

A random thought occurred to me: this might be a ruse on Allen’s part to get the home leave we’d requested and been denied after Valerie died. Could he have put his career on the line by faking injury in order to get back and support me? Allen was a bit of a comedian, with a taste for practical jokes. He’d say, ‘Do you think this smells funny?’ and you’d lean in and next thing whatever it was would be on your nose, and I used to fall for it every time. But I knew he was far too much of a professional to fake an injury. That couldn’t be it.

I so wanted for him to walk in the door and make my life better. I needed looking after since Valerie had died. I needed my husband.

Once again I was pacing the house, waiting for news. At last the call came to say that his plane had taken off and on arrival in the UK he would be admitted to Haslar, the military hospital in Gosport, where I could go in to see him the following day.

I tossed and turned, wide awake all night long, and my heart was in my mouth as I drove the few miles to the hospital. I couldn’t wait. I was as nervous as a teenage girl on a first date.

I found the ward and picked him out straight away, sitting up on top of his bed and wearing a neck brace. He saw me at the same time and watched as I walked across the room, but he didn’t smile at me or wave hello.

‘How are you?’ I asked, and kissed him on the lips. There was a big bump on his temple that looked more recent than three weeks old. ‘How did you get that bump?’

‘Fell,’ he said, and the word was oddly slurred.

‘When did you fall?’

He thought about this and shrugged.

‘How are you feeling?’

‘Funny,’ he said, and I could hear it was an effort to get the word out. He was almost barking, forcing his throat to emit sound. Then he twitched compulsively, his right shoulder jerking and his face contorting.

I looked into his eyes but could see no spark of my husband, my rock, the man who always looked after me. He looked blank. There was something seriously wrong.

‘You’ve been on an overnight flight,’ I said soothingly. ‘You’re probably just tired.’

He twitched again, a kind of irrepressible shudder. I chatted a while longer then went to find a doctor. ‘What’s wrong with my husband?’ I demanded. ‘I’m a nurse and I’d appreciate it if you’d tell me straight.’

‘We don’t know exactly,’ he said. ‘There’s obviously been some trauma to the brain and we’re keeping him under observation and running tests.’

‘How did he get that bruise on his temple?’

‘I’m told he fell the day before yesterday. Have you seen him walking yet?’

I shook my head.

‘He’s having significant problems controlling his legs. We’ll just have to keep an eye on it all. Meanwhile, I see no reason why you can’t take him home for the weekend. With your nursing background, you should be able to care for him.’

‘Are you sure?’ I asked, feeling hopeful. Surely he couldn’t be too bad if they were letting him out?

‘Why not? Just bring him back on Monday morning and he can see a consultant then. Have a nice family weekend together.’

The doctor smiled and I felt reassured. Everything was going to be all right. They wouldn’t let him home otherwise, would they?

A nurse and I helped Allen to get dressed and walk down to the car. On the way back to the house, I drove slowly and cautiously. I did all the talking, telling him about Valerie’s funeral and the children and everything that had been happening, but I got no response at all. He closed his eyes and I couldn’t even tell if he was listening, so after a while I stopped and drove in silence.

As we pulled into our street, I said, ‘The kids are really excited about seeing you. They’re at Julie’s but I said I’d go and get them as soon as we arrived.’ Julie was my wonderful next-door neighbour who had four kids of her own but was always happy to look after my two as well. ‘Two more don’t make any difference at all,’ she’d laugh.

Allen turned to look at me and I couldn’t read the expression in his eyes but he didn’t seem enthusiastic about seeing the kids. Maybe he wasn’t feeling well enough.

‘Why don’t we go in and get settled first?’ I suggested, and he nodded. He’d hardly spoken throughout the journey, and when he did his speech was very slow and indistinct and he was often lost for the most basic words.

We pulled into the driveway and I walked into the house behind him, noticing that he had an odd, rolling gait. He picked his right foot up high and flopped it down then pulled the other one through. It reminded me of the way the actor John Thaw walked. He’d had polio as a child and would pick his foot up and put it down with a strange precision. As a nurse, I’d always noticed that about him.

Allen plonked himself down on the sofa and sat looking around him.

‘Do you want something to drink?’ I asked.

‘Yeah.’

‘Do you want tea or coffee?’

He screwed up his face, unable to think. ‘The stuff that comes in bags,’ he slurred.

Tea, then.

At that moment there was a burst of squealing and running feet and the children erupted into the house.

‘Daddy!’ they shrieked, over the moon to see him. Zoe leaped on to his knee and Liam snuggled on to the sofa beside him.

‘Get off me!’ he snapped loudly as he pushed Zoe away. The look of bewilderment on her little face was heartbreaking.

‘Kids, Daddy’s not feeling very well. Don’t climb all over him.’

‘I’ve got a new train, Daddy,’ Liam said excitedly. They used to play together with his Playmobil train set.

‘And I’ve started ballet,’ Zoe joined in, not wanting to be left out. ‘And I’ve got a new dolly as well.’

‘Go away!’ Allen snarled, putting his hands over his ears.

They were devastated. Whenever Allen had come back from postings in the past, he’d burst in the door bringing them presents, swinging them in the air and tickling them. They just didn’t have a clue what had happened.

‘Daddy’s got a bad headache,’ I said gently. ‘You know what it’s like when your head hurts. Just leave him in peace for a little while and maybe he’ll play later.’

I sent them over to Julie’s for the afternoon, just telling her briefly that Allen wasn’t very well. When I got back, he was examining two tubes of cream he’d been given on prescription. He had a nasty rash on his feet and another one on his groin and they’d given him a different cream for each rash, but he couldn’t remember which was which. There was nothing written on the boxes and he was very anxious about it.

‘Which cream is which?’ he mumbled. ‘I don’t know.’

The old Allen would have made a joke out of it. He’d have said, ‘I’ll start by putting them on my feet because if my feet fall off that will be fine, but I don’t want the other bits to fall off.’

But he was incapable of joking now.

‘I’ll go to the pharmacy and ask them,’ I offered. ‘Let me just get your tea first.’

Two minutes later, as if I hadn’t spoken, Allen asked, ‘What about this cream for my feet? What am I going to do?’

It was like being with an old person who had Alzheimer’s. When I worked in a nursing home, some of the residents would ask the same question over and over again – usually: ‘When is my daughter coming? Why’s she not here yet?’ That weekend Allen asked me about his creams at least twenty times a day and he never seemed to hear the answers I gave.

I showed him the photos I’d had developed from a holiday we’d had in Singapore and Penang just a couple of months earlier, but there was no spark of recognition. He didn’t seem to remember us being there and I thought that was very worrying. He just looked at each one and handed it back to me without comment.

He didn’t seem to remember where anything was in the house either. I had to show him where his clothes were kept, where his shaving stuff was and how to turn on the shower. My sense of alarm grew stronger by the minute.

It was a sunny weekend so I set up a chair for him in the back garden and he just sat there twitching and rubbing at his rash and fretting about his creams, and a knot tightened in my stomach. This wasn’t my Allen. It was as if a stranger had taken over Allen’s body. How long would this last? When could I have my intelligent, loving husband back?

I couldn’t wait to get him to Haslar on the Monday morning so that they could start treating him. Despite all my nursing training, I felt utterly helpless. I had no idea what I could do to help him. Whatever it took, I would do it – but I didn’t have a clue where to even start.