Part One: Nick
It wasn’t until two or even three months after the funeral that I began to feel helpless and empty. At that time, I was still only twenty-two years old and had to grow up quickly. My responsibilities for the next fourteen or fifteen years were clearly defined and I started to feel that I had very little in common with friends and relatives. They meant well and were reliable but all I really wanted to think about was bringing up my daughter because I had an over-riding fear that she would be taken away from me. I’d already lost one love and could not cope with losing another. Had Sally not been there for me and given me the reason for living then I would have gone to pieces. Besides, I’d never been interested in clubbing or “partying”, which was what everyone around me wanted to see me doing. They thought it was what I needed. They were wrong and so their attention soon drifted.
The parents on both sides then became rather tiresome. Baby-sitters were always available and you could rely on them to help out in any crisis as you knew they would be there.
That was the problem – they were always there. Under my feet, criticising, attempting (and succeeding) to make little changes and forever putting things away where I was unlikely to look. They were changing the style of Sally’s clothing, shifting furniture when I was at work and buying silly little things like tea-towels and bed linen and ridiculous toilet-roll covers which Maggie and I would never have chosen. My time with my daughter was not my own and though they thought they were only helping, they didn’t understand that it was important to me to simply get on with it myself. Besides, I had not had the private mourning time I needed before I put my life in order and that had to be just with my daughter. It had to be my way and not what they thought was best for Sally and me.
Inevitably, on a couple of occasions I did explode and told them all to leave, which resulted in rows. Sally found this all rather amusing rather than worrying but I did not want my daughter to be brought up in an atmosphere of bad feeling, especially when I knew they all loved her.
I think I hadn’t really considered the trauma that Maggie’s parents had gone through in losing their daughter – their only child. They sat me down one evening and told me how they could relieve me of the biggest burden in my life. They suggested that they would be prepared to take Sally off my hands and bring her up as their own daughter. They “advised” me that someone of my age did not want the responsibility of bringing up a child alone and that I should have been out there – somewhere – making a life for myself. They had even worked out a plan, which had been put to paper, of how I could visit her once or even twice a week and take her out to zoos and parks or anywhere else she wanted to go. They said I did not have to worry about her welfare as they had experience and the proof was in the woman I had married.
I was ready to pick them both up and hurl them out of the window and out of our lives for good.
But I didn’t.
I kept my cool and explained that Sally was my child and I was her father and they had no legal rights while I was alive. I made it clear that I would be the one to bring her up. To their disappointment I closed the subject and insisted it was never to be mentioned again. But I added that as grandparents they could take her once or twice a week, which I would be grateful for, and even take her for occasional weekends.
My job then became much easier or at least less stressful. I no longer had the juvenile view that it was all a waste of time – on the contrary, it was simply the means to support, clothe and feed my child. I was viewing it all through adult eyes for the first time. The bank had been very good and considerate in allowing me so much time off when Maggie was in the hospice. They were also very compassionate, and I get angry with the notion that all bankers are heartless. My colleagues were a tower of strength during the far too many and emotional episodes when it all became too much and I broke down at work in front of them. They literally held me, they cried with me, and every single one of them became a trusted friend.
Good things were beginning to happen again in my life.
Our neighbour Mrs Brown had also been a great deal of help throughout the illness and it was about then that she offered to sell me the flat at what can only be called a give-away price. I jumped at the chance and soon fixed up a low-interest loan with my employers. They were only too keen to lend me the money and it was not too long after that when they promoted me to department supervisor. I was now being seen as a responsible father, employee and a house owner.
Of course Sally was oblivious to changes and the problems which had been surrounding us. She was over two years old then and, boy, was she growing up fast. All of my spare time, my whole direction, was centred on her and that was good for me because she was a happy child. At last I was in control of our lives and was not allowing other people, especially the families, to smother us with sympathy. The changes and the way I was handling the responsibilities seemed to satisfy both sets of parents and they soon tired of heaping attention on us. But I still needed help and to their absolute horror I took on an au pair.
She was a very polite and caring girl from Germany named Imogen who was recommended to me by a colleague at the bank. She got along with Sally from the moment they met. She was the first au pair I had seen though I had started using a child minder a couple of streets away but always felt uncomfortable about it. Sally was perfectly safe and looked forward to seeing the other kids but I felt uncomfortable when she was away from our home environment. A child minder that was not related was a good idea because it meant I did not have to make a choice about which family members to choose.
But when Imogen arrived it all changed.
I knew Sally was being looked after well and Imogen was planning on staying in England for another three years. It was perfect as Sally would be going to school by the time her contract was up.
She was very easy to get along with, and even share the flat with, as her room was at the back of the house, a little away from us at the front and large enough to have part of it as a seating area, which meant she also had some privacy. She was also eager to please and though her English at that time was not too good, there were no barriers with Sally and her. I think Sally also needed more female company then so it seemed to work out well. Maggie’s parents were unsure about the arrangement and that I had chosen a “German” over another nationality but I presumed that stemmed from the war. Sally loved Imogen and that was all that mattered. They may even have thought I was having an affair with her which really was the last thing on my mind.
Everything was going well now and I was so preoccupied with the mammoth task of bringing up a child that I had very little time to dwell on the loss of Maggie and have the mourning time which I’d felt I needed. Maggie was always in my thoughts though – I did cry at night and I suspect that is normal. In the darkness I asked my wife if I was performing well and was she proud of the way I was bring up our daughter. I was confident she approved.
A year after Maggie’s death and Sally was just over three years old and talking to me. I didn’t want her to stop. When I arrived home from work in the evenings she would meet me at the door and tell me everything she had done that day – that sometimes took forever and I was happy to listen. It was soon after she found her voice that I got to know some of the neighbours. In some ways I think it must be like having a dog. Everybody initially speaks to your child or your pet and then eventually to you. There were a number of young kids around and Sally got to know them from the park and always wanted to play. A couple of doors away lived Chrissie and Peter and they had a charming young daughter named Annette. Sally and her were the same age and so became good friends and still are.
Within a few months we all became great pals. I was regularly invited around for parties and barbecues which (fortunately) always expected kids. Some evenings I would visit on my own while Imogen baby-sat. It was easy to talk to them about Maggie as they were not over-sympathetic, which I had found a little tiresome from other friends. Having a child themselves they
were aware of the practicalities and responsibilities. For a while though they did attempt to match-make me with some of their single female friends. I was still not ready for anything like that and certainly was not looking for a replacement wife. Besides, nobody would have been able to replace Maggie. I explained to them how I felt and before long we were able to crack jokes about their little scheme.
There is no doubt in my mind that my great passion for wine was initially influenced with the help of Chrissie and Peter. I would buy the occasional bottle of Italian red or German medium white. But after a little patience my taste-buds became alive when they introduced me to crisp Sauvignons, the Macons, Chablis and fine Bordeaux. I haven’t looked back since.
I have to say I felt a little jealous of them because they got along together so well. I felt it most at Christmas, birthdays and Valentine’s. Maggie and I had never been great card senders or gift givers but there were times when I needed somebody close to be as cynical as me and believe it. Peter often bought Chrissie a small trinket of Victorian jewellery, a book or some flowers and it would remind me that I had nobody to do that for except my daughter. I started to want those little impulsive moments even though they were never really a part of my life with my wife.
Little did I know at that time that my whole life was about to change.