21
Better to Risk Falling: Pat 1971
Even after the initial shock was over, everything continued to be awful. It wasn’t just Bee’s injuries, though they were terrible enough. She had lost both legs above the knee—on the left two inches above and on the right four inches. It was the constant grind of lying to be able to see Bee, and coping with all of the children. There were still four weeks of the summer holidays left before the children went back to school, and she had nobody to leave them with even for a moment. Pat was used to being at home with the children, but she was used to Bee coming in and giving her a break. Beyond that she had to cope with trying to see Bee, and the children’s constant desire to see Bee. No hospital would allow children to visit. Things were further exacerbated by the fact that either Bee’s elderly mother or her brother Donald was her next of kin, and Pat was not allowed to make any decisions for her. Even when Bee was moved to Cambridge it was difficult for Pat to visit. She drafted all her friends to watch the children while she saw Bee.
Once the operations were over she thought Bee would be able to come home, but first the house had to be made ready for her. Everything took forever and cost money. The healthcare itself was still free, thank goodness. The government was talking about privatizing the NHS and replacing it with an insurance based system, but this had not yet happened. There was even a government award to Bee for her injuries and loss of earnings—as she insisted she would be able to work and New College agreed that she would, this was for six months’ salary. It paid for the stairlift that was essential for Bee to be able to get upstairs, and for the extra wheelchair that they would have to keep up there for her. Pat had to pay to have the doors widened to wheelchair width, and for a downstairs bathroom big enough for a wheelchair. Having the work done meant workmen constantly underfoot, as well as holes into which Philip fell and the girls poked. Pat sold the Mini and bought a new station wagon, the only car large enough to fit a wheelchair as well as the five of them. At the end of this her finances were considerably depleted, and she began to worry that she had not done the research for the Bologna book.
She had to keep paying the students whom she had hastily retained to look after the garden, the hens, and the bees. Bee had usually done it all herself with help from the children, and Pat didn’t know where to start. From feeling comfortably well off, she felt as if money was draining away and she didn’t know how it would be replenished.
It was November before Bee came home, delivered by ambulance. A young female social worker had been to inspect the house beforehand. She approved the doorways and the bathroom and the ramp down into the garden and into the garage. She was pleased with the stairlift, but horrified when she saw the double bed in Pat and Bee’s bedroom. Too late, Pat realized she should have dissembled. There were four bedrooms—the girls shared one, and she should have pretended that she slept in what was the guest room. She remembered that meeting Marjorie had spoken at so long ago, and the way people would ignore things if not brought to their attention. She decided to brazen it out.
“And your relationship with Miss Dickinson is?” the social worker asked, making a note.
“We’re friends,” Pat said, blushing.
“I have a note that you are sisters.”
“We said that to make visiting easier.”
“I see.” The social worker made another note. “And whose are the children?”
“Ours,” Pat said, drawing herself up. The social worker’s eyebrows rose. “That is, Flossie and Philip are mine, and Jinny is Bee’s.”
“And you’re taking care of Jinny while Miss Dickinson is in hospital?”
“Yes,” Pat said.
“Can I see the upstairs bathroom now?” the social worker asked, and Pat heaved a sigh of relief.
Now Bee was home, in a wheelchair, but home. They thanked the ambulance driver and Pat wheeled Bee inside. The chair was heavy and not well balanced. Pat had been thinking the girls might be able to push it, but it was immediately clear that they wouldn’t.
The children hung back for a moment when they saw Bee, then they flung themselves on her and all of them were crying and hugging, and then the chair tipped and Bee was on the rug with them. Pat saw her wince.
“How are we going to get you up?” Pat asked.
“Don’t worry about that for the moment, you come down here,” Bee said. Pat pushed the chair back and got down on the floor. She pulled Bee back against her and held her steady as the children again flung themselves on her. Bee winced again, but said nothing.
“Mamma, Mamma,” the children said, over and over.
“I loved the cards and pictures you sent me,” Bee said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t always write back as much as I wanted. But they kept me going in that place, being able to see your drawings. I missed you so much. And you’ve grown. It’s not fair you growing while I couldn’t see you!”
They had grown, but not as much as Bee had shrunk. Pat managed to haul Bee up into the old green velvet armchair, which she said she wanted. “I need to get my arms really strong,” Bee said. “I’ve been having physio, and I need to have more. I need to swim, and exercise. I can swing myself from the wheelchair to the toilet—did you get bars put in the toilet?”
“Yes, yes, and we have a new toilet downstairs!” Philip said.
“Two toilets, what would my parents say!” Bee said, smiling over his head at Pat. “Luxury! And then what we need is an electric wheelchair. They’re expensive, but it’ll be worth it. And I can propel this one myself, if there aren’t any steps. Wheel it over here, one of you.”
Jinny won the tussle and wheeled the chair over next to the armchair. “A bit more this way, good. Now watch,” Bee said, as she swung herself from the chair into the wheelchair.
Pat’s heart was in her throat. “Don’t fall!” she said.
“I fall a lot,” Bee said. “It’s better to risk falling than to give in.”
“Doesn’t it hurt?” Jinny asked.
“Yes, it hurts, but there are worse things. And speaking of hurting, try not to bounce on me quite so much!”
“I love you,” Pat said. “I am so glad to have you home.”
“No matter how glad you can’t be as glad as I am to be out of bloody hospitals!” Bee said. “Now, I’m going to have arms like an orangutan, so I hope that’s all right?”
“That’s wonderful,” Pat said. “Now dinner?”
“Food!” Bee said. “Not that awful hospital pap! How I have been looking forward to some real food!”
“It’s pasta with mushrooms and chicken,” Flossie confided. “Oh, and Eva in Perche No! wanted to send you some gelato.”
“Mum told me about that in hospital,” Bee said. “Well, next summer.”
Bee was plainly exhausted by the time the girls went to bed. “Let’s give them half an hour to fall asleep and go to bed ourselves,” Pat said. “We can talk in bed.”
“More than talk,” Bee said.
“I can see how tired you are,” Pat said.
“Not so tired as I am randy.” Bee laughed. “Four months in hospital, and I hadn’t seen you for weeks before that.”
They went up to bed. Bee swung herself onto the stairlift and off again onto the light wheelchair Pat had bought for upstairs. “This one is no good,” Bee said. “It can only be pushed.”
“I’ll push it for now,” Pat said. “We’ll get another self-propelled one for up here. Or if we get an electric one for downstairs we can haul that one up here.”
“That’s the best idea,” Bee said.
In bed they held each other quietly for a long time before either of them made a move towards making love. Afterwards Bee lay back against the pillows. “Well, that’s something I don’t need legs for.”
Pat laughed, but she was close to tears. “You’re wonderful,” she said. “Did it hurt you, making love?”
“Well … yes. A little. But not enough to stop me.” Bee kissed Pat. “What we need to do is get a lawyer and sort out powers of attorney and all of that. Whatever we need to do to become each other’s next of kin. I never thought of it until I needed it. And about the children too, to name each other as guardians. I think that’s the way to do it, legally. Each other and Michael—if he’ll agree, and I think he will. I don’t know how I would have coped without Michael when it first happened. He was a tower, he really was. He’d listen to me, when Donald and the doctors wouldn’t. And he posted that letter to you. And he put up with all that fuss and the papers and everything.”
“Bless him,” Pat said. “Yes, we need to do that.”
“I’m lucky to be alive, and Jinny’s even luckier that I’m alive. If I’d been killed I don’t know what would have happened to her, but they might not have let you keep her.”
“I don’t think they would,” Pat said. “I got her into the country on sheer class privilege—she’s on your passport and I didn’t think. Thank goodness for the identity cards, because she had that. There was a social worker looking at the arrangements for you coming home, and she asked me about the children. We need to set that up for all of them—it might be me something happens to. I was thinking Donald and your mother might have agreed to let me keep Jinny, but they might not. And if something happened to me, who is there? My mother wouldn’t be able to make any decisions.”
“Michael,” Bee said. “We put him on the birth certificates.”
“It would really put him on the spot. We need to talk to him. I mean we’ve decided to live in a certain way, an unconventional way, and the children can’t be the ones to suffer by it.”
“Well, not any more than is inevitable. They already know not to say they have two mothers. We’ve talked to them about it.”
“Yes, I gave Philip that talk before he started school in September.”
Bee sighed. “I’m so sorry to have missed that.”
Pat stroked her arm consolingly and then hugged her close. “It really is so wonderful to have you here again. I’ve missed you so much.”
“Me too, you.”
Pat rang Michael the next morning after she’d taken the children to school. He agreed to come down at the weekend. She also called Lorna, and asked if she knew any friendly lawyers. Lorna called back later with a name, and Pat called and made an appointment for Monday.
Bee’s resolution sometimes faltered and she sometimes grew short-tempered with pain and exhaustion. In general Pat was astounded by how well she dealt with everything. They ordered an electric wheelchair and were told it would be delivered in a few weeks. Michael arrived on Friday evening and disappeared beneath a wave of children. He had brought them cylinders of bubble mixture with wands, a different shaped wand for each child. “Only outside!” Pat said. “Which means not until the morning!”
Michael was very impressed at how Bee swung herself around. “You wait until I have my electric wheelchair,” she said.
After the children were in bed it was Michael who opened the subject. “I’ve been worried about what happens to them if something happens to you.”
“That’s what we wanted to talk to you about,” Pat said. “We’re going to make each other the legal guardian of all the children.”
“You can’t adopt them,” Michael said. “I looked into that. Two women…”
“We think we can name each other the legal guardian if anything happens. Anyone can be a guardian. But you’re down as the father on their birth certificates, you’d be the automatic person they’d ask.” Bee looked at him inquiringly.
“Are you asking me to give up my rights in them?” he asked.
“No, only to agree if it came to it that the one of us that was left would keep them all,” Pat said.
“What if neither of you were left?”
Pat and Bee looked at each other. “Well in that situation what would you do?”
“I suppose I’d look after them,” he said, slowly.
“I know this isn’t what we originally said,” Pat said. “We hadn’t thought about this at all.”
“It was all so theoretical,” Michael said. “Now they’re people, all of them, even little Philip. Yes, all right, if something happens to both of you I’ll do it. But what if I did get married the way you’re always telling me to do?”
“That would be more complicated,” Bee said. “Are you thinking of it?”
“What, jilt you after that photo in the Standard making half of London and my own parents think you’re my fiancée? When would I have had time to think about it?”
Bee laughed and then turned serious. “I’m eternally grateful to you for that.”
“It was the least I could do.” Michael turned his teacup in his hands. “Do you have anything stronger?”
“I think I might have some wine we brought back from Italy last year. I didn’t bring any this year because I left in such a hurry,” Pat said, getting up.
“She didn’t even bring any olive oil or dried porcini,” Bee said.
Pat dug up an unopened bottle of red wine and dusted it before taking it through to the sitting room. She gave it to Michael with the corkscrew and went back for two glasses.
“Who opens the wine when you’re alone?” Michael asked.
Pat and Bee looked at each other. “Either of us, when we have parties,” Pat said. “We don’t usually drink wine when it’s just us. I mean I don’t really drink.”
Michael opened the wine and poured a glass for himself and another for Bee, taking hers over to where she was sitting in the green chair that had become hers in the week since she had been home. He took a sip. “Red Tuscan wine, like we were drinking the night we started this whole thing,” he said, turning the stem of the glass.
“I remember that,” Bee said. “In Bordino’s.”
“So I think the sensible thing is if you designate each other guardians and all that. Ideally you’ll never need it and everything can go on as it is and the children will grow up with nothing worse to worry about than the European independent nuclear deterrent and the creeping privatization of everything in sight.”
Bee raised her glass to that, and Pat raised her teacup.
“But if something does happen to one of you, then the guardian thing, and if that holds up that’s all well and good. But if there’s a problem then I think the sensible thing is if I marry whichever one of you is left. I am their father, and that’s all legal and on their birth certificates and their ID. I’m the natural guardian, and if I’m married to whichever one of you is left, then she’d be the natural stepmother. We wouldn’t have to live together or have sex or anything.” He drained his glass.
“That’s wonderful,” Bee said, and there were tears glistening in her eyes. “But it does put an awful burden on you. Philip’s not five yet. That means you’d have to stay unmarried for thirteen years. Well, eleven.”
“The older they get the less of a problem it is,” Michael said. “But I wasn’t planning to get married anyway.”
“But don’t you want children of your own?” Pat asked.
“I have children of my own, isn’t that what this is all about?” Michael filled his glass again. “I’m very very fond of both of you, and I love the children. I know it wasn’t the plan, it wasn’t what we agreed, but I can’t help it. I don’t know if it’s genetic instinct or if they’re just so lovable I’d have loved them whoever their father was.”
“I have never seen anyone so embarrassed at making a declaration of love,” Bee said. “And that includes me and Pat, who were really pretty embarrassed when we first admitted that we loved each other.”
They all laughed. “Well, with that settled we can safely go to the lawyers on Monday,” Pat said.
Bee looked at Pat with a wicked twinkle in her eyes. “And as far as sex goes, well, there might be sex,” she said.
Pat looked back at her and nodded. “If you want to,” she said.
“What?” Michael looked from one to the other of them. “I thought you didn’t want more children?”
“It might be news to you that there are ways of having sex that do not result in children,” Bee said. “Nice ways.”
“We do them all the time,” Pat said. “We wouldn’t have to do that.”
“So if you want you can come upstairs with us and have lesbian sex,” Bee said, leering.
“Oh my God,” Michael said. “I don’t know whether you’re joking.”
“We’re not joking,” Pat said.