Sea of Memories (Page 33)
Ella demanded a consultation with the doctor – to the new Ward Sister’s intense disapproval – and asked that Robbie be given hot compresses and extra exercises to help rebuild the muscles that hadn’t wasted away entirely after his weeks of immobility in the iron lung. She waved an article from a magazine under the doctor’s nose. ‘Yes, Mrs Dalrymple, I am fully aware of the work of Sister Elizabeth Kenny and we do, in fact, employ some of her techniques. But we simply do not have the resources to dedicate to each individual patient.’
‘Let me do it then,’ Ella pleaded. ‘I can come in and work on his legs every day. Just show me how he needs to do the exercises.’
‘That would be entirely against hospital regulations, I’m afraid. I cannot sanction it. My nurses will be up in arms if we have parents running amok in the wards at all hours of the day. However . . .’ he held up a hand to forestall Ella’s objections, ‘should you wish to assist Robbie with his exercises during visiting hours then I think that could be an acceptable compromise. I must insist though, only during official visiting hours.’
And so, Ella would hold Robbie’s wasted legs in her strong, capable hands and manipulate them back and forth, flexing and straightening the knobbly joints with their pitiful, protruding bones, trying to encourage the muscles to regenerate. At the same time, she would sing to him and tell him stories to make him laugh and forget, for a few precious minutes, that he was stuck in hospital and might never be able to walk again.
The whole family longed for the day when Robbie could leave the hospital, and Ella was determined that Robbie should come home the second they allowed him out, so that she could embark upon a more intensive programme of rehabilitation and therapy to get his legs moving of their own accord once again. Dedicated though the staff at the hospital were, she knew that he would thrive better at home, where there would be more fresh air and good cooking and where, through sheer determination and will-power, she believed she would get him back on his feet.
But it was a long, slow process and the last of the autumn leaves had been torn from the trees on the Meadows by a snatching, easterly wind the day that they finally wheeled him out of the hospital and drove him back to Fairmilehead.
Gazing out of the car window, Robbie was amazed at the world he had finally re-entered. ‘It’s already winter,’ he said, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘I missed the whole of autumn, Mummy.’
Ella, who couldn’t stop turning round to look at him, still hardly able to believe he was really coming home at last, felt stunned too as she noticed the bare branches in the suburban gardens that they were passing; she’d been so preoccupied over the past months that she’d scarcely registered the changing seasons either and it was as though, for the first time since the ambulance had whisked her son away from her, she was finally able to see the wider world around them once again. ‘I know my darling, but never mind, you’re home in time for Christmas and that’s all that matters. This one’s going to be the best one ever! We’ll have to start making some decorations. Do you think you can make the longest paper chain in the whole wide world? I bet you can!’
Angus took a hand from the steering wheel and squeezed Ella’s fingers for a second. She knew he was hoping that things would get better now. Both her children needed her – Rhona as well as Robbie. And so did Angus. She’d felt they were drifting apart, the polio infecting their marriage and paralysing the entire family as it devoured their energy and demanded all of their attention.
If anything, though, Ella was even more preoccupied once they got Robbie home. She was determined to devote every available moment of each day to trying to help him to walk again. She administered hot compresses to his legs to try to stimulate the circulation and spent hours doing the therapeutic exercises to keep the limbs moving. They visited the outpatient’s ward at the children’s hospital regularly and Ella cheered Robbie on as he struggled to walk a few yards between two parallel handrails, his feet dragging in the heavy boots and his unwieldy callipers clicking and jangling. He still couldn’t stand without support, but she insisted that he use his legs as often as possible rather than relying on the wheelchair. This meant that going anywhere took ages, and often Angus and Rhona would go to the shops or on outings at the weekends on their own, leaving Ella at home to carry on with Robbie’s therapy. The one activity they could still enjoy as a family was a trip to the swimming baths, where Ella would support Robbie in the water as she encouraged him to try to kick whilst Rhona splashed out on her own, practising swimming widths and perfecting her strokes.
As winter turned to spring and then the yellow gorse burst into bloom on the hills surrounding the city, the Dalrymple family settled into its new form, articulated by Robbie one day as his mother flexed and straightened his legs for the millionth time. ‘I’m your boy, aren’t I, Mummy? And Rhona is Daddy’s girl.’
Ella tried to ignore the flush of guilt she felt as she recognised the truth in what he’d said. She was doing the best she could, and, after all, Rhona was far more resilient than her little brother. Whilst Robbie needed her, she had no choice but to devote her time and energy to him. She gathered him in her arms and began to strap the callipers to his legs. ‘Well, aren’t we lucky to have one each? Now let’s see if you can hold my hands and walk to the garden. It’s a lovely day, so we can carry on with The Wind in the Willows outside in the sunshine this morning.’
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Robbie grew stronger. And then came the day when Angus got back from work to be greeted at the front door by Rhona, flushed with excitement. ‘Guess what, Daddy? Robbie did it! He walked all by himself!’
Watching his son take a few clumsy steps, his legs still confined in the heavy callipers, Ella saw Angus’s eyes filled with tears born of the same mix of overwhelming emotion she was experiencing: relief and pain, joy and sadness, love and sheer exhaustion. He pulled her to him and hugged her tight. ‘Well done,’ he whispered as he kissed her. ‘He wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you.’
That summer, they holidayed in Arisaig again and the two weeks of sea air and days spent on the white-sand beaches were a tonic for them all. ‘I do believe this is the very best medicine there is,’ Ella commented as she and Angus sat on a picnic rug watching Rhona and Robbie splashing at the water’s edge, filling buckets with wet sand to build a sandcastle, watched by a curious seal out in the bay. ‘He’ll be strong enough to go back to school in the autumn.’
That night in the white cottage, as the children slept, Angus turned to his wife and drew her to him. But Ella took his hand in hers, wordlessly forestalling its descent over her body, and turned away from him, too tired, too preoccupied.
Gradually, her breath settled into the soft rhythm of sleep, while he lay awake staring, alone, into the darkness.
2014, Edinburgh
Ella’s lying in her bed again today when I drop by the nursing home. She’s sleeping when I creep in, her hair fanned out across the pillow and her face turned towards the bowl of shells; but then a nurse bustles in, saying she needs to wake her up anyway, to administer her medications.
I don’t want to tire her out, but there are questions I need to ask her. About her marriage, about how she got through those times. And whether she and my grandfather were ever able to recapture the love again. It seems absolutely vital that I know this because then I might be able to hope that my own marriage can survive; that there’s a chance Dan and I can make it, despite the struggle it all seems to be right now.
She frowns, as if remembering is an effort, but then her eyes seem to focus on the painting of the sailing boat and she nods, licking her lips before she speaks, her voice so quiet that I have to lean in close to hear her. ‘Whilst we believed Christophe was dead, it was easier for Angus. But with Christophe alive, suddenly the two loves overlapped, in his mind at least. I knew it might destroy the fragile balance of our marriage. It had been damaged . . . weakened. It was hard for both of us.’
‘And then there was Robbie’s polio,’ I prompt, ‘which dealt your marriage another blow?’
She nods. ‘You know, probably better than I do, that life can sometimes deal you a difficult hand. You do your best. But it’s hard. Although I do think having children is one of the most terrifying, overwhelming, frustrating and fulfilling challenges that life has to offer.’ She shoots me an appraising glance. ‘But it was easier back then: we had so many opportunities and so few expectations, whereas now I think it’s the opposite. It seems to me that your generation probably has the worst of both worlds – expectations too high and opportunities far more limited, suddenly. It’s a toxic combination. But you and Dan will find a way to make it work.’
‘We have no choice.’ I’m a little stung by her remark about our expectations being too high. Dan and I have lost so much. It’s hard coming to terms with that, but we’re both doing our best in our different ways.
‘Perhaps not. But perhaps you do have the choice of acceptance. That’s a choice that’s always available to us.’
I glance around her room, her world shrunk now to these four magnolia-painted walls, this overheated, chemical-scented air. Does she long for the freedom of her youth? The sweeping white sands and an infinite ocean stretching before her? The possibilities of love and a life to be lived? Or is it enough to hold all of that as a distant memory? The contentment of a life well-lived? Perhaps that’s the inevitable parabola of life – a trajectory of hope and desire which rises to a crescendo and then tails off into the wistful acceptance of old age.