I knew my mum was keeping a secret
I knew my mum was keeping a secret and I think I knew what it was but I knew she would never admit it or discuss it but something had to be done.
The day had been hot and I was sorry that Jenny had decided not to have her twins at home because I had been a nurse before my retirement and I knew very well that between us we could deliver the babies without incident.
There were three sets of twins in our road and my husband would have said, had he been alive that it must be something they are putting in the water. I was partly being selfish. If she had agreed to delivery at home then it would save me the bus travel on a hot day. Also it’s so hot in those places and I would have made her squat in order to deliver them, rather than have her showing all she has got while being suspended in stirrups if suspended is the right word. Anyway Jenny is stubborn like a mule and, no she doesn’t get it from me!
Blast! I am not listening to that blooming radio any longer! Wherever does the BBC get these presenters from in the first place. They were talking about food and she came out with: “I gave up eating car sprains long ago”. Surely she was talking about calves brains but by the time I had unravelled her sloppy diction the programme was over. I think it was a programme about prions and BSE. What a five-minute wonder that was, unless of course it’s incubating and will go up like a rocket and explode like a bomb once I am dead and gone but if it does, what about Jenny, the children to come and Clive. If I hear one more “Bruvver”, “muvver” and one more glottal stop I’ll scream.
I was hoping not to bump into Kitty
I was hoping not to bump into Kitty whom my husband always called “Kitty Catty” because of her tendency to be judgmental and moralistic. If I did run into her then I’d be holed up for hours as I got drawn deeper and deeper into a barbed wire web of spite about whomever she had her hooks into at this particular time. It was never me because, I suspect, she valued my medical advice. I told her to get straight to the doctor when she told me she woke up with banging in her ears which happened more as she sat and then she went dizzy when she stood. “High blood pressure”, I thought. I was right and she said I had saved her from a possible if not probable stroke so in no way was I ever going to be on the receiving end of her tongue lashing. She did get near to it last Friday when she commented on something she had noticed me doing for some little while. I noticed it, too but, what with the twins and everything, I didn’t want to be bothered with insignificant trifles right now.
It had been an awful night. My doorbell went at least twice and I bet it was those Sanksters who had moved in down the road. Jenny calls them “Sanksters the pranksters” but really! Letting children so young out at the hour they were out ringing my doorbell really was not wise or safe. I spoke to their mother, Jane, who told me they were both ill in bed with chickenpox so it wasn’t them. She’s a lovely woman but Michael and Matthew give her the run-around. She’s a single parent whose husband left her for a younger model which of course sent Kitty’s tongue doing its clock pendulum dance. It wagged faster than my Labrador’s tail does. Great hairy lump! I’d take him to the hospital but he isn’t a guide dog. It was just as I was leaving Jane’s that I remembered I needed more wool. You can never knit enough baby clothes especially for two. I was deep in thought as I was crossing the road and was almost mown down by a car. It was then I knew I had to act. I made the appointment and knew that, even given pre-eclampsia, Jenny would be out before I had my second one and she would have to know nothing about it.
Thankfully I was going to see Clive for supper. He was quite lonely without Jenny but wouldn’t hear of me cooking for him. He gave me the shivers when he talked about his work. Mind you he shouldn’t have because, as a nurse, I had plenty of experience of the morgue or at least what happens just before those destined for it are on their final journey. I clouted him playfully when he said:
“Well, Mum, I can’t have you cooking for me now you are in your sunset”!
I was hoping the children would be born on my birthday and dared him not to get me a card with a seven or a one on it. He didn’t and they were.
I had a job to get away the next day
I had a job to get away the next day because of their arrival but I had to. Jenny and Clive were hurt and upset but I had to see the specialist. For the second time I went into the booth. Then I held them, small and perfectly formed but they were not the surprise to me as was Jenny’s little bundles, triplets in fact. When they come home from school they will be able to sing: “Three little maids from school are we”.
After my appointment was over and I had paid the money, I went round to them, put on a serious face and said:
“I know you are hurt but I have something to tell you. I have presbycusis. This is age-related hearing loss brought on because the stereocilia have started to die and the high frequencies go first because they are exposed to all the sound that enters the ears. So, don’t let these children bombard their ears with loud music because they’ll go deaf earlier if you do. Think of Phil Collins! Better still, look at these! Small and perfectly formed just like your three when all I have is a pigeon pair”.
Then we all had a good cry because we were so emotional. Jenny thought I had cancer, Clive thought I was going blind and Kitty Catty thought I was going deaf. Trust her to be right! So full of my own joy at hearing the birds again that I almost forgot to ask Jenny:
“What are you going to call these bundles of joy who will bring you every ounce of love, frustration, worry and happiness it’s possible to bring. When you hold the hand of a child, it leads you away from all the harmful things you may do to yourself, or so I read somewhere and it’s true”.
“Lisa, Vanessa and Catherine”, Jenny piped up and no doubt you have names for those sweet little things of yours”.
“Silvester and Tweety pie”.
“I despair”!
Jenny said:
“Thank goodness they are only hearing aids! Imagine going to school with names like that”!
In bed that night, minus the tinnitus, “only hearing aids indeed”! I thought. They are my little life savers but I may remove them once the children start screaming or asking for a raise in pocket money!
(Author’s note: this story is dedicated to the three people who have made all the difference: my trusted helpers, Lisa and Vanessa and Catherine, the audiologist whose skill and expertise has returned sounds to me that were fast disappearing. Sadly, the daughter and grandchildren are fictional but happily, the hearing aids are not).