There’s a further tentative knock on the door. Nadine comes in, ‘I’m sorry, Jeremy, but Mr Parish is insisting…’ She stops when she sees me. ‘I’ll come back later.’ The door slams shut.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I say to Jeremy. ‘I’ve wasted enough of your time, I’ll…’
He raises a hand to stop me. ‘Would you like to start the interview again?’
Stunned, I nod. He gives me time to gather myself and dry my eyes. Ask me about Sherwoods, ask me anything that’s easy to answer.
‘How old is your daughter?’
Surprised, ‘Eight,’ I reply.
‘And you’re a single mum? That must be tough.’
‘Isla’s father, Daniel…’ I stop, unsure how to begin telling Jeremy that messed-up story. ‘He’s around. He’s a good father, but we’re not together anymore.’ I see Dan giving Isla a piggyback in the park, both of them laughing as Dan chases Spud across the field, Isla saying, ‘Faster, Daddy!’
Jeremy picks up his telephone. ‘Nadine, cancel all my appointments for this morning and tell Mr Parish I’m unavailable for the next hour, that there’s been an emergency.’ He looks at me with kindness in his eyes. ‘What’s Isla like?’
‘Goodness, where do I start?’
‘At the beginning.’
2
Six years ago, 2005
Isla is two years old. After seeing the doctor, I leave the hospital, numb, pushing her buggy down the corridor and towards the lifts. A blast of fresh air hits me when we exit the building. I watch the traffic, hear an ambulance siren and see people rushing down the street with cups of coffee, talking on their mobiles. How can life carry on when my world has been turned upside down?
As we wait at the bus stop I keep reminding myself that Isla is the same girl she was twenty minutes ago. Nothing has changed. I look down at her, sitting in her pram, chestnut curls, podgy cheeks and big round eyes. Except everythinghaschanged. On the bus on our way home, ‘What shall we have for our tea?’ I ask, adopting that cheerful voice when inside my head all I can hear is the doctor saying those dreaded words, ‘Isla has cerebral palsy’.
I dig my thumbnail into the palm of my hand.
‘Nana,’ she says, holding her teddy.
‘How about I make us a banana smoothie!’ I dig my nail even deeper. Of course it was obvious. Isla can’t stand straight or still, she has little or no balance. She is still crawling and when she does manage to stand, she can only walk on tiptoe.
I stare out of the window. I see the doctor sitting in front of his computer screen.
‘Often we don’t pick up on spasticity in the earlymonths…’ I shift in my seat.
‘The damage to Isla’s brain has occurred in the area that controls the muscle tone. This is why she has that tightness in her legs.’
‘So, you’re saying Isla’s brain can’t give the right messages to her body?’
‘Indeed. The command from the muscle itself overwhelms her spinal cord and as a result the muscle is too dense, or spastic.’
That ‘s’ word again. I wish I’d had the nerve to ask him to stop using it.
‘Of course patients have varying degrees,’he’d continued.‘I see Isla has some tightness in her hands too, but it’s mild. I think her walking could be significantly affected and she could possibly have learning difficulties, linked with the brain damage…’
I feel sick. Helpless.
‘But in her case, I don’t believe it’s severe. Isla’s a bright girl. Treatment is important. We don’t want to see her get any worse… she’ll need splints for her feet and I’ll refer her for hydrotherapy. She must carry on with her stretching exercises.’
I watch another mother with her young fair-haired son. He looks as if he’s about three or four, dressed in dungarees and a cap. He presses the button before he runs down the aisle, towards the exit doors. All I can think is, why did this happen to Isla and me? Is it something I did during my pregnancy? Tears sting my eyes. Is thismyfault?
Back at home it’s deathly quiet. I turn on the television, anything to have some mindless noise. I stick the kettle on, before deciding to scrap tea and open a bottle of wine instead. Isla is playing with her toys next door, scattering them across the sitting-room floor. I sit down at the kitchen table and glance at the blue hospital information pack the doctor had given me at the end of our appointment.‘There are three types ofCP,’ I read. Isla has spastic diplegia cerebral palsy. I had no idea there were different kinds. They all sound equally bad. I’d always pictured people in wheelchairs with contorted limbs, barely able to speak.
‘It’s almost impossible to say why part of a baby’s brain has been injured or failed to develop, there could be a number of reasons… Muscles must have enough tone to be healthy. The command to tense or increase muscle tone goes to the spinal cord via nerves from the muscle itself…’
