A bad case of mother’s guilt (From The Northern Echo)

A bad case of mother’s guilt

1:24pm Thursday 17th February 2011 in Mum At Large By Ruth Campbell

IHAD just picked eight-year-old Albert up from school and the phone was ringing as we came through the door. Patrick, the 15- year-old, was on the line: “Mum, Charlie’s in an ambulance,” he said.

As opening lines of telephone conversations go, this one was not so good. I asked him if he was joking.

“No. That’s all I know. I’m at the bus stop and there’s an ambulance outside school. Everyone says Charlie’s in it.”

I told him to run there fast and find out what had happened. “Bang on the door. Tell them Charlie’s mum is on the line and wants to talk,” I found myself screeching, after waiting what seemed like an eternity.

It turned out 17-year-old Charlie had been knocked out playing football.

He had started convulsing and was suffering from memory loss when he came round. He was still disorientated. “Meet us at Accident and Emergency,” said the ambulanceman.

Driving there, all I could think of was my last words to Charlie, by text.

“I am so disappointed in you. You have let us down and let yourself down.” He was in trouble with his dad and I for bad behaviour and had tried to justify his actions in a text to me that morning.

That was my response, and how I regretted it now. After 19 years of motherhood, I am still learning.

Sometimes these things need to be said, but in the context of a full, rounded conversation, face to face, not by text. How cold and harsh those words now seemed in written form, frozen on a screen.

He was being taken off a spinal board when I got to the hospital.

“He’s a lucky boy,” they said. “We think he is going to be okay, but the next 24 hours are crucial. He needs to be closely observed.”

Charlie looked confused. “Mum, are you annoyed with me about something? I have a vague memory of you being upset but I don’t know why.” Charlie has always been a joker. “Are you winding me up?” I asked. But he wasn’t.

“I feel like I’m in a dream,” he said.

He pointed to his new football boots.

“Are those my boots? When did I get those?” he asked.

“Don’t you remember? You went to town with your dad two weeks ago and bought them,” I told him. He looked blank. Slowly, things started to come back. “Oh no,” he groaned at one point. “I’ve just remembered.

Andy Carroll’s been transferred from Newcastle.” He was wishing he could lose his memory again.

The doctor reassured me confusion was normal after such a knock.

It was safe to take him home, he said, as long as he was closely observed for 24 hours: “But if he is sick or deteriorates, call 999.”

It wasn’t the best night’s sleep I ever had. With my husband away in London, I put the sofa bed up in our bedroom and watched Charlie, with a bucket by his side because he felt nauseous, through the night. He moaned intermittently, complaining of a headache, and was sleep-talking off and on.

“Make sure he’s rousable,” advised a friend, an intensive care nurse, next morning when I said I had let him lie-in. He grunted incomprehensibly but I could just about make out “Go away” and “Leave me alone”. As far as 17-year-old boys go, that’s about as ‘rousable’ as you get.

I finally got him downstairs for breakfast and watched him while I made some work phone calls and set up a few interviews. Of course, the people I was talking to didn’t realise I was in the kitchen in my pyjamas.

For all they knew, I could have been in a huge office with a personal assistant at my side.

“I’m off to have a quick bath,” I told Charlie at midday. When I reappeared he said someone had phoned.

It was a high-powered businesswoman: “You need to call her back.”

“I told her you were having a bath,” he added. “What did she say when you told her that?” I asked.

Charlie grinned: “She laughed her head off.”

I think he’s back to normal.

NEXT day, the 19-year-old called from Belfast, where he’s at university: “I’m in A and E with suspected appendicitis,” he said.

Thankfully, it came to nothing.

But next time the phone rings, I’m tempted to copy American wit Dorothy Parker who used to shout out, when there was a knock at her door: “What fresh Hell is this?”

ON Monday morning, Albert’s bus driver asked us: “How was the match on Saturday?” Albert had gone with his dad, brothers and friend Archie to see Newcastle play Arsenal that afternoon. “It was amazing. Didn’t you hear about it?”

I replied. “They were four nil down in the first half and came back to equalise. In fact, it was so good that Alan Shearer, who was there watching, said it was the best match he had ever seen.” The bus driver’s jaw practically hit the ground. “What was Alan Shearer doing in Kirkby? I never heard about that.” Of course, Albert had played for his village team on Saturday morning. So that was what he meant...