A Song for Jenny: A Mother's Story of Love and Loss. Julie Nicholson
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story. Jenny is playing in the garden, looking out for my lift.
‘She’s here, she’s here,’ Jenny calls out, my prompt to hastily kiss Thomas and Lizzie before running downstairs.
‘Go inside now,’ I say to Jenny, ‘Daddy will be running your bath soon.’ She’s jumping on and off the wall, over the rose bushes which are in full flower.
‘I want to wave bye-bye.’
‘All right, but I want to see you go inside and close the door before I leave.’
I wave a greeting to my friend sitting at the driver’s wheel. Jenny is wrapping her arms around my neck and giving me kisses, lots of them, before climbing back on the wall and jumping over a rose bush again.
‘Watch, Mummy.’
‘Be careful, if you fall you’ll hurt yourself. That rose bush is full of thorns.’
‘One more jump!’
I close the front gate behind me and sit in the car, waiting, slightly impatiently, for the final assault over the rose bush. Jenny is waving at the car as she jumps; this time falling in the bush. Leaping from the car I rush back into the garden and help her up. She is shaken and fighting back tears.
‘My leg hurts.’
‘You’re OK,’ I say, brushing her down and showing her a small graze just above her knee.
‘Look, it’s just a scratch. Ask Daddy to clean it in the bath. You’re lucky you didn’t get a thorn.’ Taking her by the hand, we get to the door as Greg is coming downstairs.
‘Can you see to Jenny’s leg, she scraped it on the rose bush? I need to go.’
Jenny gives me one more, slightly tearful, kiss before I close the door behind me and hurry back down the garden path. Apart from a few pangs of maternal guilt as we drive away from the house, I think no more about the incident.
‘I’m not sure about this,’ I say to my friend as we drive along. We’re on our way to a religious campaign, a Billy Graham event which I have been persuaded to attend.
‘You’ll be fine. You might even enjoy it.’
‘I suppose I ought to listen to Billy Graham once in my life, if only to say I’ve done it!’ It’s fair to say I’m curious about the impact his campaigns seem to be having. This one is called Mission England.
Stewards are enthusiastically directing people into specially erected marquees. Already I am feeling this is not where I want to be. Inside the tent, people are jostling for seats; excited anticipation seems to be the prevailing mood though there are plenty of tentative faces and baffled expressions. The sermon itself is being broadcast from London and transmitted onto large screens erected at the front of the tent. With as much of an open mind as I can muster I settle back to experience the phenomena of Billy Graham. On this occasion the good news of Jesus Christ is lost on me. It is all too much, too zealous. As people leave their seats and go forward at the speaker’s invitation, first steps to a new birth, I can only look on in wonder.
‘This is not for me,’ I say to my friend who is looking delightedly at what is happening at the front. I want to leave but dare not leave my seat. Most of my life I have attended church, found a resonance in ritual and sacred music and enjoyed the community of fellowship. The rhythm of the church year and Christian festivals is as much part of me as the seasons of the year. I love to hear the retelling of biblical stories and engage with the mystery and exploration of faith so I’m not quite sure why I find this so alienating.
I arrive home feeling completely overwhelmed by crusading Christianity, bemused by the response of the masses and for some inexplicable reason utterly depressed by the whole experience. I turn my key in the lock, glad to be home and looking forward to a cup of tea and bed.
Greg’s face is sombre and doesn’t respond at all when I say I think I’m going to become an atheist. Instead he greets me with the news that he has been in casualty all evening with Jennifer, the result of a long deep gash from the fall into the rose bush. The injury required several stitches and a tetanus booster. Feelings of shock, concern and guilt all tumble out at once as I rush upstairs to check Jenny is OK. Tentatively, so as not to wake her, I lift the covers and peer at the dressing covering her entire upper thigh. Thankfully, she is sleeping soundly and peacefully. I lean over and place a kiss full of love and apology on her forehead. Propped up on the bedside table is a colourful ‘Certificate of Bravery’ made out to Jennifer Nicholson and issued by staff at the hospital. Downstairs Greg tells me how, after I left, Jenny pulled her skirt up to check her sore leg and noticed the full extent of the injury. Our next-door neighbour was called in to sit with the younger children while Greg took Jenny to hospital.
‘Let Jenny tell you about it herself in the morning, she wants to surprise you and show off her stitches and the certificate. She was very brave.’
Ah well, I reason, as my head touches the pillow half an hour or so later, I suppose this is the stuff of childhood. It could have been worse.
The Royal London Hospital, early afternoon Friday 8 July
The reception area is crowded. Looking around there don’t seem to be any notices or indications of where we might go for specific information regarding the events of yesterday. We speak to a passing uniformed nurse but she isn’t able to help directly or know where we should go. She isn’t aware of this hospital being a centre for concerned relatives and suggests we enquire at Reception. So we stand in the queue for the general reception desk and wait our turn. The person at the desk can’t tell us anything either, but directs us to a waiting room in another part of the hospital which is being used, she believes, as a temporary incident room. Once or twice we manage to get lost en route until eventually we find a member of staff who accompanies us to the right floor, leading the way through a door where we’re plunged into a sea of confused and worried faces, all turning to look at the newcomers as we enter the room. It’s a montage of images and shapes, of tableaux and sounds; it’s a film set with actors dressed as officers and personnel: there’s a sari and several pairs of jeans in shades of blue denim; a diminutive, elderly nun dressed in traditional black habit and a young black-suited cleric, tall with a slightly stooped appearance, wearing glasses and a dog collar. He’s holding a half-eaten sandwich still in its plastic container. This is not real. This does not belong to my reality, to the quiet vigil of yesterday or the gently poignant journey along the coast.
There’s a round table in the corner with large flasks and trays of beakers, jugs of milk and bowls of sugar; teaspoons are scattered around the table and used sugar packets litter the surface. A seated area to the left is separated from the rest of the room by a sort of handrail barrier. Some people are sitting, talking to what I assume to be police or medical staff and others are standing around the room. Doors at the end lead out to a balcony where some people are smoking, others speaking into mobile phones. Now that we’re here we don’t quite know what to do. At one and the same time it is both reassuring and bewildering. Having arrived at the place we now find ourselves hovering on the edge of someone else’s drama. There’s chaos, bustle, noise, yet in the midst of it all there’s purpose and quiet calm amongst the gathered groups. There’s a couple standing to our right; the woman holds a picture of a younger woman in formal graduation robes and smiling out from the picture. I catch the woman’s eyes; they’re troubled and slightly desperate. For a second or two we connect and exchange a look born out of mutual understanding as something between a smile and a grimace passes between us.
Martyn and Dendy arrive, talking about where they parked the car, unsure whether it was a legal parking space. Martyn shrugs his shoulders: ‘I left a note of explanation on the windscreen and hope I don’t get clamped or towed away.’ The five