IT'S A DAD'S LIFE:They were sad for a second but they hadn't seen it so they didn't really care
IN THE WEEK before Christmas we have life and death. Three puppies are born but one never breathes. On the night of the event the kids watch. Ooh. Aah.
The first one comes, black and slick. I ring my dog-expert aunt and ask are they supposed to move by themselves or do they need prodding. Because this one isn’t too active. She advises a warm cloth and a chest massage. I hand the cloth to the missus and rip open my shirt. She doesn’t laugh. She is perturbed at events and I realise I am the experienced individual here. The missus has never been at this end of proceedings before.
I breathe into my centre and press play on the old episodes of All Creatures Great And Small contained in my brain archive. My accent turns Churchillian but I get the small dog’s lungs moving. The kids watch. Ooh. Aah. Daddy brings animals to life.
The dogs settle. We take pictures and soothe the mother who seems the calmest in the house. By now time has flown. It’s late and the brats have school in the morning. They are buzzing but we calm and calm and they are coerced into bed. Minutes later the elder comes screaming down the stairs with news that the dog has taken refuge under her bed. Baby number one has been left in the basket while mother makes a dart for darkness and solitude to deliver number two.
We rush up, taking care not to slip in blood on the wooden stairs. I hear the missus’s intake of breath at its sight; bodily fluids strewn about the house are not encouraged here. I’m not loving their rampant distribution either.
I bend by the bed and spot the mutt nuzzled into the far corner. Already there is a new shape beside her. This one is moving of its own accord. To access dog and baby we have to peel back mattress and horizontal bed bars. The kids keep the mattress in place by sitting on it bent double as I reach into the impromptu delivery ward and scoop the two out. It’s only then I realise the younger is holding the first born in case she would be upset at being away from her mammy. The pup so small she sits easily inside a five-year-old’s fist.
We have had high drama. Babies and runaway mothers and blood and ad libbed labour wards. Still, the kids need their beds. We coax once more and convince them to lay down, assuring them that they can have face time with no-limit squealing in the morning.
Fortunately they sleep because the third, and last puppy, when it arrives, lies in a slack bundle at its mother’s rear. She nips at it, prodding and turning, but no response. I pitch in, adding warmth and clearing tubes, whispering encouragement, cajoling and hoping. But it lies there, black and cool, its fat-wrinkled face inexpressive. I vow not to tell the kids of its existence and bury the body in the garden. All it takes is three turns of a decent shovel and the thing is gone.
Morning is a high-octane fray of excited girls. I can sense the mother’s panic at her new arrivals being manhandled and we have to lay ground rules so the babies have some shot at survival. I couldn’t take their making it this far only to be loved into an early grave by my over-exuberant pair. We drag the girls to school and they enter with the air of those with mystique, those who have news.
That night, at bed-time, the elder asks me about the one who died and I realise the missus could not keep such drama to herself. I don’t know whether she thought it would be a good lesson for the kids to realise that birth is risky or whether she was bursting with a knowledge that she knew would get massive response.
I should have known her penchant for drama (well, the love of drama all three of them share) would outweigh any concern for what effect the death would have on them.
They didn’t care. They didn’t see it, so they didn’t care. They would have liked a third to fuss over, but they never met it, didn’t see it, so they didn’t care. What they loved was that the drama of death gave their story extra frisson. They could ooh about the first one’s arrival, aah about the second one under the bed, and now be sombre about the sad demise of the third.
Pre-Christmas week soap opera heaven, with them as the stars. And me worried about their emotional wellbeing. I need to get my priorities right.