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It’s strange the way when things start going wrong for someone they often go from bad to worse. Up until 2009, I would have said that Jonah had led something of a charmed life with everything going right for him and his family. An amazing stroke of luck had brought him to the attention of DCI Richard Paige, starting him on a career in the CID that looked to be moving him ever onwards and upwards towards Chief Constable or whatever goal he may have set himself. He was married to a highly intelligent – if a little eccentric – woman, who was also a skilled surgeon and bringing in a consultant surgeon’s salary. They had a house in South Oxfordshire with extensive grounds in which he could indulge his passion for gardening. Their two sons both went off to good universities and seemed set to make successful professional careers for themselves. If anybody ever had it all, it was Jonah Porter.
The bullet in his neck changed everything. I still find it hard to fathom how he managed to come through that without sinking into despondency and despair – not least because it was so much against his nature to be inactive or reliant on other people. I’m sure that his wife, Margaret, must have played a big part in keeping him sane, particularly in the early days. And, of course, it was she upon whom he depended totally when they were at home together. So it must have come as an almost unbearable second blow when she was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
There have been massive advances in cancer treatment in recent years, but ovarian cancer is still very often a killer. The symptoms aren’t that easy to spot in its early stages – and I don’t imagine that Margaret was focussing on her own health under the circumstances of having Jonah’s wellbeing to think about all the time. So, by the time she found out, there was nothing much that could be done. Surgery and chemotherapy put off the inevitable for a few months, but we all knew that there would be no cure.
If I believed in God, I would be very angry with him for allowing it to happen. It seemed such a waste for Margaret to die when there was so much for her still to do. Quite apart from looking after Jonah, she was saving lives on a daily basis in her work in the emergency department at the hospital. I remember calling in at her office once and seeing the array of cards on the shelves – from grateful patients thanking her for patching them up after they’d damaged themselves in accidents of all kinds.
I think it was particularly hard for their two boys. Reuben, who had just qualified as a consultant and was settled with his wife and three kids in County Durham, was spared the agony of watching his mother’s daily slow decline, but – which was quite possibly worse – he had to endure the impotence of following the progress of the disease from a distance, unable to do anything to help. Nathan, their younger son, had already been through the trauma of watching Jonah’s slow rehabilitation while he was still at university. Now he was working to qualify as a barrister in London, which meant that he was close enough to come home virtually every weekend. He was – and is – very willing, but Jonah was never completely at ease with him taking on Margaret’s role as principal carer.
Seeing how difficult it was for the family coming to terms with Margaret’s inexorable decline and inevitable death, I began to wonder if I had been lucky to lose Angie suddenly and unexpectedly the way I did.
Margaret was incredibly brave – or at least that’s how it appeared to us as outsiders. Of course, only she knows what agonies she went through as the disease ran its devastating course. And only Jonah knows what they may have confided to one another in those dreadful months leading up to her death. I just remember her being very calm and matter-of-fact, as if dying were just one of those inconveniencies that you had to work around in your plans – like road closures or the office computer being off for routine maintenance.
The one thing that really did worry Margaret was what was going to happen to Jonah after she was gone. She told Bernie how pleased she was about her plan to take early retirement in order to become his Personal Assistant during working hours. That at least made a statement about his determination to continue working, but it was more difficult to decide what to do about caring for him at home. Paying for live-in professional staff was clearly an option, but as soon as the family admitted that they were unable to cope, there would be subtle pressure for Jonah to give up the family home and move into a care home, where the costs would be lower and the care could be delivered more efficiently.
They very sensibly called a family conference – Reuben and his wife Anne, Nathan, Jonah’s sister, Sarah, and the three of us: Bernie, Lucy and myself. Reuben and Sarah both thought that it was odd including us, but Jonah and Margaret insisted. Reuben’s first suggestion was that Jonah should give up the job and go up to Durham to live with them. His argument was that, since they already had to organise childcare for three kids, it would be relatively simple to work their lives around caring for him as well. When Jonah insisted that he wanted to stay in Oxfordshire in order to keep on working, Reuben and Sarah both thought that a care home would be the best option. Nathan volunteered to live at home and commute into London for his work, so that he could care for Jonah, but Margaret was sceptical that he would be able to cope and worried that his career might suffer.
All the time that members of Jonah’s family were talking, I could see that Lucy was wanting to jump in to protest at the way everyone appeared to be assuming that looking after Jonah was a problem – or at very least a regrettable necessity – that needed to be addressed. She has always been very definite that caring for Jonah is, as far as she’s concerned, a privilege and not a chore. Perhaps it’s because, being only nine when it happened, she had never before had the experience of being entrusted with the care of another human being. She is rightly very proud of what she does for Jonah. I suspect that Bernie’s attitude may have something to do with it as well. She grew up with a disabled mother and sees caring as just part of normal family life.
Even before Lucy burst in and interrupted the discussion, I’d been trying to think of a way that we might be able to offer help without stepping on the toes of Jonah’s ‘real’ family. I can’t remember now whether I’d got things worked out in advance or if it just occurred at me at the time. What I do want to put on record is that it wasn’t something that Bernie and I cooked up together – still less that she was pressurising me to do it. Really, I couldn’t see that there was anything else I could have done. No, that’s coming across all wrong. I don’t mean that I felt under an obligation or anything like that. I suppose what I’m getting at is that I wanted to help and I knew that Bernie and Lucy did too, but I also knew that Bernie wouldn’t volunteer us to do anything in case she forced me into something I wasn’t comfortable with. So it was down to me to make the first move. I don’t know whether any of that makes sense, but that’s how it was.
My proposal was that Jonah would come to stay with us during the working week, which made a whole lot of sense considering that Bernie was already committed to caring for him during working hours. Each weekend, he’d go back to the family home and Nathan would come out from London to stay with him. That way Nathan wouldn’t have to commute daily and would be available for the various evening events that seem to be an important part of the life of an aspiring barrister. We’d had Jonah to stay several times before – particularly since Margaret had been ill – and our house had been modified in a number of ways to suit his needs. It seemed to me to be a perfect solution.
Jonah and Margaret agreed. I could see how relieved they both were that Jonah would not be left entirely in Nathan’s hands. Poor Nathan! He tries so hard, but it’s difficult for Jonah to accept the reversal of roles involved in allowing his own son to look after all his bodily functions. And Nathan doesn’t seem to be able to get over his tendency to over-protectiveness. Maybe when he has children of his own, he’ll start to understand the concept of benign neglect!
People sometimes seem to think that I was being very noble and self-sacrificing, but I really didn’t do anything special. In some ways, having Jonah living with us during the week made our life easier than when Bernie was having to drive over to his house each day to pick him up and take him to work and then drop him off again each evening before returning home. Jonah managed to get a transfer from South Oxfordshire to Oxford City, which means that now their travel to work distance is negligible and Bernie’s working day is considerably shorter. Weekends were better too, because Lucy got plenty of opportunity to talk to Jonah in the evenings and stopped demanding to go over to visit him at home.
Margaret died shortly before Easter, just over a year after she was diagnosed. I remember that we buried her on Maundy Thursday. Jonah was with her in the hospice during her last hours and Bernie was with them when she died. I know I shouldn’t have done, but I remember when I heard about it thinking how lucky Jonah was to have had the chance to say goodbye – in contrast to my own experience when Angie was killed.