Letter from Afghanistan

It began one very drunken night in late September 2005: one very drunken night. A matter of weeks later and the man with whom I’d spent that drunken night had joined the army and was enjoying the rigours of Basic Training. A few weeks after that and I felt duty bound to ask whether he was alone before I told him over the phone that I was pregnant with his child.

He was not the first person to know about my pregnancy, but about the seventh. I would have been happy to tell him sooner but he’d been on exercise and, frankly, had just about had enough of me acting like a weirdo anyway so I didn’t think he’d call back straight away.

There was never, ever any doubt in my mind that I wanted to keep the baby.

Of course, this is wrapped up with how the rest of my life was going at the time which was, in truth, bad. On the work front I was screwing up my job due to choosing it badly, on the money front I was skint and on the relationship front I’d broken up with the rebound fling (shortly before the drunken night in September) only to realise that all I’d done was postpone the sadness and emptiness of the loss of my previous relationship. I’m entirely prepared to admit that if these had all been better, then having a baby in adverse circumstances might not have looked so appealing.

But this is it. I defend absolutely the right to access safe abortion but I’d only ever take that choice in the most extreme of circumstances.

So Mr One Night In September (Mr ONIS) said that I had his full support whatever my choice was. I had already made that choice, he flatly refused to tell me what he would have done, on the grounds that if he wanted me to terminate the pregnancy I’d be upset and if he said that he really wanted us to have the baby I wouldn’t believe him. I still don’t know his initial thoughts on finding out I was pregnant.

Pregnancy is an odd time which can wreak havoc with feelings and bodies and during which, because of the British Army, I barely saw Mr ONIS and would honestly have had trouble picking him out of a line up.

The baby, our little girl, arrived two weeks early. I wouldn’t want to bore anyone with the details of her birth. It’s enough to say that I managed to time it perfectly as MR ONIS was on weekend leave. He met my mum for the first time in the labour room, and behaved impeccably throughout.

Since then, since he’s been in my life as much as our daughter’s, I find that new parts of my personality are coming through, and his accepting and steady nature has rubbed off a little on me. I stopped taking myself so seriously, chilled out a little and got a lot happier in the process.

Having not asked for her or planned her, there is no doubting the quality of fathering that our daughter receives, despite the army taking him away regularly and sometimes completely out of contact on exercise. I adore him as a human being but most of all as a father, I’m in awe of the way he’s taken it in his stride and consistently shows how much he loves her.

The most impressive thing is the impact that observing Mr ONIS with our daughter has had on my dad. I have never been the ‘Daddy’s girl’, when my sister in law told me that “you’re always your dad’s little girl” I remember thinking “No I’m not”. And I wasn’t. We weren’t close and had nothing apart from genes in common. I was a burden and a nuisance: the third child he didn’t really want but was stuck with anyway. Seeing Mr ONIS refer to our daughter by various clichéd pet names (‘angel’, ‘princess’, ‘beautiful’ etc), my dad began to use them about me. It was as though, once there was someone to model the behaviour of ‘having a little girl’, Dad treated this as instructional and followed suit. Suddenly, as an adult, I have become my dad's little girl.

Further, Mr ONIS values what I do. I am at home with our little girl now until she starts school. I’m fairly typical of modern mothers who experience guilt at their own choices as a defining feature of motherhood. (Few men have the same contradictory expectations foisted on them by the media and Society At Large so, no, I’m not including them in that statement.) I often feel that I should be doing everything better, shinier and with paid employment. Often, my degree feels like a waste.

It’s difficult to remain indifferent to the conflicting media messages about being a mother and, whatever your choice, it helps to have a supportive someone telling you how well you’re doing. I have that someone and he’s called Mr ONIS (not his real name).

But Mr ONIS has been away, playing an important-but-not-frontline role in the War on Terror [sic] in Afghanistan, since the beginning of April.

I made up my mind, from the outset, that as he hadn’t asked to have the massive emotional tie of a child, and that the rest of his army career hinged on how this tour went, I would do what I could from this end. To this end, I have sent him a weekly parcel of a copy of Nuts [sic and sick], puzzles from the Guardian, books, silly toys, toiletries, sweets and, fortnightly, a copy of Bizarre magazine. I’ve written emails or eblueys almost daily. He’s been away so long now that it’s just become a habit. Every week I say to the newsagent “It’s not for me!” as I pick up his copy of Nuts.

Inevitably, this hasn’t been matched by communication from his end. Realistically, it was never going to be. Where I can comfortably write (or talk) for hours, he keeps his own counsel a lot more. The letters I’ve had in return have been few and jokey. It’s not worth upsetting myself over, though. I have no idea what things are really like out there, no idea what he’s seen. I had never considered, in my boring civilian life, that anyone might be listening to or reading my communications but there is no escaping that possibility during a satellite phone call to a soldier on ops.

At first I was worried about who I’d be without him, but as the days, weeks and months have been slowly crossed off the calendar I realise that for the first time in years, I am happy. I’m not happy that he isn’t here, but I’ve found my feet, made social links, I’ve been writing again for the first time in (?) ages. The garden which Mr ONIS began excavating and remodelling is finished, I’ve been on holiday, redecorated, acquired large houseplants and dyed my hair pink.

The question now is not who am I without him but who I’ll be when he gets back. I realise this is horribly navel gazing but he’ll have changed (inevitably), I’ve changed. Will he still like me? Will we get on?

I don’t have the answers, and although, actually, the time has gone fast, I am now as nervous about his return as I was about him leaving.

Fathers and Daughters

My relationship with both my parents is deeply special to me, but right now, this is about my Dad and me and my brother and my niece.

They are both complex men, different and similar all at once. My brother thrives on a reputation of being open minded and wayward, yet can surprise with the conservative nature of some of his values and beliefs. My dad is the opposite, like a picture in negative, his conservative reputation is important to him, yet every now and again he surprises me with his open mindedness.

They both have strongly misogynist streaks. Where has this come from? With my Dad I think it’s clear. He was married twice for nearly twenty years each time: his first marriage was to a woman who left him and their children while he was on a naval tour of duty, returning to port to find his car keys and a note with the Harbour Master. His second wife, my mother, was a woman who excelled in her field and earned more than him after he left the armed forces and retrained as a teacher. She eventually left him and took up with another woman.

With that in mind, I can delineate my Dad’s feelings about women reasonably easily. I know less about my brother’s experience, but he was one of the kids his mother left, which must obviously have had a huge impact, leading him to behave badly which resulted in my niece’s mother leaving him. She left without warning him and without notice. He just came back from work one day and she was gone.

(I confess a sneaking admiration for this. If you give warning and discuss it beforehand then it becomes an ultimatum and gives the soon-to-be-ex a chance to falsely improve their behaviour, which never lasts and only confuses matters. As such, I think this is how it should be done and she managed it, off to another country, with a baby and a toddler in tow. She’s a pretty impressive lady.)

Undoubtedly being dumped so abruptly had a massive impact on my brother, but one of the reasons she left was the ways his pre-existing misogyny played itself out.

He is also generally unpleasant.

So, my niece and nephew who are now in their twenties were brought up in their mother’s country of origin in a stable environment with grandparents, uncles, aunts and family friends over generations close by. They are distinct personalities, both creative, both intelligent, very much like their mother. They were not without male figures in their lives but they were shielded from their father. At no point was he denied contact, it was just stipulated (wisely) that their mother had to be present.

For the last twenty years, my brother’s ex has gone to great lengths to ensure that she remained in touch with our family and that both children had the chance to spend time with us and meet us. It’s only now that I spend time with my in-laws that I realise how difficult this can be, even when you get on well.


My brother, Mr WeeWeeHead, turned this into denial of access and then denial full stop. My Dad followed his lead, identifying wholly with his son. For years, the subject of his grandchildren was taboo and he denied their entire existence.

Meanwhile, Mr WeeWeeHead had a fling with a woman he met on his travels, she got pregnant and had their baby: a little girl. When he caught up with them back at home they got together, he moved in them and has been a father to their daughter.

I struggle to figure out whether this is a good or a bad thing.

This was the status quo for fifteen years. The eldest two didn’t exist and he has come back to be with his youngest daughter. It all changed earlier this year when my niece got in touch with him. Immediately he made the huge offer to take her on a skiing holiday for two weeks.

That’s big, generous, but it’s a fraction of what he owes her.

She feels that their holiday was amazing, like she had a real connection with him. He was clearly moved by her being there and proud of the young woman she’s become. He emailed my Dad photos of the two of them and for the first time in many years, my father began to accept her existence. My brother was eager to tell my niece what “really” happened, his version of events which leading up to that point. My niece is a smart girl and has spent hours around people who think about the differences in the ways those events were perceived and why that might be. He said nothing that surprised her, though uncharacteristically she didn’t respond or point out the inconsistencies. She nodded silently while she listened to his tale of woe (I have little sympathy for him) and gave herself a panic attack instead.

During the worsening panic attack, my brother told her ‘Daddy will sort everything out’ a doctor was called, and then an ambulance and she ended up in hospital, just for a while, but exhausted from the sedatives. Everyone was scared. The curious thing, though, was that at one point, my brother began to develop his own panic attack in sympathy with her and had to leave the room. This, my niece felt, bonded them, and they spent time getting to know each other and his pride in his daughter was obvious.

The difficulty, though, came when everybody went home. They went back to their normal selves. In my wee-wee head brother’s case, that is someone who is self-righteous, arrogant, dismissive, self-absorbed who spends more time in the pub than with his family. He puts time and effort into maintaining this image. Inevitably my niece called and tried to talk to him but was puzzled by his lack of enthusiasm and even interest for anything she has to say.

On the phone, that means she’ll keep talking. We’re alike in that respect, if it’s quiet, we need to fill the space.

On her next visit, a six day trip, he worked, she spent time with his partner and their daughter. She came to see me. We had a lovely day, but from what she told me, it seemed that she was discovering the other side of my big brother. I know that this is going to be a bumpy ride for her, but one that only she can take and she’s entitled to. The only thing I can do is to listen to her. I can’t bad mouth my brother, that would be inappropriate, however tempting.

The other thing I can do, and have so far done with success, is negotiate her pocket money from her grandpa. She insists that she’s an adult and has her own money. It’s true she’s an adult and has a job, but she is still my father’s grand-daughter, still a child of this family, and frankly, it’s the least he can do.