Legacy (22 page)

Chapter Fifty Seven

In the year after my degree I hoped it was our final move and I made a move away, I wanted to start my life and I went to my then favourite place Dublin. I lasted there for seven weeks as Mum took ill again, in the absence of any other support I resigned myself to my new fate a carer and came home.

It was then I really noticed a changing Belfast, more and more black faces; who as far as many locals were concerned, were blotting the landscape. Yet Mum said these faces weren't like our Dad, these new people on the whole were not professionals they weren't middle class. They were refugees and asylum seekers. They had come here out of sheer distress; many had nowhere to go. Within a few months they filled out the many rentals in Belfast. Some of the houses housed so many that they were full to overflowing.

I would hear remarks of the locals, “they're everywhere”, or “they're coming here to steal our jobs, our benefits and our houses.” Suddenly Alison and I found ourselves labelled; what little individualism we had was gone, we were simply immigrants. So far we had been asked if our cousin or brother or sister lived down the road, had been in the same shop as us or had been on our bus. It seemed that to the Northern Irish all black people were related, regardless if they resembled each other or spoke in the same tongue or even came from the same country. I was once asked if a lady from Thailand was my sister, despite the fact that our ancestors hail from different parts of the Globe. Mum would tell us if they were to ask again, to point out a random white person and ask the person enquiring, what their relation to them was.

Even though Mum began to depend on me more and more she still had her mothering instinct and Mum grew scared for us. Her fears didn't go unfounded. They materialised one day when I was walking my dog in the local park.

I was attacked. I remember that a black man had jogged past me; he was simply out for a run harming no one. After he had passed a white man approached me. It was all too much for his little mind to have a black man passing him followed in quick succession by a black girl. He exploded and took his disgust out on me. He had grabbed my shoulders, his fingers digging roughly into my bones and shook me. He spat at me to go back home and “Get the fuck out of his country.” His explosion finished with a punch.

I returned home shaken and bruised and told Mum of my ordeal. We didn't go to the police, instead Mum meted out her own justice. She dragged me to the park every day at the same time until we finally ran into the attacker. I identified a large man in his late 50s as the culprit. Mum approached him and he continued his rant to her. She gave him an opportunity to apologise, but when she saw that none was forthcoming, she did what I least expected. She called on her old friend Anger, and together they attacked him. Mum says she didn't know where her strength came from that day; perhaps he received every blow that every racist she had encountered deserved. It wasn't long before he screamed for mercy. He apologised frantically and I believe sincerely to me. He reassured me that he would never, ever utter another racist word again. When I looked at how he groped his neither regions after Mum's kicks, something told me to believe him.

Dealing with the attacker unfortunately did not put an end to the racial tensions that were unfolding all over Belfast. The locals were none too happy at having something new in their midst and being Northern Irish weren't afraid to express themselves. Their opinions didn't surprise me; these people couldn't live with each other, so it was no revelation when they struggled to live with anyone else.

One day I went out to our back yard to find it splashed with a swastika, the following morning the tires on my little banger, my pride and joy were slashed. A brash warning was thrown in our letter box. We packed our belongings and fled.

Chapter Fifty Eight

Our 14th house was just outside Belfast in the village of Holywood, and Mum loved it. She said in an alternative world had she and Dad decided to settle in Northern Ireland this was where she would have chosen. It was in this house that Mum's tiredness reached epic proportions and I pleaded with her to give up work. I was beginning a Master's degree but was also working part time, Alison was working full time. My sisters and I weren't high earners but we combined my part time income with her wage from temping and decided we would cope. Mum was worn out she needed a break and this new house in this pretty village was the perfect place for her to recuperate, to allow her to regain strength.

Recently Mum just had no strength; she was tiny and began to look so frail. Her hands shook and her conversation became fragmented. There was some benefits for Mum though because whilst Alison was working Sarah-Jayne and her Granny Bumba spent their days together. They would go to the local beach, the park and make all manner of buns and cakes. Mum would say that she was doing what she missed out on with us.

We spent a year in that house until our rent fell behind. Alison's contract came to an end and my job had to go, the final stages of my masters were becoming intensive. Once again we were faced with pay the rent or eat.

We ate, we were evicted and we were faced with moving to house number 15.

We moved on a Tuesday and we were evicted on the Friday. Things were worse than ever, this time we really had struck rock bottom, we were homeless. I couldn't take any more yet alone Mum. She was collapsing more and more I can only liken it to a powerful blow hitting her head, I imagine her skull reverberating in pain, as she felt the hinges that supported her shelf being ripped one by one from the wall. Dust and debris filled her consciousness and the wall shook. Painful remnants of her past, shelved neatly away until now assaulted her, striking her from every direction. Her childhood, nursing during the troubles, my Dad, racism, endless moves and poverty all came back to her. I believe Mum's shelf collapsed.

2005 -2010
Chapter Fifty Nine

From a very early age I remember suffering from a recurring dream. I used to wake at night shivering and terrified. Some dreams are forgotten when consciousness returns yet the frequency of this one meant that it always stayed fresh. I used to dream that I was standing outside Melmount Church in Strabane, and looking for Mum amongst the crowds leaving the Mass. I would see her standing near the doors and make my way towards her. When I would get near the crowds would disappear and I would look up to find three people who all looked like my Mum. I knew that only one was the real her and that the other two were bad. Yet I had no way of telling them apart, they were all identical.

Each one would be beckoning me and I never knew who to go to. I would eventually make up my mind and approach the one that I felt was Mum. Then I would wake just knowing that I had made the wrong decision. Now I look at my dream with an uneducated interpretation, I think I was always seeking the good Mum, the one who I saw now and again, the one who wasn't depressed, angry or tired.

After our eviction and Mum's complete breakdown I was on my own. I couldn't fathom why our landlady had suddenly asked us to leave and could only assume Mum had said something wrong, pushed her too far. I was furious my only thoughts at the time were ‘what
has she done now?'
or
‘that's another fine mess she's got us into'
. I had used every last penny of my final wages and then some to secure this house and Mum had just bloody told me that the landlady wants us out.

The mortification of it all. How would I ever begin to explain this one? The few friends that I had clearly assumed I was from a travelling background, as no sooner had we moved into one house were we packing up for another.

Recently Mum had become a law onto herself. She had been acting so strangely. She would forget her phone number, her date of birth and even more scarily her name. I worried about her all the time.

For the most part though, Mum made me laugh. She had begun to say the most terrible and inappropriate things, she would comment on strangers' right to their faces, telling them they were fat or worse point out features like big noses or their general ugliness as she perceived it. I spent my days silencing her; she really was going to get herself into trouble.

I began to take her everywhere over those years, she was behaving so oddly I feared she might get lost. Or worse and more likely, that she would say the wrong thing to the wrong person. I had taken her to the doctors one week and two ladies were talking amongst themselves in the waiting room. Mum began to show signs of irritation and eventually looked at me and asked,

“Are they ever going to shut up?”

I invariably shushed her, looking over my shoulder to ensure they hadn't heard. They hadn't and went on with their talking. This was unfortunate; for them. As they continued talking Mum turned to them and bellowed,

“Would you fucking shut up,” they looked at her aghast, as did I, “this is a doctor's I have a headache and your droning is making it worse, now if you want a social gathering why don't you go elsewhere? Instead of sitting here making the sick sicker,” she had tutted.

I put my head in my hands and chastised myself;
I should have seen this coming.
Mum had been getting agitated. This was my fault.

The doctor must have heard the commotion, and realised what its source was because within seconds, Mum was ushered into the office. If nothing else Mum certainly knew how to beat the queue.

When the door closed, I looked at the two stunned ladies and apologised, they smiled and nodded. I assumed my apology had been accepted, yet they never regained their conversation. Well I mused inwardly if they hadn't needed a doctor before, they certainly needed one now, so at least they were in the right place.

It transpired that Mum had asked the Landlady to fix the electric cable that connected the cooker to the mains and for new flooring in the living room, these demands were too much. Within ten minutes of Mum's request, we had been blamed for tampering with her oil boiler; ‘something we often did as a family pastime', and an eviction statement rather than notice was administered.

I was so angry, the thought of another move and one so soon made me feel sick. How could I have been so silly and not predicted this? It's not as though we hadn't experienced landlords before. Good grief I had known more landlords in this town than I had hot dinners and I meant that literally. I should be able to see a scoundrel by now. I had done most of the dealings with this one, Mum was loose cannon these days. This eviction was therefore all down to me.

With some regret I let myself wallow for a while, if only we could have some permanency, just some time to plant roots. I wished we could just stay in one place long enough, if we could save something, have something behind us so we could be prepared for crisis. We could be proactive for once. In all my years it seemed that Mum had done her best, but circumstances had driven her to be reactive.

Hearing that we had set a new family record, perhaps even a world record in having the shortest tenancy in history, I became enraged. The house had once been a student house and looked like one. At least three slovenly young lads had lived in it. Not only had we just moved back to bloody Belfast, we were stuck with yet another hovel. The coastal town that Mum adored had few private rentals at our asking price. I had scoured the papers and shop windows searching for something, anything that could keep her there, nothing had been available. As we were once again behind on the rent we had little time to find this house, as usual we had no time to plan.

We had packed up all our things and moved in; for the umpteenth time I arranged the transfer of electric and phones and re-directed the post. Alison arranged for Sarah-Jayne to attend yet another unfamiliar school.

Chapter Sixty

We were expert at this moving business, I couldn't do a lot of things but hand me a tenancy and a new set of keys and I excelled. Mum and I with the help of Sarah- Jayne, in reality the hindrance of Sarah-Jayne had spent three days cleaning before we could unpack.

Many houses can be described as bursting with life, this was one was positively exploding with it. The kitchen looked like it could walk away all by itself, and the bathroom nurtured its very own species.

For the umpteenth time since our move to this city, we started to clean the kitchen first and then worked our way through the house. We scrubbed the house and it's furnishings down from top to bottom, our hands were red raw and blistered. At least the place now smelt clean and fresh and we could begin to unpack.

We had no furniture of our own anymore, over the years anything we had accumulated we had lost in our many moves. Sometimes we hadn't lost anything at all, but it was easier to think that we did. The reality was we had had to sell even the chairs we had sat on, money was tight it had always been, but these moves were taking it out of us.

As usual each house needed a deposit, a month's advance rent and removal vans. They all needed a cash injection. To raise funds we borrowed and when that option was exhausted we sold something. The loan repayments grew so high that we were working for nothing, at the end of each month when everyone was paid back there was barely enough to buy a few food items. A trip to the pawn merchant became a part of the monthly cycle.

This time though we were spent out and had nothing left to sell. For the previous move, Mum had parted with the remains of her jewellery. The last item left in a once impressive collection was her wedding ring, to my shame this too had to be pawned. I was glad she had pawned it rather than sell it; I wanted so much to buy it back for her and was until now making good progress towards that goal.

Our new landlady had other ideas; she was intent on throwing us out. I knew then that I could forget the promise I had made of retrieving the ring, it was like everything else we ever had of value, a thing of the past. On the positive side I had just received the news that I had achieved my Master's degree, I was elated. It also meant that I was no longer a student; I could now look for proper work. I could support Mum. This next move although unplanned would be easier I would secure a job and I would ensure that the rent was paid. Mum was even cheered by the news of my Masters; she seemed to liven up a little and even promised to attend my graduation. I had missed my first graduation so was looking forward to attending this one. First though I had to secure a house.