Learning to Love Ireland (14 page)

We agreed that Tara Close
was
looking lovely. The houses had been freshly painted, and the flower pots and window boxes were ablaze with colour. Marigolds and lobelia had been planted beneath the statue of Our Lady. Even Cynthia, who maintained that plants were a waste of time, had caved in. Four Busy Lizzies in pots had appeared outside her apartment. I hadn't had the heart to tell her that she'd chosen the thirstiest of plants.

I was secretly ecstatic about my ‘front garden' which was, in reality, the concreted area on either side of the front door. I'd gone for bright colours and things that were easy to grow. There were purple and yellow pansies, Busy Lizzies in brilliant oranges and reds, fuchsias and petunias. In the patio I had a variety of shrubs with two rhododendrons taking pride of place. They'd flowered already, unfortunately. On Tuesday evening when I'd come home from work, I'd found a pair of hanging baskets attached to our fence. I knew Larry wasn't responsible, since he thought we had more than enough ‘triffids'.

‘I hear they're only on loan,' Louise said. She'd acquired two as well. ‘When the Tidy Towns Garden Competition's over, the committee will probably want them back. What a pity. I've grown fond of mine already.'

I told them about our beautiful two-month-old granddaughter, aware that I must be careful not to monopolise the conversation for too long.

Bailey Shea was born by caesarean section on 25 February. After an uncomfortable pregnancy, Audra had a difficult labour. Since fathers were the only visitors allowed at the hospital (there had been a MRSA scare), it was several days before we saw the baby.

It was like being new parents again. That overwhelming surge of love. That intense desire to hold her close and kiss her little scrunched-up face. That delight in watching her sleep surrounded by the friendly menagerie of African animals we'd bought for her, arms stretched above her head, tiny fists clenched like a miniature Tyson. When Brian held her for the first time, she fastened herself like Velcro to his shoulder and slept there for ages, sucking her thumb.

We didn't have disposable nappies when Sean and Brian were babies. We didn't have the gadgets and contraptions available today that amuse infants and young children and keep them safe. Cot monitors and bath thermometers and specially designed car seats and mobiles that play Mozart and Forest Sounds...

Audra and I were looking forward to dancing lessons. We could visualise her wearing a powder puff tutu and little pink ballet shoes. Sean said he was going to take her to Krav Maga classes. He explained that this was a system of hand-to-hand self-defence developed for the Israeli Defence Forces. He got positively lyrical describing the techniques designed for attack situations.

Larry sent Sean and Audra an article from the
Irish Times
about a twelve-year-old girl who had disabled an intruder and then chased him out of the house...

Our adorable Bailey had a hundred different moods and expressions. One moment she was amusing us with shrieks and chuckles. Seconds later, she was crying – she'd realised she was hungry.

She enjoyed her christening, except for the part where she had to be held over the font to have water poured on her forehead. I could sympathise. Her ordeal reminded me of our visit to Cork in 1982 when I had to lean backwards over the battlements at Blarney Castle to kiss the Blarney Stone, while the attendant held onto my legs to stop me plummeting 200 feet.

We were hoping it wouldn't be long before she enjoyed her swimming lessons.

We'd all heard stories about very young children who'd managed to ‘save themselves' when they'd fallen into a lake or pool. Teaching one's baby to swim as early as possible was the sensible thing to do. Water Babies instructors taught aquatic breathing, propulsion, buoyancy and basic water confidence. Within a matter of weeks, some babies would be floating comfortably on their backs.

When Sean was a toddler, he thought he could walk on water. On two occasions he climbed into our swimming pool without making a sound. One moment he was playing beside us; seconds later, he was drowning, face-down in the water. Brian also loved the pool, but he'd been more cautious. He'd throw a tantrum each time we hauled him out to warm him with hot chocolate and vigorous towelling. Through chattering teeth, he'd insist he wasn't cold.

From our seats in the viewing area, we watched Sean and Bailey join the class in the heated pool for her third lesson. The instructor was a lively young woman. She wanted the babies to look at her – no easy task – there were twelve of them. She spoke slowly and clearly, smiled and waggled her fingers. Most of the babies seemed happy, relaxed and cooperative. Bailey, on the other hand, appeared determined
not
to enjoy herself.

Sean chanted the directions and went through the motions, along with the other parents:

Splish, splash, splish, splash,

Around in a circle

And... UP in the air!

He hated singing, but he was prepared to make sacrifices for his daughter.

After a while, the mums and dads were instructed to sit the babies on the edge of the pool. They had to settle them and then swing them down into the water. They were to repeat the activity two or three times. But Bailey didn't want to sit. She wanted to stand. And when she wanted to stand, nothing else would do. Surprisingly strong, she stiffened her legs and refused to bend them. She became a rigid little board that intended to stay where it was.

The next part of the lesson involved wetting the babies' faces. ‘Bouncy, bouncy, bouncy – round and around and around...' Bailey was tired of this nonsense. It wasn't fun like bath-time. She wanted out. She wanted her mum. She wanted her lunch.

She was unmoved by Sean's rendition of ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star'. Sean was distressed. Bailey hadn't shown the other kids how it was done. Perhaps she wasn't going to be an Olympic swimmer after all! Perhaps next week her mum should swim with her...

Audra wrapped her in her special towel and held her tightly. She peered out from under the hoodie with its bear's face and ears and stopped crying. We told her that she was a clever girl.

When they emerged from the changing room she was wearing a cute denim skirt with warm tights and clutching Denzil the Dragonfly. She saw us waiting near the pool entrance with the other sports fans, and gave Larry the most wonderful smile.

‘You're
my
Granddad,' her smile said.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTEEN

There were those awful, arid days when you couldn't think of a thing to say. Or when what you wrote was drivel. Or when you read what someone else had written and you thought ‘I'll never be able to write like that'.

There were those occasions when, as you were lying in the bath with your mind in neutral, a marvellous image or phrase suddenly presented itself. While it was hovering like a hummingbird on the edge of your consciousness, you jumped out of the water to commit it to paper. But the pencil slipped from your wet fingers, rolled under the bed and your luminous insight dimmed, flickered and then...evaporated...

There were good days, too. When
dictionary.com
supplied the perfect word you wanted. When you were on a roll and the cooking and the ironing could go to hell.

Larry's book,
Once an African,
tells the story of Sean Butler, who, in search of adventure, goes out to Southern Rhodesia to join the British South Africa Police on a three year contract, as Larry did himself. Sean's three years go by very quickly, and he decides to stay on in the exotically beautiful country he has grown to love.

The white Rhodesian idyll cannot last, however. The liberation movement is becoming stronger and its demands for black majority rule more persuasive. In 1980, the phoenix that is Zimbabwe rises from the ashes of the colonial regime, and Rhodesia ceases to exist.

Larry wanted to expose Gukurahundi, the Mugabe regime's unpunished genocide carried out by the North Korean-trained 5
^th
Brigade of the Zimbabwean army just three years after independence. This was Mugabe's first use of food as a weapon of suppression. More than 400,000 Zimbabweans were driven to the brink of starvation before 5
^th
Brigade was disbanded in 1986. The victims were largely from Matabeleland and Midlands provinces which supported ZAPU led by Joshua Nkomo. An estimated 20,000 civilians (the figures could be even higher – estimates vary) were murdered and buried in mass graves or thrown down disused mine shafts. Thousands more were raped, mutilated and tortured.

Larry's story was inextricably linked to the tragedy of Zimbabwe. He wanted the world to know how Mugabe had brutalised and subjugated his own people.

He was drafting and re-drafting; I was editing and re-editing the revisions and our arguments and tight-lipped silences would be in direct proportion to the number of corrections and gratuitous suggestions I'd made. He acknowledged that I was a necessary evil, but he wasn't a masochist, he said, and he didn't have to enjoy the pain.

One of the worst and most common mistakes writers made, I'd read, was to send their work to agents or publishers before it was ready. Their submissions would be rejected and they weren't likely to get a second chance. You could run out of potential publishers, if you ignored this advice. Unfortunately, it was very difficult to be objective when you'd poured your soul into your creation. I knew now that I'd jumped the gun when I'd sent
It's a Little Inconvenient
to South African publishers just after we'd left Zimbabwe.

It hadn't been ready.

Each time
Amazon.com
sent me an email advertising a new book by a Zimbabwean author, I felt envious. Most of the authors were young.

In his memoir,
When a Crocodile Eats the Sun,
Peter Godwin draws the reader's attention to the ironic reality that, in trying to polarise blacks and whites, Mugabe had created ‘a real racial unity... a hard-won sense of comradeship, a common bond forged in the furnace of resistance to an oppressive rule...'

Although Godwin's parents are professional people (his mother is a doctor and his father is an engineer) they've been struggling to survive. And yet, however ‘mad and sad' Zimbabwe has become, his parents can't bear to leave it.

When Peter's father dies, Harare's crematorium has run out of butane gas. Bulawayo's crematorium, too, is out of order. The overcrowded mortuary in Harare is running on a back-up generator with enough fuel to last only two more days. Peter has promised his father that he will have his body cremated, so the family has George declared an honorary Hindu. (Funeral pyres for non-Hindus are illegal.)

Journalist Douglas Rogers in his book,
The Last Resort,
also describes his parents' struggle to keep going. They'd built a backpackers' lodge on their game farm near Mutare on Zimbabwe's eastern border. ‘Drifters' had attracted back-packers and visitors from all over the world until Mugabe's policies brought tourism to a halt. In 2005, the government appropriated the Rogers' game farm and lodge and cancelled their title deeds, although the land was unsuitable for commercial farming. Both their home and business were designated as being ‘vested in the President of Zimbabwe'. Once listed in
Lonely Planet
as a recommended stop on the Cape-to-Cairo backpacker trail, under its new black management Drifters has become a sleazy resort for wealthy black city slickers, prostitutes and diamond dealers.

The recently-discovered Marange diamond fields aren't far away and Douglas wants to see them. Near a rural town he is accosted by screaming children trying to sell him ‘diamonds'. He's tempted to buy one of the pebbles to get rid of them. A police vehicle pulls over and the children disappear. Six policemen question him with pistols drawn. Later he's told that if he'd been found with a stone he'd probably have been shot.

Unfeeling
is Ian Holding's novel about a young boy who is traumatised by the murder of both his parents. They have been hacked to death by thugs on the instructions of a ZANU (PF) crony wanting to ‘reclaim' their farm.

I didn't find the murder the most shocking aspect of this book. What I could not forget was the description of a buffalo carcass Davy comes upon in the bush. There is a gaping hole in its stomach...

‘He notices something odd: a small round paraffin tin standing by the buffalo's hind legs. He looks in, sees rotting meat piled to the top. Then, the buffalo quivers. He staggers back in panic, a quick snatch in his heart. He can't believe what he's seen, but it moves again. A shudder. He stoops down, peers in. A small child, clutching a dagger, is hunched up inside the bloodied, bone-shelled carcass, chopping and scraping off flakes of meat...'

It took ten months for
It's a Little Inconvenient
to be rejected by all the Irish publishers to whom I sent submissions. One of them was encouraging, though:

‘I know Zimbabwe has been a very hot topic this year, but unfortunately, we have learned from experience that this does not translate into book sales. I do hope, however, that you manage to find a good home for your book.'

In July 2010, Dublin was designated a UNESCO City of Literature, joining three others: Edinburgh (2004) Melbourne (2008) and Iowa City (2009).

Some good news at last after the relentless negativity dispensed by the media: our Anglo-Irish Bank debacle, failures within the health service, worsening FÁS scandals...

Gorey was less than two hours away from one of the world's foremost cultural centres and we hadn't seen a show since ‘Riverdance' in 2007.

Peter Crawleys's review in the
Irish Times
(29 September 2010) of ‘Death of a Salesman' convinced me that it would be criminal to miss out on one of my favourite plays. I remembered discussing the difference between tragedy and pathos with my pupils in the 1980s. Could Willy Loman's situation be compared to Hamlet's, Antony's or Macbeth's? When could a person be considered ‘tragic'? Did he have to have heroic stature?

The Gate Theatre was a lovely old building in the heart of the city. We were early, but we went inside and took our seats in the cosy auditorium. The curtains were open. Willy's darkened house was before us on the stage. There was a sense of growing excitement and anticipation as we awaited his entrance.

The world ‘in Michael Pavelka's marvellously sinister set actually seems to be snapping closed on Willy: the toppling façade of a Brooklyn brownstone and a sharply canted stage meet each other like the jaws of a trap...' Peter Crawley had said.

Harris Yulin was a weary Willy Loman, worn down by years of exhaustion and disillusionment. He had pursued The Dream all his life and The Dream had consistently eluded him. The Dream had also eluded his sons, Biff and Happy. Like Willy, they are frustrated and confused. At the end of the play, Biff says that Willy has blown him ‘so full of hot air' he ‘could never stand taking orders from anybody'. Willy's dreams are ‘the wrong dreams'.

Shortly after our trip to Dublin to see ‘Death of a Salesman', Audra won a Green Card on the Official USA Green Card Lottery. Only 50,000 of these are issued annually. Like so many before him, Sean believed that America offered a better opportunity for prosperity and success than most other countries. He was in a rut here, he said, and Ireland, with its serious economic and unemployment problems, was not the answer to his future and to the future of his family. Audra loved her job at Cappagh Hospital, so she was less sure......but they were leaving for Boston in November.

They're taking our granddaughter away from us,' said Larry, who was still lying awake at 4 a.m. ‘When will we ever see her?'