Learning to Love Ireland (2 page)

I wonder now about all those animated emails I used to receive from friends who'd emigrated to settle in New Zealand, South Africa, the UK, Australia and Ireland. Were those expressions of enthusiasm genuine? Or, like us, were they trying to focus on the positive aspects of their new lives?

I didn't tell Margaret that the first time we went to Tesco's, we couldn't work out how to disentangle a shopping trolley from the long line chained together. I didn't mention how anxious I became when, early one morning, we found all the check-outs at the supermarket unmanned, and discovered that we were expected to scan the goods or key in the prices ourselves. I didn't tell her that I was still taking too long to pack my purchases, and that queues tended to build up behind me.

I did tell her that we'd bought a second-hand car in excellent condition – a Toyota Corolla. But I didn't tell her about the first time I filled it with petrol. Sean's demonstration some weeks before had made the procedure look fairly simple. I chose the ‘unleaded' hose and inserted the nozzle into the car's fuel tank. Nothing happened. The previous customer's purchase was still there. So I shoved the hose in a little further and was relieved to see the meter click to zero. Petrol began to gush into the tank when I depressed the lever. Sean had promised that the pump would stop when the car's tank was full. But what if there was something wrong with the sensor? What if fuel spilled all over the forecourt and someone chucked down a cigarette butt? It was all very worrying.

In Zimbabwe there was always someone to pack our groceries, someone to carry them out to the car, someone to clean our cars when they got dirty, someone to put in fuel, someone to do the washing and ironing, someone to clean the house... Jobs were scarce and people were desperate.

Our friend, Colleen, who'd left Zim a year before we did, had confronted the trolley problem more directly. Having been unsuccessful in her attempts to wrench a trolley free from the line, she asked a woman who was returning hers if she could have it.

‘Of course you can,' said the lady. ‘Could I have a euro?'

Colleen found this behaviour odd. ‘I don't want to buy the damn thing,' she thought. ‘I just want to borrow it.'

‘Forget it,' she huffed.

And walked away in disgust.

(It begins to sound like a fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm...)

Then she came upon a man, who was about to return his empty trolley.

‘Could I have your trolley?' she asked.

‘Certainly,' he said. ‘May I have a euro?'

‘What's wrong with you people?' Colleen asked. ‘Why do you want to be paid for helping someone?'

Fortunately, he had a sense of humour.

‘Come with me,' he said.

And he showed her what happened when you put a euro into the slot on the handle.

Click.

One trolley released.

Our
solution had been to latch onto a stray trolley that had a child's chair attached. For some reason, it hadn't been chained to the others...

In the beginning we behaved like tourists.

We walked with Sean and Audra down Bray's beachfront promenade and then along the cliff path, which could have taken us all the way to Greystones if we'd made an earlier start. Every so often we'd pause to watch the waves thundering and crashing against the sharp, black rocks below. These weren't well-mannered waves like the ones washing the beaches of Courtown, a seaside resort near Gorey.

One grey, windy weekend, we drove down to Hook Head in Wexford's ‘sunny south-east' to see its famous 13
^th
century lighthouse – the oldest working lighthouse in Northern Europe. The rugged grandeur of the Head reminded me of Salt Rock on KwaZulu-Natal's North Coast in South Africa.

Tintern Abbey, on the edge of the Hook Peninsula, was originally a Cistercian abbey founded by William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke. As we explored the ruined building, I thought we were in the presence of Wordsworth, but discovered later that this abbey was the ‘daughter' of an establishment in Monmouthshire, Wales, which inspired ‘Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey'. The Wexford abbey was colonised by Welsh Cistercians from the mother house where the Earl was patron. Our Tintern Abbey was also known as ‘Tintern de Voto' (Tintern of the Vow). The Earl, on his first visit to Ireland, had been threatened with shipwreck, and had vowed to establish an abbey wherever he landed.

The gardens at Powerscourt just outside Bray were magnificent. You felt that you were within the frame of the picture as you stood in front of the enormous house, every sense alert. Grassy terraces descended to a lake guarded by winged horses. There were 47 acres of gardens, shady tree-lined avenues, grottos and ponds to explore. You would need several days of fine weather to appreciate this jewel properly.

In 1995 ‘Riverdance' had taken the world by storm. In South Africa and Zimbabwe, Michael Flatley and ‘Riverdance' became Irish brands overnight, as recognisable as the shamrock or Guinness. We went to see it live on stage. It was spectacular. The story of Ireland's proud Celtic heritage, the passionate dancing, the wild, haunting music and the glorious colours of the lights and costumes were everything I'd hoped for. It was a magical evening.

In emails to friends, when I described the places we had visited, it was as if we were ticking off tourist attractions on our holiday list.

It wasn't real.

I would wake up one morning, and I'd be back in Bulawayo. Mission and Olly would be waiting for their bowls of Whiskas and milk, purring loudly outside our bedroom door. Dexter would be licking the kitchen window, his large, pink tongue a slobbering, entreating indicator that he was STARVING. (Great Danes are always hungry.) My patio plants would need watering. It would be a glorious, sunny day with book club to look forward to...

Little Madeleine McCann's abduction in Praia da Luz just before her fourth birthday brought a temporary halt to my self-absorbed kaleidoscope of thoughts and emotions. Kate and Gerry McCann were experiencing every parent's worst nightmare. While most people felt helpless empathy for the couple, a vocal few maligned and criticised them.

Were there any parents who could say that they had never left a child alone – even for a few moments? Were there any parents who could say that they had never taken a chance – even a tiny one?

One afternoon, many years ago, I'd needed a couple of bits and pieces at our local supermarket. If I took the two boys into the shop, I knew that they'd drive me crazy and slow me down with their usual pleas for drinks, sweets and crisps. So I warned them to behave – or else! Then I locked the doors of the car and ran into the shop. I was only going to be five minutes...

I got back to the car to find the interior filled with smoke. My two little boys were trapped inside, coughing, crying and banging frantically on the windows. The battery in the old VW was under the back seat and something had gone wrong with the electrics.

I'd always considered myself to be a responsible, vigilant mother.

In the ZWNEWS that came through every day on email, we read that inflation in Zimbabwe was now the highest in the world at 11,000% and continuing to rise. The United States Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Christopher Dell, had predicted that inflation would ‘hit 1,500,000% by the end of 2007, if not before'. He also thought it likely that President Robert Mugabe would be forced out of power as a result of hyperinflation.

We had been there so often before.

He couldn't last much longer.

He had Alzheimer's.

Someone would ‘take him out'.

He'd been diagnosed with a brain tumour.

He had cancer.

There was unrest in the upper echelons of the party.

He was going to retire and had been offered asylum in Malaysia.

Or Libya...

Or Ghana...

If only he would just go.

Anywhere.

We weren't at all fussy.

C
HAPTER
T
WO

‘When Zimbabweans come over here to start a new life, they hit the ground running,' said Wayne. ‘They've got to learn that things don't always work out the way they expect them to.'

How right he was.

At first I imagined that settling down and finding a job would be reasonably easy. I had never been afraid of hard work. I believed that I wouldn't have too much trouble finding a basic job even though I was just over 60. Larry and I had owned and run a successful business for 13 years and had built up a competent, loyal workforce. Before that I'd been a sales rep with a large portfolio of clients working on a commission-only basis. And before that, I had been a secondary school teacher in charge of the English department. I had read that the attitude to ‘older persons' as prospective employees had changed in Ireland.

Wayne was an ex-pupil. He and our son, Sean, had done ‘door work' together as bouncers at The Church, a London night club patronised by South Africans, Zimbabweans, Kiwis and Aussies. He'd been around for a while.

It was a bit of a shock to discover that I wasn't going to find a job on the basis of my interesting and varied Zimbabwean work experience. The fact that I knew quite a lot about printing and advertising and that I'd run the design studio and supervised production in our factory was of no consequence whatever.

I knew virtually nothing about computers (except for a little Word). By modern standards, I was illiterate.

I'd done a beginners' computer course in Bulawayo that had helped a little, but I'd never had the urge to experiment or ‘play', as had been advised. The Net was alien territory that I'd had little desire to explore. It was much easier to ask someone else to do the research I needed, while I did ‘more important' things like visiting suppliers.

Sean lent me the job-hunters' bible by Richard N. Bolles,
What Colour is Your Parachute?
It was being handed down from one Zimbabwean to another.

I signed up for a job-seeker's allowance. Every Tuesday, persons drawing this and other welfare allowances had to go to the Social Welfare office to sign on. I felt that the women working there must regard me and the rest of the Tuesday people as being lazy and undeserving.

Perhaps I was becoming paranoid.

Larry had decided that he was going to concentrate on his book,
Once an African.
He would be entitled to a small pension within a matter of months.

Every week I scoured the newspapers for jobs. On Tuesdays, we bought the
Gorey Guardian
and the
Gorey Echo.
On Thursdays and Sundays the
Irish Independent
ran business supplements with a section on Appointments – ‘all the latest jobs and career opportunities'. The bulk of these seemed to be in Dublin.

‘You need to choose,' said Richard Bolles, ‘between a traditional job-hunt and a life-changing job-hunt. If you want to stay in the same line of work as before, intending simply to put bread on the table, that's OK. But if you want to put a new sense of mission into your life then take the new path that will lead you to your dreams. You need to look for organisations where you can grow; even if you have to talk them into creating a job for you there that matches your skills and enthusiasm.'

This sounded marvellous. Perhaps there was still time for me to grow. I thought about my ideal job. What would I really like to do? I had never intended to teach, but had loved it. I had thoroughly enjoyed selling and had developed a new self-confidence. And running our own business had been stimulating and challenging. My jobs had been wonderful. I would love to be able to write full time, though. When I was writing, I was fully alive. Larry always spoke of the adrenaline rush he'd experienced when he boxed. I knew what he meant. The same elation coursed through me when I found precisely the right word, image or phrase. Or when the appropriate line of poetry came into my head at exactly the right moment.

Writing was a powerful drug.

I wanted to be a successful author. But it was not going to happen overnight. Perhaps it would never happen. Second-best would be a job working with books, where I could use my organisational skills and where I could meet interesting and creative people.

How did one go about achieving this?

One used one's contacts.

‘The person who gets hired,' said Richard Bolles, ‘is not necessarily the best person for the job, but the one who knows the most about how to get hired.'

I didn't know a single person in Gorey.

‘Don't worry,' Richard consoled me. ‘You have plenty of contacts without realising it.'

His suggestions included shop assistants, hairdressers, one's GP, one's dentist, librarians and neighbours.

I had seen an ad for pharmacy assistants the previous day. A large chain would be opening a new branch in Gorey. I quite fancied the idea of working in a pharmacy, so I decided that I would seek the help of the pharmacist round the corner.

‘Could I speak to Mr O'Connor?' I asked one of the assistants the following morning.

She was young, attractive and intimidating. Somehow she sensed that it wasn't a medical problem. ‘He isn't available at the moment,' she said.

Mr O'Connor, only partially concealed by a flimsy screen, was lurking in his dispensary listening to every word.

‘Well, perhaps
you
could help me?'

She didn't look enthusiastic.

‘I've noticed that there are a surprising number of pharmacies in Gorey. In your opinion, does the town have the population to sustain them?'

She shrugged.

Is this woman weird, or a simply a bit odd, I could see her thinking. Or perhaps she's after my job, silly old cow...

‘I have no idea,' she said.

‘I'm planning to apply for a job in the new pharmacy opening in Gorey next month,' I went on regardless, still hoping that she would thaw. (The friendly Irish will do anything to help a stranger, won't they?) ‘Are there any useful pointers you could give me?'

‘No,' she said. ‘Now, would you excuse me – I must attend to my customers...'

I hope that I made a dignified exit.

Richard warned his readers: ‘Do not spend forever putting your résumé together. Otherwise you may find that by the time you have a perfect résumé composed, you are old enough to retire.'

The CV was the stepping stone to the interview. It was the interview that was all-important. If you could get invited (or summoned) to an interview, you had a foot in the door.

I applied for another job in another pharmacy. I didn't post my CV with the required cover letter. This time I was going to hand my application over in person. This time I would make an impression. I was not going to be simply a name.

Smartly dressed, I approached the young lady at the cosmetics counter.

‘May I see Ms Kelly?' I asked.

‘I'm afraid she's on tea,' was the response. ‘She'll be about half an hour.'

Half an hour later, I tried again. Ms Kelly had returned, but she was very busy and could not be disturbed.

‘Is it about the advertisement in the newspaper?' called the young lady on the mother-care counter. ‘She's told me to ask people to hand in their CVs to me. She'll contact you if she's interested.'

She took my envelope and tossed it onto the heap at her feet.

I got used to lack of interest. I sent off many, many CVs together with carefully composed cover letters explaining that I had excellent qualifications for the jobs being advertised. I also had the right personality, as I was highly motivated, extremely conscientious and a good communicator. I applied for care jobs, secretarial roles, a proofreading job (for which you had to apply in ‘proofread writing'), general clerical and reception situations, a funeral parlour administrator and trainee manager in a book shop.

The book shop was the one from which we bought our newspaper every day.

I'd left my
Complete Works of William Shakespeare
behind in Zim. It was too heavy and I knew that I'd be able to replace it easily in the First World. So after buying the newspaper one day, I went to look for a copy. I approached a young lady in the educational books section.

She looked puzzled.

‘Shakespeare?' she said. ‘What books did he write?'

I gestured towards several plays that were obviously prescribed for school use. ‘I see you've got
The Tempest
and
Romeo and Juliet.
But I want his
Complete Works.
'

After rummaging about for a while, she came back with
The Merchant of Venice
and
Julius Caesar.

‘Let me call Martin for you. He's my supervisor.'

Martin was a pleasant young man of eighteen or nineteen with a swiftly receding hair-line and a couple of rings in one ear. He frowned when I told him what I wanted and shook his head.

‘Let me have another look in that section over in the corner,' he said, leading the way. ‘If it's not there, we haven't got it. No, it doesn't look like it's there... Who did you say wrote it again?'

I didn't get the job as trainee manager.

They said I wasn't suitable.

Caroline, my guidance mediator at the Local Employment Service office in Gorey, assured me that I wasn't the first person to burst into tears in front of her.

Handing me a box of tissues, she patted my shoulder.

‘This is what we're going to do,' she said. ‘There's an ECDL course coming up in Gorey in a couple of months. The European Computer Driving Licence is a beginner course in computers. We're going to put your name down for it.'

Returning to her desk, she brought up Ireland's FÁS National Training and Employment Authority website on her computer.

‘Now,' she said, ‘it's quite a long list. You're two hundred and third and they‘re offering only thirty places. Bit of a long shot, but you never know... It's certainly worth trying... Right, let's have a look at your CV. Hmm... This is quite good... Yes, interesting... Would you mind if we made a few alterations to the layout? We'll tweak it a bit and email it to you this afternoon. And shall we make another appointment for next week? Just to check on how you are getting on and if there's anything else we can do to help.'

I felt better when I left her office. Caroline's job entails helping people find work and advising them of the steps they can take to improve their circumstances. She's warm, kind and encouraging – the perfect person for this responsible, busy position.

A few days later, the Chief Librarian at Wexford County Library wrote saying that there were no vacancies for librarians at any of their branches, but would I be interested in doing a series of lectures for them?

Over coffee we discussed possible topics.

‘Most of our readers avoid Sci Fi,' she said. ‘It's a pity, as there are some wonderful books on the shelves. They seem to think that science fiction is all about weird creatures from outer space whose agenda is the elimination of earthlings. They'll read Ishiguro's
The Remains of the Day,
but they're reluctant to try
Never Let Me Go.'

We agreed that I would choose eight or ten books on which to base my lectures.

‘Put a proposal together,' she said. ‘Within a week or two, please – as we need to publicise the course well in advance. We'll run it in Enniscorthy first and possibly in Bunclody and Wexford Town next year. What about calling it “Reading the Future”?'

I couldn't wait to get going.

I'd just finished
The Road
by Cormac McCarthy.

A man and his child are attempting to make their way southwards to the coast. They follow the road that takes them through silent devastated towns. The countryside is a bleak vista of burnt and blackened trees and vegetation. There is no colour. There are no birds or animals. The sun cannot penetrate the thick layer of ash that hangs like a fog in the sky.

It is a hopeless, ruined world: ‘barren, silent, godless'. Bizarre horrors confront them. In an old-fashioned drugstore they see a human head beneath a cake bell, left there as a grisly joke or a macabre warning.