A House and A Home

I was only homeless once in my life. It lasted about a week. Technically we weren’t homeless at all, but we were living in a hostel and I hated it.

We’d landed in Sydney, Australia as part of a student exchange programme and had five months of study ahead of us. We needed to find a place to stay, near to college, with reasonable enough rent.

All of us had arrived with meagre savings, having spent most of our money on the long-haul flights. We were fully prepared to accept typical student accommodation, but, underprepared for the battle to find a roof over our heads.

The first place we looked at offered twin beds in a large, old dilapidated building. It was right next door to Redfern, the very place we had warned to go nowhere near. Outside there were old lean-tos full of junk and the bedroom windows had bars on them. I looked out through one of the windows onto a big square cage and enquired of the landlord what it was for. “That’s for the rats,” he replied clearly.

Much of the accommodation on offer was owned by Chinese people, usually women. The rooms were often small and awkward shaped. We viewed a few houses and while at least clean, there was something really stifling about them, that we just couldn’t accept.

As the days passed, we waited for the various newspapers to come out which would list accommodations. This was before the days of internet searching for houses and the delay began to lead to my despair. We couldn’t enjoy our first few days or even explore the city, because, we were homeless, and it permeated all our thinking and tasks.

On the fifth day of looking, I called a number for a house in an area we were interested in looking in. “It’s not quite ready for viewing,” said the landlady, “but if you want to come ahead that’s fine.” ‘Not quite ready’ did not prepare us. She opened the door into a building site. It literally didn’t have a kitchen sink. The back door was missing a large chunk, under which not only could rats and small dogs pass, but probably Shetland ponies too. And there was a large pile of rubble in the ‘sitting room’. “It does need work,” she said.

Later that evening, when it got dark, we went to an appointment to view another house, in the same street as Rubble Ville. Again another Asian lady was the landlord. She met us outside and opened the front door. Hearing our arrival, a young Chinese girl sprinted from the kitchen to her room, which was right beside us in the hall. She slammed it, locked it from the outside and shouted at the landlady in Chinese. I don’t know the Chinese words for “No way are you giving away my room, bitch!’ but I’m pretty sure that’s what she said.

After some mooching around, the landlady brought us into the kitchen, where the other tenant, a Chinese man, was taking rice from a deep fat fryer. She indicated for me to go through a door off the kitchen and when I opened it, I was confronted by the earlier met young Chinese girl, sitting on a toilet, with her trousers, quite naturally, around her ankles. She rose in anger and I saw everything. Far more than I expected on a simple house viewing. More Chinese expletives. I backed out furiously, fully committed to not taking this house.

Eventually we secured accommodation but with a few sacrifices. I found a beautiful house, but had to live with the landlord and his girlfriend under whom there were strict rules and regular furious scribbled notes such as, BIN NIGHT TONIGHT, MAYBE SOMEONE ELSE’S TURN??? and SOMEBODY LEFT FOUR CRUMBS OUT LAST NIGHT AND THERE WERE COCKROACHES THIS MORNING. THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE!! My fellow travellers took a place that had no beds or appliances and slept on mattresses on the floor for five months and rented a fridge for $10 a week. But we made do. And of course, we had a roof over our heads.

The current accommodation crisis in Ireland, the result of a nasty recession and housing boom, has brought back some of these house searching memories. I think of the many variants of homelessness and housing crises. Families forced into accepting homes that are simply not suitable for children; tiny apartments, damp and old houses, hundreds of steps with a buggy. I think of people living in their cars, elderly mothers taking back their sons, mixed age children sharing beds and mothers and kids dragging suitcases to B&Bs.

Worst of all are those who have explored all other avenues, failed and spend their nights bedding down on the streets. Recently on RTE television they interviewed homeless men at a food centre over Christmas. They all told of their wonderful Christmas’ as children, running down the stairs to see what Santa had brought. Little did their parents think that those children, who were obviously loved, would be spending future Christmas’ begging, surviving on handouts and curling up in a damp sleeping bag for the night.

The whole story of Christmas is based on the homeless Mary and Joseph searching for a bed for the night. They are lucky to find a shed, some straw and a manger. As I sit in my cosy home, with a roaring fire and twinkling Christmas lights, it seems as though this never-ending story has been lost on many, myself included, as we compete with each other for the best wrapped, most expensive-looking gift under the tree. It’s obvious that the gift of a home, the one we are sitting in, secure in the roof over our heads, is of course, the best gift there can ever be.

Loneliness In The Making

 

There is a man who stands at the side of the road every morning on my way to work. Sometimes he has a cup in both hands. He works in a car wash located in an enormous high ceilinged building. The floors are always wet, but there are never any customers. He stands in the huge doorway, looking out, waiting for business. I always feel so sorry for him.

Most mornings I pass a van, driven by a man with a double chin and balded head. He owns a furniture store and no matter what time I am going to work, either late or early, we always seem to pass each other by. Like the car wash man with the cup, I feel sorry for Mr Furniture Van Man. I have been to his shop a few times and he strikes me as a lonely old soul.

I think I experienced loneliness as a teenager. Living in the country, we were dependent on sporadic bus services and parents’ moods to deliver us to friends’ houses and social activities. And of course, there were no mobile phones. Summers were spent outdoors, in fields, cycling the narrow roads, meeting up with other country friends and in between filling the days with writing, playing guitar, video games and watching TV. I’m sure I was lonely at stages. But I can’t really recall.

Loneliness in the elderly is a real problem in our modern day world. Gone are the days when grandparents lived out their last days in extended nuclear families, baking and gardening and helping with child rearing. Instead, most older people I know prefer to stay in their own home no matter what, and if that means sitting alone, with few to no visitors, rather than moving into hospitalised or shared accommodation then so be it.

I love older people. They are funny, gregarious and utterly honest. They have a sense of calm and confidence that younger people just haven’t earned yet. They don’t carry the same worries. They’ve been through worse. And that’s why I hate to think of these fantastic characters locked up alone, with no one to share their stories with.

My Grandfather told great stories. He liked to exaggerate. He didn’t let the real truth get in the way of a great story. Neither were they modest. He often spoke of his time on stage, one time in particular in the Droichead Arts Centre, where a spotlight shone on him centrestage, and he played Strangers on the Shore on his beloved clarinet. ‘You couldn’t hear a pin drop,’ he would say. Afterwards the organiser told him it was the best version she had ever heard of the song. She told him he had great stage presence.  I miss his stories and the fact that we will never hear him play the clarinet or saxophone again.

I don’t worry about loneliness at my age. Setting out on married life, we expect nothing but a growing family around us. But what happens when a young family grows up and leaves home? What happens when you don’t have a partner anymore? What happens when you grow older and friends become less mobile or cut off, or inevitably reach the end of their days?

We are reminded of those who are lonely at Christmas. But it’s the real, every day sad faces that bring it home for me. It’s the man with the cup at the car wash garage. It’s the furniture man with his day alone in the Aladdin Cave shop. And it’s my Granny who doesn’t like to leave the house, now that my Grandad is gone. We weren’t born to be alone. So why should we end up that way?

The Truth about Santa Claus

It’s funny how Christmas springs up on you. There you are wiping the dust off the Halloween cobwebs and surveying the damage done by trick or treaters to your sweets press, when you turn around and there’s a blimmin Christmas ad on the tellybox. Worse, there’s decorations up in the shops. Not just up for sale (silly, they’ve been stacked on the shelves since July) but actually up, blinking and crying ‘Spend Spend’ at you as you walk merrily to work in November.

I don’t mind though. Christmas is, for the most part, a magical time of the year. The lead up to Christmas is probably more important than the day itself; shopping trips, Christmas drinks, 12 Pubs of Christmas, office parties, Santa Claus visit, Christmas day outfit, carol singing. Celebrating. Celebrating the fact that we have made it through another year; thankful for the friends and family we still have, throwing all caution to the wind and spending next year’s budget on this year’s alcohol and box sets.

I like hearing about family traditions at Christmas. I envy families who throw large Christmas day gatherings. Our family have a very quiet Christmas; present opening, dinner, telly, turkey sandwiches, and come 7pm you’re wishing there was a nightclub open where you could go meet your friends and show off your Christmas tights. Some friends have lots of family round, with games and drinking and great craic by all standards. Over the years I have longed for something to do on Christmas day And yet, if someone suggested changing our family routine, I would be horrified. We have been having the same Christmas for 30 years. The boredom IS Christmas. And I’m very lucky to have a family to share it with.

The earliest Christmas I remember is around the age of three. I was absolutely terrified of Santa Claus. I went into my parents’ room on Christmas morning and begged and pleaded to be brought down to the sitting room, fully accompanied in case the big man in the red coat was there. Trust us, he’s not, my parents answered, pillows over heads. But he might be! I cried. I got them to check that the room was clear and reviewed the corner behind the door myself before even glancing at what he’d brought. It was a rocking donkey if you must know. Apparently I cried over the horse / donkey mix-up. But I can’t remember that.

A fond memory I have is of my Granny coming to our house for Christmas. She brought a red velvet jewellery box for me and a lavender toiletry set. I still have the talc bottle in the attic; a keepsake after she died. She sat in a hard kitchen chair in the middle of our living room, watching a Christmas Daniel O’Donnell concert. She always wore thick tan tights and slippers. Our parents went out and left us with Daniel. We respectfully bounced off the walls with boredom.

I wonder if Christmas is different for children these days. With our affluence, kids don’t have to wait for toys and gifts. Last year I found a bag of gifts, still brand new and boxed in my fiance’s daughters’ room, unopened from the previous Christmas. We had commented that year how she had received so many gifts she wasn’t even opening them. This was not a reflection on her; she is not a spoilt girl, but rather the times we live in. And toys have become so cheap and available.

Sylvanian Families were my weakness. I collected them for years, each birthday and Christmas adding little bits of furniture to my Sylvanian Village. I dreamt about them and set alarms the nights before I was due the new additions so I could get up early and play with them. I would carefully set them up and bring friends round to watch me, they weren’t really allowed touch them, and when they were all set up, I would tell them they were too important to play with and we would have to go outside to avoid breaking them.

My friend Fiona always got Barbies. She had an amazing collection, with kitchens and cars and a wardrobe to die for. One year a pregnant Barbie appeared. You pressed her belly and a baby popped out and like all celebrities, her tummy returned flat in seconds. We set up mini labour ward in her bedroom and got on with the murky world of childbirth. We didn’t know how it worked, but the baby always arrived safely anyway.

Due to my lack of beautiful Barbie clothes I used to cleverly push Fiona’s Barbie clothes under my bed when she came over. During clean-up I’d scoosh a Barbie nightie or prom dress under my valance sheet and hope she wouldn’t spot the ‘left behind’. Soon she took to raising the valance sheet before she left to retrieve the contraband and muttering about how this always happened.

One of the worst things I ever did as a child was to cut my friend’s sisters Barbie hair off. For whatever reason I decided that Barbie was in need of a new style and I hacked at her hair with a pair of blunt scissors. The result was so bad, that I kept going to try and make it straight and Barbie became, well, Barney. I didn’t get away with that one either.

Chirstmas changed irrevocably when we discovered the Santa Secret. The horror of this truth stays with me to this day. To find out that we had been dutifully lied to by ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE left us feeing stupid and deceived. And so disappointed! On our eighth Christmas rumours had been circulating wildly that there may be some parental involvement in this Santa business. We held court at lunchtime around the Big Tree and brought forward evidence to prove or disprove this fact. Many stories were relayed with evidence for and against the case before us. On our ninth Christmas my best friend Caroline confronted her father. The truth was out. And she dolefully told us in school and destroyed our Christmases forever.

I was lucky. I had siblings. This meant we could continue the pretence and magic for a few years yet. Fiona asked could she borrow them for her own house, to bring a bit of Christmas sparkle, but considering the lack of Barbie lenience, I said no.

Having gone through my own Santa horror at the age of nine, I was not impressed at all to hear my younger brother’s questions two years later when he was about eight. He brought forward the evidence and I firmly dismissed it. I would keep up the pretence for him no matter what; I did not want him to discover the disgusting truth. Over the next few days I presented further false evidence to reiterate the fact that there WAS a Santa Claus. When he asked my mother straight out after a few days of speculation and she confirmed the truth, he said: ‘Don’t tell Nicola, she still believes.’

Probably the best Christmas gift Santa ever brought was a set of hair straighteners when I was 16. These, without doubt, changed my life. Overnight I was transformed from a spotty frizzy haired teenager to a sleek, slim goddess ready to take on the world. Or Cellars, as the bar happened to be called. The straight hair gave me confidence and I entered a new phase of my life; the nightclub years. Each Christmas thereafter became all about the new clothes and up to date ironing tongs and which New Year’s Party we would be attending.

This Christmas of course is going to be slightly different. A few days after Christ’s birthday, we will be celebrating a walk down an aisle with a bit of a party afterwards. In fact, Christmas is cancelled. No present buying and no going out on Stephen’s night. Or so we’re saying, six weeks out.

Part of me is worried about the change: literally every Christmas I’ve had in my life has been the same. I’m worried that rocking the boat will change it. But maybe that’s not a bad thing. Nothing ever continues forever. And who knows what married life will bring. Maybe we’ll have our own family one day, and we will go on the tear and leave them with Granny in a hard chair in the middle of the sitting room and nothing on the telly, but  a Westlife concert on.