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.

The Trauma of Travel: Happy Honeymoon

The honeymoon didn’t start off great. We got to the airport on time, bags bulging, a faint whiff of ‘are we overweight,’ about us. We were. The blonde cheeky chappy checking us in said nothing about my 5 kilo overload, popped the bags gingerly onto the conveyor belt and explained that for some reason the system had separated us on our ten and a half hour flight to Vegas. “I can’t put you sitting together,” he said, his Aer Lingus badge glowing. “You’ll have to talk to British Airways when you get to London.”

I was worried. Why would they separate newlyweds who had clearly booked together? We had been been hoping for an upgrade to first class, not an upgrade to seats together. Don’t worry, pressed the new hubby. Everything will be fine. I wished I had his optimism.

We got to London and queued in the connections terminal. BA in all their British glory had a large row of customer service desks ready and open. ‘Not her, not her, ‘ growled my new husband as we reached an open window with a lank-haired poe-faced young woman behind it. “Com-pew-ur says nooooo,” she purred and handed our boarding passes back to us. We tried pleading. She stared back.

Tiny tear pricked my eyes. Don’t cry, I thought. You’re a married woman now. Blubbing mess at the airport does not get you anywhere. Hadn’t I seen those orange airline reality shows? Tantrums at the airport were entertaining, not problem solving.

Deflated we made our way to security. “What a bitch,” we said in loud hearing of the security check-in agent. “Yeah, she was such a cow.” We were so caught up in self-pity we failed to smile or even acknowledge the woman in front of us. She handed us new boarding passes. “I noticed you weren’t sitting together,” she said. “You are now.”

The first hurdle in our journey down. We were so happy to have won the battle to sit together that we didn’t mind taking off our belts or shoes or getting our benign belongings out of our bags. We had no idea what lay ahead of us.

Let’s call them… THE HEATHROW AGENTS FROM HELL.

Despite having already passed through security in Dublin, landing in a connections hall where got off our plane and straight into a queue for another, we were herded through security again. Except this was no ordinary security. This was finger swabbing, saliva collecting, ask and you shall be deported, SUPER security. I think they had guns.

I thought I had done a pretty good job with the handbag. Hand creams, foundations, moisturiser, even my contact lens lenses with their 3ml of eye juice, were primed in the plastic freezer bag we’d last minute remembered on the way out the door at dawn. I proudly displayed it for their attention. No liquid bombs here.

But, London’s Heathrow Airport has magic security machines. If a bag has a suspect item in it, it doesn’t come through the other side. Instead, a new conveyor belt comes along, takes your bag out of the queue and plops it into a new queue only accessible to THE AGENTS OF POWER.

My bag had a suspect item in it.

We joined a small crowd of travellers who had, like me, watched their bag being kidnapped. We crowded round the criminal’s conveyor belt where thorough security checks were being carried out.

A Frenchman, agitated and acting, well, all French, was getting exasperated. “I av bin ere for over alf an our,” he said. Still his bag had not reached the top of the queue.

Swabs were taken. A supervisor was consulted. Finally it was Frenchie’s turn. He stepped up to the glass panel. The security guy walked off. Le Bleu went red.

The Frenchman was very angry. When the security agent finally got back to her 15 minute shift, there was a bit of a rude off. Neither were talking to each other. We watched in agitated silence, our two hour window to catch our flight now reduced to twenty minutes.

In desperation, I left the conveyor belt in search of a supervisor. I found a pleasant man who accepted my pleas and hand-wringing and rescued our bag from the queue for another.

Turns out it was the lipgloss’ fault. There it was tucked away in a pocket, all pink and innocent looking, when really, it could have been nitroglycerin, or worse, exploding toothpaste. Offending forgotten lipgloss put back in its rightful plastic bag and with the loss of one small bodywash, we raced to our gate and planted ourselves on the airplane. Five minutes later, we taxied down the runway for Las Vegas.

We finally relaxed into our flight, putting our panic stricken beating hearts back to rest with the champagne offered by the friendly air hostess. When the lights dimmed we drifted in and out of groggy sleep, waking with scratchy eyes and air conditioned throat. Ten and a half long hours later, we got off our flight and straight to our hotel in search of bed. 

We had been warned about the post wedding tiredness. We were now experiencing it. All the highs of the build-up and the ceremony and the day itself, had taken our energy resources and disposed of them. We were knackered.

Like many American hotels, the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas didn’t look too impressive from the front. The main entrance was in the middle of a car park, allowing valets to whisk your large motor machine away. Our taxi pulled up and let us out and we made our way into the hotel to be confronted with a casino.

This offered a clue of Vegas. No signage. Want to make your way out of the casino? Tough. Get lost, spend some money, why leave? Gaining our bearings we located the check-in desk and joined a long queue. There was only one agent on and a lot of people looking to stay.

Our agent, when we reached him, was unable to tell us how much of a deposit would be taking off our credit card. “It’s a little bit extra,” he said nonchalantly, waving a handheld machine at us. We duly signed our honeymoon nest egg away, desperate to reach our pool view room with king size bed, which we’d paid extra for.

It was a twin room. Two beds lay blinking at us, in another two finger salute, to what had been a rather problematic day. I peeled back the curtains to look at our upgraded pool view. A large, grey, carpark stared back.

‘I’m not happy,’ I huffed, sitting on one of the beds, my eyes searching for the non-existent happy honeymoon bottle of champagne. I called reservations and attempted to sort it out. Apparently when you book and pay for one type of room, this is not a ‘guarantee’. As the hotel was so full, we were lucky to have a room.

We finally agreed on a compromise new room and I was told to collect my new keys at reception.”I’m not queuing again though,” I told the agent on the phone. “No, no, you won’t have to.”

Back at reception I made my way to the top of the queue. I waited while the new lady at the desk, finished dealing with two guys in front of her. I stepped up when they walked off. “You’ll have to join the back of the queue Ma’am,” said the lady. “No,” I started, “I was told I wouldn’t have to.” “I’m sorry,” she replied, “but there’s a line.”

And that’s when the little explosion happened. The threatened separation on the Vegas flight; the power obsessed Nazi agents at Heathrow and now this crappy hotel who had messed up our reservation, erupted in what can only be described as ‘an exorcist moment’.

“I AM NOT GETTING TO THE BACK OF THE QUEUE. I HAVE ALREADY QUEUED FOR FORTY MINUTES. YOU HAVE MESSED UP OUR RESERVATION. WE HAVE BEEN TRAVELLING FOR OVER 24 HOURS. I WAS TOLD I COULD GO TO THE TOP OF THE QUEUE. I AM NOT LEEEAAAVVVVIIIIINNNNNGGGGGGG!”

I think my head spun around a little. There may have been some spittle. And I could definitely taste bile.

The agent was staring calmly at me. She looked like she moved back a little. “That’s fine Ma’am,” she said. “But my computer’s gone done and I can’t cut any keys.”

I looked around, unsure what to do and still high from my out of character outburst. I sidled up to the agent beside her. “Can you cut room keys?” I asked meekly. Without a word, he typed a few things on the computer, never taking his eyes off me. The keys were zapped. He handed them over.

You are a customer from hell, he thought. And so did I.

We were in Vegas. We had arrived. We  climbed into bed and began anxious dreams of white airports and long queues and luggage and conveyor belts and security checks and plastic bags and boarding passes and tiny meal trays with bread rolls and tinfoil and in between a grotty casino where naked girls swung round a greasy pole. We wondered what tomorrow would bring.

 

A Taste of Keywest

We took a taxi to the bus station. The station was located in an industrial park between large industrial warehouses. There was a dirt track running outside the station and a small burger van had pulled up selling hot dogs and meat sandwiches. Beside it, an open pick-up truck was packed with fruit and we bought a large chunk of watermelon off the old Latino lady.

We were travelling to Keywest, Florida. We had just spent a few days in Miami, staying in a modern hotel suite with a large pool and a view over the gritty sand of South Beach. Miami had not lived up to expectations. We were disappointed by Ocean Drive, which ironically, had no view of the ocean. Instead, it had a large sand bank, behind which lay the Atlantic Ocean. We had met a former stripper called Hollywood, who promised us a night of VIP treatment in a top Miami nightclub. We took him at his word and he brought us to a dilapidated fluorescent-lit bar, supplying cocaine to a strung out Canadian couple and later, pilfering trough my handbag for cash.

The bus station had leather airport seats and a large coca cola drinks machine. We longed for the bus to arrive in the sticky heat. The other travellers were mostly black and carried single shopping bags. Eventually an old grey-haired driver pulled up and we lifted our two suitcases packed with holiday clothes into the cabinet of the bus.

The journey to Keywest took four hours. Halfway there, the bus driver pulled into a Burger King and we sat outside with our fast food wrapping around us. The houses we passed were colourful solitary dwellings, built right on the road with large cars or pick-up trucks outside. Some had criss-crossed frames for green plants to grow.

Soon the roads narrowed and a single lane stretched out before us across the Straits of Florida. Crystal blue ocean shone on either side and we stared in silence at the drops of islands scattered across the sea. We wondered how they had decided to build a road across essentially nothing.

It was early evening when we reached Keywest and we took a waiting taxi from the airport to our B&B. We worried from the Taxi Man’s chatter and the beige front of hotels that we had brought ourselves to a retirement paradise.

The B&B was covered in white wooden panels, had a large porch with rocking chairs and a beautiful oak wood floor. The round man who welcomed us was full of camp cheer and gave us a large key with a wooden block attached  for our double room located at the top of the house, accessible from the outside only. We climbed the stairs to our room brushing away jagged palm tree leaves from our faces. The room was quaint and silent and we absorbed the pleasant eeriness of the two hundred year old house.

We decided to take  a walk up the street. The houses were beautiful. They towered over the pavements, wooden panelled with white picket fences and silver mail boxes on the street. We walked towards a low mumbling noise, which grew louder as we reached the main centre streets. In front of us were hundreds of people gathered together in brightly coloured shirts. They were whooping and smiing and dancing in the street. We had stumbled upon a Jimmy Buffet concert.

Jimmy Buffet is Keywest; a balding middle-aged musician who plays guitar in a Hawaiian shirt, opened to his white vest. He wears sandals and sings folk songs. From every window at the crossroads where he was playing fell gaudy plastic beads. Thrown from a height, pink, green and blue beads flew through the air, landing on heads and shoulders and on the street itself. We picked them up and wore them and bought two cans of beer from the open off-licence. We walked through the crowds in wonderment, taking in the shops and noise and ambience. Soon the crowds dispersed and we wished we had arrived earlier.

Later that night we came back for dinner dressed in our smart clothes. We loved the many bars and restaurants and shops. There was live music everywhere. Most people were older, but they wanted fun. I watched a big haired lady in leather pants snuggle into the ear of an aged musician who had just finished playing guitar. She hooked her arm around his neck and pushed her breasts under his chin. He looked slightly bewildered and amused and they soon left.

The next day we had breakfast in the shared kitchen of the B&B. There was a Belfast sink and an island in the middle of the kitchen covered in an array of pastries. We were joined by a New York cop of Irish descent and his wife. The morning chat turned quickly to the rumoured local haunting. Our B&B had a sister property a few blocks away. It had a well documented ghost of a child and sightings were common. The cop’s wife mentioned that she didn’t feel that comfortable in this house on her own. I wondered if I felt comfortable too.

We headed off for the day and decided to take a boat trip. We had a few drinks in the large bar beside the boat dock before we left. It was buzzing, with live music and more older people drinking. The boat was like a small yacht and as soon as we put our life jackets on the crew opened a large cool box full of ice and small beer cans.

After an hour or two, the good swimmers on the boat, dived into the ocean and had a swim. When they climbed back on the boat, sloshing sea water on the white deck,  they reported seeing a large barracuda and having to swim through a swarm of jellyfish.

We sailed to an island of undergrowth, not accessible to humans. Large root branches rose from the salty sea to form intertwined trees. We kayaked around the outskirts of the tree island, ducking under branches and enjoying the shallow water. Our kayak leader pulled up a horse shoe crab from the sand to show us and brought us to a land bank where we could get out of our kayaks and stand ankle deep in the water. There was no land to be seen on the horizon. The cool box came out again and the beers were shared out. I clutched the can and watching the ocean rise to our knees and thought about jellyfish and horseshoe crabs.

That evening we returned to shore sunburnt and hungry. We got a table at a Cuban restaurant where salsa dancers were strutting around the paved stones. We ordered large Mojitos and tried plantains and chatted about how we wished to visit Cuba one day.

That night we returned to the B&B with the intention of changing to head out again. Instead we lay on the bed and drifted into a thirsty light sleep. I awoke to find a figure standing at the end of my bed.

It was a man, with long straggly grey hair tied back, steel rimmed spectacles and a red solider jacket with gold buttons. He stared at me, with interest. I was terrified.

He had little expression on his face. Through the figure I could see the white electric radiator attached to the wall. I concentrated on this and watched how it came in and out of focus forming part of the frame of the man.

I didn’t want to look away in case he disappeared. Yet I was afraid to keep looking, in case he didn’t.

I pulled the white sheet over my head. Too petrified to move, I buried my head on my partner’s shoulder and swore never to tell anyone what I had seen.

‘I saw a ghost last night,’ I blurted as soon as my partner woke the next morning. His brows narrowed as he tried to make sense of what I was saying. ‘I believe you,’ he eventually said after listening to me. At breakfast I told the cop and his wife about the experience. ‘I knew it,’ said the blonde New Yorker. ‘I can feel it,’ she said.

We borrowed bikes from the B&B and cycled through the quaint streets to a memorial park and beach. We cycled by Ernest Hemingway’s house and I felt guilty for my writing teacher for not stopping to go in. Now I understood why the author was drawn to this place so many years ago.

Cats ran in front of us. We cycled down a poorer part of the neighbourhood and I felt uneasy as the large wooden houses changed into smaller ramshackle dwellings. We cycled to a building-sand beach and I watched a large pelican swallow down a silver fish. On the water power boats raced in competition. We reached the most southern tip of America, marked by a giant colourful buoy. We felt happier than we had ever felt in our lives.