by Graham Jones
6
When I was christened my great grandmother lent my mother a white frilly dress that my great grandfather Patsy remarked was too big and that would need to be returned anyway for whomever's great grandchild came along next. My grandaunt Deborah also provided a shawl for strength and, of course, I had been blessed in the womb many months back. All that stuff is very important to us. Our faith is crucial in the camp. Something very real. Something that is with us all the time. Not an idea we consider once a week at mass, or even less often. That's the way it is with a lot of settled Irish. Not us, though. God walks by our side always. He never leaves. Suppose it's one of the most important things we are given as children. The gift of faith.
My mother breastfed me on the caravan step, to avoid wakin da or the others. Lookin down at me she felt powerful, serene. Despite rememberin how a local settled man had, one evenin shortly after they first moved here, poured a bucket of petrol over a woman on the path and set her alight. He had used a red plastic bucket and that was how the Garda? got him. There had been a sticker on the base from a big hardware place in town.
Within hours a lovely, quiet blue day had proclaimed itself and she was carryin me around the site naked and roarin. Past my grand aunt Deborah who was peelin potatoes in her doorway. Past a small goat tied to the passenger handle of da's white Renault 4. Ma stared at the goat each time she passed, using it like one uses an unnecessary railin. My first two teeth deserved to come through, she whispered to herself somewhat desperately. Yet with an inner strength that was calm and sure. Sure that she was doin the right thing for me. Even though it probably seemed to Deborah that I was just clingin and screamin. Mum knew I needed her to hang in. Then I could hang on.
Throughout the night she'd tried many things that often distracted and pleased me but even my favourite, a luke warm bath in the galvanised metal basin, hadn't worked. I had clung to her as if she were lowerin me into a furnace. Enough. I needed her. She held me and in another hour it was all over.
I imagine her breathin and smilin for a few seconds.
In the absence of my roar she could once again hear the main road. Discussion from John's driver and passenger seat, where himself and another man sat doin business. Was I asleep?
Da thought they had cut her up in the hospital. She was given nine stitches which was more than normal and Pethidine. Had been immobile. Now she found herself wonderin how long it would be before the next baby. I perceived her have that whole thought, mature from my cryin and in celebration of the fact that I had calmed down we played with a big bowl of water beside the caravan.
It went everywhere, spilt over everything and I thought that was interestin. Thought it was fun. Still naked, I peed. Tried to catch the pee. We washed and got me into some clothes. Ma was a wise one. She knew to be calm with a child. Knew it even depended on the free-flowin clothes you wore yourself and other little things like the wipeability of the caravan floor. She learnt all that from my granny. Learnt you had to be able to keep things relaxed and simple, not less stresses get in the way.
Newly clothed, I played on chequered waxy with a little icing-coloured doll my da had produced while ma smoked a Johnny Blue and grinned with exhaustion from the step.
I fell a few times. Different sorts of falls. One was quite loud. A hard bang. I was strong willed, ma said. Each time we just had a brief cuddle and it was right back onto the waxy! She hoped I could hold onto that courage. Not lose it because life was too soft or too tough. She vowed to try and help me keep that important sense of balance, despite our havin left the road behind.
Sometimes ma felt frustrated with God and Jesus. I know she never felt it toward Our Lady. After all, Our Lady was a mother too. She did feel it toward the lads, though. Wanted to know why we must go through so much pain. Why the travellin people are so marginalised. Discriminated against for so long. What was His purpose? It never took away from her dedication, though. Like a lot of us, she loved goin on pilgrimages - to Croagh Patrick or Lourdes or wherever - and placed a great emphasis on Saints. Most of us have a special Saint we pray to and whom we'll carry in relic. For my mother it was St. Christopher. He hung from her neck in silver.
My father was inquirin, havin stepped back into the caravan, where his boots were and she followed him inside briefly. Mutterin that she would be back in a moment. My power of concentration was much stronger nowadays and trust sufficient that all I would do was look up in a minute or two if she didn't return. It was important to leave me there, to play in a different way. To mooch on the waxy. Be waved at giddily by auntie Margaret who stared serenely out the window of her blue caravan, with silky cream curtains of green and gold terrain over which angels slipped or didn't. I was cold. Except that I wasn't. As my mother returned to the step, she wound up a chat with my father who remained inside. Looked at me as we both heard him curse. Where's da? I glanced above her shoulder and took in the caravan window. Then quickly shifted my eyes to the other window. Quite a step forward, she thought! Until recently I had just looked confused when she said things like that, but now I loved it. Where's da, ma or Christine?
I didn't want her to leave me alone at night. I whimpered. Yet moments later as I stuffed Cat's ear into my mouth, my second tooth almost through - and deservedly so, she repeated to herself - I was smilin again. What love she felt for me at these times and again later as she took a swift, steady look at me as I slept. How small she always felt in the presence of such a blessin from God. She sat down on the step again as my father came out and walked straight across the camp, where his business partner had started fillin radiators with sand to increase their weight as scrap.
I seemed more and more to appreciate her company. She had time for me that was never available to my older siblings. A sort of companionship seemed to grow between us. How much pleasure I seemed to get when she joined me for play and when I had already been happy anyway! It was dangerous to let Christine become distressed before joinin in, she was learnin. She should step in quickly because I was quite a serious little lady, moreso than anyone else in the family and easily upset or bored. If she could just show me that life had pleasures, high points all by itself, perhaps I would learn to make better use of the time in between.
She was naturally anxious I would lose the rhythm of our people. That I wouldn't have the basic beat. Knew I probably wouldn't be raised on the road. Yet how I amazed her, nonetheless. So many things showed my awareness, yet were hard for her to articulate to John since they were so fleetin and he was so preoccupied. Like the waxy that mornin. Or the famous cubes from Auntie Noreen!
We had started by buildin towers with the cubes - I liked to watch them grow but became distressed when they came tumblin down. Maybe what really upset me was the way she went 'oooh!' when they tumbled. We had recently started puttin one cube into the other, before finally puttin all the cubes in their clear Perspex cube box and puttin the lid on top. That fact - that in less than two weeks I had grasped the concept of the lid bein on top and now tried to fasten it once all the cubes were in - entertained her. I could also take out the cubes, but with some difficulty as I couldn't reach fully inside, couldn't get my little fingers down. I would sometimes try to put back one I had taken out. Could easily be occupied by this for fifteen to twenty minutes. Though I lost all interest once the cubes were out, scattered. Looked at her like she was soft in the head if she attempted to put the top on the empty Perspex case when it was empty.
I lost my fear of the tubes tumblin. She shirked her habit of exclamation. Apparently I made a great effort to carefully remove the top cube from the tower without bringin down the rest. She congratulated us. Shed a tear. Because no such plastic games would ever have been necessary on the road.
When I tried to crawl my left foot got in the way, it wouldn't move back or something and when occasionally on all fours would quickly flop onto my tummy. Though she tried to hide it, I could still sense ma's desire. Since movin so close to the settled community, since seein settled kids walkin to sc
hool every day, she wanted me to crawl.
I began to watch the world from the flopped position, could go from flopped to sittin and that gave me confidence. Previously I had needed help even sittin back up. Also, I found, it was possible for me to move backwards. Go near me, let me even lean against you and I'd finally hike myself up.
Crawlin, I became a bigger part of the camp. My brother Christopher was helpin our father paint wooden flowerboxes for a woman off Amiens Street. I was nearby, on my waxy and fancied the big yellow paint tin. I was in no doubt about reachin it and didn't crawl again for anything else that day. Made my old starts and then backed onto my bottom again. I would try again soon, no doubt. Ma wouldn't mind, but she would and did give me many unorthodox things. A full 2 kilo tin of emulsion just wasn't on!
She took me around to the shop as consolation. I looked at myself in a propped up little mirror on the buggy. Saw a fun playmate. Found birds in flight. Pointed at them. Then looked at my hand rather than any bird. I had found my hands for the first time back at six to eight weeks and thought what are these things? Nowadays I looked at them with impatience.
I tried to get out of the buggy for dogs but she took hold of my yellow PVC and helped me back into position. Really didn't like puttin that coat on. More and more was showin a natural preference for no clothes. Spendin much of my time with little or nothing on. When it was time to get dressed or wear a nappy I would try to hinder the process. In fact, I apparently took issue not only when gettin dressed, but when gettin undressed. Pushed tights away and clutched, pulled at t-shirts. Didn't like things near my neck, chest or particularly between my legs. Hated the restriction. I wouldn't be naked for long, though. Soon it would be a sin.
Ma told herself to remember how good her little girl was whenever she took me to the shop. I could be quite the opposite. She sighed, rememberin how my massive head stretched her. Even now as she pushed the buggy toward McGrogan's it seemed out of proportion with the rest of my body. Constantly detonated by a sudden, overjoyed smile. A smile which should have consulted with the rest of my face before goin off, because it made me look like I'd been drinkin and farmin for fifty years. My mouth was often compared to uncle Martins because it contained enthusiasm for nothing. No secret teeth. Nineteen of the full twenty on show - like clenched, bloodless fists angry about a top middle one missin.
First Holy Communion showed I was becomin more aware of His presence in my life. Until then my family had guided me, but now I was definitely startin to do some of the work myself. I recall that day vaguely because it took place a mere week after my brother Seamus was born. He was number eight. Some people say we believe in havin a lot of children. How can we not? We don't believe in sex outside marriage. Within marriage it has God's blessin. Some of the younger girls want less children nowadays and want to space out their pregnancies. That's wise. It's personal. Sure, look at me. I never had any children!
It's important to remember there were many babies born over the years who didn't survive the journey. That is very sad. When people say we have a lot of children, I say you don't know the half of it. There were a lot of miscarriages over the years. All the girls used to have them. It feels like another community, hidin behind the travellin community, made up of all those little souls who didn't make it. They are real too. Y'know? We pray for them. Those of us who made it were often premature, the midwives said and sometimes weighed a little less. Occasionally we were deaf or blind. Thank God, it has improved a lot over the years.
I was the first in my family to really attend school. My brothers and sisters only attended primary school for a few weeks before Communion or Confirmation. How could kids be in school when you were movin around all the time? Besides, we knew the schools worked to get traveller ways out of children. They wanted you to forget your culture and history. The funniest was called School on Wheels - a bus that came around to wherever you were stopped and tried to cajole the kids inside! That was the bloody Legion of Mary.
'There's nothing wrong with readin and writin and all of that,' da told ma. 'The problem is they'll make her feel ashamed to be a traveller - make her see us through settled eyes.'
Yet things were different now we weren't on the road. Ironically, now that ma finally wanted to enrol me it was difficult. She approached five Catholic schools but there was no room, so eventually she went to the Protestant one and bathed in their gentility. I went there for two weeks but can't seem to remember it. Apparently all the headmasters in Longcommon knew each other, though, because soon one Catholic school was telephonin the Protestants and sayin Christine Ward is one of us. They were a bunch of weirdos, ma laughed. Not right in the head.
If you can't travel, she said, be a settled person. If you're havin trouble with that, teach.
My da walked me to school every mornin anyway - he did that much - and told me a series of stories about two horses called Aristotle and Plato who were travellin from the centre of Ireland. I remember we had to walk through an old chilly arch which is gone now. Past Our Lady's Church. I respected, keenly, each of my da's stories about the horses. While remainin perceptive about how much effort he'd put into a given one. It had a lot to do with whether he'd been drinkin the night before.
Walkin through Longcommon was great for dwellin on things divorced from school. Suggestin to the sensor inside that it wasn't a school day at all. I remember how, before makin the final turn, it was necessary to walk down the little back street behind McCabe's pub and pass a laundrette with a wooden whale for a sign. In the window were leaflets in neat piles and newspaper clippins mounted on black card. I would stare at them really carefully, as if that would postpone the inevitable.
I only mention this because it was walkin down that little back street I first laid eyes on Michael.
He was comin down the lane while we were goin up. Me in my little uniform. I remember his dark hair bein really long for such a young lad. His eyes serious little slits. He looked me up and down, though I didn't acknowledge him. My father nodded at him and that was the sum of it - we all passed each other by.
On the basis of three occasions when our mornin paths crossed in as many months, I fell in love. My feelins toward him were given great platform in my mind and heart. The boy with the long hair was the answer to it all. I dreamt up epic other-worlds in which the two of us were together. On another planet. In another cosmos. Wrapped up and lyin close in a hut inside the wintry republic of some star. Spendin the day under a tree that I could see from miles above. Or maybe just in a caravan movin slowly down the road.
The national school's red bricks, hearty trees and a kind of coy gardenin made it seem like a settled person's home. It wasn't my world, that was for sure. Dark when you entered the side door underneath the steps - meanin you quickly skipped upstairs and hung your coat.
Durin my first few months, I could feel ma's hands all over me. Pushin me toward this settled experience and yet holdin me back. Cautionin me that the world wasn't so sensitive. Like a superhero monitorin their prot?g?. My father and her were tryin to get me into this buzz of school/home. Look, you're already back at the camp. It's not even late afternoon! Yet when a child returned from the toilet and re-entered the classroom others noticed. When you sat down at a table, you collaborated. We walked in a line to the yard. It was so organised. Child gusts in the rooms and halls prevented me from posturin in a bubble of my own. Made my tummy ache with health. I grew wary. My mouth learnt to contain its enthusiasm.
Every third day, on average, they made me have a shower. A teacher called Miss O'Faolain stripped me and it felt horrible. She washed me in cold water with a small window open. It wasn't ice cold but felt so weird. Like she was tryin to wash me away or something. That never stopped. They were constantly sendin me off to have a shower. While I can't be sure it was necessary those first few times with Miss O'Faolain, it sure as hell wasn't required on all the subsequent occasions. They got it into their heads I was dirty and, whenever they sensed the slightest lack of
submission, announced it was high time for a wash.
Three other travellers attended the school and sometimes, suddenly, they segregated us from the settled kids. In retrospect, that was weird because we were completely different ages. I was five but remember a twelve year old in the small library with me. That library was the size of an office and we never did anything worthwhile in there. They gave us work but it was stupid stuff. Like we were stupid. I don't know why they hid us in there. Perhaps someone special was visitin.
Nowadays some travellers go to schools just for travellers. That's wrong too. It's wrong to segregate. Isn't the whole point of school to be around other people, from whom you can learn different things?
I remember those school days vividly. How the light bled vaguely, as grazes sometimes do. Heraldin activity. It was like I could see the settled people's values and the school's intentions in that light. What's everyone else doing? Am I doin what everyone else is doing? Or am I just copying? Is copyin as good? Or is copyin simply what everyone else is doing? One word - later two - remained unerased on the top left hand corner of the blackboard for the whole day so we could drink them in. Each word meant something different. Except for brilliant, fantastic, wonderful, excellent, fabulous, incredible, superb and amazin. They all meant the same thing.
Yet the showers continued. The only thing about them I liked was the opportunity they presented to move around the buildin while everyone else was in class. I remember peekin inside empty rooms with wet hair on my way back and remember the gym in particular, which sometimes had smells from the nearby kitchen. Don't feel like italicisin the word gym or clothespeggin it in quotes - but something needs to be done to your perception of it because it was even less of a gym that what our lads did to the vegetable room years later. It was just the basement.
It was dim, with barred windows down the back and up front. Apparatus used for jumpin and stretchin introverted in corners and crannies just like every mornin when we stood in lines for roll calls, hymns and announcements. The peace you can store in an empty room in a primary school is unnervin in its authority. As if our unconscious - less wounded than adults' - skulked around resentful of what they were tryin to teach us upstairs.
I imagined someday settin the school on fire on the way back from an unnecessary shower.
We used to say two prayers at those mornin assemblies. Our Father and then another one that rotated. Some settled kids in my class shocked me by never sayin your kingdom come, your will be done but my kingdom come, my will be done?
I played with a girl called Alison. One day the headmistress told us that Alison had been hit by a tractor and died. Her parents had been away - we had all just returned from Easter - and Alison had been stayin with her granny when it happened. Imagine the granny havin to tell the parents when they came home, ma sighed. I didn't know what to feel and it didn't occur to me that Alison's granny might have lived in a rural area. I visualised a tractor breakin the lights around Longcommon! Me of all people, the road in my blood, unable to imagine anything but the city.
I remember feelin slightly excited after bein told she was dead. Not in a good or bad way. Just excitement. When I arrived home immediately goin to the hidin place where I had stashed the small coloured writin pad she had given me and examinin it. As time passed I thought about her less. Certainly wasn't brought to her funeral or anything.
I was developin a tendency to daydream while sittin in class. Imaginin myself bein virtuous, helpin others in difficult situations, the brave one. Such thoughts stopped me from feelin left out and helped me sleep at night, in foetal position. Holdin myself and fearin a dream I had about a tall wall. Also dreamt I was in jail once. Perhaps because Uncle Martin had recently gone there. I don't know. Anyway, jail was like a swimmin pool changin room in my dream. There were no females apart from me. I was sittin amidst many grown men, writin my name on a small egg for dinner because one of them said so.
The followin day I told Miss Burke about the dream.
'I dreamt I was in jail last night,' I said.
'Maybe you were,' she sighed.
When I played with a big girl called Susan and her little brother, they pushed me occasionally. I don't think they were bein mean. It was always in the midst of something - like racin or strugglin for a ball. One of the times I fell, the teacher on watch saw it and immediately sent me to have a shower. What a strange way to react! Yet from that point on Susan wouldn't talk to me. I honestly don't know why. Such were the little mysteries that grew me up. That grew a lot of traveller kids up.
I will never forget the day something went wrong with the elastic in my dress. I can't remember whether it started in school or had been wrong when I left the camp and only poorly remedied by ma. In any case, my dress started fallin off in the yard. Classes roared laughin. It happened twice and I ran behind the rockery and bushes in tears. The moment my clamberin legs were unmasked the dress fell down again. Like in some timed pantomime. Remember bein really upset. Not comin out from behind the bushes! Miss O'Faolain came to rescue me. A megaphone in her hand the only thing missin. After some crouchin and conversin we walked back into the school with me holdin up my dress and teachers keepin all the kids quiet.
Miss O'Faolain and I sat in the coat room, which I disliked. The wood was so old it giggled and yet it grew on you anyway. She fixed a few pins so that my dress would definitely not fall down again that day. It pissed me off that I wasn't wearin knickers. Later in that room, gettin ready to leave for the day, the boys continued tauntin me.
'Itinerant!' they pretended to gasp.
I began cryin, knowin ma was close and soon enough she found me. Asked what was wrong. I told her they were callin me names.
'Come on,' she sighed. 'We're leavin.'
I found a little yellow lighter around the camp and, although it seemed broken, always kept it hidden in my uniform.
One day in class we took turns sayin what we wanted to be.
'I wanna be a copper!' Shane said.
So intense was the laughter that greeted this, I panicked.
'I wanna be a settled person,' I blurted out when it was my turn.
I didn't really want to, but suppose my father had been right when he said they would make me ashamed of who I was.
I was very good at readin and writin, though. Best in the school. Used to win every spellin competition. One mornin, headin off, I told ma it was me who would win the cup.
'Comin home with a cup ma!' I almost shrieked.
But they didn't let me enter the spellin competition that day. What did they do? That's right. They decided I needed a shower. I had won every single quiz before then. Swear to God. They simply didn't want a traveller takin home the cup.
The last straw, in my mind.
I threw a table at Mr O'Malley and screamed as loud as possible that I would burn everyone out of the fuckin kip.
When Miss O'Faolain sat down with my parents the followin week it was decided I should leave school after makin my confirmation.
That was fine with ma and da.
'You've started actin like them,' da said. 'I don't want that. Kids do get awful cheeky if they stay in school too long.'
Our classroom was the last to be evacuated and by the time we got outside the fire was quite advanced, smoke pourin out the windows and cracklin sounds comin from inside.
I noticed one of the more senior firemen sittin in his car, his eyes fixed on the distant road rather than our school. Even after climbin out and securin his hat he continued watchin the road, the emergin crowds - perhaps waitin for the guards to show up because something would definitely need to be done about the crowds.
Two firemen were fully kitted out and goin through a ritual of checkin their radios, guide lines and breathing apparatus. A third was scrawlin something on a blackboard that hung from one of the pumpers while a fourth ran a wire to a giant Turbex fan that stood in front of the entrance - suddenly switchin it on and movin away nimbly as it hummed to life wit
h the clout of a bus engine.
Until that day the only male I had ever fancied had been Michael McDonagh.
Yet as one of the firemen walked around the fan and pulled open the front door, then stood aside as masses of rich black smoke tumbled out, I made a decision.
If Michael and I didn't get married, a member of Longcommon Fire and Rescue would do.
Remember movin my eyes across everybody. The firemen, fan operator, Miss O'F and my fellow pupils. Everyone had calmed down a little and was starin at the fan. If the smoke cleared it would mean there was somewhere else for it to escape. There clearly wasn't because it didn't dissipate at all.
I gasped as the two firemen dragged their charged hoses inside the buildin without further hesitation.
'Alan and Paul,' a sub-officer roared. 'You two vent the window on the... on the left side? you can go across the roof.'
The lads took a thirty five foot ladder off the side of their pumper and carried it towards the neighbourin community hall.
They obviously knew what they were doin, because within five minutes they had little Sean Barret out of the buildin.
When I saw him comin out, his face black and fist held politely to his mouth, I silently promised never to set another fire.
I kept watchin the school burn, though.
To this day, it feels important not to spell words as perfectly as I would have durin that spellin competition.
Back then Ireland didn't have proper fire scene investigators. Merely SOCOs. Scene Of Crime Officers. Years later, in a residential centre for firesetters, I learnt these guys showed up whenever there was suspicion of arson and had to decide what happened. The same people were called to everything from murders to robberies. They pretended to know about combustion, but didn't really. I probably know more about it, at this stage.
They would only ever conclude that something had probably happened. It was probably arson. Probably started in here. Probably set by that little itinerant bitch. Probably... probably... probably. They were neither qualified nor permitted to say more. They also obtained insurance information. Did background checks. Normally reviewed police records, vandalism in the area and attempted to establish motive.
Of course, in this case they would be less than methodical. What could anyone do about twelve year old Christine Ward who had come from that dirty camp across the dualer? Except warn her never to come near the real world again.