Keeping My Ghosts Alive

PART TWO: Photographic Story

A LIFE IN PICTURES

PART THREE: John’s Story

THE PATTERN OF OUR LIVES

PART FOUR: Laura’s notes, poems, speeches, diaries and letters

HER OWN THOUGHTS

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

Middle ways through her intended autobiography, Laura Bond realised that if it were to be finished, it would have to be by somebody else. While she had started it, she was acutely aware she would not be afforded the time to complete it. She was in the process of telling her story when she was diagnosed with cancer and told she had one year to live, possibly two to three with successive chemotherapy.

Before she passed away Laura asked, and I promised, to tell our grandchildren a little about her, when they reached the age of reason. In the event that my lifestyle doesn’t sustain me until then, I thought it better that she tell them in her own words.

As a competent writer, Laura had astute powers of observation and an innate ability to transpose these into fluid and expressive text. I, on the other hand, take a much broader, or to put it more aptly, a lazier view of things and I let the general chit chat and detail go over my head. Consequently, I cannot express her sentiments or finish what she started in the style in which she herself was capable of writing. Neither will the story follow a familiar book format, but will be more of a dissertation of the thoughts that evolved as I progressed. It will portray qualities of love and bravery, her love being for her family and friends, for life and for nature, and her bravery manifesting itself in how she lived her life, and ultimately faced her death.

If at times as I try to complete her opus I digress into self-indulgence, it will mainly be to create a backdrop for the environment in which at times Laura had to survive, and to help portray her strength of character. For the most part she painted on a canvas where our colours intermingled, and where unfortunately some of mine were not always painted in the brightest of hues.

What she has written is an unedited draft, which she abandoned, because her symptoms dictated this, and she wanted to spend her remaining time on earth engaging in more important endeavours. Her words appear in the form of text, but also as notes and bullet points.

Laura was not the first, nor will she be the last, to die from cancer through misdiagnosis due to negligence or to pure accident. She’d had periodic cysts since she was forty, which had been tested and found benign, making her a victim of her own history. No tests were subsequently done by the specialists when she was referred by her GP with a suspicious swelling in the year 2007, an oversight which resulted in her premature death.

PART ONE

LAURA’S STORY

KEEPING MY GHOSTS ALIVE

I

MY EARLY CHILDHOOD

I don’t feel like I want to look out the window this morning from my cot, my mouth is open and there’s an old but clean towel folded under my chin. I don’t understand the awful pain in my throat and I can’t swallow, not even my own saliva. Mam has just left to go up to the top of Janesboro, where the one and only public phone booth exists for the whole estate, to make a phone call. I heard her talking to ‘Baby’, her best friend – ‘Mrs. Bennett’ to us children – who just had a good look at my throat. Mrs. Bennett says to Mam that there isn’t much of me there. The house is quiet but Mrs. Bennett is downstairs waiting for my Mam to come back; I can hear the sound of the breakfast ware being washed and know Mrs. Bennett is cleaning up. Mouth opened, I drift back into a restless sleep again.

Someone is pinching my cheek, gently rousing me and when I look up there’s a strange man standing by my cot, together with my Mam. He opens his mouth every so often as if he’s going to speak or maybe he’s chewing something, then it closes and a few seconds pass and he repeats this action. Through all of these movements, he’s opening up the top of my pyjamas and holding something cold up to my chest, the ends of it are stuck into his ears. I’m frightened but my Mam is near me and I know she’ll mind me. Then he produces a wooden spoon-shaped stick and tells me to open big as he points it in the direction of my mouth. I do as I’m told and the stick goes down so far that I immediately start to gag, spewing a little when he pulls it back out. I want to cry but don’t in front of the strange man. He’s talking to my Mam but I don’t really understand what he’s saying and then they both move out of the room together. I fall back into another fitful sleep. My Mam’s lovely soft gentle voice wakes me the next time. This time it’s the man dressed in black clothes, with the white collar that goes all the way round his neck that’s with her. He rubs my head, smiling down. I don’t do anything because I can’t smile, my throat hurts too much. He’s my Dad’s friend, Fr. Kellegher.

Mam lays down with me, telling me a very short story and then tells me to close my eyes. I don’t because I know she’ll sneak away if I fall asleep and I don’t like being on my own in bed, but Mam falls asleep first, I think; I don’t know ‘cos I saw her open one eye. I eventually nod off too. When I wake up it is very scary because the room is pitch black and I’m on my own. I see that tiny star in my room again, it’s there every evening when I just open my eyes and it always frightens me. I can hear all the voices drifting up the stairs but no one knows I’m so frightened that I won’t even turn my head. I start to cry, this is my way of letting everyone know I’m unhappy or scared. I can hear them telling Mam, The baby’s awake. Then I hear, No, you go up, I did it last time. I cry louder. At last I hear the footsteps on the stairs and I know they’re Jim’s. Jim is very kind and he comes up very often to lift me down. Jim kisses my cheek and tells me to sshhh!! sshhh!!

The gate is closed, tied with a rag so I can’t get out but I’m happy as it’s sunny outside. Everyone is gone to work or school except Mam. Mam will be going to town soon, she goes nearly every day, just for a little while. I think about this as I draw crooked boxes on the path at the side of the house with my pink rough chalk. I’m going to play ‘picky’; I make up my own rules to suit myself. I love thinking; I can make up all my own stories in my head. I need to find a nice shiny stone for a ‘picky’ for my game so I wander off down the back garden looking, trying the rose patch at the side; I always get one there. I see the top of a stone sticking out of the earth so I tug and tug and it pops out. Just as I walk back towards my play area, water comes gushing out of the pipe down into the shore hole. It’s very wet and slimy all around it and the concrete is broken, making the drain slightly bigger. Mam wants it fixed; I heard her tell Dad that the people who lived in the house before us should have looked after it. It’s like that a long time because I’m three now and everyone said I was the only one born in our house. I have four brothers and three sisters and I love them loads. I put the stone under the running water to clean it; I know Mam wouldn’t want me to do this even though she never ever saw me do it but she’s always telling me to be careful when passing there ‘cos the water is dirty. Keep away from that dirty water, Laura. She always smiles when she talks to me. I wonder why Mam always says it’s dirty there ‘cos she’s always pouring Jeye’s Fluid around and down it to make it clean. I don’t like the smell of Jeye’s Fluid and wonder how can something that smells so awful clean anything. I begin my game, trying to push the picky with one foot into a square while trying to hold the other aloft, just like Helen does. I think about how sick I was a long time ago when I couldn’t talk or swallow. Mam told Mrs Bennett that my throat went green and black. I don’t want that to happen again, I didn’t like it.

II

SUMMER 1951

Ages pass and then Mam comes out for me. The house will be lovely and clean now, the dinner will be prepared for cooking, all the bedrooms will be done and there will be a lovely smell of polish. Come in ‘til I wipe your face and hands, love, Mam says. How did the sleeves of your clean cardigan get so wet, what were you doing? I don’t answer, I just drop my head while she gets her lipstick and very carefully she purses her lips while she colours them red. I purse mine too while I watch her. She combs her hair again and then she’s back rushing quickly, as Mam does everything very fast. She has her shopping bag and her jacket on and out the door we go. We’re walking over towards Bennetts, my hand tucked into Mam’s. Mam opens the door and calls, Are you there, Baby? In here, Kathleen, she replies. I start to feel upset, I know what Mam is going to do, I just remembered, she’ll sneak out and run away to town and leave me behind. I don’t like being parted from my Mammy so I’ll just keep watching her so she can’t sneak away. ‘You know who’ isn’t taking her eyes off you, Mrs Bennett says to Mam. I know she means me so I watch Mam’s every move. What’s that out there? Mrs Bennett says as she looks out her window up along their big back garden. Mam rushes over to have a look and I’m dying to see what did they see so I rush over too. Mrs Bennett says, Look at the chickens, Laura, as she lifts me up on the chair. Oh! there’s lots of them, all pecking at the ground and I’m smiling from ear to ear I’m so happy. Then I hear the front door bang and too late I realise my Mammy has gone. I start to cry and try to follow her but Mrs. Bennett gets cross with me and pulls me back in. Now stop that crying and be a good girl. But I don’t listen at all and cry even louder, I want my Mammy. Stop that, I said, she says in a louder voice. I know I have to then as I’m frightened ‘cos she’s not my Mammy. After a little while she feels sorry for me and lifts me up on her lap and rocks me, she then makes me a cup of tea but Mrs Bennett puts too much milk in it and I don’t like it that way; she gives me two biscuits also but I don’t eat them. She then gives me comics and tells me to look at the pictures as she busies herself in the kitchen. I do as I’m told and start to make up stories in my head from the pictures, I forget all about my Mammy.

We’re back home again, Mam gave Mrs Bennett her messages and now Mam is very busy cooking, everyone will be in soon for dinner. Mam shows me the big hand on the clock, which is at the bottom, and points to the top of the clock and tells me when it gets up there that will be dinner time; she calls it one o’clock. There’s loads of noise now as everyone is in from school and work except Dad. Maura lifts me up in the air and twirls me around every day and Kit sits me on her lap and speaks very gently to me. The front door opens and the whole house goes quiet, I know it’s my Dad has come home. He opens the kitchen door and says to all of us, God Bless. I love my Dad but I’m afraid of him, I don’t know why I feel like this but everyone is always different when Dad is around, except Mam.

Mam says my birthday is coming soon and I’ll be four and I’ll be a big girl then ‘cos I’ll be starting school this year. Soon seems very long ‘cos it takes ages and ages. I forget all about it and play by myself every morning. I don’t have to go to bed after dinner anymore, like I used to. It’s much better. Junior is nearly six and he’s my best friend ‘cos he’s nearest to my age. He won’t play hopscotch or picky but when no one is looking he tries to teach me how to skip. I think he likes skipping. I think that’s because he gets his legs to move so fast. The new pup, Duke, runs out our front door and down the side of the house. Dogs aren’t let in our house often, Dad has a shed down the back for them. I’m not afraid of him at all ‘cos he’s so tiny but it’s hard to catch him ‘cos he’s a live wire, that’s what Dad says. Very quickly he’s down in the rose patch so I run very fast to catch him. I forget to swerve around the slimy part and I skid down into the shorehole filled with water. I’m terrified, it’s cold and my mouth fills up with the dirty water. I get my head up high ‘cos the taste is awful but I sink back down again and get another mouthful. Up pops my head again and this time I start shouting for my mammy. I’m shouting for ages and ages, Mama, Mama and at last I hear the back door opening, Mam comes out and calls my name, Is that you Laur? I answer but she can’t hear me ‘cos I’m around the side so she goes back in and closes the door. I keep shouting, repeating over and over the one word Mama but every time I shout I gulp down the dirty water. There’s another door opening and I can hear Mrs Cusack, our next door neighbour, calling my name, but she can’t see because of the big high hedge that divides our houses. I answer but she can’t hear me either and she goes back in home. I keep shouting for my mammy and then both of them come out to check again. I thought I heard Laura crying, Mrs Cusack says, over the hedge. So did I, replies my mam, and I can’t find her anywhere. I shouted very loud and then both of them knew where I was. I was sick afterwards, vomiting and hot and the man that keeps opening his mouth as though he was chewing gum but isn’t came to see me. He told my mammy I had Scarlet Fever.

I was put into hospital for such a long, long time and no one was left in to see me. All my body was red, like when I blush and the colour of my face changes. The nurse called in to my ward. I was in there on my own and she gave me a brand new rubber doll and if you squeezed it, it whistled. Your Auntie May called over to give you this. And that’s all she said as she turned and left. May was Uncle Mick’s wife. I squeezed it for ages and then I got bored with it. The nurse came back in again and she was doing something with a blade. She doesn’t talk to me like the nice nurse does. She forgot the blade that was now on my locker when she left. I kept looking at it, all the time wondering how the doll whistled, so I ripped open the doll only to find a little stud, something like what Dad wears in his collar and when I blew this it whistled. I was very disappointed. I heard the nurse’s footsteps on the corridor and quickly tried to put all the pieces that had made up the doll under the sheet but the clothes were so tightly wound round the mattress that I couldn’t pull it up so I tried to get them under my pillow but too late, she was looking at me. She got very cross with me and slapped me on the back of my hand, sharply. You’re a very bold girl! That was very bold! Who told you to use this blade? she asked angrily, as she picked it up off the bed. I just hung my head down.

A long time after, I was playing with a colouring book that the nice nurse gave me. For no reason I looked up and I saw Kit’s face from outside looking in the window at me. I started to scream for her I was so lonely; I wanted to go home. My sister had ducked down but it was too late, I was very upset. There was no one could shut me up, the nurses said there was no consoling me and the head nurse went outside the building to Kit and slapped her across the face just because I saw her. Kit was twenty-four years old. I was in quarantine in St. Camillus’s Hospital just over a month when finally I was released. There was a big doll and pram waiting for me when I got home. And a few days later, when I was left outside for a small while, I saw the path repaired all around the shorehole, a new cover over the drain and a big kind of step built all around it to stop the dirty water from splashing out. My Uncle Mick did it. Everyone loves Uncle Mick.

III

1952

Finally, it’s July of 1952 and I start school for just one week and then I get my summer holidays. I am still only three as Mam says my birthday isn’t until August. Lots of girls are crying in my class every morning, they give me a headache as I don’t like noise. Mam always says she has a headache when she doesn’t like something. I don’t cry, though I’m frightened, I’m too