A Story
When I was younger,
My single mother worked extremely hard to get us into school, it was no easy feat.
We were very poor, living on the outskirts of Wanganui. My parents had spilt when I was just three, breaking up the five of us kids. Mum took Luke, Shahanan and I in tow, boot packed to the brim squeezing our whole life into the car… And off to Wanganui we went.
Why Wanganui? Good question… We can save that answer for later.
Moving came with a series of unfortunate events. I remember one day Luke and Shahanan were playing on the small tramp we had, on a very minuscule lawn outside the rental we first moved into. Luke had forgotten to shut the front gate and next minute a huge Pit Bull came running onto the lawn and attempts to bite Shahanan. Mum came screaming out just in time with a wooden spatula, the only thing she had on hand and managed to get the kids back inside and fend off the dog. Our neighbourhood was rough as guts and Pit Bulls were a symbol of power that the gangs used on the regular.
That winter we all got hooping cough from the mould growth on our ceiling, Luke was hospitalised on multiple occasions from threatening asthma attacks and mum became too sick to go to work for a whole week straight. Managing to scrape through on the rent, we lived off porridge and pb sandwiches and spent all day and night cooped up around the electric heater. Mum regularly reminds me that it was at that point, she realised she had made a mistake yet knew there was no turning back.
On the recovery, she managed to get into house painting, convincing a home owner down the road to let us take their beaten up villa on the terms and conditions that she slowly did it up. Mum was stoked, regardless of all the work it needed we at least had two bedrooms and a kitchen just big enough for her to make cookies on the cheap! She built us a make-shift tree house in the backyard and let us plant our very own sunflowers for our Christmas presents. We spent the next 6 months betting our glasses of milk on whose sunflower would grow the fastest, Shahanan’s won. Mum used to say it’s because she was the most patient, this was true. We never owned a tv, so mum entertained us with projects around the house. One of them being to create a mosaic pathway at the entrance of the villa, for that we did every weekend with our pebbles, shells and broken tiles. Mum adored it’s imperfection, considering how much of a perfectionist she was this came as a surprise. I remember thinking these were the sweetest times, although we were cold, hungry and very fkn poor, we were content with the little things.
I used to help mum with her house painting jobs, at just 4 years old, I wasn’t the worst little helper! Mum would sing to me from the top of ladders whilst she stretched to reach the corners of the veranda with her paintbrush. I had the very important job of holding her spare paint brushes. She was a very small woman, Spanish blood, long brunette hair and olive skin. Her dark brown eyes made almost every man in town fall at her feet. Although I’m yet to wonder if it was her looks that struck them like lightening, or her profound independence. She had courage and determination like no other, for an attractive woman her spirit certainly took people by surprise…
One day mum got a call from the school, Luke had got into an accident. He was a very smart kid, with the biggest smile that went ear to ear. He loved following the rules and quite frankly would get a very hard smack by mum if he didn’t! She was very strict as she couldn’t afford to have lazy, dependent or self entitled children, so we did indeed listen, learn and smile… constantly. Luke was irresistible! Although the local gangs didn’t seem to think so. This particular day he’d been the only kid in his class to actually do his homework, so at break his classmates thought it would be funny to steal it from him. He held his books tight to his chest and politely said “no”. To his dismay, this was followed by them beating him up, stealing his pants and pulling down his underwear in the middle of the park for everyone to see. So what did seven year old Luke do? He peed…
When mum arrived to collect him, she was in fury. Although she couldn’t decipher whether she was mad at Luke for not standing up for himself, or the school for letting it happen in the first place. Later she found out that the school was run by the gangs of Wanganui. Being the only public school, it made sense, really.
She became puzzled on what her next move would be, because the only other school in town was a catholic school and we were a far cry away from being religious. So what did she do? She lied. Somehow it worked and we were enrolled as Catholics, into St Anne’s. We went to church every morning as it was mandatory and mum played the part perfectly.
I remember my first day. The bright red uniform, skirt that draped down to my ankles and my backpack that was bigger than me head to toe, full with only a drink bottle, pb sandwich and a notebook. Luke and Shahanan walked off the bus with me hand in hand, they were very protective of me and it made mum feel at ease. Fuck we were cute. We managed to pull off this whole Catholic thing for a good year before mum got found out and we were expelled.
Onto the next town we went.
To be continued…