Legacy (24 page)

Chapter Sixty Four

We left the hospital and crossed onto Belfast's busy Falls road. We needed to get a taxi home and with no taxi's in sight I called into a local shop and asked for directions to the nearest taxi depot. As luck would have it there was one just around the corner.

We followed the directions the helpful shopkeeper had given us and quickly found the taxi depot. It was a dark office in a residential terraced street. We walked from the light into the gloom and I approached the grid in the wall. It served as a divider between the waiting room and the office. I ordered our taxi and looked up. At a games machine in the corner was a man who was badly scarred. He was staring at me like I was a ghost. I was used to be stared at so shot him a filthy look, yet something in this man's demeanour made me take another look.

He looked like he
knew
me. I racked my mind trying to pull something or some point from my past where this man familiar. No, nothing came to the fore. Mum on noticing my reaction followed my stare, she instantly tensed.

The growing silence in the room was interrupted when Mum spoke,

“Jayne meet the man who killed your father.”

That was it. That was why this man was staring at me. He may not have been familiar to me, but I was certainly familiar to him.

I was a bit flummoxed and thought what am I supposed to say to this one?

As always when in doubt I remembered my manners. I stepped forward, held out my hand and said “Hello.”

The man was surprised, yet he took my hand and shook it.

“I've followed you girls,” he said “I know you went to Queens', did you finish your degree?”

“Yes,” I replied and “and my Masters.”

“What about the other two? I know one had a baby.”

I told him about both my sisters. Mum stood there, she just stood there.

We had discussed what we would do if ever this situation arose and I knew that Mum would not be thinking along the lines that I was. I knew that if this man valued his life he should flee, but he remained.

Okay, it was over to me. I did my best Archbishop Tutu impersonation and decided there was nothing else for it but to become mediator.

“Mr Flynn, how do you feel about it all now?” I asked.

“I was a soldier,” he said,

Mum was coiled so tight that on hearing his reply I was waited for her to unravel and pounce. I had to act fast,

“Yes,” I said, “I don't agree with that or with any war, but funnily enough I studied Irish history, so I can see your cause,” I said full of fake bravado, “but do you regret, my Dad?”

Everything hung on his answer and part of me expected the worst. World War III was about to break out in this tiny west Belfast taxi office. I braced myself to duck from the inevitable carnage.

He didn't reply, instead he did something I least expected, he cried. His answer was there in those tears running down his scarred cheek.

I turned to look at my Mum and found that she was crying too. The pair embraced, him expressing his regret and my Mum saying one poignant line which will always remain with me,

“I will never forget what you did, but I forgive you. I forgive you.”

We all stood there for a while in that dark taxi office in West Belfast. Time became irrelevant, because a miniature ceasefire had taken place. The two sides united in pain, the pain that this Godforsaken land produced.

That day I realised that we were all victims, victim of our past, victims of evil circumstances and misfortune. The carnage, the bloodshed and the tears destroyed not only the innocent's lives, but also the lives of those who were unfortunate enough to carry life threatening weapons. Not all involved in Northern Ireland's struggle have souls; many of the killers still do not repent. Those who repented, those who stood up and regretted their actions proved they possessed souls and that their souls felt hurt and suffering like everyone else's. They were victims too, their lives were also destroyed.

Chapter Sixty Five

After the encounter in the taxi depot Mum released a lot of her bitterness. , She had reached some sort of acceptance within herself. She had reconciled her differences with the man of her nightmares and clearly felt some relief. This relief opened new doors for her; she began to tell me all about my father. I would hear the same stories over and over until I felt that I knew him too. Stories would pour out of her, more than I had ever heard before. It was as if her meeting with Flynn had opened the floodgates and nothing or no one could close them.

She still had trouble sleeping and I asked her why, she was on so many drugs that such a cocktail would literally knock a donkey out. Her reply was to tell me about the aftermath of the bomb all those years ago, of how she had reached out for the coffin, to make sure Max was still with her.

“Every time I go to sleep, Jayne I see the coffin, I still reach for it. I wake up and it's gone, he's gone. I go back to sleep again and wake up and go through the same process over and over.”

My heart reached out to her like most people, I had known love before and I had lost it. Yet I had lost love naturally, none of my relationships had been serious so they had simply faded and died. The relationships that I had experienced had died a metaphorical death, no lives were lost and no one was hurt. Mum had known such a greater love, her one true love, this had been taken from her and her life had been spent trying to ascertain why and of course putting the pieces back together. She cried again that day,

“I loved him Jayne…… I still do.”

I cried too, it was hard to conceive that someone could know such pain and loss and carry this around every waking day. The years had not diminished my parents love, instead they had simply created questions, another world of what ifs. She would never see this other world; she would never see how her love would progress.

Chapter Sixty Six

We spent those years freezing and for the most part hungry. I could see no solutions. Then one night the First Minister filled our TV screen as his party gave its party political message. He informed the nation that Northern Ireland had reconciled with its past. Its victims had been taken care off. The country could move on in the security that it had done right by all.

I thought of Mum's tears and wondered how she had been taken care off. She had been waiting three years for a council house. I had told the Housing Executive of her situation, of how she had suffered from Post-Traumatic stress and why, yet they had no policies in place to help victims. She had watched the wives of my Dad's colleagues grow into very wealthy ladies, as their husbands became partners or opened their own firms. Yet here she was husbandless and in a ghetto.

Since my Dad's death she had never had a permanent home or stability. The death of my father had ruined her life and it had never been repaired.

I rarely grew angry, but on seeing the First Minister broadcasting his delight to the nation I saw red. All my mother had asked for was a council house. She had not moved an inch on the waiting list in the three years since she had went on it. From all accounts Northern Ireland's intuitions were now recognising its victims; I could see no proof of this.

That was when my campaign began. I tried to speak to the first minister but he was too busy. Even his PA had little time for me. I spoke to every victims group that the millions of pounds allocated to help the victims had been ploughed into. They could offer Mum some acupuncture or even some art lessons, but they couldn't help with housing or her mental illness. Surely these issues were the real issues? Why plough millions of pounds into victims, create numerous jobs yet leave the victims with useless help. On top of that and for me most painful of all was that we were being forgotten, Dad was forgotten, My family like so many more were being denied Government support with basics and worse still recognition. We still had nowhere to go to remember our dead, there was no memorial and no acknowledgement of pain suffered. I decided then and there that if Mum was agreeable I would write our story, it would be our way of remembering Dad's life and even though it wasn't planned his legacy. One victims group headed by a prominent victim's campaigner was the only group that bothered to help my Mum. I wondered was it because its founder however militant, was a victim that he actually understood. A stark contrast from the numerous civil servants and third sector employees, who knew as much about being a victim as they did about nuclear physics. Unfortunately for us this group was unable to help in the end, but at least they provided some support. With no one left to turn to I went to the newly installed victim's commissioners.

Now they held promise. We no longer had an interim victim's commissioner, who had used Mum's story in her report, Mum being covered under a pseudo name of Anne. We now had four commissioners, they had been appointed by the government tasked to work on behalf of the counties victims. I was so excited at last Mum would be saved; she wouldn't be ignored any more. I ran up to Mums room and told her of their establishment. I jotted down the address and left it on the mantel piece. We would go to them, they would help.

Over the next months we had spoken to them on the phone, but never formally met them. I had started a new job in the city centre and was based close to their offices. I planned on booking an appointment right away.

Mums condition continued to deteriorate. Once a woman who had once taken such pride in her appearance, she now thought nothing about stepping out with her night dress under her coat. Her shaky hands meant that the buttons were never matched right, always some were missed or in the wrong place, the result was that her nightdress was visible to all. I did not worry about this too much, as Mum rarely went out. She would panic when I left her in the house alone.

Every day when I left for work I would leave her a little note listing some tasks, some things she could do with the day. The tasks were always basic, wash the dishes, read a magazine or watch a certain programme on TV. Sometimes she even rang the commissioner's office asking for help with housing, my entrance to teacher training, whatever she could think of at the time. I knew if Mum had something to do, no matter how minor she would panic less.

Most of the time my lists were never read, in fact in a bid to feel useful I wrote them more for me than for Mum. Normally Mum would disregard them and retreat to her room. There I would hear her engaged in conversation, so deep and fluid that sometimes I believed that someone was actually there with her. She would talk to and answer her invisible friends with such accuracy that it was difficult to imagine she was alone.

One day, like Lazarus my Mum rose and decided to come down the stairs. I had left for work already and left her a list, but she had other ideas. She ignored my list and instead found the details of the Victims Commissioners I had left out. She had something to focus on a grain of hope. Somehow she made it to the city centre and to their offices. I received a call in work from my Mum, she was in the city centre and she was stuck. Could I come and get her?

With a sinking sensation, I gathered my things and left my desk. I immediately and rushed out to meet her. What next I remember thinking? Is there any respite? Mum was in tears, she had called to their office, a huge glossy building, had even passed a commissioner on his way out of the office wearing an exquisite linen suit and carrying a bunch of flowers. She had made her way to the opulent reception and asked to speak to a commissioner. She was told to take a seat and she had waited. After a while she was told that no one could see her. She begged and pleaded with the staff and dissolved into tears. Still no one could see her. She left the office and a kind lady had enquired if she was okay, she had extracted my work place from Mum and called it to reach me. I took her home and she went back to her bed. Not even Sarah Jayne could rouse her from this depression.

Shortly after, maybe on having enough Alison and Sarah Jayne moved out, leaving me alone with my Mum.

I was all alone, I was all alone with Mum and misery. To say I felt frightened, isolated and vulnerable would be an understatement. I didn't know where to turn. Even if I had found somewhere to go or someone who would listen, where would I even start, words would fail me. I didn't feel capable of even articulating our situation, words couldn't describe how desperate we had become.

Inside I was falling apart. I remember thinking it's hopeless, nothing can be done. Then I would think of my Dad. He would not have wanted me to give up, I was alive, I was all Mum had and I was needed. With that I resolved not to quit, I didn't know how but I would get us out of this mess. I would not see us having come through all this, to give up now. This was simply another hurdle and I like always would get over it.

I thought more about the incident in the victim's commissioner's office and Mum's old friend anger was roused in me. I had exhausted every avenue I could to try and get my Mum some help, and even those who were put in place because of people like my Mum could not help. I called them and arranged a proper appointment for Mum and I this time to meet with a commissioner. I secured an appointment with a commissioner and remember cringing as Mum and I sat in her office on the day. Mum was pouring her heart out, all the while the office door remained open, everyone could hear.

I had had enough and decided I would take matters into my own hands. I began a campaign bombarding every politician in the country. I started with telephoning Stormont in 2008. Speaking to them first, then emailing. I took to writing to the Prime Minister Gordon Brown, from him I went to the secretary of state for Northern Ireland.

Victim's issues were on the news every day, to the stranger to or the fortunate who went unaffected in Northern Ireland it would appear that our First Minister had been right, the victims were dealt with. Their presence in the headlines every night confirmed this. Yet upstairs in our pitiful accommodation lay one victim who was completely ignored.

I remember making a vow to myself that day that if I ever was in a position of power, if I could ever effect change for anyone who needed it that I would treat those who approached me with respect. If I couldn't help or change things I would be honest and tell them. Most of all I wouldn't ignore those in need. Sometimes an honest response is better than creating false hope and for me it would have been more appreciated than silence.

In the absence of any reply I threw caution to wind, forgot about my pride and approached BBC Northern Ireland, who broadcast a piece on our story. I felt confident enough to begin lobbying again. I continued to be passed from pillar to post

In February 2009, our story made headline news across Northern Ireland, Alison and I took up most of the interview as Mums footage for the most part was incoherent. The piece did bring about change. Mum was given her first permanent home soon after, one she could afford and even better one in an area that was neither Catholic nor Protestant. It was the first time she had had this since losing our Dad in 1980.

Of course we were given a home but no funds to furnish it and once again were faced with the prospect of moving house with no money and no furniture. I pulled together every penny I could selling every last non-essential we had and got us moved. We moved in with three new beds and sat on cushions in the living room.

Over the next few months I again did the rounds of the various victims groups for help. One of whom, the ‘Northern Ireland Memorial fund' promised assistance to victims in need; perfect I thought, I called them and was dumbstruck to find that I was treated like a beggar. In fact that was exactly what I had become, their need for evidence of our poverty and sending someone out to the house to prove it, simply reinforced this. It was bad enough having to ask for help, but to have an organisation requesting proof was humiliating. The organisation in question had been set up to help victims not to strip them of what remained of their dignity. As far as I was concerned the only criteria they should have needed was central to their being; that those asking for help were victims.

Well I would take what they gave because we would need it. They awarded us £750 and I did my best to buy as many essentials as I could, they demanded receipts for every purchase which I sent to them but vowed never again.

It was rumoured throughout NI that those who had been released from prison early during the peace process were given houses immediately and given finds to decorate and buy basics. Yet here I was trying to furnish my Mum's house and being made to beg for droplets of help. I remember thinking that this country really did have an upside down way of dealing with things, by rewarding its guilty and penalising its victims.