|
The British Journal of Developmental Disabilities
POINTS OF VIEW BY THE BY: TOUGH LUCKOn a cold afternoon in 1982, I went in search of Herbie. Then aged seventeen and with a mild mental handicap, he had been causing trouble at home and was regarded in the neighbourhood as a dangerous nuisance. He lived with his family in a decaying farmhouse in remote, barren country. I turned off the minor road and drove two hundred yards up a rough lane, tall weeds scuffing the underside. The house, built early this century, stood on the side of a hill. In the yard at the rear were empty oil drums, rusting machine parts, old rolls of fencing, and two car wrecks. At the back door was the only source of water, a standpipe, and farther along, behind wooden pallets and a discarded mattress, was the dry toilet. Grass grew in the windows of the house, inside and out. Broken gutter pipes hung from the eaves. Across the yard was an outhouse with unusual bow-shaped doorways out of which appeared high-stepping hens and a cockerel. I went in. Herbie's mother, Mrs. Boyle, was sitting at the open fire, her thick legs blotched. "Herbie's not here", she said. "I know". Only in her forties, she looked much older. Under her sad eyes were black hammocks. Rheumatoid arthritis was beginning to lock her joints. "He's tearing the country on his bike, likely we won't see him till the morrow morn." There were smells in that room, of fried bacon, dirty feet, urine and paraffin. There was an oil cloth on the table, and a Tilley lamp with sooty funnel, things I had not seen since distant childhood. "What's Herbie done now?" "Punched me in the back, threw his lunch against the wall, ate it off the floor". She shrugged. Then, sensing I might suggest his temporary removal from home, she hurriedly added, "He said he was sorry and this time he meant it. He won't do it again, you'll see". Curled up on the sofa underneath a greatcoat was Lynn, Herbie's sister, the only girl in the family. She has dual diagnosis: mild learning disability and schizophrenia. Today, she was out of it - silent, unresponsive, unmoving, unblinking. I asked about Herbie's three brothers, all older than him. Billy, the "steady one", was out at work with his father. John, who was in his twenties and unemployed had barricaded himself in the upstairs room in a bout of severe depression. Ronnie, whom I suspected had a mild learning disability but had not been referred was motorbike mad and spent his waking hours at a friend's house, begging him to let him ride his machine. I never met Billy, John or Mr. Boyle. There was only one other occupant to ask about, Herbie's paternal uncle, "Slab" Boyle. He was an unco-ordinated hulk of a man with hands the size of buckets, ("Ask him to clap and he misses", Herbie used to taunt) and bulging forehead. He had a mild mental handicap and epilepsy. Mrs. Boyle was apprehensive of Slab, resented his presence in the house. So Slab spent the day mooching ponderously around the yard, more often walking the fields in all weathers. With his unlaced boots, tattered gabardine and smudged glasses he was a familiar figure in that hilly country. Only in the evening was he allowed to stay in the house. I looked out the window, at the plain little church with its squat turret about half a mile away, at the lough with its reedy shore, at sheep feeding off poor grass. I was puzzled. Herbie, Lynn and Slab were all entitled to attend a day centre. They would be away from home four or five days a week, would get a square meal, would probably receive a little money. And Mrs. Boyle could then regain her breath. But she would have none of it. Social workers and others had entreated, encouraged, cajoled the family to send the three to a centre. Slab refused point blank. He was too set in his ways. Lynn did go for a week but, with mother's connivance, returned home full-time. Herbie went for one day, told his mother he had no intention of continuing at the centre with all those "cripples" and "dick heads". He was now, he declared, a man, free to do as he wished. So he bought cigarettes, lit them, but could not inhale. I caught him at home one day colouring in a book, crayon in one hand, cigarette in the other. To have any chance of seeing Herbie you had to go to the derelict farmhouse unannounced. To make an appointment guaranteed he would be gone all day and most of the night. Hurt welled into his brown eyes whenever I tried to talk to him about his behaviour. No, he had never ever hit "me ma", he loved her too much. Living in the house with her was proof of that. He had certainly not punched an eight year old girl. He knew who had, though, and acknowledged that the man did look like him. When it suited him, Herbie sincerely believed that the only requirement of a job was to turn up on time. What happened after that was irrelevant. Sloping off early, sneaking away to trap rabbits, discovering all too often but never admitting that he lacked the skills - none was his fault. However, when talk turned to plans for his future, sincerity blazed in his eyes. He wanted to raise cattle on the farm. But first, he grudgingly admitted, he needed to earn the money. In his next job, starting this Monday, he would really apply himself, hand his pay packet over to his mother for safekeeping, retain only a mite for himself. I believed him, but only for the first half dozen times. At the very time, towards the end of 1982, that Mrs. Boyle felt things could not possibly get worse, they did. And all within eighteen months. Her husband was killed in a road traffic accident on his way home from Enniskillen. Frustrated at being a pillion passenger most of the time, bike-mad Ronnie took his friend's machine without permission one day, died instantly when he lost control rounding a bend at speed. Billy, the "steady" one, the only sib in regular employment, left the house one night during a gale, and walked into the lough. He must have been quite determined because the lake bottom shelves gently. And Slab, the uncle, mastered enough co-ordination to hang himself in the outhouse. John, the boy with obvious depression, survives. Convinced that there would be more tragedies if she stayed, Mrs. Boyle went to live in a council house, taking Herbie and Lynn with her. The farm was put up for sale. Earlier this year, on impulse, I went back to the farmhouse. There was a new roof on it, the windows had been replaced, and an extension added to one gable end. But the grounds at the front and the yard were more like a city dump than ever. Hens, two cats and a dog prowled around. The door to the extension was open. A naked bulb shone on heaps of tins, boxes, bottles and loose paper. Suddenly, from the rear, a middle-aged man appeared. He was immaculately dressed in a grey three-piece suit, dazzling white shirt and club tie. A pince-nez hung from a cord around his neck. Yes, he was the owner. As a local man himself he had known the Boyle family personally. He introduced himself rather stiffly ("Peter Stevenson, pleased to make your acquittance") and stepped into the yard. Peter married a Derry girl in 1978 and he and his new bride went to the United States where he set up a successful business (unspecified). His wife found it difficult to settle and wanted to return. In 1984, satisfied that they could successfully transfer the business to the province, they returned to Peter's townland. The Boyle farm was still on the market. Many locals were agreed that it was unlucky to buy property on which suicides occurred. Outsiders were not very interested because of the poor land, and because so much would have to be spent renovating the house, or building from new. Besides, it was all so remote. "As a businessman", Peter said, "I had only a few niggly misgivings. My wife had none at all. So we bought the place and started to renovate it". Because Peter was away so often, travelling on the continent and to America, his wife enthusiastically supervised the alterations: installation of damp course, floors, bathrooms and showers; electricity and water were laid on; the extension to house two cars was built; walls were erected or knocked down. "We moved in on the Monday and two weeks later we had a house-warming party. My wife was elated. The only thing we didn't have was children. My wife wasn't that keen you see". We were pacing the filthy yard. Peter changed the subject. "The Boyles were odd. They didn't trust each other so they hid things in crannies - in a dry stone wall, in a hole in a tree, whatever. I've found a hacksaw blade in wax paper in that wall, five ten shilling notes in a tobacco tin in a boast wall, cutlery in a sack under the roof . . . all sorts of things". He paused. "Anyway, back to my idyll. Two months after we moved in here my wife disappeared, took all her own stuff and the bath taps, never heard from her again. Then I had a bad heart attack. Thought she might have heard and would get in touch. She didn't. Then my business crashed". I stared at him. I have an unfortunate habit of noticing trivia at the expense of the big picture, indeed any important aspect of the big picture. I was sorely tempted, but it seemed somehow tactless, to ask this well-dressed gentlemen, his new leather shoes squelching chicken dirt, why his wife wanted the bath taps. "The locals never said they told me so. But you could tell the way they looked at each other when they saw me. Oh. Correction. One did, Herbie. He came up here on his bike a couple of times, screamed I deserved it all. Anyway, things are beginning to look up. My health is okay, touch wood. I'm in business again. Reliable partners this time. And before the year is out I'm moving to Belfast. Would you be interested in this property? No, I thought not".
Note: The main events in this story did take place. But I have altered names, place names, family composition, and time frame. The principal characters I put through a blender until even I do not recognise them.
D. N. MacKay
|