For a brief time, I found myself under the roof of my aunt. The reasons for this arrangement are far too complicated to drag you through, suffice to say, the pain of explanation is best avoided, and I shall stick to the essentials.
Staying at my aunt’s was not my first choice, but choices were few. And, of course, living there had its own price: behaving well, attending Bible study, church at least three times a week, and submitting to her rather rigid, home-grown course in moral education, which came with lessons in proper elocution. To this day, I sometimes find myself pronouncing my vowels with an almost unsettling correctness, though I can assure you that such precision vanishes in an instant when I stub a toe, nick myself while shaving, or am forced to deposit a hard-earned coin into the office swear box. Long before Aunt came into the picture, our school had a small cadre of good readers who were paraded in church on special occasions, after having been drilled in the finer points of elocution. A lovely lady would come in to school and instruct us, and we would all dutifully demonstrate our polished dialects with immense pride, until the lesson was over. To this day, I often find myself speaking in an accent that doesn’t seem to belong anywhere.
As for the moral code, well, I’ll leave it to others to judge how well it took root. But Aunt, bless her, also taught me manners. Yes, please; No, thank you; Speak when spoken to; Open doors; Carry bags, etc. In short, to be the kind of child who could be taken anywhere without risk of embarrassment or shame. Wash behind your ears, clean your nails, change your socks, flush the toilet – on and on the list went. In retrospect, she gave me a solid foundation, and these days, manners come as naturally as breathing, even when they are undeserved. However, at the time, I viewed them as a chore, a confining set of rules that I felt forced to follow. I longed to be normal and act like my friends, to speak and behave in the way they did. I did, to an extent, but never in Aunt’s presence. Still, she was firm but fair, and her dignity shone through every action. Sometimes, when I think back, I find myself longing to return to that time, even if just for a moment. If I close my eyes and concentrate, I can almost hear her now, her soft, almost imperceptible whistle when she spoke, a family trait. I had to work hard to keep a straight face whenever she waved her finger at me, warning me that God is taking note! The faintest whistle, though, always seemed to undercut the seriousness of her chiding. I can still smell the scent of her Tweed perfume, and the soft smoke from her candles after she’d blown them out after one of the frequent power cuts. The musty scent of mothballs, Fairy soap, and Vosene shampoo still linger in my mind. She had a little plastic bottle in the shape of Our Lady, filled with Holy Water from Lourdes, which she insisted would heal any cut or scrape a little boy might suffer.
There were moments of laughter, too. Aunt would cuddle me close and tell me I was cheeky, but to keep smiling. Her laugh was soft and gentle, almost like the soft neigh of a horse: imagine a horse understanding a bad joke and responding with a patronising but affectionate neigh of approval. Despite her stern ways, I could make her laugh with ease. But, mind you, I could just as easily enrage her with my mischief.
My love of mischief and my tendency to act before thinking often landed me in trouble, earning me lessons on responsibility, behaviour, and maturity. So, in hindsight, I suppose I could have been called a little rebellious, especially as I missed my parents.
So..
Aunt was missing some upper teeth and wore a partial denture, a sickly pink acrylic with six lovely, white teeth. She’d often go about her household chores without them in place. I remember finding them sometimes in the bathroom, wrapped in dry tissue and tucked into a little plastic container. Once, I sat on the edge of the bath while she cleaned them, teasing her, and she would poke her tongue through the gap and make faces at me, faces I can still see vividly.
Above the bed where I slept hung a thin cord, and when pulled, it would illuminate two lamps on either side of the room. One night, the temptation was simply too much, and I pulled the cord again and again, despite Aunt’s repeated requests for me to stop. When she threatened to remove the bulbs, close my bedroom door, and turn off the landing light – the one I liked to keep on until I fell asleep – I pretended to heed the warning. But my restless nature got the better of me, and the lure of flipping those lamps on and off was too great. I’d push my luck, and at least it meant I had some company when I couldn’t sleep, even if it came with the price of a telling off.
I wasn’t entirely happy living there. I missed home – the familiar comforts, the warmth of my parents. Although I made a few friends locally, it wasn’t home. And so, in my childish frustration, I snapped the cord.
For a couple of days, I brooded over my scolding for the cord incident. Every bone in my body ached for home, and I was grounded – no playing outside, no escape from my thoughts. I was furious, and a childish urge for revenge began to grow.
Aunt, though, was always forgiving. It took her a while to realise what had happened, but when she did, I was met with the aftermath of my prank – her denture had been stolen and, much to my amusement, painted with a thick coat of dark red nail varnish. Now, who could have done such a terrible thing?
Wording 