15 years ago I was living on the Gold Coast in Australia. A year before that, I had bought a house near Movieworld, this was my first house and I was very lucky to have been able to buy it. I should have bought a house in Sydney years before when I had the opportunity, but love and generally being stupid at the time made me make some wrong decisions, but shit happens. And so it was 2003 before I got my first house and even then it was a series of events that led to that purchase.
I could not get a deposit together to buy a place. Property was quite cheap on the coast at this time, although most of the houses were just thrown into existence with no care and attention and would have a possible lifespan of only a few years. Most of the houses on the Gold Coast are project homes and have been built as cheaply as possible. They may have looked shiny and new, but the build quality is shit. Even so this was still enough to start to push the prices up on the coast and so by the time I had a deposit, even these houses were out of my price range and so I had to settle for a unit in a complex with strata titles, which is something I just didn’t want.
Every day I would check the real estate adverts for a potential property that I could buy, but more often than not it had already been sold by the time I enquired about it. Prices were rising by about $5000 a week. It was moving at an alarming rate. A few months before, I could have bought a two bedroom unit for about $60,000 and then before you know it the asking price was $100,000. The house that I bought on the coast was in this small complex and it was the last house or villa as they called it, in a line of four. It was neat and tidy and had a bit of a garden, but I did not want to buy it because of the body corporate fees that you had to pay each month, which in many of the Gold Coast housing complexes are just a way of printing money. But I really had no choice; if I missed this opportunity then I would be cast adrift forever, well so it seemed and so I made an offer and bought my first home.
It never really felt like a home to me, it was just a stepping stone to the next place. But not all was bad, this is where I met Ivor and Shirley and they became very good friends. Ivor has since left us but I managed to catch up with Shirley this year when I went back to Australia for a quick trip and she has aged on the outside like most of us do, but inside she still has a young vibrant spirit. More of us need to follow her example and not get bogged down with this age thing; I mean stop acting your age and just live life.
I worked at Austar in Robina as an Internet Guru on the help desk. This was by far the worst job I have done in my life. In a call centre you are tied to a phone, tied to a desk and every moment of your day is monitored and if you happen to take a bit too long to do anything then they come and ask you twenty questions why. I hated this job, I loathed this job and I loathed many of the people that worked there. In my “TEAM” I met James and Remy. I still keep in touch with them today, and thankfully we all managed to escape the confines of that hellish place. One thing about this call centre, and I’m sure it’s the same the world over, is the role of the team leader. They are there to look after their team and enforce the management rules, check the stats and make sure you are not spending too much time having idle chit chat with customers, I mean god forbid that you actually help them, and they are also hypocritical and gutless, well the ones in Austar were. On a technical helpdesk the fix is not straight forward and so sometimes you might be stuck on a call for 10 mins or more and when you eventually hang-up from that customer you are not even allowed to catch your breath before you have to deal with the next problem. If you take a breather the “Team Leader” will ask you why? even although they know the answer , but they have to do this for the benefit of the management to justify their positions in the company, which for the most part is just a waste of resources.
One of the rules that they gave us was that we could not have a mobile phone with us, and of course I ignored this. These people did not have my respect and so I was going to do what I wanted. I got pulled up one day for taking a call on my mobile. I got quizzed and lectured and was told that if I have my phone at my desk again then I would be getting a written warning. I told them to do what they wanted because I didn’t care. I then told them that I keep my phone switched on because I might get a call relating to my Mother and that I need to be able to be contacted and so they could basically fuck off and do what they wanted. Mum was in Australia for a time because she had taken a stroke. She was wheelchair bound most of the time, but she could walk a little and had fallen once or twice and so if she was unable to contact my sisters then I was the next point of contact. I then got shouted at for not telling them this piece of information, none of their fuckin’ business as far as I was concerned, I hated that place.
I got a phone call just after my 6am shift started and I can’t even tell you at this stage who called me, I can’t remember. All I remember is that Mum has had a stroke and is in hospital. I left my desk and went to the canteen and just stood there staring out of the window.
Before I knew it I was on a plane to the UK, to Heathrow. I flew from Brisbane and Catherine flew from Sydney and we met in Singapore and carried onto London together. We flew Qantas, I don’t like Qantas.
We hired a car in London and I can remember getting into this Blue Nissan Micra which had keyless entry and being unable to start the car. I had to go back inside and ask them how to start it.I’m sure they must have thought, “What a dickhead” I think I had to depress the clutch before it would start or something like that.
The drive north took about 6 hours or more and as we drove north the temperature outside was dropping. I had travelled wearing shorts and so I remember that we pulled into a service halt for breakfast and then I had to change into some warmer clothes whilst standing at the back of the car.
We got to the RAH hospital where Mum was, and we recognised some of the staff from out previous visits. We were shown into Mum’s room, but nothing can prepare you for a time like this. This stroke had been very bad and had left Mum pretty well incapacitated. I have never felt so sad in all my life. I had dreaded this day and I had always wondered how I would feel but nothing can really prepare you. Catherine and I spoke to Mum and for the most part there was no response, but then we got a hint of a smile and then we both knew that Mum knew that we were there, and she could finally go and rest. She couldn’t speak but that smile spoke to me more than any amount of words could. Mum had managed to hang on for us, to say good bye to us, to allow us to say good bye to her. This memory is as vivid today as it was 15 years ago. Catherine and I spent time alone with Mum and we shared our own thoughts with her and told her stories. One of the last things I said to Mum was this, I said “go and find Candy”, our first dog that had died a few years earlier, “and find her and take her for a walk. It’s time to move on to the next world and leave this one behind”
We left the hospital that night feeling calm and in a way happy, relieved that we had been able to see Mum and also to know that she knew we had come to see her, but at the same time knowing that her life was coming to an end. We spoke to the nurses before we left and told them that Mum would not want to stay here in this condition and if they could help her to move on, then Mum would be happy and so would we.
Mum passed away in the early hours of the next morning……………….
The last time I had been home I had wanted to kill my father because he treated my Mother like shit and so I always carried a level of hatred for him and would have happily stuck a knife in his heart, if I could have found it, to free my Mother. But my Mother did not want this of course, instead she suffered in silence in the same way that many people do in the world. My Mother was gone, but the good news was that I did not have to deal with him anymore. He could no longer hurt my Mother and so I could forget about him once and for all. I never spoke to him again after this trip to the UK.
The day of the funeral arrived and I had managed to download “My Way” by Frank Sinatra. Mum had always wanted this to be played at her funeral and when it was playing I had a smirk on me face. It took me back to the time we were driving around Manly and Wynnum near Brisbane. It came on the radio and we were talking about it. We had fish and chips before heading home. Of course I never thought that the day would come around so quick for us to actually play it.
She was to be cremated and as we arrived at the crematorium I noticed a British Gas van sitting there and thought, “it will just be like the thing that they have run oot of gas” I’m sure Mum could see the funny side of it even if no one else did. She always said that she would go to hell for what she had said and that she had drunk so much Martini over the years that she would go up in a blue light anyway.
A few weeks before, I had put my house on the market. A year had passed and the prices on the coast had nearly doubled and so I took the opportunity to sell up and move out to Ipswich to buy a house. I was still working at Austar and so this was also part of the plan to make it more difficult for myself and to force myself to find a new job. I was moving another 70km away from my work and so now I had to travel 200 km each day. A bit fucking stupid you may say, but for me I needed to change my situation and I needed a change of scenery, I needed an incentive to make me look for a new job and I hated the coast and still do.
After Frank had finished singing and the service came to an end, we moved outside the small chapel. My phone rang and my girlfriend Linda told me that I had just received an offer for the house; did I want to take it? The price was a few thousand less than I had asked for, but enough and so I said yes. I believe to this day that my Mother played a part in this deal. I am not a religious person but I believe there are things in life that we just can’t explain.
I also remember sitting in a cafe near the square in Johnstone after consuming copious amounts of whisky and my sister Margaret didn’t agree with one of my comments about the old man and the next thing you know it was world three, I lost the plot and got very vocal. Catherine had to intervene. Margaret thought that I will go to hell and I will eat myself up because I hated the old man. I often told her that you can’t choose your family and if he had been some old bugger that I stumbled upon in life I would have dismissed him in a heartbeat. But she would never believe me when I said this, mind you she doesn’t believe much of anything I say.
A few days later we headed to Campbeltown, a small fishing village on the west coast of Scotland. We have family there and it was also where we used to go to as kids. We had many great holidays in Campbeltown. The extended family used to go there at the Glasgow Fair fortnight which is the 2nd fortnight in July. It’s about 4 hours drive from Glasgow at the end of one of the prettiest roads in Scotland. It’s only about 140 miles from Glasgow but it will take you around 4 hours to get there. I went last year when I was home to say hello to Mum. Mind you I couldn’t actually get to where we let her fly into the ether all those years ago. We scattered her ashes on Davaar Island which sits in the middle of Campbeltown Loch. At low tide you are able to walk out to the island on the Dorland, a sand bar that becomes visible at low tide. I had gone there in 2016 and crossed over to the very spot where we had last seen me Mum.
Last year it was absolutely bitter and the wind would have carried you across the Atlantic to America if you weren’t careful, however on the day we went there with Mum’s ashes the loch was like a mill pond and there was not a breath of wind. The sky was blue and it was a perfect winter’s day. Instead of walking across to the island we hired a boat. The four of us headed out and crossed the treacle like waters of the loch and slowly made our way across to the island. Mum was looking resplendent in her Chivas regal lookalike bag that contained her ashes. Very apt I thought.
We disembarked safely from our wee boat and made our way up towards the lighthouse and looked for a spot and a good view for Mother to enjoy. The time came for her ashes to be set free and we waited till the wind was blowing the right way, but when she was finally released into the ether the wind about faced and she gave us all a hug before she left us all standing there laughing. It was a very cathartic moment standing there with my thoughts, as is now as I write this. I had always worried about my Mum when she was back in Scotland; she always put on a brave face and would never give me any cause for concern, although I’m sure there is a lot she just would not tell me. I worried about her all the time and also felt very guilty because I thought I should be doing more for her but I didn’t know what I could do. Now she was free, she could go where she wanted and if you believe in some sort of afterlife, then you could meet up with family and old friends and go and walk the dog, this is what was going through my mind at least. To me she had been set free from this trapped life that she had endured for many years, where she had to listen to some old prick telling her that she was stupid and who made her feel useless at times, when in fact the useless one was the old bastard that was giving her a hard time, and now he could not do it anymore and that made me feel good too. She had finally left him, but sadly she had left us as well.