Hello Shame

We are now just one short week away from The English Christmas, school is bursting with excitement and our Christmas holidays will soon begin (see post Welcome Christmas). I too am carried away on this wave of delirious expectation, but we momentarily put this euphoria aside as Mama now confronts her first emotional crisis at Warley Psychiatric and Geriatric Hospital. After working there only a short while as a Nursing assistant with the elderly patients, she comes home in tears: Mama has just had her first encounter with the most unwelcome of hospital visitors; death. Emily, her favourite patient has died. Mama is openly weeping and clearly incensed at the unfair fate that has befallen this elderly lady. ‘Why did Emily have to die? she was the sweetest and kindest soul, such a lovely and gentle person. Why could it not be that old bat Mrs Maynard who is always making our life on the ward so difficult? It’s so unfair! and she bursts into a fresh fit of sobbing. I am only nine and Sis is only four, and we do not really know how to comfort Mama, so we just silently hug her from either side and after a while the sadness that envelopes her recedes, and along with it the tears.

After wiping her eyes and gathering herself she tells us in her most jolly voice that we will also celebrate Christmas the English way with turkey, roast potatoes and mince pies to follow for desert. Mama is not sure how to make this all, but she will ask her fellow English work companions. Mama also tells us that on Christmas Day, each ward at the Hospital will hold their own party for the patients and staff. If we girls are good, Mama will take us along to her own ward, Jasmine to say hello to the staff meet the patients and enjoy the celebrations. A party! An English Christmas party with English Christmas food! Sis and I look at one other with glee. We cannot wait and don’t care if the patients we meet will have an average age of one-hundred and are all senile to boot. A party is a party even in a psychiatric hospital surrounded by the old, the mad and sometimes even both together. Mama’s grief is now spent, and she gathers herself and resumes her role as our Mama. And so concludes the episode of Emily’s passing, the first death Mama encounters in her work at Warley Hospital. Sis and I will never again have to comfort Mama in this way. Thereafter, Mama gradually becomes immune to the agonizing emotions evoked by this most frequent of unwanted caller.

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It is now the last day of school before we finally break up for the Christmas Holidays, and the day passes in a flurry of wonderful non-academic activities. We open the school day with a special morning service, and after filing into the main hall in strict class order, we all gather to sing an assortment of special Christmas songs called Carols. I sit next Sylvia who is also sits next to me in class, and all around us are the rest of our classmates. Watching over us all are our class teachers, and watching over the teachers is the headmaster, Mr Quinnel so everyone is on their very best behaviour. Along with the same Christmas meal which everyone must eat (see post Welcome Christmas), everyone In England must also sing the same songs, but I don’t mind because I think they are beautiful and put me in a happy and festive mood; Away In A Manger, We Three Kings, O come All Ye Faithful , While Shepherds Watch Their Flocks By Night, Ding Dong Merrily On High. The names of the tunes resonate with familiarity in my nine-year-old mind, I already know the words to most off-by-heart and heartily sing along with the other children in the large hall. I take a sneak look at William, or Billy, as we call him who is seated not far away and look to see how his lips are moving as he sings along. He told me in class before we started to file into assembly hall that he would sing his own version of the Carols and proceeded to offer me a sneak preview: While Shepherds Watch Their Flocks By Night would become While Shepherds Wash Their Socks By Night, and We Three Kings Of Orient Are, Bearing Gifts We Travel Afar, would in turn become We Three Kings Of Orient Are, One In A Taxi, One In A Car and so on. 

 
It’s hard to see from where I am if he really is Washing His Socks By Night,or Travelling in A taxi Or In A Car as he said he would. In any case, I would never dream of doing such a thing. Billy does not realize that he is playing with fire. You see, Mr Quinnel is a man of many talents. As well as Headmaster, he also plays the piano at morning assembly and he is doing exactly this today. Mr Quinnel has told us children that he has eyes in the back of his head, so even if his back is turned to us as he plays the piano at the front of the school hall, he knows exactly what is happening behind him. No monkey stuff ! he sternely warns us all. If Mr Quinnel were to hear even a whiff of somebody washing their socks, or travelling by taxis or cars, that person would be toast. I already stand out enough with my dark skin, wavy dark hair and strange-sounding Spanish name; drawing any further attention to myself by singing the wrong words to sacred English Christmas songs is the last thing I would want to be doing. However, I cannot help but secretly admire Billy for his individuality as well as for his kissing skills. The kiss-chase game that I encountered at my first English school in Bloxham has now resumed, and even though Billy is not Richard, the boy with the cobalt-blue eyes with whom I shared that magical first kiss (see post This Lion Can Talk), he comes a good second. Once again, Billy likes me and I like Billy.

The classroom Christmas party has also now come and gone, and along with it vast consumed quantities of mince pies, sausage rolls and crisps. I am now beginning to wish that every school day was like this one. Finally, it is the turn of distributing the mountain of Christmas cards residing inside the school post box that have been accumulating since the post box was installed a few short weeks ago. This is the most exciting part of the school day, Mrs Bagley has encouraged us children to send out cards to one another and this is also exactly what I have done. Even though I secretly think that it is way more sensible to just greet everyone you pass with a simple Merry Christmas and save your wrists the enormous bother (see post Welcome Christmas), I have got into the English spirit and written out card to all of the girls in my class and a few of the boys. Just as the rest of my class mate, I am equally captivated by this new English ritual evolving before me. Two of the lucky children, Michael and Jane are selected for the important task of opening the post box and distributing out the cards. I wish it could be me, but I content myself with the probable mountain of cards that I will soon have piling up in front of me, I am expecting as many back as I sent out. And the distribution begins.

There goes Michael and Jane flitting from desk to desk, dropping their precious cargo in front of this and that fortunate recipient. Piles of cards slowly begin to accumulate on the desk in front of each child. Each child except me. Michael and Jane move deftly from one end of the classroom efficiently executing their task, passing me many times, but never stopping. Silently I squirm with discomfort as the excited squeals of my class mates fill the room; the growing mountain of cards in front of them sees no end. Soon the cards are almost distributed and still I have not received a single card. Finally, to my relief, Michael stops in front of my desk and deposits a single card in front of me with the name Marie on the envelope. My heart bursts with happiness, now I will also start to accumulate my own mountain of cards. But this does not happen. Within a few short minutes the entire contents of the post box have been delivered and my net sum of this task has been just one solitary card. I look around as the other children enthusiastically begin to rip open their precious bounty, and a wave of humiliation washes over me. Who was the one friend in the class that thought of me? at least there is one person that cares for me, I think to myself. I silently open the card to reveal its sender; no class mate, rather the card is from Mrs Bagley herself who has sent a card to every child in the class. 

Mrs Bagley glances at me as I look up after opening my card, and our eyes momentarily lock. She does not speak, but across the divide of the classroom separating her desk from mine, her gaze conveys a compassion and understanding which I am very grateful for. Just as when I turned up at school on the first day of term in Hot Pants and she said nothing (see post Hot Pants), Mrs Bagley makes it seem perfectly normal that one child in the class receives a solitary Christmas card, and that from the teacher, whilst everybody else is inundated with piles of cards from their class mates. Deep down we both know that this is not so. After school is over, I pick up my one card and walk the short journey home to 51 Crescent Road with this precious gift. Not a single class mate considered me worthy of a Christmas card. Not even Sylvia or Billy. This painful realization engulfs me in a heavy blanket of sadness weighed down with a mantle of shame. And slowly I begin to comprehend, that regardless of how well I speak their language or sing their songs in this Land Of The English, I have never have been and never will be one of them. The girl in the school register may have long ago been renamed Marie Garrido (see post A Girl Named Marie), but the girl that arrives home and turns the key in the front door is and always has been Maria del Carmen Garrido Sanz.

To be continued........

Next post January 14.1.2018:  Carry On Christmas Cards



 Note: All written content is the intellectual property of this Author. Image material is drawn largely from Pixabay with some additions from private family archives.