Lavender on Sundays

The smell of the W5 Lavender bathroom air freshener brings it all back. My Granny's house was always laced in the scent of fly spray mixed with lavender, a smell that awakens the feelings I had at that time which I thought was just pure numbness. Myself, my older sister and little brother spent a number of years travelling to that house every Sunday, all with hurtful secrets on our chests. In the back of our parents little red Opel Corsa that had seen better days, we gathered ourselves to enter the house that had that smell. The smell being used to mask the odour of years of dirt and festering, both literal and figurative. The place felt dirty and I must have sensed that it was more than the years of built up hidden grime and dust. Carpets had been removed, but the lino that replaced them now suffocated further what had been swept under them over the many years the large Irish Catholic family had lived in the overcrowded council house.

I hated eating off the plates and drinking out of the glasses. It felt wrong. It represented the acceptance that this was normality and indoctrination into a tiny 6 roomed bungalow world that destroyed so many lives; namely that of my mother. I used to love going back there and often asked when was the next time we would visit what used to be my home. I was born and spent the first two years of my life there, sleeping on the sitting room floor on a mattress. I often wonder if the old energies in the house, where 15 people were living in what was the early 90s affected my development and emotional stability..

We moved out and got our own council house and when I reached the age of maybe four or five, I felt that it was my responsibility to be an easy child to look after for my parents. Having difficult emotions and needs they could not meet, made me feel ashamed and guilty. I craved going back to that house I was born in every Sunday. The now boring, dark house full of visiting aunts, uncles and cousins with pain of their own under the surface of laughter and messing became a refuge. A lesser of two evils. Mammy and Daddy couldn't fight here. They chatted and spoke to the other adults like they were normal people, people with happiness and personality. What a relief it was for me.

At about 6 or 7pm on that evening we would pile up into the car and everyone's mood was up a little. The tensions albeit still present, were much reduced and us kids were able to play and laugh in the back of the car, still buzzing from fun we had with our cousins and just being in a house where people got on, or at least seemed to. A few hours after returning, the tension that was ever present when my parents were in the same room and sometimes the same house together began to build but was still at a tolerable level and I felt okay. I had the solace of knowing that Monday was coming which meant Daddy was going to work, myself and my sister were going to school and Mammy would be at home with my brother. All separate, no one impacting on anyone's day. Freedom from guilt for a while and a bit of certainty that felt safe.

I felt I could get over the arguments that took place in the weekday evenings as I would soon tire as a young child and fall asleep before the stern murmurs from the kitchen became any louder. But Saturday would always come and the evening "discussions" from Friday were splattered all over the house and tip toeing and dodging the remnants became a skill. My parents must have thought we didn't know that they fought and hated each other. We were such expert little actresses and managed to stay out of the way. What we didn't realise is the cost of the hidden stress, the tension and uncertainty we felt at all times. Just as children are sponges for knowledge and languages, they also soak up emotions and pain and I was a thoroughly drenched mop. I have been wrung out by those Sunday visits but over the years each tentacle of the mop has become frayed, permanently dirty and some have even fallen away. 

The wringing out process is ongoing and the smell of chemically manufactured lavender will always hold a weird place in my matted confused mop-like state.