Changing Lives

Sue Davies

David and I were walking up the steep rocky part of the rutted track that led down once to the railway crossing. Horses and wagons, tractors and trailers had lurched down this way in our lives and the lives of those we remembered telling their tales of slewed trailers and wicked horses. Mid October and warm sunshine lit the valleys towards Hope Hill in one direction and the pattern of fields; rich loam soils chocolate or mahogany red as well as the clay mix visible towards Gamage Hill and into Hereford. We remarked on the apparent single corona of trees on May Hill seen from this angle; those one hundred pines, planted for Queen Victoria's jubilee, no longer distinguishable from the lower collar of plantation spruce grown tall to hide the hill. David pointed out a post he and my father had sunk when he stayed here as an evacuee teenager. "The tree behind had been our "aeroplane." I told him.

Earlier that day we had sat at breakfast our eyes fixed on our opposites; mine on Andy's and his on Diana's. The sun streaming through the Japanese anemones outside the window and across the orchids that had, a month before, graced the hair of Andrea, the name she prefers now, in her black hair piled up on her head set above the high shoulders of the traditional Philippine silk wedding gown regal and beautiful. Glorious tropical reds and purples had made the bridal bouquets and bowls of orchids were placed everywhere and golden cup cakes, tiered high, had been the wedding cake made for Alice by Diana.

The silence of the mother of the bride had stopped our banter about education and girls. Andrea spoke, 'I had not much education. I stopped when I was eight. I feel it has held me back all my life not being educated'.

Andrea admires our degrees and diplomas while we marvel at her intelligence and myriad skills. She speaks two languages and some Indonesian, cooks, embroiders, sews and advises on fashion- all sublimely: Her interest in and care of the Philippine community around her in the hospital and the project management required to use resources wisely on behalf of family back home, involves problem solving of every sort.

Here, in my home village, family parties with freshly made curries and melt in your mouth desserts, all our favourites included. Andrea is an instinctively good board games player and is able to absorb tactics and systems of every kind. She is generous kindness itself.

"We should have been rich. My father was a manger of an oil company the older ones grew up with everything they wanted, they were spoilt.' Her mother was tired; she did not want any more children. I felt guilty being the youngest, my fault, she had had enough. She told me she would lie, she would go to bed later and get up earlier, use liver to pretend a heavy flow. Her frustrated husband took a mistress in a local drinking place, greedy girl who took more and more until there was no money for clothes and school. Andy remembers, aged four or five, going to the place where the young mistress lived, her mother deciding she would have to share- I do not want it all you can have much of my husband and his money but I have six children; they need money for school and clothes. My older sister knocked on the door. The girl fled out of the back window and flew to my father in his office, she accused us of coming to attack her and of banging the door down - we had only knocked. My father turned us all out. My mother only forgave him on his deathbed though he was deserted and ill before then.

"I never knew all this," David said, "all this detail of what happened before.'

In Cebu we had even less so we, the two youngest sisters, Concordia and myself were sent back to my father. He made us go to school- I liked school, liked learning, but the teachers needed money for us to take exams or be in the show or receive books. We were laughed at and bullied by teachers and children, stood outside because it became too difficult to go but were beaten if we did not go. I liked outdoors and trees and climbing with friends and building dams. I got browner and scarred, my sister stayed lighter and smooth and did as my father asked, I was beaten like the Spanish punish; head banged against the wall, but I would not stop.

"How did you meet David then?" I said.

"I looked after my nieces and nephews and houses for my sisters and brothers.. When I was nineteen or twenty I was asked:- "Would you like to work for this white man? He is looking for someone to be his housekeeper".

"I was not sure. I liked my nieces and nephews what would he be like? What would I have to do? - He interviewed me in a garage!"

"It was not my house!" David protested.

"He was ? his shirt was buttoned wrong, his trousers dirty ? I was sorry for him ? I said I would."

"Now David" she said, "I can ask you now, - why did you stop that day? You did not go to work further South ? your car was not broken ? that was not true. .You had taken me to see my mother and family in Allegria they thought badly ? they were reassured- you took me swimming, made me wear a costume not jeans- Philippines wear jeans to hide the brownness ? you said,' I am not going in if you are not properly dressed for swimming.' You taught me how to swim ? hand on my tummy. Kind."

"That day' David smiled, "maybe I was thinking then, "I like this girl"", my uncle said.