Happiness Is a Lost Island

By Lise O'Farrell

The author grew up in Mahe, the largest island
of the Seychelles archipelago, separated from Africa, the nearest continent, by a thousand miles of ocean. Life in this small British colony was as close as one could come on Earth to life on a separate planet. The outside world did little to
engage the minds of a population that was largely self-sufficient, that found enough of interest in its own communal life, and that normally spoke French or the local Creole patois. The rhythm of daily life still followed the pattern established in the eighteenth century by the French settlers who colonised the islands.

The isolation of this little world was ended with the opening of the international airport in 1974, followed shortly by independence, tourists, and many changes.The Seychelles of Lise's youth has gone. Even without its gripping story of love and loss, passion and tragedy, this novel would stand as a unique record of that vanished place and time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Feb 26, 2018
• ISBN: 9780244671235

Book preview

Happiness Is a Lost Island

HAPPINESS IS A LOST ISLAND

By Lise O'Farrell

Copyright © 2018 by Lise O'Farrell

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

First printing 2018

ISBN 978-0-244-67123-5

Lise O'Farrell is the sole author of this work.

Published and distributed online by Lulu.com, 

627 Davis Drive, Suite 300, Morrisville, NC 27560, USA.

Web: www.lulu.com

PART I:  Mémère's Funeral

Chapter 1

As I walk into the room, I am immediately struck by its simplicity.   Bare walls and a lino-covered floor are a far cry from the plushness of a funeral parlour in Ireland.   There is no such thing in Seychelles.  The custom is to bury the dead the next day.  When  relatives come from abroad, as I did, the body is preserved in the mortuary and then is laid out in  the room next to it.  The faded blue curtains have been drawn on the window behind the coffin in order to protect the corpse from the harsh tropical sun. The sun, however, refuses to be shut out. It is sneaking in through a chink in the curtains and is playing on one of the brass handles of Mémère’s  coffin.  Although it feels cooler inside, it is still very hot.  The whirring fan on the ceiling is making a mournful noise, as if it too is grieving.

Between the coffin and the window is a small table, covered with a white embroidered table cloth.  I recognise it as the one that  Mémère always kept in a drawer, wrapped up in tissue paper and mothballs. Aunty  Simone, Mémère's only daughter,  made it as a farewell present, when she left home to join an enclosed religious order in Paris. Mémère never wanted to use this particular tablecloth.  On the table stands a wooden crucifix.  On each side of it is a brass candlestick holding a long slender white candle.  Their flames are swaying in the breeze from the fan on the ceiling.  Purple and white orchids adorn a glass vase.  I  never associated them with death until now. A glass bowl containing holy water is in front of the crucifix.  In it is a small bunch of ferns  tied with a narrow white ribbon.  As people come in, they use the bunch of ferns to sprinkle holy water over Mémère's body.

I am distracted by a blaze of red, dominating the view through the louvred window on the other side of the room. I allow my eyes to linger on the source of the distraction - a flame tree, unashamedly flaunting its vibrant red blossoms in the afternoon sunshine.  I envy the little girl who is picking up the fallen petals and throwing them in the air.  I want to be that little girl.  With a sigh I disengage myself from the happy scene and try to dwell on the business at hand.

I force myself to walk to my grandmother’s coffin. She doesn’t look ninety.  Death has taken some liberties and has erased the severity from her face and replaced it with a softness not there when she was alive.  She looks almost happy.  Two flies are crawling on the white veil draped over the top of the coffin in such a way as to cover her face. I shoo them away but they insist on coming back. The rosary beads intertwined around Mémère's long, thin fingers, are the sparkling ones that  she kept on her bedside table.  I remember my fascination with them when I was a little girl. They had lasted all those years!

I reach over to the table to take the bunch of ferns to bless Mémère with the holy water, but I change my mind and withdraw my shaking hand.  I am not sure what to do.  My body is being assaulted by the sensation of fear and terror that constantly haunted me when I was growing up.  The whirlpool of memories is sucking me down, down, down.  I am a frightened, lost little girl once more. 

Calm down,  Calm down. Take  deep breaths, I reason with myself.  You are now a grown woman. Mémère is dead. She can no longer hurt you. 

Anger grips me,  twists my insides and makes me scream out Mémère will you quit interfering with my life?  You have been doing it since I was a year old, and you are still doing it. Oh my God!   I’m screaming at my dead grandmother in public!  What will they think of me?  Strange, nobody seems to be shocked.  Maybe they didn’t hear me.  I thought I heard myself scream.  Am I going mad?

Mémère, do you realise what you did to me? Tell me, Mémère, was my fever so bad, or did I have a fever at all, on that fateful day when my parents left for Africa?   You cannot travel with a sick baby, you told them, and you offered your services.  Are you aware of the damage that you did to me?  It is still there.  The low self-esteem that has been oppressing me all my life is your legacy to me.  Did you, did you realise what you were doing to your grand-daughter or did  you even care?  You made my life a misery.  Why? Why? Why?

I’m sorry I came to  your funeral!  I should have stayed in Ireland with my husband and children.  Why did I give in to my parents? They said it was my duty to be there because you brought me up.  Brought me up?  You brought me down. That’s what you did.  You brought me down and muddled up my life.  Duty.  I am tired of that word.  Did my parents do their duty when they abandoned me with you?  Duty, duty, duty that’s all I heard when I was growing up.  I wonder if all the people who are here are only doing their duty. 

Trust you to die on my birthday!  You always hated birthdays. You never wanted to celebrate them.  Birthday parties were such frivolities, to you, to use your own word.  Every year I begged for a party but you always refused.  I managed to get around you once, though.  Remember that, do you?  I was determined to have a party. It was my ninth birthday.  If you weren’t going to co-operate I would organise one myself.  The excitement was all the more exquisite because I was doing it all behind your back.  I felt so important as I sneaked over to the Chinese shop, with the pocket-money that I had saved tied in my handkerchief, and my list.  I even remember what was on the list.  Bottles of pink lemonade, sweets, cakes and nougat coco, my favourite coconut confections, especially the pink ones.  I hid them all under my bed.  My friends were told about the big occasion on my way back from the shop. It took a lot of courage to reveal my plans to you.  I was shaking.  You screamed at me for going behind your back.  At one point I thought you were going to slap me, but you desisted for once. You went on and on about the sneaky streak in me that should be corrected before it was too late.  You gave in only because you were afraid  I would get sick in bed that night if I ate all the goodies by myself.  But there was a condition attached.  There was always a condition! There should be no noise whatsoever or I would be caned.  Imagine a party with no noise! Ludicrous!  You did not want us to disturb your siesta.  You pointedly boycotted the whole affair.  I decided to have the party outside as far away from the house as possible.  It was a great success in spite of you. We went up the hill at the back of the house to play and I was crowned queen of the hill.  The crown was made out of the vine of a wild creeper and they decorated it with red hibiscus flowers. Ever since I got away from you, I made sure to celebrate my birthday.  I always have a creamy, luscious chocolate birthday cake.  I had no birthday cake that day.  I couldn’t afford one. 

Why am I here?  I want to be back in Ireland with my husband and my children.  Mémère, did you ever feel sorry for anybody?   You spent your time finding fault with everybody.  When I find myself criticising my children, I think of you and I stop. Now that I think of it, you never laughed very much.  Were you ever happy?

A neighbour came to the house yesterday and told me how he used to feel sorry for me when I was growing up.  He said  every time he heard me screaming when you were beating me or being cruel to me, he wanted to come over to stop you, but he didn’t.  It wasn’t his business, he was afraid to interfere.  Until yesterday, I thought the neighbours believed I was being punished because I was a bad girl.  I wish I had realised that years ago. It would have been some comfort to me.  You were a cruel, cruel woman!  God, I shouldn’t be thinking like that. How irreverent of me.  My conscience nags me now.

People are saying the rosary.  I wasn’t even  aware of that.  Sainte Marie, Mère de Dieu, priez pour nous pauvres pêcheurs...  The rosary reminds me of the vespers I was dragged to every Sunday afternoon.  I don’t understand how you were so religious and so, so savage at the same time.  "Maintenant et a l'heure de notre mort. Amen."  Is this travesty ever going to end?  It looks as though it is time to close the coffin.  Thank God!  No, I was wrong.  They are starting to sing. Plus prés de toi mon Dieu, plus prés de toi, - Nearer my God to Thee.   Oh no, no, no, not that one, not that one!  My baby, my baby!  Her funeral!  I don’t want to hear it!  It brings back all the raw pain.  My ears are bubbling, my heart is pounding, pounding. My chest feels as if it were about to explode.  I’m getting so hot...  My head  echoes the pounding in my chest.  I can’t stay here..  I have to get out, out, out..

Where am I?  Oh God, I’m so confused!  Where on earth am I?  I must have gone out through the wrong door.  There are objects that look like huge drawers all around me and it’s cold.  Oh no!  I must be in the mortuary.  Are there bodies in  all these drawers?  I’m surrounded by dead bodies!  I’m feeling weak.  How do I get away before I faint?  Here’s a door.  The right one? Yes.  It’s so bright outside!  Fresh air again!  I must take a few deep breaths to compose myself now.  People are staring at me.  Somebody is calling my name.  What do they want now?  Why can’t they leave me alone?  Yes, I heard you!  They are closing the coffin.  I’m coming to do my duty.  Which door should I go in?  I don’t want to go into the mortuary.  My brother is standing at a door beckoning to me.  I’ll go that way.

My mother removes the veil from Mémère's face and hands it to my father.  He doesn't seem to know what to do with it.  He is rolling it into a ball.  Why? I may as well take it from him and shove it into my bag.  Everybody is kissing her.  Do I have to?  Yes. It’s expected of me.  They are all staring at me as I move closer to the coffin.  Maybe I don’t have to kiss her.  This reminds me of being forced to kiss Pépère when he died, years ago.  I can just pretend.  No, I must stop playing games with myself, this is serious.  I don’t want to offend anybody by a lack of respect.  What’s that smell?  Oh my God!  It’s the smell of decomposition!  I mustn’t recoil from her and I mustn’t wrinkle my face. I must do my duty.  Her face feels so cold.   That’s done.  It’s as if I’m taking part in a film.   I feel like an unsure little girl again.  At last they are closing the coffin. The screws  are being screwed down.  My father is wiping some specks of dust from the brass name-plate on which is engraved Mémère’s real name: Isabelle Natalie Pauline Esparon.  Complete silence except for the buzzing of the flies that are still  around.  It’s as if everybody is afraid of doing the wrong thing in case she'll scream at them.  Good bye, Mémère.

I am kneeling in the front of the church with  my parents, but  my mind is not on the funeral service. I find myself counting the multicoloured panes of glass in the tall windows behind the main altar, as I used to do every single Saturday of my childhood.  I was dragged along  to the church by Mémère when she went to clean it. All the panes are in the same order as they were then.  I even know the colour of the missing one.  As I look at the statue of Our Lady on the side altar on the left, I see myself as a child standing on the altar with a feather duster in my hand, pretending to dust the statue while all the time I am regaling Our Lady with stories or, more often, complaining about the injustice and misery of my life.  Our Lady had been my confidante.

The brass vases on the altar are the same ones that I  polished on those Saturdays.  I wasn’t allowed to apply the polish on them in case I used too much.  The kindly Mme Baron did that.  She was a big black woman who helped Mémère. She resembled a barrel wearing a red bandanna, as she waddled from place to place. I still remember the game I used to play when I polished them. I started by making a hole in the white coating of Brasso.  Then I  peered into the gleaming brass underneath.  At first, I saw one distorted eye, then my other eye and eventually, the grotesque image of my whole face appeared on the vase.  Very slowly, I moved the vase at different angles and laugh at the various contorted reflections that stared back at me.  It took me forever to clean one vase.  Eventually it was snatched from me and I was slapped for being so slow. 

The sound of the harmonium  brings me back to the funeral service.  I don’t recognize the woman who is playing it.  Why has it been moved from the choir loft to the front of church?  It is now next  to the door that leads to the bell tower.  The bell tower!  The  bell rope!  I have not thought about them for years.  I had another way of amusing myself on those Saturday mornings. A familiar frisson shoots through my body.

A long thick rope dangled in the bell tower.   I allowed myself to be lured by this snaky, sinuous rope  attached to the bell above, which was drawing me to it like a magnet. Imagine being at the end of that rope. Just one tug could cause such repercussions, such reverberations. The enormity of what I was about to do descended upon me and I  hesitated for just a split second before inching my way to temptation.  Slowly, my right hand reached out as if I had no control over it, then it jerked back.  It reached out again, jerked back again, and after a few attempts, I quickly grabbed hold of the rope.  First I caressed all the rough curves before swinging it ever so slowly while I waited with bated breath. I swung it again more intensely until the swinging became very frenzied. Then  I yanked it with all my strength and dashed from the tower to hide in the pulpit, with my heart in my mouth, my hands over my ears, waiting, waiting, for the shattering clang that would banish me to the fires of hell forever.  But no sound emerged. It was a big bell.  Thank God, Mémère, who thought  she knew what I was doing at every minute of the day, never found out.   I derived great satisfaction from this. I wonder what would happen if I sneaked into the bell tower to ring the bell when everybody is outside offering their condolences to the family?  Oh God!  I’m smiling. That won’t do.  I must rearrange  my face into a  more appropriate expression. 

The twisted bell rope reminds me of  Mémère’s thick plait of black hair.  Is her hair in a plait or in a bun as she lies in her coffin?  I was too distraught to notice.  She had the most glorious black hair, but nobody ever got to see in its full glory.  It was always imprisoned in a severe plait, fastened with a piece of knicker elastic. She bought it  by the ell from the same shop where I got the goodies for my birthday party.  She would cut a small piece from it when the previous one lost its elasticity.    There must have been no elastic bands in those days!  The ugly elastic was then covered with a narrow black ribbon.   I must be one of the few people who saw her hair loose.  I slept in the same room as her when I was small and I was privy to the nightly ritual of Mémère brushing her hair.  I would lie in bed pretending  to be asleep, and watch her take the plait apart with her fingers, waiting for her hair to be released from its confinement.   I loved it when the thick, undulating black hair tumbled down in ripples to her waist.  It seemed to come alive as it bounced about on her back.  After brushing it for a long time, she would plait it  again and then hurl it over her left shoulder with a big sigh.  Like the rest of the family her hair only went grey in her late seventies.  I hope it will be the same for me.

Suddenly a memory flashes across my mind.  The expression that  often  appeared on Mémère’s face as she guided the brush through her hair! I never saw it at any other time.  She looked terrified, as though she was seeing a ghost.  I remember lying still in my bed and looking carefully around the room in case there was a ghost, but there never was.  Since then, I have seen similar expressions on my children’s faces when they are having a nightmare. There were times when I thought  she was crying.  But that couldn’t possibly have been right.  Mémère never cried, except on that  one occasion.   I’m not going to linger on that incident now.  When she went out to Mass or to town or on social occasions, the plait was rolled  up into a bun at the nape of her neck and it was secured with long black hair pins, which were kept in a round tortoise-shell box on the tall boy.  I used to conjure the image of a millipede curling itself into a ball whenever the long plait turned itself  into a bun.  The shape of the bun was moulded into the crown of her hats even though she bought them a size bigger to accommodate the bun.

Ah yes! Mémère's hats! She never went outside without one.  In her day, women always protected themselves from the harsh sun. She used to wear a brown straw hat with a wide brim when she pottered around  the garden. I can see  the straw hat hanging on a hook next to the punishment stick, on the back verandah.  It was kept there, so Mémère could put it on, whenever she stepped outside, to protect herself from the sun.   Every year she ordered a new one from the lady who lived near the church. I remember being brought to have my own head measured for hats. Mémère had another straw hat, that she wore when she went shopping in the village, and it was  kept on top of her wardrobe.  Then there was her best hat, bought in a shop in town.   It was wrapped in a pillowcase and locked in her  wardrobe.  It was black with a small brim and it wasn’t as soft and pliable as the other ones.  It seemed to be lacquered, because it looked rather  shiny.  She fastened it to her head with a long hat-pin that had a pearl at the end of it.  There was no mirror in her room.  I wonder why?

My mind wanders to Mémère’s dresses.  She had them made by a seamstress.  She always chose dark coloured material  for them, brown, navy, and sometimes black with a touch of white in it, be it flowers, stripes or polka dots. The style never changed.  They all had long sleeves with a narrow band at the wrist, a round narrow collar, buttons  at the front, and gathered at the waist.  The skirt was not very full.  The only difference between her everyday dresses and her good dresses was the material.  They were…. I feel a sneeze coming.  I need a tissue!  I’ll try  to sneeze quietly, but they keep coming  It’s hard to control them. My eyes are running.   It’s the incense.  I am allergic to it. Wafts of incense-scented smoke are swirling around as the priest shakes the thurible over the coffin.  The service is almost over.  Thank God the priest has not said a whole Mass, as they do at Irish funerals.  I must bow my head and try to join in the prayers.  

Chapter 2

After lunch the next day, I decide to browse through the old photograph albums that are kept on the bottom