My Mother: A Self-Made Outcast

By Zielfa B. Maslin

MY MOTHER, A SELF-MADE OUTCAST
I have a childhood memory of my mothers satisfied and smiling approval whenever I readily replied: Im English. Ive forgotten what exactly preceded that kind of exchange between us. Come to think of it, that was strange because no one had ever asked us whether we were English. My sister and I are English, through and through. Both of us were born in Horsham, Sussex.
My abiding memory of my mother is her brown eyes and black long lashes as she kissed and tickled me. When I was in my teens, I wished I had her long black hair with a tint of brown. I imagined that my friends would admire the way my hair swayed as I walked. I could still see her glossy hair moving as she walked. My mother doesnt have the complexion of an English person. She resembles some of the Spanish women weve seen when weve been to Spain for our holidays. It was by accident that I found out that she comes from the Philippines. Weve never been to the Philippines. Shes never talked about the Philippines. Ive never seen anyone from the Philippines in our house.
ROSA (2013): you have in many subtle ways spelled out the life journeys of so many Filipinos.
WHAT BROUGHT YOU TO ENGLAND? (2014) is a very fascinating and enjoyable read. You have a gift of drawing your readers in and making them want to read on. I honestly couldnt put it down yesterday.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Aug 21, 2017
• ISBN: 9781546280422

Zielfa B. Maslin

Dr. Zielfa B. Maslin is from the Philippines and lives in England with her husband and daughter. As a retired person, she views her disengagement from clinical and educational occupational therapy practice as an opportunity to be as physically and mentally active as possible. With her second novel, she continues to pursue her ambition to be a writer.

Book preview

MY

MOTHER,

A

SELF-MADE

OUTCAST

ZIELFA B. MASLIN

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AuthorHouse™ UK

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© 2017 Zielfa B. Maslin. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse  08/21/2017

ISBN: 978-1-5462-8041-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-8042-2 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Acknowledgements

My undying thanks to Lesley Cox for her invaluable feedback and, above all, her patience and encouragement.

I, however, bear full responsibility for this book.

Also, my thanks to Eric Porton for his patience and the design and technical team at Authorhouse (Cebu, Philippines).

TO: MY DAUGHTER, PHILIPPA ZIELFA MASLIN

for her love and help in taking care of her father

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

CHAPTER 1

T here was something that I never understood about my mother. There was a distance between us. My consternation had not broken full-blown into the open like Mt. Vesuvius did so that I had to banish myself from her, so I didn’t see her, but it was there. It is not possible to say when my disenchantment started because judging from what my friends told me, parents and their children tend to have disagreements from time to time. In fact, it’s quite normal to have disagreements with one’s dearest and closest. One of them said: Take it from me, it’s more worrying if things are bottled up.

I couldn’t understand why my mother went nearly berserk when I told her and Dad that I wanted to find a flat near where I worked. It was no big deal; my friends had taken this step after university and finding work.

She shouted: There’s no reason at all for you to live away from us. If you were married, that would be a different matter. You’ve got your own room. Our house is big. We’re not far from Brighton. You’ve got a car! You’re not planning to live with a man, are you?(My ex-boyfriend, Matthew and I were still friends. We occasionally saw each other with our university friends.)

It was insulting to hear those words from my mother; my own mother. I couldn’t remember what I said. It must have been extremely rude because afterwards, she didn’t want to speak to me. The tense atmosphere drove me out of our house. I was so upset. I was supposed to meet up with some friends but I was in an extremely foul mood. After I marched out of our house and was on my way to the train station, I felt slightly mollified that my father seemed to have had accepted my desire to stand on my own feet; that I was no longer their little girl.

He had asked: Have you found a flat? Where is it?

I didn’t have a chance to answer him. My mother ran out of our front room in tears, at which point, my father followed her. My mother sulked for days; yes, that was the best way I could describe her reaction.

I went to London and after emerging from Victoria Station, tramped the streets until I was in the vicinity of Trafalgar Square. I lost myself in following a group of young men in grey suits who played and sang in front of crowds of people, tourists mostly.

This was strange for me to admit this but of my mother I knew little. I mean I knew her since I can remember. She did the things that mothers did for their children. There were pictures of her and me when I was a baby - changing my nappy, bathing me with clouds of soapsuds in the bath and yellow ducks swimming around me. This scene must have been accompanied by happy noises because in those pictures she was laughing – wide open upturned mouth, wide sparkling eyes. My face was alive with laughter and my hands were reaching towards her. She called me my princess. We went around shops, me in a pushchair, dressed in pretty clothes that she bought. There was joy in my mother’s voice as she pointed out to her friends a photo of her presenting me as a newborn baby. She was holding me close to her chest and my father stood beside us. In that picture, Dad, who’s English at six feet is a lot taller than Mum. His curly hair was chestnut brown whereas now, you cannot fail to see silver streaks near his temple and at the top of his head. When she showed the photo to her friends and I was around, she remarked: That’s you, Megan, as she touched the part of the picture that was me, wrapped in layers of blanket. There seemed to be contentment in the way my parents stood in that photo, exuding quiet happiness in showing me off. My abiding memory is her brown eyes and black long lashes as she kissed and tickled me. She’s not a gloomy person but her eyes are somewhat mournful. One of my friends described this as soulful. When I was in my teens, I wished I had my mother’s long black hair with a tint of brown. I imagined that my friends would admire the way my hair swayed as I walked. I can still see her straight back with her glossy hair moving as she walked. My mother doesn’t have the complexion of an English person. She resembled some of the Spanish women we’d seen when we went to Spain for our holidays.

A long buried incident came back to me as I was in the train to London the day I told my parents about my dream to live in a flat in Brighton. I happened to have picked up her passport which must have fallen from her bag in her rush. We had just arrived from our holiday in Spain. I turned the pages, fascinated at the markings on some pages until I came to a page with her picture. It was my mother all right. Minda Gosling was her name! I was intrigued with what I read on that page.

Mum, you were born in Antique? Where is Antique? Spain? I slowly asked, pronouncing awkwardly the name of this place that I hadn’t heard before. I have this image of her suddenly stopping and holding herself rigid, her back to me.

She asked, suspicion in her voice: Why are you asking?

I told her the truth about having picked up her passport under the table in our front room. To give her due, she did not fob me off.

Philippines, she said after a long silence. It was flatly delivered. I can’t remember my reaction after hearing her answer. I had never heard of the Philippines before. The Philippines sounded so foreign. Sad to say, there was not an ounce of curiosity in me about the Philippines at that time. I was probably eight or nine years old. Probably, I was tired from our journey or I was excited to see my dolls which I hadn’t picked up in days. No questions came from me. Why when a response from her that I couldn’t have a toy or game that I had set my heart on, could elicit endless questions as to the reasons for me not having it, I didn’t know.

Give me my passport please; that’s a good girl.

As she put out her hand, I meekly gave her her passport and thought no more of that episode. The word Philippines was forgotten.

Later, meeting a few Filipinos in Brighton piqued my interest in the Philippines. There was one Filipino who was taking his doctorate in physics at Sussex. He was sponsored by a Brighton based English company with a branch in the Philippines. From our hellos and brief conversations, that incident when I had picked up my mother’s passport was probably slowly simmering somewhere in the recesses of my mind. Maybe all it needed to bubble over was that business over my wanting to live in a Brighton flat.

There was this memory of me as a child and my mother’s satisfied and smiling approval whenever I readily replied: I’m English. I had forgotten what exactly preceded that kind of exchange between us. Come to think of it, that was strange because no one had ever asked us whether we were English. My sister and I are English, through and through. Both of us were born in Horsham, Sussex.

So what did I do with the recollection of that passport incident? It could have been that in my bad temper over the flat incident I had dismissed it as an overactive memory of an overtired child. I remembered how very angry I was as I emerged from Victoria Station and started walking. I was so hurt. I did not deserve a mother like that. I wanted to disown her as my mother. Maybe she wasn’t my real mother. No mother would ever speak like that to her own child.

I now live in Brighton. I will not bore you with how this came about. As usual, my father was able to smooth relations between me and my mother, which was a great relief. How could you live in the same house and not speak to your mother? My father didn’t see my desire to live independently from them as abandoning them, whereas my mother interpreted my wanting to live away from home as deserting and rejecting them and Jill, my younger sister. Jill at that time was still living with my parents as she had just started her A levels. I insisted that I wasn’t asking for money from them to buy a flat. I was going to rent a flat. When Dad concluded that I was serious about moving out from our home in Horsham, he surprised me by saying that he would put down money towards buying my flat in Brighton.

He looked at me as if he was gauging my intent with regard to a flat: Consider this as my investment. You can take care of the monthly mortgage payments. Can you do that?

I was speechless. I wasn’t aware that he had that amount of money to give. It was true that he owned two small sports shops but I had no idea how much they were worth. I had showed not much interest in his shops. So far, there didn’t seem to be any reason for me to worry about finances. I supposed that my sister and I were lucky in that respect. Nonetheless, I hesitated in accepting his offer because I wanted to be financially independent from them. However, after looking into the cost of renting a half decent flat in Brighton, I saw the sense of what Dad was offering. After the monthly mortgage payments, there would be many bills to pay. Apart from buying my food, there would be the council tax for bin collection and other services, utility bills such as electricity and water. I didn’t realise until then the financial implications of setting up a home. I laughed at my temerity. My father must have calculated things so well that I was relieved that without having to worry about rental fees for my flat, my salary (which wasn’t very much) could cover what I needed, just about.

As a child, my world revolved around my parents and the school I went to. We were taken to parks, National Trust places, and museums. We always saw a Christmas panto which my father absolutely adored. One year, it was Cinderella; another year, Aladdin; another time, it was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Our house was similar to the houses of some of my school friends and my parents’ friends in Horsham where I grew up. She liked to keep our house clean and tidy. In the mornings, I saw that most of our toys had been tidied up and kept in boxes in a corner. Our books were neatly arranged. There were pictures on the wall and a few knick-knacks, souvenirs from the places we had been on holiday like California, Spain, France, and Italy. My mother always chose decorative plates as mementos of our holidays and she had a growing collection of these adorning our walls. This was a subject that she happily chatted about with her friends who came to our house for coffee or tea. She in return would be invited to her friends’ houses based on things that she sometimes said to Dad as we were about to go out of our house on our way to school.

In one instance, she asked: Can you pick up the children from school today? By the time we get back from London, it will be about five.

We, that time, referred to her and Sylvia, with whom she usually went out with for a day’s shopping in Harrods or the Army and Navy Club. Her friends were invariably wives of my father’s business friends. There were no Filipinos or Asian looking people who came to our house for tea or coffee. However, I had a vague recollection of an encounter with two women who looked Oriental. We were in our local shopping centre as I needed a pair of shoes. I was probably eleven or twelve. One of them said something to Mum in a language that I didn’t understand. Maybe, it was a question. My mother stopped but looked blank.

Looking embarrassed, one of the women said: Sorry, we mistook you for our countrywoman. Didn’t we? she asked her friend.

At that time, it didn’t even enter my mind to wonder how they could have mistaken my mother for one from their country. They were dark; my mother had fair skin and features just like some of the Spanish women I’d seen in our holidays in Spain.

I looked up at my Mum, curious as to what the exchange between her and those two women was about but my mother had already turned towards the entrance of the next shop, firmly holding my hand. I looked back and I saw those two women, still talking and following my mother with their eyes. I wished I knew what they were saying. Having met Filipinos since then, maybe those women were from the Philippines. They were probably dying to meet a person from their country. My mother had cut them off. Did she do that by pretending not to understand them; that she was not a Filipina? I did not know. If she had, I would have been so ashamed of her. At that time, I didn’t know what was going on. On the other hand, I could have been doing my mother an injustice. Maybe those women were from another Asian country and they were acting on an assumption that my mother could have been one of them. It was very plausible for some Asian faces tended to look the same. At least, this was an experience that was confirmed by my English friends.

As far as I could tell, my mother got on well with my father’s business friends and their wives. She made glorious cakes and often her friends exclaimed: Mindy, where did you learn to bake these luscious cakes? Moist and not so sweet.

I’m glad you like them. I can show you how to make this when you come next time, my mother said.

Will you? You must tell me what I need to buy, her blonde friend chirped.

When my parents entertained their business friends and their wives, my mother did the cooking. The cookbooks of Delia Smith, even those of Elizabeth David, were used to produce English fare - roast meat and potatoes, casseroles, cakes, trifle. These were the dishes she knew and prepared well. The following day or so, my father would tell her something that delighted both of them. One time, it was Sylvia, the wife of Jack Rowley, one of Dad’s business friends, who fell in love with Mum’s chocolate mousse. Sylvia would like your recipe, Jack mentioned today. There was this unmistakable pride in Dad’s voice as we listened to this exchange at our dining table. Mum smiled, eyes alive. Jill and I looked at each other wondering what the fuss was all about. We grew up with English food. Sometimes, for a treat, we had an Indian or a Chinese take away. Dad was always partial to Indian. I like Chinese special fried rice most of all, with all bits of meat and some vegetables.

Through one of my university friends, I had a spell of working for a small arts and crafts shop after finishing my sociology degree in York. I was glad of the experience but felt much happier when I found a job in the Student Support Unit at Sussex. It was by accident how I came to work in this unit. One of my friends was working in Sussex and we were talking about jobs. She told me that there were job vacancies at the university. Would I be interested in supporting students with their studies? Also, working with people from different backgrounds attracted me.

There was an increasing number of Filipinos who were settling in Brighton. This made me wonder whether there were Filipinos in Horsham. I must ask my sister. There were no Filipinos in the private school that we went to before I went to uni. Maybe things had changed. In Brighton, they worked in nursing homes and hospitals; some in supermarkets. Their English was very good and their ability to adapt to England was impressive. Even though they felt cold, they seemed to be always smiling. It took me a while to tell them of my Filipino ancestry. I did not confront my mother about her being from the Philippines as things continued to be fragile between the two of us. I had talked to my father instead and mentioned to him about the passport incident when I was a child. He said it was true that my mother was from the Philippines. He advised however in his fatherly way that I should leave things as they were until she was ready to tell us, her children, about it. I was not happy but I wanted to keep the tenuous peace that existed between my mother and me. Also I was not prepared to earn the ire of my father by not listening to him. If he knew that his wife came from the Philippines and that it was not an issue, it was fine for me. Perhaps, it was because his gift of a flat was a foremost consideration. I must have valued it as a fair exchange at that time. In any case, he assured me that there was nothing sinister about not letting them know that my mother came from the Philippines. He gave me the impression that it would help him if we jolly our mother along for the moment. He needed all his wits with our two shops and I knew that business was not good all over the country. So I held my tongue.

My mother’s from the Philippines, I said, like an awkward confession to two or three Filipinas who I had bumped into, several times, in a Chinese supermarket in Brighton. There had been a number of friendly exchanges between us before that. They looked very amiable and I had asked them about this and that in