Pig Abroad

This was my usual Monday, leisurely preparing supper for the fam. On the menu, a sort-of cassoulet - light on beans and for dessert, an apple crumble. A glut of tomatoes (thanks Clint) went into the stew and a present of Katy apples (thanks Howard) were used up in the crumble.

Then the dogs started to bark. A taxi-van pulled up to the door. The same taxi-van that I'd pranged the wing mirror. Who could it be? We weren't expecting anyone. The driver jumped out, the same pleasant bloke who'd got Zoe's surplus tomato plants. He looked slightly panicked. I went out to him.

Do you have a pig?

Indeed we do.

It's on the road!

Oh God! Bert! There's a pig on the road.

Bert set down his clarinet and I shouted to him

Bring an apple! We'll tempt it back up the lane.

What is it about apples and temptation?

The taxi driver drove off and parked his van at the mouth of the lane. And there was Rusty being 'kepped' by our neighbour Clare. There were several cars stopped in both directions but thankfully they couldn't see we feckless pig-owners because of the taxi-van. Of course, as soon as Rusty spotted the apple he was good to go and Bert placed him under shed arrest. As I expected, it was Bert to blame, He'd brought a load of timber in from the wood and forgot to close the gate. Probably going over a new clarinet tune in his head. 

We worked out that Rusty probably wanted into the hen run to guzzle up the windfall apples. When he couldn't get through the gate he must have wandered down the lane to see if he could find another opening. Pigs are like that. And apples are tempting. 

A Sackable Offence

I knew this woman once who worked in a woman’s hostel. Occasionally asylum seekers, those with children, came to stay in the hostel. There was one young woman in particular that she always remembered. This young woman was a Romanian gipsy and she had a son around one year old. Her name was Andronica.

The other women in the hostel did not take to Andronica at all. They picked on her, they complained against her, they said she was cruel to her little boy. The woman I knew never saw any evidence of this so-called cruelty but, nevertheless, it was reported to Andronica’s social worker and staff were asked to monitor the situation.

Andronica had barely a word of English and this too made life very difficult for her. The woman I knew tried to communicate with her, even bought a Romanian phrasebook but it was hard going. The social worker told the hostel staff that Andronica had extended family in Dublin and that coming to Belfast had been a big mistake on her part.

Weeks passed. Andronica phoned her family in Dublin almost every night. The telephone was just outside the office door and the woman I knew could overhear her desperate phone calls.

One afternoon Andronica’s social worker called. The news was not good. Andronica’s case had been decided and she was to be deported back to Romania in a matter of days. Andronica was not to be informed in case she scarpered. The woman I knew felt really bad about this. Andronica had got herself and her son to Ireland to join her family but because she had flown to Northern Ireland instead of Dublin she was unable to get to them. Later that evening she called her family. The woman came out of the office and asked Andronica if she could speak to the person on the line. She was handed the phone. The woman asked who she was speaking to and was told that it was Andronica’s brother. She told him that his sister and nephew were to be deported. She told him that they should make arrangements to meet her in Dundalk. Then she handed the phone back to Andronica.

When Andronica hung up the woman I knew invited her into the office. She showed Andronica a map of Ireland and indicated where she was staying now and pointed to where she needed to go. To Dundalk. A border town. Halfway to Dublin.

The woman I knew went off duty the next day and was away for several days. On her return to work she was informed that Andronica and her son had left the hostel without informing staff or social services. Some of her fellow residents were able to let staff know that she had called a taxi which had taken her and her little boy to Dundalk.