Further Under the Duvet (25 page)

At the baggage carousel there was a moment of panic when it looked like Santy’s red rig-out hadn’t made the trip but, just before we all started sewing our red hats together, it turned up and off we went. A long journey south-west to Bryansk followed and at 4 a.m. we checked into our (surprisingly nice) hotel.

The following morning, at eleven, the orphanage bus arrived to collect us, bearing a ten-year-old emissary: Polina, our first orphan. She was a chirpy, chatty sweetheart with the look of a young, far less surly Kate Moss. She was thrilled to be the one allowed to escort us and when Santy clambered onto the bus, she nearly lost her life. Later on she told me, quite matter-of-factly, that her mother had abandoned her when she was two months old; apparently her mother has now gone on to have a new family with someone else ‘far, far away’ and never contacts Polina. She arrived at Hortolova when her dad was sent to prison. Many of the ‘orphans’ aren’t orphans in the traditional sense; instead they’re ‘social orphans’ in that one or maybe both of their parents are still alive but have been deprived of parental rights for various reasons – usually neglect due to alcoholism. However, her father has since been killed and Polina went to heartbreaking pains to let me know that her dad had been ‘a good man’.

Then we arrived and, on the face of it, the orphanage didn’t look grim. It wasn’t one big gloomy Dickensian-looking
institution, but a collection of single-storey cottage-type buildings, set in a fir forest sprinkled with snow. Even the dogs – silver-haired, blue-eyed wolf-lookalikes – added to the whole fairy-tale-with-an-edge effect.

Lots of the children were waiting, in Santy hats, as excited as if… well, as if it was Christmas morning…

When we got off the bus I was shocked to see that there was also a Russian Santy – in orange velvet, a faceful of make-up and with a much more impressive beard than our fella. I feared a Santy-off; the two Santys circled each other warily, eyeing each other’s sacks, then made peace and we all went inside for the present-giving.

Debbie had told me that the children were very affectionate and would keep hugging me; but hearing that kind of creeped me out. I thought it sounded really sad – that they were so starved of affection that they’d fling themselves at any passing stranger like a sackful of needy puppies. But, as it happened, it was nothing like that. In the gift-giving melee, I bumped into Polina, the chipper little girl I’d met on the bus, and we had a moment when we grinned at each other and had a spontaneous squeeze. And as the days passed, I clicked better with some of the children than others (which is exactly as it should be) and when we met we hugged like old friends. Meanwhile Himself had ‘his’ children.

What really depressed me was how alcoholism featured in so many children’s stories. I met Tatiana; beautiful, blue-eyed, fair-haired. She’s only fourteen, but looks much older, at least eighteen, and has an unusual serenity about her, probably a consequence of surviving so much so young. She has an eleven-year-old sister, Luba, a bit of a handful, whom
she evidently frets about. Their mother had died ‘from drinking’ but their father is still alive, living in a flat in the town, and Tatiana visits him once a month. She told me she worries a lot about him. He has sold all his furniture to buy alcohol and there is never any food in the flat. ‘He needs to eat,’ she told me. ‘I worry because he doesn’t eat.’ I sat there, looked at her mutely and thought: you’re
fourteen
. I thought I’d choke from grief.

Oddly enough, the children who moved me the most weren’t children at all, but the teenage boys. And that’s kind of strange because I’m vaguely terrified of teenagers. I remember myself at that age – confused, angry, scornful of adults – and I so live in dread of saying something inane or stupid to make them roll their eyes and whisper, ‘
Christ!
’ that I tend to give them a wide berth. But the lads here were very pally – and astute. They noticed that Himself was wearing a Watford hat (his football team) and by a really strange coincidence, while we were actually at the orphanage, Watford were playing Chelsea on the telly. Since they’ve been managed by Abramovich, Chelski seems to have become Russia’s second national team. A battalion of lads came to ferry Himself off to watch the match with them, but I insisted he remain on photo-taking duty (I’m so mean). They exchanged a mano-a-mano ‘Women!’ look with Himself and every time someone scored, a scout was dispatched to keep him informed. It was all so
normal
and that’s what made it so sad.

Maybe it’s wrong to have favourites, but anyway I did. He was Andrei, aged seventeen and, like Tatiana, another ‘caretaker’ child. He too has a younger sibling, a brother
called Dima, who’s fifteen and has had a series of breakdowns. Their mother was deprived of parental rights because of her drinking and their dad was beaten to death after being released from prison. For a long time Andrei was afraid to break the news to Dima and, although he took it badly, he now knows. Andrei is a natural peace-maker and his ambition is to work as a car mechanic because he loves cars. His favourite car is a BMW and Debbie had to take me aside and warn me sternly that I was NOT to buy one for him. I mean, as
if
… okay, the thought
had
crossed my mind, but I wouldn’t
really
have…

The thing is, though, you’d give these children anything, you’d cut your heart out for them. I’d expected they might be difficult, bratty, withdrawn – who could blame them considering what they’ve already endured in their short lives? But they were variously charming, polite, mischievous, earnest, sweet, thoughtful, affectionate and above all – and most moving – dignified. I couldn’t get over it. And it’s entirely down to Debbie and her team; even though there are 150 children in Hortolova, they’re all treated like individuals, just as they would be in a family. I was very moved by the myriad humane little touches, the thoughtfulness, the treats – like taking a load of the lads to Moscow for the Russia v Ireland match. Or like giving children choices. Most orphans have no say in what they eat, what they wear, where they sleep: they get what they get and they can like it or lump it. But Hortolova children are brought to the market and allowed to pick out their own clothes. Mind you, when this first started, the children were completely unable to do it, they were so paralysed by lack of practice that the market visits took
for ever
.

Unlike other orphanages, the Hortolova children get to visit their siblings. Russian orphanages are – er,
why
? – run by the Department of Education, so children are ‘sorted’ according to their academic ability. The brighter ones are sent to one orphanage, the middling ones to another, etc., and it makes no difference if two children are from the same family. If one is smarter than another, they’re sent to different places and that’s that. A staggering 60 per cent of children in orphanages have siblings in other orphanages and to ameliorate the brutality, Debbie introduced the Sibling Programme: every Sunday the bus goes off, bringing Hortolova children to see their brothers and sisters.

And every child has an Irish sponsor family, who give 150 euro a year to cover things like new clothes, glasses, any emergency extras. More importantly, they exchange letters, birthday cards and photos to give them a sense of belonging, of mattering to someone, somewhere.

A hairdresser comes regularly, so does a dentist and a psychologist, and in the life skills centre the children are taught everything from how to put petrol in a car (they practise on half a Lada that someone found somewhere) to how to cook. On our final day, all the eight-year-olds cooked and served us our tea with heartbreaking earnestness.

Paradoxically the more that gets done at Hortolova, the more that needs to get done; the bar is constantly being raised. Some Hortolova children are very, very bright – three girls and one boy are being given extra tuition in an attempt to get them into university. If it happens it will be the first time any of the orphans has gone to university. Some of the older boys are preparing to leave (they’re legally obliged to when
they’re eighteen) so the Challenger Programme has been introduced to build their self-esteem, to de-institutionalize them (until recently no such concept existed in Russia, it was literally impossible to translate) and to prepare them for the outside world.

Meanwhile TRWL is also spreading its nets in other directions. They’re matching up children in other orphanages with Irish sponsor families. And Debbie has just taken on the mammoth task of Bryansk orphanage, a Dickensian place housing 350 children, where many of the teenagers are already showing problems with alcohol. Lots done, more to do, as someone once said…

My visit to Hortolova was life-changing, a trip I feel profoundly privileged to have made. The funny thing is, I’m not a crier, not even when I’m very sad – Himself (a man) usually cries much more than me. But I shed more tears in five days in Russia than I have in the rest of my life put together. It got to the point where it was actually embarrassing, I was making such a show of myself. It wasn’t just the children’s stories, heartbreaking and all as they were. What moved me most was their innate dignity. Despite all that had happened to them, they were such sweet, hopeful little human beings. Like a cluster of clean, bright flowers in a burnt-out land.

See
www.torussiawithlove.ie
for more information
.

First published in the
Sunday Independent,
March 2004
.

Those of you who have read any books featuring the Walsh family will be familiar with Mammy Walsh. I hope others will enjoy this too.

Introducing Mammy Walsh, mother, wife, home-maker, troubleshooter. She won’t dress it up, she won’t tone it down. Mammy Walsh tells it like it is.

Hello everyone, my name is Mammy Walsh. Send me in your problems and I’ll do my best to help. Now, just so as you know, I haven’t had any official training. Instead I have learnt at ‘the university of life’ – in other words I have five daughters who, at various times, have been a heartscald to me. My eldest, Claire, she was always a bit wild, but she got married and got pregnant and I thought she was all set up until that scut of a husband of hers ran off on her the day she had her first child. I mean, it all worked out in the end but at the time it was no fun, let me tell you.
^*
Then the middle daughter, Rachel, decides she has a drug problem and has to go to this rehab place that cost a bloody fortune.
†
Myself and Mr Walsh could have gone on the Orient Express to Venice and stayed in that Chipperiani place for a month for the same money. Then, and this
was the biggest shock of all, Margaret, the only good daughter, does a runner on her – admittedly, dull as ditchwater – husband and hightails it to Los Angeles where her pal Emily lives.
^*
Anna, the second youngest, was always a bit away in the head. To be perfectly honest I thought she had a bit of a lack. But it just goes to show because, after years of being useless, isn’t she after getting a great job in New York, working for a cosmetic house. You’ve probably heard of them, they’re a ‘hot’ brand called Candy Grrrl and me and the rest of the girls get a rake of free stuff, often before they’re even on sale in the shops. We’re all very proud of her, even though it’s still a bit hard to believe. And Helen, the youngest, she was another one that was worse than bloody useless but now she’s after getting a great job too. She’s a private investigator, ‘a private eye’ we sometimes call her, or ‘a PI’. (Or ‘a pain in the backside’ Mr Walsh is telling me to put in, although that’s just his little joke.) Sometimes, when she’s very busy, she begs me to go ‘on stake-out’ with her and if it’s not my bridge day, of course I do, because I don’t like to let her down. Twice I’ve helped her break into people’s apartments and look for documents and yokes, and I’m telling you something, you wouldn’t
believe
the dirt of other people’s houses when they’re not expecting visitors. Of all my daughters, Helen probably has the best job – apart from the night that someone threw a brick through our sitting-room window during
EastEnders
to ‘put the frighteners’ on her.

Q.
Dear Mammy Walsh, I am writing to you because I have no one else to turn to. I think my wife is having an affair. We’ve been married only seventeen months, but five times in the last
month there have been tyre marks in our drive that aren’t from my car. They might be from a Saab. (I drive a Ford Mondeo.) Then I found a small piece of foil wrapper under my pillow which looks like it belongs to a condom packet, but not a brand I use. Also my next-door neighbour has taken to looking at me very sympathetically, like someone has died, and he has never been that pleasant before now – he didn’t invite my wife and me to his homebrew evening. I really love my wife and this suspicion is doing my head in. I’ve asked her straight out if anything is going on, but she has denied it. What should I do?

David, Dublin

A. Dear David from Dublin, you’re in luck. I can indeed help you. My youngest daughter, Helen, is a private investigator and she specializes in just this kind of work. I believe her rates are quite high, but this is because she is amoral and has no fear of breaking the law. However, I can ask her as a favour to me if she’ll knock a couple of euro off. She gets great results; she sets up cameras in bedrooms and catches people up to all kinds of shenanigans. Also she hides in garden hedges and photographs people going in and out of houses. I wish she wouldn’t do this, she’s always catching throat infections and I’m the one who has to listen to her whingeing. She also happens to be very ‘good-looking’ and men are forever falling in love with her; there’s a chance that you might too and the situation with your wife would no longer matter. It’s only fair to tell you, however, that in such an eventuality, Helen will still charge you.