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Copyright © 2012 by Dr. Celia BantingAll rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, record-ing, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work should be mailed to the following address:Wighita PressP.O. Box 30399Little Rock, Arkansas 72260-0399www.wighitapress.comThe events of this story occurred over a four-month period. All names have been changed to protect privacy.Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataBanting, CeliaThe Right Thingp. cm.ISBN 97809849763001. Autobiography 2. Community care 3. Abuse 4. HealthcareLibrary of Congress Control Number: 2012903209A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.Layout by Michelle VanGeestCover production by Susan HarringPrinted by Dickinson Press, Grand Rapids, Michigan USA

Also by Dr. Celia BantingI Only Said I Had No ChoiceI Only Said “Yes” So That They’d Like MeI Only Said I Couldn’t CopeI Only Said I Didn’t Want You Because I Was TerriedI Only Said I Was Telling the TruthI Only Said I Could Handle It, But I Was WrongI Only Said It Didn’t HurtI Only Said I Wasn’t HungryI Only Said I Wanted To Kill Myself; I Didn’t Really Mean ItI Only Said Leave Me Out of It

This book is dedicated to dearest “Ellen” and to all the forgotten inrm and elderly who are abandoned by the state and who are mistreated by their carers. It is also dedicated to all children who suffer the same fate.

99AcknowledgementsThe acknowledgements for this book are many and varied. As always, my proofreader and typesetter, Michelle VanGeest, is rst to be mentioned because she continues to “replace my mother’s voice.” By that I mean that I learned English gram-mar and punctuation not through formal education but from my mother; I learned “her rules.” I suffered from what is now known as dyslexia, though there was no diagnosis for dyslexia in the late fties. “If you need to take a breath, put in a comma.” I’ve been on a 20 year journey to educate myself and all of it has been hard, but I’m helped by my mother’s voice telling me where the punc-tuation symbols have to go. After she died in 1997 and I started writing novels, Michelle replaced my mother’s voice, yet without the reprimand. When I get things wrong or “talk funny” because I’m English, she straightens me out. She’s honest and has great integrity. She will always be my proofreader and typesetter.In order for “The Right Thing” to reflect my Englishness and our countries’ differences, I needed the manuscript to be proof-read by an English teacher (she’s actually Irish). Marie Callinan took the manuscript rst and proofread it her way, clarifying the differences between the way America and England dictate gram-mar—it’s very different. The confusion adds to the fog in my dys-lexic brain. Marie did a great job, thank you!

10The manuscript was then sent to Michelle, not to change what Marie had done, but to look for phrases that we English use that Americans don’t know the meaning of. In response, I added a glossary to address the different uses of our common language, English. There are many differences and I nd them amusing.The next person to acknowledge is Susan Harring, whose creativity amazes me, along with her character, her love and ac-ceptance of everyone. Her design of the cover for this book says is all: all nations, races, and creeds worldwide should join hands to do the right thing. She epitomizes holiness—yet equally wom-anhood and motherhood—and has the most amazing sense of hu-mour. She is an inspiration to everyone.My next acknowledgements are equally as important, yet in different ways. Thank you to my precious friend, Vicki, for her continued “guiding sense of style,” and her profound “one-liners” that guide me in my personal and professional life. She always gets it right. She and my work partner, Dwayne, both helped me through those terrible four months. Indeed they have been my work partners since 1996 when we all rst met. Another precious friend I have to acknowledge is Jeremy Daniel who taught me “American” nursing in 1990 when I was fresh out of nursing school and very naïve. He tragically died in 2011 of A.L.S., a horric death, leaving three gorgeous children. Jeremy has always been an inspiration to me; in fact, he is the one who came with me—as described in the beginning of this true story—to help me put fliers in neighborhood mailboxes so that I could nd lodgings. I want every reader to know that Jeremy spent his life doing “the right thing,” and he impacted thousands of lives in the Children’s Cardiac Unit, and all those with whom he came into contact. He also gave in death by leaving his body to science.

11Additionally, I owe so much to my psychotherapist supervi-sor, Dr. Maria Gilbert. During my training she guided, challenged and forced me to grow through questioning myself and every-thing I thought or felt. She asked the vital question that changed everything for me and my own personal journey, “Who is going to take care of you?” Her input in my life has been huge, always extracting the right questions, which forced me to nd the right answers. So this book reflects the journey she forced me to will-ingly take, and I am forever grateful that she agreed to “take me on” as a student psychotherapist when she was so very busy. Thank you to Dr. Claude Steiner, who renamed positive and nega-tive Strokes as Warm Fuzzies and Cold Pricklies to make a compli-cated concept accessible to all.The next acknowledgements, equally important, belong to the characters in that four-month period of my life: Darling “Ellen,” a precious lady, a gift I was honoured to meet; “Brenda” for her welcome home greeting she gave me at the airport; “Alex” for all his support, advice at work with the children (they loved him); and dear elderly “Ben” for helping me on that awful day. Although I’d never met “Ben” before that terrible morning, I found him to be an absolute gentleman despite his poor health. I will honour him forever, because he taught me what it really means to “Pay it forward.” I thank “Mark” who was a ship in the night, a gentleman who anchored me to a sane place when insanity was all around me.I wish to acknowledge my love of those Americans who “do the right thing,” through the care I received from Barbara Tiffany, a semi-retired registered nursed who loaned me $200 when I was absolutely destitute. Barbara understood what was going on and had faith that I was trying to do “the right thing.” God bless the fabulous Americans I’ve met in this great country.

12Last, but never least, I acknowledge my darling husband, Dessy, who embarked upon the same four-month journey I did, yet differently, with neither of us knowing what the outcome would be. He grew, as I did, and forevermore he has shown the strength and tenacity that makes our marriage stronger.

1313PrefaceThis is a True accounT of a four-month period of my life when I returned to America from England and lived as a lodger with peo-ple I’d “met” on the Internet. I have been as honest as I can be and I’m aware that the book is harrowing and raises some pertinent issues about life and poli-tics in America. Cultural differences enthral me, and I embrace them. Although what I discovered highlights a side of America that few see or wish to acknowledge, I want to emphasise that I love America. I know so many wonderful Americans and they have enriched my life more than I can say. The issues I was forced to face throughout that four-month period, and since, are presented as a respectful challenge to all those who govern at federal and state levels.Thus, this book has three purposes:• To highlight the plight of children, the forgotten inrm and elderly, and abuse that may be going on in the house next to yours. • To honestly explore my own internal processes as I recog-nised that I was a “mandatory reporter” of abuse, and how that impacted upon myself and the dear lady I was trying to save.

14• Lastly, to highlight that despite the United Kingdom and the United States both speaking English we are, as Sir Winston Churchill once quoted, “Two nations separated by a common language,” I wish to show how differently we use the English language.* This four-month period occurred many years ago prior to iPhones and iPads, and the computer programme constantly re-ferred to was an obscure one in its infancy that was quickly out-dated and replaced by more efcient means of communication.

1515The Right Thing“Always do the right thing,” was the phrase my mother in-stilled into me before I knew that I was learning about life or what it would cost to live up to those words and ideals. It’s always been a part of me and I’ve lived to curse it at times—and now is one of those times.As I sit on my bed in this unfamiliar room I feel far from home and very alone, only I know that I’m not really alone, my family loves me wherever I am in this world, even if they miss me, but I do know someone who is really alone. The thought of her curdles my stomach and muddles my senses, as I strive not to picture her frail, helpless, and frightened in her bed just feet away from me in the next room in this strange house so far from home.

17171i’m siTTing in mcDonalDs at Gatwick Airport eating a sausage McMufn, in fact I eat two, and feel guilty having just completed an eating disorder training course that says I should put “distance between the impulse and the action.” Why am I doing this; wait-ing for a plane? I look at Dessy, my husband, doing his “paper-work”: signing cheques and paying bills. I wonder if neither of us can say goodbye, since eating is my way out and paying bills is his. It’s bizarre and my stomach plays a crazy game with the sausage McMufns as I see the second hand speed around my watch—it’s almost time to go to the departure gate and that means saying goodbye. Dessy gathers up his bills and neatly encrypted envelopes, looking really pleased with himself. “Well, that’s a good job done,” he says, with a satised smile that belies his dis-tress at my impending departure. The goodbye is brisk—just a brushed kiss, almost like kiss-ing a maiden aunt or a stranger. We both know that to linger any longer would be too painful and this pact we’ve made will seem insurmountable. I’m exhausted from trying to manage three university cours-

18The Right Thinges, so I’m taking a year off to go to a well-paid job in America. This will allow me to repay my tuition fees without having to beg Dessy to loan me the money. When I suggested taking the job, I think he was so relieved that I wasn’t going to ask him for the money that he said, “Well, I won’t like it but it’ll solve a problem, won’t it?” His end of the deal is to nish decorating our house. During the four years we’ve lived there, we’ve become compla-cent and the type of people that neither of us likes, and our house reflects our exhaustion and complacency. “Are you sure you’ve picked out the colour for your study?” he asks, and I wish he’d just say “I love you” instead. “Yes. I’ve put a cross on it,” and when I think of a cross I think of kisses, and long for a proper kiss that would tell me that he loves me and is going to miss me, but it doesn’t happen and I un-derstand. It’s too hard to go anywhere near our love, for I might not be able to walk through the departure gate, and I know that it’s the same for him.“Don’t wait,” I say, urging him away. Before I married him, I’d go to America several times a year and normally he’d wait until neither of us could see each other anymore by stretching and craning our necks, and I’d make him laugh by pulling silly faces or strongman poses. This time, however, I can’t bring myself to do those things since I want him to go quickly. He does as I ask, and when I turn around to see if he’s still there as I queue to have my bags and my shoes searched, he’s gone and I feel abandoned and alone. Does he have to take me at my word, this time of all times?My shoes pass the test and I’m allowed to go through the metal detector as nothing bleeps. I guess I’m a safe person. I don’t feel safe, in fact I feel far from safe. Beyond the security check-points there are crowds of people in a holiday mood and I feel even more alone, wondering if I haven’t just made the worst mis-

19Celia Bantingtake of my life. I’m going to be away from home for ten months. How on earth am I going to do this? I get homesick after just two weeks away from Dessy and England’s green and damp country-side each time I go to America. Yet it seems that I’ve developed an uncanny knack of be-ing able to blot out unpleasant feelings or thoughts, because I walk along the moving walkway without thinking about how I’ll manage without my soul mate, my friend and lover, for so long. Instead, I get to the departure lounge panting, and fumble for my phone so that I can leave messages for the other people in my life that I care about. “I’m just about to get on the plane and in case it crashes you need to know just how much you mean to me,” I say, with panic and a tinge of hysteria in my voice that is not tempered by the Valium coursing through my body.I miss what’s said overhead and watch people walk so con-dently towards the boarding gate, and when I’m the last one left, still making last minute love phone calls, I feel an incongruous sense of urgency to get on the plane, thinking Hey, don’t go without me! I am terried of flying and always hang back, but this time I rush towards the gaping open mouth of the plane, stifling my ter-ror with indignation that I’m the last in line.My handbag bumps into the people who are already seated. “Sorry…sorry…oops…sorry,” I say to mildly irritated passengers, seasoned travellers who, from the tortured look on my face, must think I’m either neurotic or a relative of Mr. Bean. I kick my cabin bag under the seat in front of me and as the captain tells the stew-ards to prepare for take-off, I frantically search for my seatbelt, praying that it’s big enough to go around me, and accidentally run my hand along the thigh of the man sitting next to me. “Sorry,” I say again, as his boyfriend, who’s holding his hand

20The Right Thing20The Right Thingacross the aisle, glares at me while I yank the belt as tight as I can, trying desperately to stop a gruesome thought rolling around my head: If this plane goes down then at least I’ll still be in my seat. I guess the Valium must be kicking in for I manage to smile at the lady sitting on the other side of me as I feel the plane rev-ving beneath me and the overhead lockers judder…They’re loose. Someone should screw them down. Oh God, I hope nothing else is loose. I can’t help but remember the time I stuffed myself into a tiny plane a year ago, terried as usual, and certainly not prepared for the Captain to announce that a wire had “come loose.” I mean, what does that statement do to someone who is terried of flying? To retain my sanity I chase those thoughts away.Before too long we’re in the air and I’m asleep. Disjointed g-ures float before my eyes as I dream of the last few weeks and all the goodbyes I’ve dreaded and endured. I awake to an irritated, over-painted air stewardess who would look more at home baby-sitting her grand-children than flying the skies with her glamor-ous cohorts. “Pardon?” I say.“I said, ‘sh or chicken’?” she says slowly as if I’m stupid.“Chicken, please.” As she hands me a tray, I notice that this will probably be the last time I’m given a knife and fork to eat my dinner before having to cope with merely a fork and my ngers as Americans seem to use a fork in their right hand and not bother with a knife. I hate plastic cutlery (in England, “tableware” re-fers to place mats and cruets, table decorations and candle stick holders; cutlery is the collection of utensils you use to eat with). However, little do I know that within hours of landing all my cut-lery will be plastic and my plates, paper.I try to use my knife and fork but give up as my elbows offend my neighbours, and the boyfriend is still glaring daggers at me

21Celia Bantingacross the aisle as I accidentally nudge his lover. “Sorry,” I grin inanely at them, dropping my knife and swapping my fork into my right hand, resigned to the fact that when with Americans, do as Americans do, even though I’m not on their soil just yet. I pass my tray back to the harassed, painted lady and nestle back into the seat and think of the changes I’ve been forced to make in order to sort my life out.• • •My ambition has always been to be a chartered clinical psy-chologist, but after nishing an honours degree in psychology, at that time in England there was a waiting list of eight years for a place to study clinical psychology. There was also a cut-off age limit of forty years and, as I was forty-four when I nished my rst degree, it seemed as if my ambition was beyond my reach. I was fty-one when I saw an advert offering the same course in Australia with no age limit, and after reaching the nal interviews I’d already started packing. I was devastated when I wasn’t of-fered a place. Undeterred, I decided to enrol at a college in London to complete my psychotherapy training, having already done three years at another college. However, within a few months an advert appeared in the Psychologist magazine offering the same Australian course in London, so I applied for a place. I never expected to be accepted but I was, and I found myself in a situation where I was nearly at the end of a PhD research-ing psychological and sociological factors implicated in teen-age suicide attempts, and at the end of a Masters programme in psychotherapy. I couldn’t give up either, having spent so much time, determination and money just so that I could be a clinical psychologist in order to help children and young people. “Always do the right thing,” rang in my head. Okay, I can do this, I thought. I’ll juggle three university courses for this year and at the end of

22The Right Thingthe year I’ll have finished my Masters’ training in psychotherapy and my PhD. Then I’ll only have this one course to do and that’ll be a piece of cake by comparison.Only I didn’t realise just how awful it would be. My life had begun to resemble a hamster frantically running on a treadmill going nowhere. I was tearing on and on, driving for hours to get to Greenwich—the eastside of London a few miles away from the Millennium Dome—attending classes in body only, and then rac-ing across a trafc-congested London to my next psychotherapy supervision appointment. Then there were course assignments that needed to be handed in on time, and all this as well as working full-time as a probation ofcer, which was a difcult and challeng-ing job with sixty open cases between two ofces. I was exhausting myself and getting further and further into debt, with only a smid-gen of time for my poor, patient husband, and none for myself. I remember exactly the moment when I decided I had to change my life. The National Probation Service decided that one person from each ofce had to be trained to work with sex offend-ers and they chose me, particularly as I worked between two of-ces, so from their perspective I’d be twice as valuable. I know that sex offenders have their issues as well, need to be treated with respect, and need help too—but my ambition has always been to help children, and I couldn’t bring myself to work with perpetrators of crimes against them. I tried to explain to the ofce supervisor that I had my own issues about these perpetrators, having inadvertently allowed a family friend into my home, who then went on to attempt to groom some of my children. I knew I couldn’t be objective, but the needs of the National Probation Service in the United Kingdom were par-amount—I was the one chosen to train in sex offender treatment and that was that.

23Celia BantingI felt hopeless, as if all the years of studying were going to be for nothing. I made my decision easily, almost as if it had been made for me and I had nally listened to what I needed to do. I had nished the fth year of my psychotherapy training, was at the write-up stage of my PhD and had completed the rst year of the clinical psychology course at Greenwich University. The deci-sion was crystal clear to me—I was going to take a year out, go back to work in America with children in a behaviour health care facility, pay off my debts, and nish writing up my PhD thesis.However, unbeknown to me at that time, my PhD supervi-sor had found another job and left the university without telling any of his students. So far from being at the write up stage of my thesis, I still had two years to do to catch up with all that he’d let slide. I found this out the week before I flew out to America and I was in despair. At least I got to meet my new PhD supervisor and she was mortally embarrassed that this could have happened at a prestigious English university. She was so outraged, she had her department pay for my tuition fees, and she drove me relent-lessly—for which, looking back, I am eternally grateful, although at the time I couldn’t see it and cried every day. My husband had no idea what to do other than pat my head helplessly, wondering why women are so emotional. (I didn’t do a lot for female-kind. Sorry.)I have always wanted to work with children, so when after qualifying as a Registered Nurse on the Isle of Wight (a small is-land on the south coast of England) I discovered that there were no vacancies to do so, I looked further aeld. I found an adver-tisement in the UK’s Nursing Times to work for a large children’s hospital in America. My ve children were ecstatic at the thought of going to America, and so we all travelled to this wonder-ful country in 1990. I was terried to leave the sleepy, safe, tiny

24The Right Thingisland but I followed my dreams to work with children. It was an amazing experience, but initially I only stayed just over a year because the city had a terrible gang problem, and I was scared for my teenagers. However, I made lifelong friends there and America has been an important part of my life ever since. Each year, in order to retain my Green Card, I’d return and I was lucky that the hospital valued me enough to allow me to work for them during my annual trips.For years I’ve stayed with a colleague who accepted my pres-ence in his home with the same nonchalance as his two pet lap-dogs. “Oh, you’re back,” they would yap for thirty seconds, and then go about their business of nestling into laps. Eighteen months ago, after a family emergency, this friend had to move from the area, so suddenly I had nowhere to stay. It was a turning point for me. I had to ask myself whether America meant anything to me and if it did, I had to nd myself new lodgings. I thought about it a lot and decided to take control of my life and make things happen for me rather than just sit there and let them happen to me. Twelve months before I left England, I took a week off from my English treadmill with a mission in mind—to nd new lodg-ings in America. I walked down a leafy subdivision behind my beloved hospital and put an orange flier in every home’s mail-box. It said: Registered Nurse seeks lodgings. I’m quiet and respectful and when I’m not working or sleeping, I’ll be studying and completing my PhD. Let’s share each other’s cultures. I flew home a week later, my heart in my mouth, my future in the hands of strangers, and wondered and waited. Days later an email arrived and suddenly there appeared to be the perfect answer and the perfect situation: a daughter taking care of her mother with Multiple Sclerosis needing “nancial help and a change of face to amuse her mother.”

25Celia BantingGreta and I chatted over the Internet in the months before I was due to leave England and she seemed so perfect, so friendly, and I couldn’t wait to meet her. When she told me that she had given up her English ancé in order to care for her mother, I thought, What an amazing human being, one who obviously knows how to do the right thing. So, armed with a place to stay that was mutually benecial to each of us, I left my English treadmill and my dear husband, who promised faithfully to nish decorating the house while I was away. I set out to follow my destiny: to work with children, to write up my PhD, and to clear my tuition debts.• • •The Valium’s wearing off, and I sense an uneasy tremor in my stomach, which lurches horribly every time the captain turns on the “fasten your seatbelt” sign and we plummet through turbu-lence. Please let this be over soon, I pray; my head is so full of bargain-ing prayers that I can’t even begin to fret over what might be wait-ing for me when I touch down. I become neurotic as I watch the flight information that shows exactly where we are. As the plane edges towards Atlanta on the screen and begins its descent, my nails leave a permanent indentation on the armrests. I mumble hurried prayers, and as the ground swings up to meet us and the tyres screech, a sigh wheezes from me. The engines slow as we taxi to the terminal and I display the blasé cockiness of a sea-soned traveller, which belies my terror and my profound relief. Now that the business of flying is out of the way and I’m safely on the ground, I allow myself to wonder what might be awaiting me. Will Greta turn up? I mean, I don’t know her from Adam even though I have her address, and I could take a taxi if she doesn’t turn up. But if she changes her mind about having a lodger she

26The Right Thingcould just turn me away, and then I’d truly be alone with nowhere to go and no one to care about me. It’s not a nice thought. I long for Dessy and tears prick my eyes, but when the longing threat-ens to engulf me, I try to ignore it. Don’t be so daft, I chide myself and force my feet to walk to the barrier where I think I see her. It takes me a second to work out which of the few people waiting at the barrier has to be her, for she is not waving and hugging the weary passengers. I force a bright smile on my face and give a cheery wave. I am amazed at my ability to squash all the warning bells that ring through my head. It started last night—last night seems a world away, which it is. Dessy and I had wasted our last night together in an attempt to ignore our impending goodbyes by log-ging onto the Internet. Finally after all the months of chatting on the Internet, Greta had allowed us to see her image on the computer, and I’d had a sinking feeling in my stomach when I saw her strag-gly hair and bloated body. I had instantly reprimanded myself and thought how outraged I’d been at the eating disorder training programme I’d attended a few weeks ago, when someone had said that fat people have no control over their lives. I’ve always stuck up for the underdog, tried to do the right thing, and in the past have ignored my gut instinct in the pursuit of being fair. And last night when I saw Greta’s appearance was one of those times. Greta lifts her hand in some sort of greeting as I walk towards her to give her a hug. I try to ignore the way her body instantly freezes with human contact.I’m anxious—maybe she is too.“It’s so good to meet you,” I gush. “You’re so kind to come and meet me.” I mean it. It is good of her to meet me, but every part of my body and instinct is screaming at me to run and book into a Holiday Inn.

27Celia Banting“Good flight?” she asks curtly, walking away before I can an-swer her. “Come on, walk this way. Baggage is down here.”I feel so uncomfortable as she marches off in front of me. I sneak a look at my new landlady and automatically think of the sentiments that woman at the training session had voiced. I had frowned at her at the time, and I’d known that my nostrils were flaring with distaste when she had said that she wouldn’t con-sider offering therapy to a person who was very overweight, for it would indicate a profound level of psychopathology. Yet watch-ing Greta waddle off towards the baggage claim, I can’t get the woman’s words out of my head. I don’t know what to say, so I chunter on about the flight and how I managed to stop myself feeling afraid, but as she raises one eyebrow at me, I feel stupid and weak. “Go over there,” she orders, “then you’ll be the rst to get your bags.” I do as I’m told, stifling the thought, Hey, I’ve been waiting around for nearly twelve hours, five more minutes isn’t going to hurt! But I do as she says, trying to squash the image I have of her being the sort of person who would beat her way to the front of a jumble-sale queue or—more appropriately now that I am on the other side of the Atlantic—garage sale line. I don’t want to push in—it’s not me, and I know that my bags are very heavy—so to get them off the conveyer belt will mean that I’ll have to swing them to gather momentum, and I’ll be just as likely to beat some poor old person over. Luckily my bags come out last, rattling their way towards me after the old folk have moved away. Greta storms off ahead with one of my suitcases and I tug at the other, wishing Dessy was here to help me. She is already in the distance and I start to feel really girlie as my hand hurts with the weight of my bag. I need my man. I try to keep up and feel as

28The Right Thingif I’m three feet tall with my mother about to shout at me to hurry up and stop dawdling. As I try to ignore the pain in my hands and shoulders, I begin to wheeze in the humid heat and tell myself that now is not the time to have an asthma attack.“Oh, thank you,” I wheeze, lifting the end of one suitcase as we try to haul it over the electrical wiring in the back of her car. “Oh, maybe it’s a bit close to the wiring?” I say, full of con-cern, having once knocked out the wiring in my friend’s car with my heavy suitcases.“No!” she says emphatically, and I feel silenced and stupid. Come on, Celia, get a grip, I think, tears springing into my eyes. You’re exhausted. It’ll be all right, you’re just too sensitive, and so I smile and say “Thank you,” which she ignores.I try to focus on the drive. I’ve missed the trees and landmarks that all hold sweet memories for me.“It’s so beautiful,” I say, feeling awkward, desperate to dispel the anxiety in my stomach and to bridge the gap between us. I re-alise that it’s likely to seem strange. After all, despite chatting on the Internet, we don’t really know each other, but I’m troubled be-cause I know deep down that I’m capable of feeling really close to complete strangers if they are capable of reaching out to me. I try again. “I just love autumn; the trees are so beautiful. I’m never here during the fall. The airfares change on the rst of November back home so I always miss it. I always miss Halloween, too. I can’t wait to experience Halloween. Do you have many children in your neighbourhood? Oh, I do hope so as I long to be a part of Halloween,” I gush. She looks at me sideways.“There are some, I think,” she says, “but I don’t really do chil-dren. I prefer animals.”

29Celia BantingI remember last night when Dessy and I were on the comput-er and she had written, “I hope you like pets.” My heart had sunk even further for I don’t do pets. It’s not that I don’t care about liv-ing creatures, I do. It’s just that as a child I had some unfortunate experiences with horny dogs that kind of put me off fur and slip-periness. I’ve never quite managed to get past the idea that any creature with its genitals on show should be wearing underpants, and not doing its business in public or on the road.“Animals don’t seem to like me,” I say, lying, for they like me rather too much. I recall taking my toddlers to our church’s “cream tea” years ago and the vicar’s small dog escaping from the house, making a beeline to hump my leg. The vicar was very embarrassed, but I just wondered what it was about me that brought out such behaviour in dogs. A sentiment that was rein-forced years later when I sat on the esplanade pavement, hang-ing my legs over the sea wall watching children building sand castles. A dog ambled along, cocked its leg and peed down my back. Why me? I thought. Greta jolts me from my musing. “Give me animals over peo-ple any day,” she says. “Oh, that reminds me, I must pick some-thing up for my mother.”“What’s your mother’s name?” I ask, ignoring her slight against human beings and the association between animals and her mother.“Ellen.”“How is she?” I ask, full of concern. I deduced from Greta’s emails that she was up to her eyes in responsibilities, being the sole carer of her fty-four-year-old mother, having no broth-ers or sisters to share the burden. She had told me that she had given up her ancé and a life in England to care for her mother, and while reading those emails I felt as if I was in the presence

30The Right Thingof someone very special and self-sacricing. So why don’t I feel that now? “She’s a bitch, always calling for something. I’m sick of her. D’you know that the other night she woke me up in the middle of the night and asked me to get her a breath freshener. Can you believe that? I told her to fuck off. I can’t believe it, a breath freshener!” She shakes her head. I’m shocked and don’t know what to say. “The evil bitch just thinks that I’m being mean to her, but she’s so lazy and a liar. She says that she does things but she doesn’t at all. You know, her friend is just as bad. She’s crazy, you know. I told her! She asked if Ellen could stay for a weekend, but when she brought her back she hadn’t done the things I’d told her to do. I told her that she’d never stay with her again ’cause if she can’t look after my mother in the way I tell her to, then she’s not going again. You don’t mind if I smoke in the car, do you?”Well actually, I’m asthmatic so I do mind, I think, but I say noth-ing, already feeling…I want to say intimidated, but I think scared would be nearer the truth.She lights up and sucks the polluted air into her lungs and opens the windows. “Pretty day,” she says. “I love it when it’s like this. I love to have the windows open and have the fresh air in my hair.” (I’m confused by Americans calling a day “pretty.” To us English the word “pretty” refers to flowers, faces and frocks.) She opens the windows by remote control and suddenly my hair, which hasn’t been combed for almost a whole day, is flying out behind me like an advertisement trailer from a prop plane. Those bits that are not flying out behind me are in my mouth, stuck there by G force. I try to retrieve them from my throat and maintain my dignity at the same time, but it’s not easy and I don’t manage it.

31Celia Banting“Well, actually, I’d prefer it if the wind was not directly in my face.” I ddle with the controls and she shoots me a disapproving look. A sigh escapes her as she presses a button that sends my win-dow shooting skywards. Suddenly I feel very anxious, but I’m so exhausted from the flight and the awful unfullled goodbyes that I can’t trust my judgement. Yet deep down I know something isn’t only incongruent, it’s just plain wrong. My head is so befuddled with jetlag that I can’t gure it out, so I try to ignore my sense of disquiet and fall silent.“Y’know, I’ve given my life for that woman. I was engaged to be married, but no, she got sick and I had to give him up and come back to look after her full-time.” “How awful,” I say, thinking what it would feel like for me if I’d had to give Dessy up in order to go and look after someone else, but then I think of alternatives. I’d have done anything in or-der to be with Dessy and look after the person who needed me. “Couldn’t he have come out here to be with you?” I venture.Something horrid flashes across her face. “I don’t think so. I couldn’t inflict my mother on anyone else.”“But if he loved you surely it wouldn’t have been an issue?” I ask, feeling confused.“Oh, he wanted to come,” she says scathingly, “but he didn’t have a degree and didn’t seem to realise how important having a degree is here in America. I wasn’t going to end up taking care of him if he couldn’t provide the kind of life I wanted.”I fall silent again for I don’t know what to say. There seems to be a chasm between us. I don’t feel like telling her that I married for love, not money, and that I have to work full-time because I made a choice to marry a man I loved, despite him only being able to earn a low wage. She isn’t going to understand it and so I

32The Right Thingdon’t waste our precious love story on her. It feels as if she’s only told me part of the picture, and I’m sure there’s more that she’ll reveal later because it doesn’t really make any sense to me—love is love, just that and nothing more.She flicks ash outside the car as she drives, swerving in front of cars and bawling at the other drivers for being in her way.“Does your mother smoke?” I ask in order to make conversa-tion to reduce my growing anxiety.“Huh, she used to but I put a stop to that. There’s no way that she’s going to smoke,” she says, taking a hard drag on the ciga-rette between her lips and breathing in deeply. “The stupid bitch would set re to the house if I let her smoke, so I put them where she can’t reach them.”An image flashes into my mind back to the days when I was training as a nurse and caring for a wizened young man lying awkwardly on a waterbed: bony and shaking as Multiple Sclerosis ravaged through him. Blind and incapable of doing anything for himself, his only pleasure was to smoke a cigarette, and we stu-dent nurses would take turns lighting up for him and guiding his hand to his mouth. The thought serves to increase my anxiety, for if we could do that for him, a person who we weren’t emotion-ally attached to, why couldn’t Greta do that for her mother, even if smoking may cause cancer—the poor woman’s dying anyway. I try to dispel my dismay and slip into a persona where I try to please, and I hate myself for it.“It must be hard,” I say, trying to be empathetic but feeling as if I’m giving her permission to be abusive about her mother. While I want to let her know that I realise the strain she’s under, I don’t want to collude with her, but as she talks it sounds like a mother-bashing bonanza, so I change the subject.“You know, it’s kind of a tradition with me to go from the air-

33Celia Bantingport straight to Burger King,” I laugh shrilly. “My friend used to pick me up and we always went to the same place. I was amazed when the assistant remembered my name, for most people can’t even say my name properly in America. Isn’t that strange?” I’m talking too fast and I know it.There’s that sideways look again and I feel chastised and stu-pid once more, but in a split second she smiles the sort of smile that turns my stomach. “Well, we best not break with tradition,” she says, swerving the car around the corner, making the wheels screech. Ah, I think, I’m wrong. That’s a really sweet thing to do. Bless her.I flirt with the assistant who’s long since forgotten my name but valiantly tries to remember, and Greta rides along on my crest with American humour that I don’t understand but which feels better than mother-bashing. With a bagged burger in my hand and a few warm fuzzies from the assistant who has no teeth, I get back into the car.“Your mom does know I’m coming, doesn’t she?” I ask.“Of course,” she says, with duh written on her face. Then she giggles the same little sweet laugh I’d heard over the Internet, which I’d found so endearing. The only word I can think of right now is incongruent, and as goose bumps spring onto my arms in the humid heat, I immediately wipe the word out of my mind. As she drives I’m lost, even though I know this neighbour-hood, and when she swings into her driveway I truly can’t re-member having put one of my orange fliers in her mailbox almost a year ago. She says nothing and I wonder if she’s feeling as nervous as I am. I know that I would be if someone was coming to stay in my house for the rst time, even if I knew them—let alone a stranger. I stand there feeling rather helpless as she orders me

34The Right Thingaround, telling me which bags to take out rst, and what she’s planning to do to the garden.“That’s the car,” she says.“Pardon?” I ask, not knowing how to respond, and there’s that duh look on her face again.“You know, the car I emailed you about, the one I said I’d hang on to in case you wanted to buy it before I get rid of it else-where.”I suddenly feel a rush of gratitude that wipes away the previ-ous hour of misgivings.“I didn’t get any email about a car,” I say, ignoring her deep drawn-out sigh.“I wrote saying I’d hang on to it, even though I could sell it several times over, to see if you wanted it,” she says, with impa-tience, biting at me like a het-up terrier.“How much are you asking for it?” I ask steadily, trying to con-trol myself.“Two thousand dollars,” she says. “You can pay me four lots of ve hundred dollars if that would help you out.” She glances at me. “I wondered why you didn’t say anything about it.”“Thank you so much,” I gush, genuinely grateful for being given the means of transport and instalments to pay for it. I hadn’t expected to be able to buy a car for many months, which is why I chose this neighbourhood so that I could walk to work. I’m also grateful that the car comes recommended. I mean, a car that is only worth two thousand dollars is likely to be loaded with trou-bles, but to be offered one that comes with a history of good be-haviour is a godsend. “Is it running okay?” I ask, trying to sound as if I know something about cars when I know absolutely nothing other than where to put the key and the petrol—I mean gas—I’m in America now.

35Celia BantingThat duh look is on her face yet again and says, “I’d hardly sell you a car that was a pile of crap when you’re living in the same house, would I?”Now I feel incongruent. I feel reassured about the car being okay but completely chastised and ridiculed, but decide to ignore it. Anxiety and exhaustion wash over me and I long to be alone so that I can cry for my man, be alone with my thoughts, my sorrows and my fears. Although everything inside me yells that this is all wrong and I should run far away, I ignore it because I’m exhaust-ed and have nowhere to go. What helps me to grasp a remnant of sanity is knowing that there’s a parcel waiting for me somewhere in this house, one that I’m desperate to open. But feeling as anx-ious and bereft as I do, I don’t want to open it right now. I want to open it slowly, on my own, because the contents are utterly pre-cious to me and I don’t want to share them until I’m ready to, quite aside from the fact that it would be the height of rudeness to rush into my new home, ignore Greta and her mother, and rip the par-cel open. I have to do the right thing.I follow Greta into the house, scanning around as I go through the door with my heavy suitcase, aware that my wheezing has returned with the exertion. I let it sit on the floor while I get my breath back. Greta waits for me, rolling her eyes. As I attempt to slow my breathing, I feel confused. The room feels odd. The front door opens straight into this room where I’m standing and I can’t tell whether it’s a hall or a living room. I decide that it’s a hall but then I change my mind when I see in the corner of the room a huge pile of merchandise: odd things, totally unrelated. There’s a hideous old-fashioned flowered bedspread in a see-through plastic zip-up bag, an orange storage box, a tapestry footstool, various gardening tools and household tools all still in their boxes all dumped in an untidy pile. There’s also a television sitting in an

36The Right Thingoak unit, and in front are two chairs placed either side of a small, white marble table, which conrms my decision that this must be a living room. But why is there so much rubbish in the corner of the room? I feel nervous about meeting Ellen. What happens if she doesn’t like me, or if I don’t like her? This is my future for the next ten months and possibly more. This is an arrangement that should be benecial to each of us, but it needs to be comfortable for all of us. I feel nervous and disorientated as I step into the house. Something is really wrong but being jetlagged and exhausted, I can’t discern what it is. Greta barges through the door and pulls my suitcase into a room at the side of a short corridor.“This is your room,” she says, dumping one of my cases against a wall. “Let me show you the bathroom,” she orders, turn-ing me around and hustling me into a tiny room opposite that has a really repugnant smell about it. She points to the toilet bowl that has a plastic contraption under the seat with a pile of something very nasty beneath it in the bowl. “I’m trying to potty train the cat,” she says proudly. I know that my face is betraying me but I can’t help it. I’m re-minded of my youngest daughter who once tried to draw atten-tion to one of my failings when she said with horror and shame in her voice: “Mum, put your face away.” I know that everything I feel is like a beacon on my face. My face has always been an open book and right now I know that my nostrils are flaring, showing what’s on my mind. That’s dis-gusting. I’ve never seen anything so disgusting. A cat has pooped leaving a parcel resting sedately on a pile of kitty litter blocking the toilet. I feel grossed out as I’ve never seen anything like it before, and the sight of it makes me want to run a

37Celia Bantingmillion miles away. Clutter I can just about deal with, but cat do-ings and kitty litter in the toilet is just about more than I can stand. I’m plagued with a bizarre image that pops into my head and, try as I might, I can’t get rid of it. If the cat’s parcel is too big to flush away, then what on earth will happen to one of mine? It’ll be like the Titanic run aground, and I know right now as I stare down the toilet with my nose assaulted and my nostrils flaring, that I will never be able to use this bathroom. Constipation is already my bedfellow.She pushes past me saying, “Just think of it, with training, the cat will be able to use the bathroom just like you or I and there’ll never be any need for lthy kitty-litter boxes in this house.” She says it with pride and I know that I’m not keeping up with her, for I’m still having trouble with my flared nostrils. I truly never ex-pected to have to share a bathroom with a cat—sharing one with a man is bad enough, but not a cat—and again my imagination starts to run riot. If a cat is expected to emulate a human’s bath-room habits, am I expected to copy the cat’s bathroom habits? Oh lord! All that licking and grooming…Oh no, I just can’t even begin to go there so I shut down my imagination as soon as it begins to take flight. Gross! But not only do I shut down my imagination, I shut down everything else that would have compelled me to run. She pushes past me. “This is my mother’s room,” she says, standing in the adjacent doorway, which I assume is an invitation for me to enter, so I do. The sight that reaches my eyes makes my heart lurch. A frail lady, who is only months older than me, lies in the bed, shaking all over with the involuntary movements that Multiple Sclerosis inflicts upon its unwitting victims, and my heart hurts as she reaches out a trembling arm in an attempt to shake my hand. I love her immediately and I try desperately to silence the glaring incongruity between this open, sweet, coura-

38The Right Thinggeous woman before me with the derogatory ways in which her daughter has described her. I try to ignore my thoughts, for they tell me that something is seriously wrong in this house, but I’m so exhausted and distressed that I can’t work it out right now.“Hi, my name’s Celia,” I say, smiling at her.Her voice shakes as she welcomes me. “Well hello, Celeste. It sure is a pleasure to meet you.”I want to giggle but I grin instead and say, “It’s a real pleasure to meet you, too.” I grasp her hand, giving it a squeeze, and hang on to it so that it doesn’t shake away from me. “Welcome,” she says, and I thank her while Greta walks off.We chitchat for a while and then I leave Ellen to go to my room, writing four post-dated cheques for the car. I retrieve the gifts I’ve brought: a catering pack of Lemon Curd for Greta, as she said she loved it when she was with her ancé in England, and Belgian chocolates for her mother. Weird gifts, I’d thought, but I know how one culture longs for the taste of another. I remember having German students each summer when my children were lit-tle, and they always brought a gift related to their culture—a big juicy sausage! I feel a bit better as I see my things laid out, never realising just how much comfort I would get from the sight of my knick-ers. I start to put things away in the skinny little drawers that are not really big enough to hold all my not so skinny drawers. I put my precious pot of Marmite on the window sill, salivating at the thought of it on toast. The pot of lemon curd is huge and very heavy, so I take it to Greta.If I’d been confused about whether the lounge was a living room, the next room confuses me even more. The floor area is completely covered with lth and clutter. I can’t even begin to take in what’s on the floor. I think I see a piece of bottle-green carpet

39Celia Bantingthat’s completely covered in crumbs and clods of dust under-neath a mountain of stuff. At rst I think I’ve stepped into a garage. There are no tables or chairs but around two corners of the room are kitchen cupboards and a cooker. So it must be a kitchen, but how could anyone let their house be such a mess, especially if they knew someone was coming to stay? To hide my embarrassment, I hand Greta the lemon curd and babble on about how scared I’d been that my bags would be stopped for being too heavy. She smiles a little grin that is sicklier than the lemon curd, and it makes my stomach turn. “I brought your mother some chocolates, I hope she’s allowed to have them,” I say, suddenly worried that she might have diabe-tes added to her list of troubles.“Oh, she loves chocolate,” and she points to a large box of truffles on the counter.“Oh, good,” I say, and follow her back into Ellen’s room.“Celia’s brought you a present,” Greta announces and I thrust the parcel into her shaking hands. She looks like a child at Christmas, with delight and surprise in her eyes. Concentration screws up her face as she attempts to hold the box and nd an edge to rip. Greta comes to the rescue and says, “Hey, shall I get it started?” She rips an edge of wrapping paper.Ellen’s face is a picture when she realises that the coloured shells on the box reflect the exquisite shell-shaped chocolates inside.“Ooh,” she said, her eyes sparkling, and there’s something between us immediately, “Oh, thank you.” I grin and rip the rest of the cellophane off showing her the chocolate shells inside the box, and she dives into them with the desperation of a dry alcoholic. I feel a bit humbled—it’s only a lit-tle box of chocolates and she’s slightly too grateful.

40The Right ThingLeaving Ellen tucking into chocolates, Greta urges me to fol-low her out into the lounge.“This chair is so comfortable,” Greta says placing her broad hips into an armchair and reaching down beside her ankles. “Here, if you really want to relax, pull this,” and suddenly without warning she’s flat on her back: head back, legs up, with her belly shimmering, not knowing where to settle.I’m surprised and embarrassed, and pray that she’s not going to try to force me to have a go, so I quickly sit in the other chair, a Victorian armchair.“Well, this chair is really comfortable,” I say slightly too fast. “Good for my back,” daring her not to challenge me to a turn in the booby chair.“I want this chair,” she says, to my relief, “so that I can relax in it, then Ellen can wheel herself into this space in her wheelchair.”I’m relieved but vaguely confused. When Dessy comes out at Christmas, where’s he going to sit? I guess there’s always the orange storage box which looks sturdy enough to support his weight. I thought that living rooms were supposed to have chairs in them, but once Greta takes her chair there’ll only be the one chair left, which I guess will be my chair. I can’t even imagine nding the space in this cluttered room to put another chair. I want to ask, “Where will Dessy sit?” but I say nothing.I’m still confused. Where does Greta sleep? I know I’m jet-lagged, distressed and missing my man, not to mention my ve kids and four grandchildren, but my brain doesn’t seem to be working properly. Everything seems to be a little off whack. My heart also plummets, for one of the things I’ve longed for after liv-ing in our “builders’ yard” house in England is cleanliness, tidi-ness and a lack of clutter; yet this place makes our house seem like a show home. Again I stifle my gut instinct—why do I do that?

41Celia BantingI put my psychologist’s hat on in order to try and make sense of it all, yet as I do so, I justify all my concerns away, and do what we humans are good at: denial and reframing things to t the way we want or need to see them. It’s obvious to me that poor Greta needs help and she’s not coping at all well, but never mind, I’m here now I think with bravado, and I’m going to help her. I return to my room, which has been cleaned, and retrieve my teabags (an English must have) and my Marmite (again, a staple English foodstuff) and return to the kitchen. I step over the clut-ter to put my things in a cupboard to try and help me feel as if I belong. I’m scared that in the low lighting I might trip and break a bone—until I start working I don’t have any health insurance, and even then not for ninety days. Fear induces a sharp longing for the home I’ve left only hours ago. If I were to fall and break a bone in England, all my treatment would be free under our National Health Service, paid for by every employed citizen buy-ing a national insurance stamp. Not only that, but I’d receive my full wage while I recovered. These things flash through my mind, and again I wonder if I’ve just made a huge mistake, even though it’s the only way out of my situation as I see it. Enough sense seeps into my thoughts and tells me that I’m exhausted and I’m not thinking straight. Everything feels really strange and I’m un-easy, so I apologise for myself, saying that I need to go to bed.“Aren’t you going to open your parcel?” Greta says, with an edge in her voice that I can’t quite place.I grin at her. “You haven’t peeped, have you?” trying des-perately to play with her and entice her Free Child ego state out of hiding. That’s what’s wrong! It dawns on me in my exhausted, stressed state that the core of herself—her Free Child ego state—is absent. I’m too tired to acknowledge what that means to me or to her mother, for all I want to do right now is to lock myself away

42The Right Thingin my room and allow the oblivion of sleep to embrace me.“No, of course I haven’t peeped,” Greta says. “Well, I’ll see you tomorrow. Sleep well.”“’Night, and thanks again for picking me up. I really appreci-ate it,” and I do.She disappears through a door leading from the kitchen down a flight of stairs. I guess that’s where she sleeps. So, suddenly alone, I step over the mounds of clutter and lth to go to my room.I poke my head into Ellen’s room and she’s busy tucking into the Belgian chocolate shells. Her Free Child ego state is set free to play and enjoy. I squeeze her hand to say goodnight, and as I smile at her, there’s something in her eyes that I can’t quite fath-om. I was to later discover that it was the feeling of relief that she was no longer alone in this house with her daughter.I shut my door and notice the parcel safely delivered in order to be here waiting to welcome me. It was the one thing that I’d focused on during all the goodbyes and the long journey—my precious parcel waiting for me—but I’m so exhausted, scared and bereft that I can’t open it. I feel so sick that I throw my bagged burger into the trash, lie on my bed and silently sob into my pil-low with grief and exhaustion until sleep steals me away.