'I just want to live in peace'

George*, 49, sank into the sofa with faded floral patterns, and rubbed his grey stubble in thought as he took a deep drag on his Royals cigarette. Odd pieces of furniture, donated by YMCA Homeless, lay around randomly in the small living room, while planks of wood - George is the process of making doors - line the wall.

In the adjoining bedroom, his 16-year-old son, Mark*, focuses on the 12-inch television screen, using the joystick to veer his racing car through the track of his pirated Playstation game Juiced.

"We're trying to make this place home. We're very grateful to have a roof over our heads, but rebuilding our lives from scratch is not easy," he says, closing the door to his son's bedroom to spare him the agony of listening to an account of the trauma they endured.

Father and son moved into this apartment (provided by the Housing Authority) three weeks ago, after living in the safety of Dar Niki Cassar, YMCA's shelter for the homeless in Valletta, for the past two and a half years, when the situation at the family home became intolerable.

To explain what led to the crisis, George has to rewind back to the happy days when he and his wife were two love birds and slowly replay the thorny moments, which led to the disintegration.

He met Rita* 28 years ago in a shoe factory, where they were both working - he was 21 and she was a year younger.

"She was very pretty," he says, allowing himself a tender smile, which momentarily alters his jaded expression.

The two would meet secretly for an hour three times a week, since her father was very strict, and Rita would make up some excuse to leave the house without raising suspicion.

After a year, their rendezvous became even more limited, when George left the factory to go and work on an oil rig in the desert in Libya, spending three months there and one month in Malta.

"We used to write to one another, but in those days mail service was inefficient and I'd arrive before the letters did. Calling was also difficult and costly," he recalls.

They got engaged and after seven years of meeting sporadically George quit his job to be closer to home, and they tied the knot in 1986. They had no money for the honeymoon and the next day Rita was back at the factory, though she quit three months later to take care of the house.

"Our wedding day was a happy one, but the next day I was engulfed by an inexplicable sadness and I actually spent the day at my mum's," he says, hunting for the matches to light another cigarette.

Living under the same roof, the two began to get to know each other and friction surfaced, as they tried to settle into some form of routine.

When they got home from work, Rita, who was obsessed with cleaning, got cracking with the chores, serving dinner at 11 p.m. On the other hand, George, who didn't even know how to boil an egg, would be starving and by 10 p.m. he would want to be in bed, because he had to rise early.

They trudged along through life and had a girl and a boy. However, as the years passed, George began to notice traits in his wife's character that worried him.

"Once, we were at a barbecue and I was with her brother and his wife was recounting jokes. Seeing us from afar she assumed we were laughing at her and she threw a beer bottle at her sister-in-law, hitting her on the head. You can imagine the ensuing chaos," he says, adding that Rita's jealousy always got the best of her.

Rita was also becoming overbearing with her neighbours, asking them to move the car an inch, or sweeping dirty water back into the next door's backyard.

Their passion had fizzled out and they limped through life. George had to take on a job driving trailers across Europe, which kept him away from home for weeks and that's when Rita discovered the excitement of online chatting.

Her son, who suspected his mother was up to something, began to secretly make print-outs of her dilly-dallying with other men and showed them to his father.

Shocked by what he read, George wanted to catch his wife in the act so one day he returned from work abroad a week earlier and went to stay with his friend.

He began to spy on her and on the first day a stranger entered the house for an hour. The next day she took a walk and was picked up by another man in a van. On the third day he caught her liaising with another man - that's when his anger got the better of him and he blew his cover.

"Some days later over lunch, and in front of the children, she told me: 'See what you're going to do with the kids, because the guy I'm going to live with doesn't need them'," he says.

The situation became unbearable and the psychological abuse began. Rita also began to vent her anger and frustration on her son Mark, then 11 years old, at times dragging him the length of the corridor from his hair if he misbehaved.

Father and son left home for seven months to live with George's aunt and court proceedings began. The court favoured the mother and it was an uphill battle for George to prove the facts as the magistrate kept insisting that Mark returned home. George was eventually granted sole custody of his son.

"Mark was so scared of going back home that he began to stammer. He was delirious," he says, lowering his voice in a whisper.

After the ordeal, George and Mark tried to resolve the situation and returned home - it was a year of torture. George took on a job as a coach driver and to spite him, Rita would lock Mark outside.

"Once I returned home and found him crying outside the door, pleading with his mother to let him in to use the toilet. I had to start taking him to work with me, waking him up at 5 a.m. and dragging him along."

George was hand-washing his shirt every day, but she locked the roof so he wouldn't have anywhere to hang it. When his wife discovered he was using the shaft she locked that too and hid the key. The abuse continued - she once threw Mark's clothes on the dog's faeces, damaged his mobile charger, broke the mobile phone and scattered rat pooh on George's bed sheets.

"The time had come to leave. I called 179 (the Appoġġ helpline) and together with my son we left the home, taking nothing with us," he says, adding that his daughter preferred to stay with her mother.

Appoġġ put them in touch with YMCA Homeless, which took them in. There, for the first time in years, they felt safe and protected. George had to work on buying everything from scratch, even his son's uniform, because Rita refused to hand over anything.

Court proceedings dragged on and became so frequent that George lost his job. However, he took the opportunity to take care of his son, making sure he had a warm dinner and a clean uniform for school.

After nearly three years in the shelter, the two moved into their own apartment with the help of YMCA Homeless. The situation is far from blissful, because Rita has discovered where they moved to and is again taunting them with threats and incriminating lies.

"The other day she reported Mark to Sedqa, saying he was taking drugs - the tests proved he was clean. She has not only disrupted his education, but is now trying to ruin his future," he says, his eyes clouding over.

"I just hope we can start afresh without constantly being tripped up by false accusations. Once Mark starts working I'll look for a job. It's hard for the two of us to subsist on €93.18 (Lm40) a week. I just want to live in peace and see my son succeed."

YMCA Homeless is constantly reaching out to help people like George and Mark. Those who wish to help and pledge support or would like more information may visit www.ymcahomeless.org, call 2122 8035 or send an e-mail to info@ymcahomeless.org. To make a donation of €4.66 (Lm2) send an SMS to 5061 8088, or for €11.65 (Lm5) send an SMS to 5061 9212.

* Names have been changed to protect the persons' identity.