Dear Diary,
We’re all at home together now, Mum, Dad and me. I’m still suspended, not that anyone cares. Dad has stopped going to work. He says it’s so he can look after Mum because she’s not well, but he sits downstairs all day watching TV while she stays up in her bedroom. He says I’m old enough to be told the truth and that Mum was pregnant before she fell down the stairs and that the baby died. That’s why she drank so much she was sick and why she was shouting at Taylor’s mum that afternoon. I thought people only shouted rude things when they were angry, but Dad says some people do it when they are sad.
I didn’t know Mum was pregnant but I’m glad that she isn’t any more, it’s disgusting. I asked Dad if she would get pregnant again and he said no because they had to remove something from her tummy in the hospital. I was pleased about that. They can’t even look after me properly, so it doesn’t make any sense at all for them to have another child. I’m a bit worried that they might adopt a fake brother or sister to make Mum happy again. I don’t want one of those either.
Dad is always having to pop out for this or that, but sometimes he comes back with nothing at all. I think he should start making lists so he doesn’t keep forgetting things, that’s what Nana used to do. He asked me to keep an eye on Mum while he went out to get some bread, milk and a lottery scratch card. That was tricky, because I didn’t want to look at her. The bedroom door was slightly open so I decided to keep watch from there with one eye closed like Dad said. I thought she might like to hear me singing, seeing as she missed the Christmas concert this year. So I made up a funny song, which I sang to her from the landing.
What shall we do with the drunken mother?
What shall we do with the drunken mother?
What shall we do with the drunken mother?
Early in the morning?
I even made up a little dance to go with it, miming drinking from lots of bottles. She didn’t laugh, so maybe she was still sleeping. She sleeps a lot. Dad says the sadness tires her out.
When Dad got back he said we needed to have a little talk. He had forgotten the milk again but I didn’t tell him because he already looked very worried about something. We sat at the kitchen table and at first I thought he’d forgotten what he wanted to talk about, but then he pulled a face and said we have to move house again. I told Dad that I don’t want to move again but he said that we have to. I asked if it was my fault, for getting suspended and he said no. He started to explain but his words got all jumbled up on the way to my ears because I was crying without meaning to.
It’s something to do with a man called Will. Nana was supposed to talk to him before she died, but she forgot to and now we have to move because people keep forgetting things. Dad said Mum’s sister is very cross about Nana not talking to Will. I didn’t even know Mum had a sister. Dad said I met her a few times when I was really little but I don’t remember her at all. Dad said Mum’s sister hadn’t spoken to Mum or Nana for years, but when Nana died she decided she would like half of her house. I asked if we could still live in the other half, but Dad said no, it didn’t work like that. I asked if we could stay if he matched three things on the lottery scratch card, he said he’d already scratched it and we hadn’t won.
This all made me feel very sad, so I asked Dad if I could go upstairs and read in my room for a while and he said yes, so long as I was quiet and not to disturb Mum. He said we had to take very good care of Mum because she was even more upset about all of this than we were. I don’t see why I should take care of her at all. She was meant to look after Nana and she didn’t do a very good job because the cancer killed her. I can’t help thinking lately that if someone better, like Taylor’s mum, had looked after Nana when she was ill, she would have got better and still been alive now. Everything would still be good and we wouldn’t have to keep moving house. This is all Mum’s fault, even if Dad is too stupid to see it. Mum has ruined everything for everyone and I’ll never forgive her.
Now
New Year’s Eve, 2016
The sound wakes me, I’ve heard it before. My bed is tilting me backwards, so that my feet are pointing up towards the ceiling and the blood rushes to my head. They lift me a little further towards the very edge, I’m scared I might fall and that nobody will catch me, but then they carefully let my head lean right back and I feel the warm water and gentle fingers on my scalp.
I’m having my hair done today, I didn’t even need to book an appointment! I can smell the shampoo and picture the suds and, if I try really hard, I can convince myself for a few seconds that I’m at the hairdresser’s, that life has been restored to my version of normal. I try to extract some pleasure from the experience, I try to relax, try to remember what that means.
I think about time a lot since I lost it. The hours here stick together and it’s hard to pull them apart. People talk about time passing but here, in this room, time doesn’t pass at all. It crawls and lingers and smears the walls of your mind with muck-stained memories, so you can’t see what’s in front or behind you. It eats away at those who get washed up on its shores and I need to swim away now, I need to catch up with myself down stream.
‘That should feel better, all the dried blood gone,’ says a kind voice, before wrapping a towel around my head. I imagine blood staining white porcelain and an ever decreasing red orbit until another part of me is washed away.
‘I’ll do that, I imagine you must be very busy, I don’t mind,’ says Claire. She’s been watching, so quiet I didn’t even know she was here. The nurses like her, I can tell. People do tend to like the version of her she lets them see. They put the bed back upright and leave us alone. Claire dries my hair, then plaits it the way we did for each other when we were children. She doesn’t say a word.
‘You’re here early,’ says Paul, coming into my room just as she’s finishing.
‘Still can’t sleep,’ says Claire.
It looks like I’m sleeping all of the time, but I’m not and even when I do sleep, people are always coming and going. Turning me, cleaning me, drugging me. Edward hasn’t come back for a while, at least I don’t remember him being here. I tell myself that he might leave me alone now, then maybe I’ll wake up for real, for good.
‘Something weird happened last night,’ says Paul.
‘Go on,’ replies my sister. I preferred it when they had the rule where he arrived and she left. They’re spending too much time together now and nothing good can come of that.
‘I charged Amber’s phone, but there was no contact number for anyone called Jo.’
‘That’s strange.’
‘I called her boss, thinking he’d be able to give me her number. He was very nice at first, but then got all agitated and said he couldn’t give it to me, because he doesn’t know anyone called Jo.’
‘I don’t understand,’ says Claire.
I know that she does.
‘Nobody at Coffee Morning is called Jo. I asked him if maybe it was a nickname or something, told him that she was definitely a friend of Amber’s from work. Then he got all flustered and tried to find a polite way to tell me that Amber didn’t have any friends at work.’
Please stop.
‘How strange.’
‘I’m starting to understand why she quit, the guy sounded like an arse.’
Please stop talking.
‘She quit?’ asks Claire.
Don’t say another word.
‘Sorry, she told me not to tell you; I forgot.’
‘Why?’
‘She just wasn’t happy there any more.’
‘No, I mean why didn’t she want you to tell me?’
‘I don’t know.’
Then
Friday 23rd December 2016 – Evening