A Family Secret by Maureen Wood

Author:Maureen Wood [Wood, Maureen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2021-01-12T23:58:39+00:00

In the months after losing Ben, my life unravelled. I moved out of the hostel, with no idea of where to go next. I had no emotional structure to my life, and so I suppose this decision was a rejection of a physical routine too. I didn’t want well-meaning welfare workers sticking their nose into my messed-up life and trying to help me. I was close to giving up on myself and I wanted them to admit defeat too. I had no job and no plans, and I was doped up on so much medication I could barely string a sentence together. I was also drinking heavily. Those first few days, I stayed with an old school friend who had a flat share and a spare couch.

‘Only for a few days,’ she warned. ‘The landlord will be on my back if you stay too long.’

From there, I went to another mate, and then another. I slept on sofas and floors. I had no idea where I would sleep or what I would do from one day to the next. During the day I walked around the town centre, aimlessly and endlessly, retracing my steps, mile after mile. I spent hours in the dole office, waiting in queues, applying for jobs, filling out forms. It all meant nothing. There was a monotony and a dullness to my days, juxtaposed with a deep hurt and a longing to see my little boy again.

‘I’m sorry, Ben,’ I whispered. ‘Please don’t give up on me. I haven’t given up on you.’

I walked so far that one of my trainers split, and I could feel the damp around my toes where the puddles were seeping in. But it didn’t bother me enough to buy new trainers or even tape up the hole. I just kept on walking, hoping to clear my mind of everything in it. The days were a blur and the nights were often tortuous. I slept rough more than once, and, as I bedded down on the pavement, I remembered the night I’d slept in the school boiler room as a little girl, desperate to escape the horrors at home. The problem now was that I was on the run from the horrors in my mind. But now, as then, sleeping outside held little threat for me. Unsurprisingly, I had no real friends and I was surrounded by people who were drowning in their own problems, just as I was in mine.

As I spiralled, I considered drugs as a way out more than once, but I never went beyond smoking the odd spliff. Somehow, in the fog of my reality, I managed to say no. It just wasn’t my thing. I was a target for dealers and pimps, but again, I stood firm. Hidden underneath all the hurt was the spark of a survivor, still flickering. I have a hazy memory, late one night, of a bloke who became aggressive towards me, but I kneed him in the nuts and gave him a piece of my mind.

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