The Stranger She Knew by Rosalind Stopps

Author:Rosalind Stopps [Stopps, Rosalind]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2019-05-14T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

March 2018

Lewisham

We’re going out shopping today, and I’m excited.

Stupid old woman to be excited, but I am, I’m so excited that I couldn’t sleep last night. I never tell them when I can’t sleep because they give me those pills, the ones that knock you out. It’s my secret. They come in every morning asking how I slept and I give them a thumbs up with my good hand, regardless. Some things have to be private. I can’t give them everything.

So my night-times are my own, and I lie here thinking about things. About Jenny and the times we used to have. I can recall all the books and stories I used to read to her, word for word. The one about the little boy whose cuddly dog accidentally gets given to the school fair, I’ve been thinking about that one. I think it has a happy ending, I think he gets the dog back, but it strikes me now as an outlandishly sad story to tell to a small person. Hey, you might as well say, hey this is the score, bad things are going to happen to you, in fact they probably have happened already while you were watching the damn mobile hanging on your cot. Everything you love is vulnerable, baby, so you’d better harden your heart.

That’s what I tried to explain to Jenny, there’s no sugar coating. When I can talk I’m going to say that again, along with a few other things. I’ve got an agenda written on my notepad. I can’t write much, it’s too tiring and anyway I wouldn’t want anyone reading the private stuff, so I write it in code. I’m fantastic at keeping things covered up, I always have been.

So shopping. I haven’t always liked shopping. When I was a young woman I was haunted by my own body, consumed with hatred for it. I wanted to wear what the other girls wore but everything looked wrong on me. All my clothes bulged and puffed and heaved as if they were hoping I’d take them off and they could find someone else to wear them. Then I got thin and met Alain and for a while I was the prettiest girl I could be but it didn’t last, and it didn’t do me any good at all. So I gave up and I spent quite a few years, the Jenny rearing years, looking as though I was in mourning. Black shapeless shifts, long grey skirts, flat lace-up shoes. I dressed like that right up until I got ill, now I think of it. Just didn’t care. So what it is that makes me long for flowers now, I don’t know, but I’d love to wear something pretty. Not too gaudy, just a sprig of flowers here and there to brighten it up. Red flowers, old-fashioned ones, vintage flowers. I’ve no idea why I long for that but I do, I think of it often and when I wrote it down for Jenny she seemed thrilled.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.