Fortunately, I get my train, meaning I miss the rush hour crush and avoid being dry humped at high speed which will thrill Mason no end as he tried and failed several times to convince me to wait for him to finish work. It almost feels as though I am two people in one body; one is mypre-Mason selfand the other is mywith Mason self. The former did this trip down my road over and over without a second thought. The latter not so much so, and today she, I, feel nervous. Maybe it’s because the last time I did this journey I found my flat had been broken into, vandalised and I got hit over the head. I shiver as I think of that night and the knowledge of someone else having been in my home, touching my things, hurting me, but worse still the things they could have done to me. My nervousness is threatening to get the better of me so I do the one thing that I know will calm and centre me, I call Mason who answers on the second ring.
“Hey, baby, you okay?” There’s a softness to his voice that says he knows I am nervous, scared.
“Yes, sorry. I got jittery coming home and just needed to say hello.” I feel a little pathetic.
“I told you to wait so we could do this together,” he replies with a sigh that makes me feel really pathetic now.
I say nothing and the split second of silence that hangs between us seems to last forever emphasising my own feelings of inadequacy and ridiculousness.
“Olivia, are you there?” Mase asks without a sigh this time.
“Yes. Sorry, I’m being stupid about this. Look, I’ll do what I need to do and then I’ll be back.” I adopt a more upbeat, slightly forced optimistic tone.
“If you’re sure, but let’s meet, for dinner. You do what you need to, and I will meet you at yours in a couple of hours and we’ll go out.”
“Thank you,” I whisper, feeling beyond grateful that he understood me.
A few words with Mason are enough for me to feel confident enough to walk through the communal front door of my flat’s building and then my own front door. Closing the door behind me I am breathing heavily until I look around and can see that everything is back to its former glory. There is no sign that anyone else was ever here, that this place has ever been vandalised or ransacked, it’s safe again. I’m safe. Mason has made it safe again.
I tidy around, open a few windows and whilst I have more than enough clothes, toiletries and personal belongings at Mason’s flat I pack some more to take home with me. The word home shocks me. This place is becoming less like home and his place more so.
The sound of knocking at the door as I zip up a weekender bag prevents my mind wondering any further and assuming it’s Mase I rush to the door and fling it open. I am stopped dead in my tracks by the sight of the woman filling my doorway.
“Mum,” I whisper in a state of shock and disbelief.
“Olivia,” she curtly replies.
I have imagined meeting her again, either in a random way, like on a train or in a supermarket or alternatively by her tracking me down with her bags and my brother at her side, sorrow and a need for forgiveness pleading in her eyes, but this, this is neither because she looks at me with nothing but contempt.
“What can I do for you?”
I know the answer before she even replies. She wants my silence, maybe even my compliance in providing a glowing report on what a fantastic and non-abusive stepfather Raymond was, equally as non-predatory or paedophilic as my former doctor.
“Coming in would be a start.” I submissively allow her to enter my former home.
The thought that this place is no longer my home makes me smile, unlike my mother’s presence. She is standing in front of my fireplace eyeing me with caution I think and then her glance flits around my home before finally settling on my weekender bag at one end of the sofa.
“Are you coming or going?”
“Both. So, what do you want?”
I know I sound rude and although I feel slightly disrespectful her failure to believe what her husband was doing to me trumps my etiquette faux pas.
“Have you recently moved here? Not too many personal touches,” she says.
She is certainly persistent in her questioning and I am becoming irritated and anxious. I wish Mase was here to take control, dictate what she could and couldn’t say and do, but he’s not, so it’s down to me.
“I’ve been here a while. Look, I am sure you didn’t come here to discuss interior design or my living arrangements, after all it has been seven years—”
“Do you live here alone? With a friend, a boyfriend, husband maybe?”
She is beyond persistent and her attempts to catch up and make conversation, or whatever the fuck this is, is really pissing me off, a lot. As is the fact that with her question I realise that neither of my parents know me, or anything about me.
“What do you want, really? If it’s for me to fill you in on the last seven years I might just need to backtrack further to ensure you fully understand everything, maybe I could go back to when my life began to go down the toilet at nine years old.”
Her face hardens suddenly, so suddenly that I think she is about to flip, she doesn’t, not like I thought, but my objective of cutting through her bullshit is achieved and her concerned, interested persona or whatever she was aiming for slips.
“What did we ever do for you to repay us with such disrespect and contempt?”
