Laugh and the world laughs with you
Now that the idea is firmly set in my head, I can’t wait to do it. At home, inspired by Miss Primrose, I do more internet surfing. I hate the idea of sobbing in a room with strangers. That is not who I am.
But maybe this will help me learn to live with it – as well as the guilt from all the lying I’ve done about my putative ‘group’. The guilt is like a living, breathing entity for everyhalf-truth to my family. Lying to my beloved Dan is worst of all. How can our marriage have come to this? Me being untruthful about the things that matter? Me hiding this inner rage against Elisa, the terror that she’ll somehow take Lexi away from me?
I have to deal with this pain and for that, first, I need practical help and preferably a victim support group that takes place on Thursdays.
You’re not asking for much. Mildred is predictably acidic.
I ignore her and continue my internet trawl. Only one victim support group fits the bill.
They might all be weirdos, I think, as I click ‘contact’, but this is it.
Then I just have to wait.
An hour later, my phone pings.
My contact turns out to be someone called Ariel and via text messages, she sounds dreamy and young, peppering her text with words about ‘healing energy’.
She’s on the message board but full access is only available to complete members of the physical group, so I have no idea what her story is. I wish I knew. Wondering if I’m being absolutely crazy, I agree to meet Ariel outside a coffee shop in the city centre at a quarter to seven on Thursday.
‘I’ve got this long brocade sort of Chinese thing I’m wearing at the moment,’ Ariel writes: ‘it’s black, so that’s how you’ll recognise me. I have a rucksack. It’s orange.’
I think Thursday will never come – now that I’ve made the decision, I can’t wait to do it. I’ve messed up everything with my lies. Why couldn’t I tell Dan and everyone else that what happened to me in January left me feeling broken? Why can’t I let myself be vulnerable?
*
I get there early on Thursday evening, scanning thepassers-by anxiously.
And finally, just on time, a girl shows up wearing a long brocade Chinese coat and with a shabby orange rucksack. I think that Ariel probably should have mentioned the jet black hair with the purple extensions. I mean, that would be the way you could recognise someone. But maybe she changes them all the time. Surprised at how anxious I am, I go over to her and say, ‘Ariel?’
‘Hey,’ she said, ‘Freda, you came, I’m Ariel.’
‘I love your hair,’ I say.
She idly twirls a bit of purple.
‘I’m getting bored with the purple but I’m keeping the black. My mum doesn’t like it but she doesn’t mind, it’s whatever makes me happy, isn’t it?’
I put Ariel at abouttwenty-five and there is something so sweet and beautiful about herheart-shaped face and yet her eyemake-up is as dark and her lips are apurplish-black colour. I feel really guilty for calling myself Freda, but I’m so terrified I’ll be recognised, although it’s not as if I’m the President or a movie star or anything. It’s just that the weirdest people recognise me and I don’t want anyone knowing who I am tonight. To that end, I’ve tied up my hair in a scarf which mainly makes me look like I’m auditioning for a part in a play about Rosie the Riveter, but still. I’m disguised. This ismysecret. My pain. I have to be in charge of it.
As thesecret-me, I can sit in a room with a group of people who have been scared and perhaps, just perhaps, I can talk about it. Feel something, get something out of my system quickly because that’s what I need.
Like having a tooth pulled. Extraction. Clean and simple. One trip should do it. Right?
If it’s awful, I can run and never go back. I’ll sit near the door.
‘There’s time for takeaway coffee.’ Ariel insists, dragging me into a small café, her girlish charm still so appealing. ‘We do have tea and coffee but they always forget important things like sugar and if I can’t have sugar, I can’t relax because there’s something comforting about the sweetness ...’
She talks in a stream of consciousness, as if nothing bad ever happened to her but her eyes are sad. Again, I think,what happened to you?It must be like being in prison where you are afraid to ask what someone is in for, or maybe you do. Who knows.
But apart from her sad eyes, lovely ethereal Ariel does a good job of pretending as if nothing bad could have happened to her. It’s as if this is a project she’s taking on and it’s nice to meet wounded people on a Thursday evening every two weeks. Once we’ve got the coffee, she brings me to an ancient, unloved mobile phone repair shop. Beside the shop is a shabby door left open to the stairs above and we climb them.
‘Not the most beautiful place,’ she says, ‘but it’s free. It’s a community centre during the day.’
‘And how does it work?’ I say, my speech speeding up as we climb.
What if they want names, details? I need to know exactly how this works because otherwise I’ll get anxious.
