‘We need a weightlifter to join the team,’ I grumbled. ‘Why does nobody ever understand that we have to get all the stuff into the venue and then get it out?’
‘Life of glamour, huh?’ said Lorraine.
We finally slammed the boot shut.
‘I’ll do the parking ticket for you,’ said Lorraine, who wasn’t coming with me but was going on to meet someone in town because she was still in her twenties, still had energy.
‘No, go off and have fun,’ I said. ‘I can still move.’
We laughed, went to the stairs together because the lift was slow, and made it up to the ground level where we hugged goodbye at the door and I went to pay for my parking at the automated machine.
My mind had gone into that other land of being tired and not paying attention. We’d been up and down the steps so many times that evening: the garage felt familiar, friendly.
I shoved open the door on my floor, finding my phone because I could stick some relaxing music on as I drove home and let the stress of the demo flow away. I was at the car, bag still open, searching yet again for my keys when he struck.
I don’t know how he got there without me noticing. But then, I’d stopped noticing. Somewhere in my gut, the fear alert was probably pinging frantically, but I’d overridden it by the sheer familiarity of the place.
The first blow went to the back of my head and in truth, it wasn’t hard but the shock – nobody tells you about the shock. I fell to my knees and then he hit me again, still weakly, so that if I’d been thinking at all, I’d have turned around and screamed, scratched him with my keys, yelled blue murder, run away.
But no, the second blow made me fall to the ground, my arm slamming into the ground, my collarbone breaking as nature designed, my face following suit so that I felt the sharp abrading sensation of the cement on my cheekbones.
I saw the glint of the knife as I lay there and pure terror meant I was unable to move.
‘Gimme your bag,’ he said, his voice croaky and I shook, unable to do anything but smell the dirt of the street, of long unwashed clothes, the pungency of drugs.
‘Your fucking bag!’ he hissed again, and I moved, wincing at the pain of my body.
He ripped it off my arm and ran, leaving me lying on the ground with fear.
‘It made me scared,’ I say now. ‘Really scared. I moved house because I wanted walls to hide behind. My daughter’s birth mother is back and it makes me terrified. My father had a stroke months before and now I see illness everywhere. We’re so vulnerable,’ I cry out loud. ‘I can’t stop any of it.’
Ariel hands over the tissues, I murmur thanks and let the tears flow.
‘We don’t give advice here,’ says Steve, ‘but we talk about what works for us. Anyone got any wisdom for Freya,’ says Steve.
Nobody says anything for a full minute but the silence is OK, not weird.
‘I come here because nobody judges and because here, I know that I’m not alone. Nobody tells me I should be “over Daisy”, or that if I take up a hobby, it’ll help. Here, I learn to live with it,’ says Eileen, and puts an arm round me. ‘That’s as good as it gets.’
I nod and still cry, but there’s more relief in my tears now.
Living with it.
I’ve no idea how to do that but if that’s what works, then that’s what works. Because anger and avoidance don’t.
People talk and I sort of listen until a very quiet woman with long,mouse-coloured hair begins to speak. She looks at me as she does so.
‘I’m Farrah and I was attacked by a couple of teenagers. They stole my bag, kicked me, scared me,’ she says. ‘It was four years ago and the police told me there wasn’t much hope of finding them. I don’t know if it would make any difference if they did,’ she says. ‘It made me jumpy, I jump at the slightest thing and sometimes I get really angry and I don’t know why. I’m on antidepressants but I’m still scared. It took me ages to come in here. I still don’t know why I’m not better. That makes me angry.’
I stare at Farrah, shocked.
‘You just said everything I feel,’ I say. ‘Like I should be over it and yet my temper is on hair trigger and I never used to be like that and, and I do jump at everything. We moved in to a new house and I’m scared when I look out the window at night because all I can see are these black dark shapes and I imagine they’re intruders. I never used to be that sort of person. I keep thinking we could get a better alarm or ...’
‘You want to be safe,’ says Farrah, shrugging, ‘but safe doesn’t come from the locks and the alarms. I know that because I did it and I still don’t feel safe. Safe is an inside job.’
I grin.
‘That’s brilliant,’ I say.
