‘Thatvoice,’ say Farrah and Ariel at exactly the same time, and they both laugh.
‘Well,’ I go on, ‘I’ve given my voice a name, I call her Mildred, because it makes it easier and when she’s been very negative I say,shut up Mildred. So Mildred was just telling me that shit happens.’
‘Mildred has a point,’ says Eileen. ‘Shit happens.’
‘I’ve never heard you swear,’ says Ariel, astonished.
‘I have been known to swear on occasions,’ says Eileen primly, ‘but as everyone in this room knows, shit happens and you keep going. You have no choice. I don’t know if I’m the best or the worst person to demonstrate this because I can never, ever get back to who I was. I’ve lost too much.’
Farrah cries. She often cries when Eileen talks.
Eileen continues. ‘I’m not saying my losing Daisy is worse than anything else in your lives, but I do think you have some chance of going forward. You’re changed now, for sure. But you go forward, changes and all. I come in here once every week and I cry and I can tell you all exactly what I’m feeling. And then I go back out to my family and I try to get on with my life as best I can. There’s aDaisy-shaped hole in it and that will never be filled. But I have other people I love and I need to be there for them. I need to be there for me. So, if I pretend everything is OK, then I’m lying to all of us and I’m lying to me.’
We all sit in silence.
‘I think that’s what Mildred was trying to say.’ I agree. ‘Shit happens to everyone.’
‘And it’s how you pick yourself up that matters,’ chimes in Farrah. We all looked at her.
‘Somebody really said that to you after you’d been mugged?’ asks Steve.
‘Yeah,’ says Farrah, and we all laugh with recognition. ‘It’s amazing the platitudes people come out with. This person hadn’t been mugged but theythoughtthey knew what I was going through.’
‘You create your own happinessor some rubbish like that.From a guy I work with who’s never had anything happen to him,’ she adds.
‘But nobody knows what you are going through,’ I say crossly at the notion of somedo-gooder saying exactly the wrong thing.
‘It’s taken me a long time, but I now tell people,’ says Farrah. ‘I say, I’m going through a difficult time and if they try and say, I understand and try and compare it to oh, I don’t know, getting a flat tyre when they were late for work, I say, no that isnotthe same thing.’
‘Farrah is right,’ says Steve, ‘maybe you should tell the people you love how you feel. It helped me.’
‘Yes,’ Ariel chimes in, her face lit up suddenly, her eyes sparkling. ‘And you could tell people on your social media accounts – it would be brilliant.Stop the fake,stop pretending everything is OK. That’s what I do, my friends know what happened to me and that’s why my friend’s brother walked me home from the party. He knows I’m scared. He doesn’t bang into me when we walk. He’s kind, gentle and knows I’m scared of noises and being touched. That helps: that people I care about know.’
I rolled the idea over in my mind. Imagine if people really knew, what would it mean? Imagine if I told Dan? Imagine if I told everyone? Imagine if I stopped trying to pretend I was happy Freya Viking Chef and said ‘shit happens’.
Hey, said Mildred irritably. I don’t think Mildred likes these meetings.What’s the worst that could happen?
20
Sometimes people with the biggest smiles are struggling
On Monday, Angela is having the day off, and I’m picking up the children from camp.
First up, it’s Teddy who insists she is not sitting in the back of the car in her special seat and wants to sit in the front. She is covered in paint again but clearly the reds have been put away and she is very yellow. I idly wonder what colour Zoom the tortoise is.
‘I’m sitting here like a big girl,’ she says.
‘You are quite a big girl,’ I say choosing my words carefully because every battle with Teddy is a bit like fighting with a senior counsel in court. ‘But you are still not big enough to sit in the front seat or to sit without your special seat. What if Mummy bumped into ...’ I search around for something suitablynon-threatening, ‘a tree. Imagine we banged into the tree and the poor old branches got a bit squished and the front of the car got squished and you hurt your lovely head.’
Teddy looked at me. ‘Don’t bang into any trees,’ she said. Like, duh!
‘Correct answer,’ I replied, controlling my laughter, ‘but you still have to get into the back and into your seat.’
It takes about three minutes to achieve this and Teddy screams and shouts quite a lot. To any onlookers it would appear as if I am trying to strangle a small child, but the people outside the camp are used to this type of behaviour. Other parents nod with understanding as they try and attach small wriggling people to car seats with those small wriggling people shouting, kicking or demanding treats. To outsiders, it looks like a mass kidnapping.
‘Want sweeties, want buns from George and Patch’s bun shop!’ shrieks Teddy. She ardently wants to go to Giorgio and Patrick’s and have buns. They would have to laugh at having their exquisite café called a ‘bun shop’.
‘We are going to go home first and have a lovely snack,’ I say, using my Calm Mummy voice, which has a failure rate of about 75 per cent with Teddy, ‘and then maybe if you are very good we could go to Giorgio and Patrick’s.’
