AMY COLE
HAS LOST
HER MIND
Elizabeth McGivern
First published by Pernickety Publishing in 2018
Copyright © 2018 Elizabeth McGivern
The moral right of Elizabeth McGivern to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the copyright, designs and patents act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental.
ISBN 978-1-9996403-0-9 (paperback)
Cover Design: Maire-Clare Doran
Photo Credit: Jess Lowe
To Betty,
Thank you for being a legend and for never
learning to bite your tongue
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
AMY COLE IS ZEN AS F*CK
Acknowledgements
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Prologue
I can’t breathe.
The water is burning at my chest and creeping down into my throat, little by little. My mouth opens involuntarily, desperately trying to swallow the water pressing through. There’s too much, it’s starting to go into my windpipe.
I can’t move.
I feel helpless but as my body’s natural survival instinct kicks in, my mind overrules it and I open my mouth further to let more of the water rush in. It tastes disgusting, I’m gagging and choking as the moss-green liquid and, no doubt, duck shit continues to flood into my mouth.
I can’t see.
I squeeze my eyes tight so I can no longer be tempted by the dull light of the sun above the water. It’s taking too long to sink to the bottom. I didn’t think it would take this long.
I can’t feel.
The initial burn of the icy water on my skin no longer bothers me; everywhere is numb. It’s finally matching how I feel on the inside. It won’t be much longer, then oblivion. I tell myself all the pain will stop soon.
I feel his arms first. They pull at my top desperately, but the algae soaking into my clothes make me a slippery prize. The pulling becomes more violent, urgent even. The reeds from the bank, scratch at my skin while the sunlight still tries to tempt my eyelids to open once more. I refuse.
I smell the dog before I feel the warm tongue on my face. I start to cough and can’t stop.
You can’t even drown right.
“Love? Love, what’s your name?” my rescuer asks.
I can’t answer for coughing.
He tries again. “Can you hear me, love? Can you open your eyes? Just tell me your name; can you do that for me?”
Blinking into the sun I try to speak: “It’s… it’s…”
Chapter 1
“Mummy!”
I woke with a start and a heartbeat that felt out of rhythm.
“Mummy!” the intruder repeated, louder than before.
I sat up on my elbows and looked towards the door. I tried to get my heart back into a normal rhythm before my youngest son bursts into the room.
A dream, it was just a dream. Breathe, you stupid woman.
I looked in the mirror, facing the bed, and realised judging by the dark circles under my eyes, I should have gone to sleep earlier. My youngest son was soon to be staggering into my bedroom and I would have to answer 437 questions within the first hour of him opening his mouth.
I was not ready for that level of conversation.
My eldest will soon follow, looking angst-ridden. I will then have to coax out of him what horrible dream he’s had this time.
All this wouldn’t be too bad had I been able to leave the house without them and go to work; leaving my husband with the shit-storm that is the morning routine. However, I couldn’t anymore. I was stuck here, like a prisoner of war who was trying to decide whether or not they should dislodge the fake tooth at the back of their mouth and swallow the cyanide pill.
That wasn’t quite true, I wasn’t there yet.
I was simply a moron who thought she could be a stay-at-home mum and keep her sanity – unfortunately for all involved, this moron had not.
Before I left my job, I had daydreams about a wonderful homeschool scenario, where I’d bake bread in between lessons for the kids; all the while keeping my home looking immaculate and awaiting my husband to return from his day spent being a successful hunter-gatherer.
I’d decided these antiquated roles were exactly what the family needed in these formative years for my children.
What an idiot I am.
To say my expectations had disappeared up shit creek, along with my waistline, was a slight understatement. I felt certain that villagers at the top of the creak had erected a monument in my honour reading: ‘This statue is to commemorate the monumental screw-up that ruined her children’s future and her marriage in less than six months of staying at home’.
I hope they didn’t have to pay for that thing by the letter.
As I lay in bed and contemplated the pointlessness of my contribution to the universe, I heard the pudgy footsteps of my youngest child, Arthur.
He is a three-year-old butterball of mischief and undoubtedly my favourite human on the planet, he preferred his father.
“Mummy! Why are you not answering me?” he called.
“Sorry, Artie, I’m awake now, what’s wrong?” I answered, in my best Maria-from-the-Sound-of-Music voice.
This voice never lasted the day. By the time I wrestled the children into the car for the school run, it was replaced by something that sounded similar to a demonic possession.
“I need the toilet.”
Christ.
“Ask your Dad,” I muttered, as I pulled the duvet back over my head.
“I want you.”
As I heard those words, I forgot that I was exhausted. I threw the quilt off me, feeling the cold of the morning for the first time and got up to face the day. My heart swelled with love because my baby wanted me and not fun Dad.
I
always thought it was unfair that he got the ‘fun’ label.
I could have been the fun one if I didn’t have to spend all my time separating the kids from killing each other. All he had to do was walk in the door after work and play for a half hour before ushering them up to bed.
It’s not my fault I couldn’t do the funny voices when I read the stories, or make the robot tigers (a fearsome creature of my son’s imagination).
None of that mattered though because I was the favourite this morning, and I got the honour of wiping my son’s arse.
I think I need to reevaluate the meaning of ‘favourite’ in my vocabulary.
“How did you sleep, Artie?”
“Good,” he answered, as he swung his legs, whilst he sat on the toilet.
“And you wanted Mummy this morning, that’s nice.”
“Not really, but Daddy was sleeping.”
This was just one example of a metaphorical kick in the gut I regularly received from my children, but I wasn’t ridiculous enough to cry about it. Instead, I ate chocolate biscuits and buried my hurt feelings down into my cold dead soul, like all functioning adults did.
“Have you finished?” I asked, a little more sharply than I intended.
“Not yet. What’s that?” he asked, innocently, as he pointed to my hair removal cream.
I foolishly decided to try it last night and the bathroom still stunk from it.
“It’s Mummy’s cream.”
“What’s it for?”
I knew the ambiguous answer of ‘Mummy’s cream’ was never going to be enough information for this one.
Well, Mummy and Daddy haven’t seen each other naked in months and Mummy decided that she should probably sort out the yeti-like winter fuzz she’s got going on if she stands a chance at peaking her mate’s interest ever again.
I decided against landing that particular information at my son’s door and instead opted for:
“It’s to make me smell nice.”
“Ok. Is that because you smell like poo?”
“No, Artie.”
“Poo!”
The fit of laughter that followed was so energetic that I decided to look past the fact he’d said I smell like crap and he does actually prefer his father.
All this and it’s not even 8 a.m.
I dutifully wiped his tiny bum and let him loose back into the world in nothing but his tiny superhero pants.
Throughout the day I lose count of the number of times I ask Artie where his trousers are.
I didn’t mind too much in the morning time. I was happy to let him strut around upstairs in his underwear because his dad did the same and ‘that’s what boys do’ apparently (well, according to his father).
I think they’re even wearing the same underwear.
Collapsing back into bed – with an extra pair of elbows to contend with – I didn’t have long to wait before my eldest, Adam, joined us.
Not before his usual routine, of course.
My five-year-old likes to knock our bedroom door before coming in and announcing himself. This isn’t as a result of him being emotionally scarred by walking in on his parents doing something lurid, he’s just a formal kid.
Every morning, I wait for the knock followed by:
“Mummy?”
“Yes, sweety?”
“It’s me, your son - Adam.”
For the love of —
“Yes, sweety. I know.”
“Can I come in?”
“Yes, sweety.”
He was leaner than Arthur but just as awkward to lie in bed with. His blonde hair was a surprise to everyone. I spent the first six months of his life holding him up to the light at the window in the hope of seeing a fleck of ginger (so I could say for definite he was part me) but alas it wasn’t to be. Not even a hint of a curl, it was straight as an arrow and paired with his father’s brilliantly blue eyes.
They both looked like their father. Had I not seen them come out of me I would have questioned if we were related at all.
Finally, the breadwinner awoke and welcomed the intruders into the bed.
Although the longer we left it to have sex I had begun to feel like the intruder here. It was much easier to ignore the metaphorical chasm between us when the children were in the bed too.
“My boys!” he exclaimed.
“The heir and the spare! Welcome to the kingdom of Bedfordshire.”
Affection and fun came easily to Ben. He had a hard time at the start of our relationship trying to get me used to hugs and general tenderness.
As a rule, displays of physical affection make me feel uneasy and awkward. I’m one of those people who stiffly stand there while being hugged. Sometimes – usually when alcohol has been consumed – I offered a limp pat on the back to signal that I wanted this torture to end. According to Ben, it was endearing and just a ‘quirk’ of mine. Now, it was considered more of a sign of depression.
I decided it was probably best not to pull at that thread early on a Tuesday morning.
“How did you sleep, Adam?” Ben asked.
“In my bed, Benjamin.”
“Don’t call me that, call me ‘Daddy’.”
“But it’s your name? You don’t call me ‘son’”
Ben’s eyes pleaded with me to do something about this conversation. Naturally, I pretended not to see him and turned my attention to my phone and more specifically: the Internet.
The Internet was the reason for my being a half-assed parent.
It called to me like an old friend when my kids have demanded my attention. It told me to give them biscuits and look up organic oatmeal cookies that I will definitely make tomorrow. It reassured me that by tomorrow I would be a much better parent so I wouldn’t have to feel bad about reading Internet articles like: ‘Help! My daughter wants to marry the microwave.’
A lot of my ambition and drive to be a better parent and housewife waited for me in that magical place called ‘tomorrow’.
It’s great; I never had to feel guilty about my online habits because ‘tomorrow’ I would definitely rectify all my failings.
I was stuck in a hole of looking up other people’s wonderful gardens. I hated my garden. I wanted the lot of it concreted over and turned into some beautiful Italian-looking courtyard, so I can sit in my fairy-light covered haven and sip wine.
There were many problems with this scenario: I had no money to do any work in the garden and, more importantly, I lived in Ireland. This meant it was only summer for twenty four hours and the rest of the time it’s freezing.
These pretty convincing problems weren’t enough to stop my garden-porn binge. I salivated at the prospect of a fire pit and then had a stroke of inspiration:
I remembered that there were always DIY Garden Transformation videos online and I convinced myself that they couldn’t be that hard to follow.
I decided I was a genius and felt confident that I was one step closer to realising my Italian courtyard dream. It was because of this I decided to zone back into my family and find out if they were still in the room.
“I don’t know why goats are called goats, Artie,” said Ben, “Maybe Mummy knows.”
I’ve come back too soon.
“Who wants breakfast?” I offered, in an attempt to escape more questions.
If you ever wanted to find out how little you know about the world around you, you just needed to have a conversation with my children. They specialised in asking the most obscure questions. At first, they don’t seem that difficult, but when I had to give them some sort of answer I found myself staring at them blankly, at a complete loss as to what to tell them.
Breakfast had to be served in a particular order and if it wasn’t done in that particular order, then the kids would throw a fit of epic proportions. I don’t mind admitting that I had no control in my house at mealtimes. I’d like to say it was because I saved my authority for the bigger things, but I was just trying to get through the day, one hour at a time.
Cer
eal had to be put in certain bowls, (red for Adam, blue for Arthur) yoghurts were served next, (strawberry for Adam, apricot for Arthur) then toast (cut in triangles, not squares).
If any of these steps were completed in the wrong order – or the food presented on the wrong plates – it resulted in tears and a refusal to eat anything by both of them. The stars aligned most mornings and I could get through the first meal of the day relatively painlessly, dinner however, was a whole other story. It was a battle of wills just to get Arthur to eat something that wasn’t beige and covered in breadcrumbs.
I read all those ‘no-fail’ tips that the Internet provided about dealing with fussy eaters but I was convinced the authors behind them were all sadists and talked out of their arse.
I told myself it was a phase that he would eventually grow out of, but that was just one of many lies I told myself on a daily basis. I knew he’d end up as one of these complete weirdoes in a tabloid feature entitled:
I eat 150 chicken nuggets a day and it’s all my mum’s fault.
I was always envious of my husband’s ability to get ready within fifteen minutes of waking. It was not like it took me much longer since I had dispensed with such frivolities like brushing my hair or showering in general, but still he looked put together and ready for the outside world in the same time it took me to convince Artie to sit at the table for breakfast and keep his underwear on for this one particular meal.
Ben kissed us all goodbye and I couldn’t help but think he was hiding a smug smile because he got to escape from us for nine hours a day. He never suffered the guilt I did when I left the boys for work. That was a catalyst in my decision to stay at home, but the nail on the head was the incident.
My mother came up with that name, I’d rather call a spade a spade; or a failed suicide attempt a failed suicide attempt, but, perhaps, the incident rolls off the tongue a bit better.
It’s definitely too early in the morning to think about that.
“Will you be late?” I asked, in the hope that he was going to say he was only working a half-day and had forgotten to tell me.
Amy Cole has lost her mind: The perfect laugh out loud, feel-good comedy (The Amy Cole series Book 1) Page 1
