by Lily O'Brien
The Girl Nobody Wants
By Lily O’Brien
The Girl Nobody Wants
Copyright 2011 by Lily O’Brien
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form whatsoever without written permission of the author.
This book is based on true events but the names and locations of characters and events have been changed.
CONTENTS
1. My Life with Bad People
2. Off to See Daddy in Ireland
3. All On Our Own
4. The Convent Home
5. The Holidays Without Fun
6. I Want To Die
7. Getting Older
8. Time To Leave
9. Getting Them Back
Reports
10. Going Home
11. New Friends
12. Memories of Ireland
13. Living Through It All Again
How Do I Feel Now?
Little Children
CHAPTER 1
My Life with Bad People
It’s my 40th birthday today and I’m trying to smile, but as I look in the mirror all I can see is an empty shell, someone waiting to die, and I have a feeling of butterflies in my belly that won’t go away and it’s making me feel sick. I want to sit down, but as I turn around and head for a chair, I get a nasty taste in my mouth and I have to run to the toilet before I vomit over the kitchen floor. I push the door open and I kneel down next to the toilet, but nothing happens and I wait for the feeling in my stomach to go away.
After a while I feel better, so I lift my head up off the toilet and I try to get up, but as I push my hands against the toilet bowl my stomach lightens and I have to grab hold of the toilet as I vomit into it. My head begins to spin, but my stomach’s empty, I haven’t eaten a thing in the last 24 hours, so all that comes out of my mouth is green water and I know I need to get up before I vomit again and make a mess of myself. But, it’s the same thing for me every day and I’ve been feeling this way for the last thirty-six years, and I have no idea how I’ve managed to last this long without cracking up or killing myself.
I get up and walk back into the kitchen and I stand in front of the mirror again. I straighten my clothes and look at myself again and I begin to brush my hair. My hair is long and blonde and I’m very slim, so my hair seems to suit me this way. But I’m only this slim because I keep being sick, and I need to be careful not to brush my hair too hard or I will end up pulling some of it out with the brush, then I will just get fed up with myself for being careless.
I’m still feeling a bit sick, so I sit by the kitchen window, but I don’t know what to do with myself, so I think about my partner Tony and then I think about what I’ve been telling him for the last six weeks and how stupid he must think I am. You see, I’ve been telling him that I will be dead before my 40th birthday; and each time I told him, all he ever did was to say ‘ok’ and that’s been driving me nuts. God knows, I could never tell anyone else how I’m feeling or what I’m thinking, as they would just think I’m nuts or stupid; but I can tell Tony anything, but all he ever does is say ‘ok’ and that makes me feel like I want to smash his face in.
And you could never tell that anything was wrong with me by just looking at me, as I dress clean and I keep myself tidy, and I have a smile on my face that hides my emotions and over the years I’ve become an expert at hiding behind it. My smile also hides my weaknesses from everybody, but I don’t know how much longer I can keep the charade up and keep what’s left of my life under control. God, I need help. It’s only 10 am Monday morning and already I’m picking up the phone to call Tony who’s at work. I need him to bring some painkillers home as soon as possible, as I can’t cope with the pain in my head and the tingling in my belly any longer. But it’s the same for me every day and he knows the drill because he’s been doing the same thing for the last twenty-two years.
I call him and he listens while I explain to him what I want, and he only has a chance to say ‘ok’ before I put the phone down on him. Then I walk into the living room and curl up on my bed waiting for him to come back, while the pain in my head takes control of my mind and I can do nothing to stop it. The pain’s awful and it makes me feel like I want to kill everyone; but within half an hour, Tony walks in and throws a packet of painkillers down onto the bed next to me. I quickly move my hand towards the packet and, as Tony turns and heads towards the toilet, I frantically grab the packet, jump off the bed and take four tablets out of the packet while I head into the kitchen for a drink of water.
One by one, I begin to swallow the tablets and then I hear Tony as he walks back along the hall and follows me into the kitchen; he looks over at me and he begins to shake his head from side to side, but then he stops; he knows what I’ve just done, but he says nothing. He just turns, gives me a kiss on the back of my head and says, ‘See you later, I’m off back to work.’ And as I drink a glass of water, I turn around and look him in the face, and I say nothing at all, not even thanks for the tablets. He looks at me again and then he walks off down the hall and towards the front door and I head back to my bed; but once I hear the sound of the front door closing and I know that he’s gone, I jump off the bed and head back into the kitchen and then I take another four painkillers.
I know he will be back around lunch time and it’s only a couple of hours away, so I get back into bed and I close my eyes while I wait for the tablets to work, but my flat’s a lonely place when I’m all alone and my mind won’t rest and I’m cold. My flat’s small and my bed is in the living room, so my two kids can have a bedroom each, and the kitchen door has fallen off its hinges, so I have a bed sheet hanging in its place; but the light and the noise from the street outside the kitchen window is filtering through and it’s bothering me.
I feel like I’m going mad, I just can’t rest and I want to scream with anger, so I get back up, I search through my handbag, looking for more tablets, and I find a strip of sleeping pills that my doctor prescribed for me. I push the pills out of the strip and swallow half a dozen of them, while the rest fall out of my hand and onto the kitchen table, scattering amongst old fag packets and junk mail that’s been sitting on the table for weeks. I know the pills aren’t very strong and they will do little to help me, so I take a couple of nerve pills that my doctor prescribed for me. I know the nerve pills will do a better job than the painkillers and sleeping pills will ever do, and they will stop the tingling in my belly and calm the pain in my head for a couple of hours. I know it sounds like a lot of tablets, but I’ve been taking tablets for most of my teenage and adult life, and now it takes more and more of them to get a reaction from my body and to put some kind of normality back into my head that will last for a few hours.
So anyway, I head back to my bed, lie down and shut my eyes, but still nothing, I just can’t rest, so I get back up and I make a cup of coffee and smoke a fag out of the kitchen window. But the people outside in the street can look up and see me looking out of the window, so I quickly finish my fag, take a few more nerve tablets and go back to my bed and lie down again. I know it will be lunchtime shortly and Tony will be back from work soon, so I close my eyes and pull a blanket over my head to block out the light and sound from the street outside and I try to sleep. It’s difficult and I only manage to drift in and out of a dazed state of light sleep brought on by the medication, until suddenly I’m woken by the noise of the front door opening.
He’s back already; it must be lunchtime and I’m feeling normal at the moment, so I get out of bed and walk into the kitchen a
nd I put the kettle on to make myself coffee. Then Tony walks in behind me and we both sit down and we talk about the weather, the news and our kids just to make some kind of conversation; but we seem to have little in common at the moment, so it’s hard work and we both know it. Plus, as the medication starts to take effect and it begins to relax my brain, I begin to feel like I don’t give a shit about anything he says to me and we both continue as if everything is fine.
He only has an hour for lunch, and because I have been waiting all morning just for his company and someone to talk to, the hour goes fast and already he has to go back to work. But as he leans over to give me a kiss good bye, I just keep my face blank and I show him no emotions at all; then after he kisses me, I wipe his kiss off my lips with the back of my hand, in an act of I don’t know what. It’s not that I hate him, it’s just that I hate him for having to go back to work and for leaving me all alone again. I know he has to go back to work and within a few seconds he’s gone and I can hear him locking the front door from the outside as he leaves.
It’s so that I will be safe and so that no one gets into the flat and kills me; ok, I don’t really think anyone is after me or that anyone’s going to kill me right now, and I asked Tony to lock the front door for me every time he leaves the flat as you never know who’s outside. It’s just that I feel so much safer when the front door to the flat is locked, and it doesn’t matter what time of the day it is, the door has to be locked.
After he leaves, I walk back into the kitchen and I look over at the clock, it’s almost two-thirty in the afternoon and I have to go soon and get the kids from school; so I get changed and head for the front door, but as I get to the door I stop. I put my ear against the door and listen; it’s quiet outside, so I unlock the front door and walk outside. It’s still quiet and no one’s around, so I turn around lock the front door and run down the stairs and out of the building and towards my car. Still running, I press the car door release button on the remote so that I can open the car door and jump inside within a couple of seconds; then, once inside the car, I press the remote button again, locking the car doors shut so that no one can get to me inside.
I relax and take a deep breath, then I put the key into the ignition and I begin to turn the key, but the steering lock is on and I struggle with the steering wheel for a moment and then the key turns and the engine starts and I drive off towards the school. It only takes about fifteen minutes to get to the school by car, but within the first couple of minutes I’m already wound-up and I start calling the other drivers cunt’s and bastards. ‘God, I need a fag to calm myself down before I kill someone’, so I wind the car window down and light one up and it works.
I feel much better now and eventually I get to the school; the kids are waiting for me by the side of the road and they tell me that they have been waiting for ages. I’m late, but don’t ask me why; I’m late because I just don’t know. It must have been the fag or the other drivers going too slow or something like that. Anyway, the kids get into the car and we head back towards the flat and we just about make it back without me cracking up or shouting abusively at the other drivers.
Apart from the one old bitch who kept me waiting a couple of seconds longer than I needed to at the lights while she chatted on her mobile phone, but the kids told me to stop shouting at her, so I did, but I had to have a fag instead to calm myself down. I just can’t help it. I just get so wound-up and angry with everyone for the smallest of things and I tend to let off steam that way because the other drivers can’t normally hear me when I’m in the car, and I can scream and shout as loud as I want at them without any consequences.
Once home, I make the kids dinner and then I look at the clock, I know Tony should be home from work by now and he’s already told me that he’s got no money so he won’t be getting me anything for my birthday, but it doesn’t matter as long as he gets back soon. Because I don’t like being on my own all day, as it makes me feel fed up and angry having no one to talk to, but he’s late, it’s 6.15 pm and he’s only just coming through the front door. God, I want to take a dig at him, he should have been home almost an hour ago; but I can see that he’s got me some presents and a cake for my birthday, so it makes me feel better and I just can’t find any reason to take a dig at him. Plus I’m glad that he’s back from work and I have some adult company now.
I walk back into the kitchen and sit by the window, then I light up a fag and talk to Tony while he does the washing up, and once he’s finished he makes us both a cup of coffee while I open my presents. He looks over at me and I look back and smile and then I say thanks. It’s a couple of bottles of perfume, it’s nice but I already have over thirty different bottles of perfume, so now I’m starting to think that he’s trying to say something about me in a nice way, like I stink or something.
But I leave it at that for now and I start to cut the cake up into large pieces, but he’s hidden all of the kitchen knives from me apart from a small blunt one that we use for everything, and I struggle cutting into the cake and it ends up looking a mess. I ask him if I can have a sharper knife, but he says, ‘No, sorry’ and I shout at him, ‘Why not?’, but all he does is smile at me as he continues to drink his coffee. Then a feeling comes over me that makes me feel like I want to kill him, but instead I turn away and put some of the cake onto plates and I take it to the kids, who are in their bedrooms playing.
But they are playing computer games and they have forgotten all about my birthday; I hand them the cake and they say thanks and continue playing. ‘It’s only my birthday and it doesn’t matter anyway.’ But before I walk away, I stand by the bedroom door and I take a long look at them both playing and it makes me smile, and I am happy knowing that they are good boys and that I have managed to keep them safe and away from my family for so long. And I think that if it wasn’t for them, I would probably be dead already, as without them I have nothing to live for. Plus Tony keeps telling me that they need me and that it would be a selfish thing for me to kill myself and leave them without a mother, and even though it’s hard for me to say that he is right, I have to agree with him.
I head back into the kitchen and sit by the window again and have another fag, while Tony makes himself dinner, poached egg and beans on toast, quick and easy. Good, it saves me doing anything for him as it’s not my job anyway. The evening drags and I get bored as everyone has something to do apart from me and I begin to feel like everyone is ignoring me, so I take a verbal dig at Tony, but he doesn’t get the message and he keeps ignoring me. He’s writing something on the computer that he won’t tell me about and he doesn’t look up. So this time I shout at him and I start an argument on purpose, and now he’s talking to me and I feel better with myself, knowing that I have his attention, and I begin to smile.
So I quickly turn around and I walk away ignoring him, and I walk into the kitchen and light up another fag as he gets up and walks in behind me; then he asks me what the problem is, and I tell him to leave me alone and to go fuck off to bed. He says nothing, then he walks out of the kitchen and he gets ready for bed, and I can hear him as he shouts to the kids that he loves them and then he walks back in to me, ‘Good night’, he says. ‘I’m going to bed now.’ Then he walks away while I finish my fag by the kitchen window.
I know I won’t be able to sleep very well, so before I leave the kitchen I take a few sleeping pills to help me get through the night, then I walk into the living room and towards the bed. The room’s dark and I can’t see what I’m doing, so I turn the light on and make a big fuss about nothing before I get into bed, and I leave the light on just to wind Tony up. While telling him that if he wants the light off, he will have to get up and turn it off himself, or he can sleep with the light on all night if he wants as it won’t bother me. Then I smile to myself as I turn away from him and tuck myself in really tight with the quilt, leaving him very little to cover himself with, but he says nothing and he does his best to get comfortable.
God, I feel like I want to kill
him, but he hasn’t done anything wrong, so instead of hitting him I get up and head to the toilet. I sit there for a while, resting my chin on the palm of my hand, and I think to myself that Tuesday will be the same as Monday and the rest of the week will be the same as every other week and I hate it, and I hate my life. Then I head back to bed and lie down for the night, knowing that I will have a horrible sleep ahead of me.
But while I lie there, I remember that tomorrow’s going to be different, as I have an appointment to see a mental health adviser at 10 am. It was made for me by my GP and he told me that if I don’t go to the appointment, he will stop all the medication that I’ve been on for the last twenty plus years and then strike me off his books for wasting his time. So I need to get up early, have a bath and wash my hair before I go and see the mental health adviser.
But what am I going to tell him and how will I begin, or will he even believe what I tell him? I have so much in my head and it’s all a mess; it’s like all of my memories are bad ones and they all have a pain connected to them that won’t leave me alone. I can’t rest, I look up at the ceiling and then I turn my head and look over at Tony. He’s still awake, but he’s facing the wall, and he’s having trouble sleeping too, but not because he has problems troubling him, but because I like to talk to him and I keep him awake. Then, when I do finally fall asleep, I still keep talking and that’s bad for both of us.
So before I nod off, I ask him what he thinks about the appointment I have in the morning and if I should go to it. He turns around and smiles, then he looks straight into my eyes and he says, ‘Yes, please go’, and good night and God bless. Ok, I get the message and I roll back over to my side of the bed and I stare at the ceiling again, while I think of things to tell the person in the morning. I know it’s got to be from the beginning, when it all started as that’s the only way I’m going to be able to tell him everything about myself and feel that it might help me in some way, so I close my eyes and I look deep into the darkness that I’ve created for myself. I know I won’t see anything like people or places because I’ve been doing the same thing for years, but if I keep my eyes closed tight for a while, I start to see little flashes of bright white light bursting through the darkness as it passes before my eyes. It only lasts for a split second at a time, but it helps me to drift away from reality and then off to sleep.
