The Pretender- Escaping the Past

by C R Martens

  “Just when everything seemed to be going well, I was pulled right back to the beginning. It happened one evening when I was babysitting Henry. Mum had gone to a parent/teacher meeting, I was sitting in my room doing my homework and Henry was sitting downstairs watching telly. All of a sudden I had a feeling that we weren’t alone. I felt odd, but at first I ignored my instincts. Then I saw it, a black shadow in our garden. I instantly felt all the anxieties of my childhood come flooding over me. I pretended that I hadn’t seen him. His build was clearly male, and I went down the stairs as quickly and calmly as I could to make sure Henry didn’t see him. I went to the fridge and opened the door – that way I could look out into the garden again, pretending to look in the fridge. I couldn’t see him, which made me even more nervous. I got an apple out and went back upstairs and had a quick glance out of the window and he was still there. Then the light from the living room caught his face briefly. It was John. For a moment, it felt like a panic attack was about to roll over me. My breathing got faster, I started to sweat, then I did something else, something came over me and I stood up and made it obvious that I had seen him. He took a few steps back; he was probably surprised by my action. That’s what I had hoped.

  “I ran downstairs and over to the living-room window. I grabbed the curtains on either side of the window and looked out into the black night, but all I could see was my own reflection. I closed the curtains and checked that all the doors and windows were locked. Henry hadn’t noticed. And just like that, the safety I had found in that house was shattered into a million pieces. Every day when I came home from school I would go meticulously through the house, from room to room, searching in the closets and under the beds, behind the sofa. I would check anywhere a person might fit, kitchen knife in hand. Not until I was sure the house was empty, would I lock the front door. Every time I would walk past the front door I would grab the handle, making sure it was locked, just like I slept with scissors tucked down my bedside every night, just in case. My nightmares started to come back, I slept with the duvet over my head, convincing myself it was a shield. No matter how hot and unbearable it was, I kept it over my head. If death snuck in during the night, I didn’t want to see it coming, so I hid like a child under the covers. I never told my mum, I was embarrassed to be a 16-year-old afraid of the dark and afraid of being home alone. Four months later I got my camera for my birthday,” Eve finished. The psychologist didn’t care but she somehow felt that the person behind the camera did.

  “I was a completely normal teenager from the outside. That was my ‘talent’ – pretending. I was good at hiding the ugly truth, the shame I felt every day for being scared. So, I disguised it with lots of little white lies and I was good at diverting the attention away from all the hurt.” Eve stopped her story when a thought occurred to her – she had never figured that her desire for escape would eventually lead her to her job here at the firm. “Hmm.”

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” Eve replied. Eve had remembered something she had forgotten – she had used that camera to tail John, it was like a suppressed memory that had just broken free from its confinements. For two years after Eve had gotten that camera she had gone to John’s house, snuck into his back garden of the old yellow brick house and climbed one of the large trees. By then he was retired and remarried. She documented everything that went on, even the beatings, but he was getting old so the beatings weren’t as brutal as they had been with Eve’s mum. He was, after all, 20 years older than her mum. Eve’s life and job now was an almost exact imitation off what she had done as a child – observe, adapt and blend in. “Absolutely nothing.”

  “What was it?” Now he was interested, but his desperation had no effect on her. “It’s very important to get those ‘aha’ moments off the chest.”

  Eve smiled at him and then she walked calmly out of the room. He had spent most of their sessions only pretending to be listening and doodling away in his notepad, not caring. Why would she share her epiphany with him? He didn’t deserve it, he hadn’t earned it.

  She walked out thinking about that first camera; she still had it somewhere in storage, but where were all the photos of John? It had been the perfect tool for disguising herself even more. It wasn’t a weapon, but it became her shield whenever she left her house. It made her vigilant to her surroundings, always on guard to what might happen.

  ***

  Over the summer, Eve’s life started to change. She had graduated secondary school and was about to start college, which would turn out to be a different world and would perhaps even offer her first taste of escape. Eve tried to tell herself that a new school meant a chance for a new identity, a chance to reinvent herself as an artistic photographer, but looming in the back of her mind was always the chance of failure. Because this wasn’t the first time she had had that hope and been let down badly. Learning to be alone was not a sought-after skill in society, being a loner often puts a target on your back, especially in a society where we are social even when we are not in the same room. As a teenager, Eve thought it was embarrassing being alone, but that was her decision, something Eve had chosen – to be alone with her struggles. She quietly dealt with them, keeping quiet about her demons and putting on a show every day of a carefree, happy person. As she grew, so did her skills of adaption and deception. But, as with everything in life, things have a way of ending. As a child, she thought that the less she said about her problems, the more she helped her mum. Eve thought her mum didn’t need to worry about her being bullied at school, the anxiety that surrounded her whenever she walked through the front door of the terraced house, and she certainly didn’t tell her mum about the two times when Eve tried to commit suicide. Eve didn’t tell her mum anything. Until that day when her box was full. When eventually life got to be too much to bear and she ended up breaking down in front of her mum. Eve threatened suicide again that day, but rather than it being a real threat it was perhaps a cry for help. They shouted at each other out of fear. Eve was angry. Angry with her mum, angry with herself and done with trying to please everyone. That night when the sun set, neither Eve nor her mum slept easily. When morning came, her mum called work and said she had an emergency at home. She also called Eve’s college to say she wasn’t coming in, and then they went to the psychiatric emergency room and Eve had what seemed to be the longest talk of her life. They got out of the car into a car park that was nearly empty and where the grey, rainy weather captured the mood perfectly. They walked through the sliding glass doors of the psychiatric emergency room into what seemed like the whitest waiting room ever. So sterile and so clean, it made Eve feel out of place.

  “Hi.” Ruth’s voice was shaking as she approached the front desk. “I called ahead about half an hour ago concerning my daughter Eve.”

  “Do you have your medical card?” asked the nurse sitting behind the desk. Eve handed it to her, the nurse smiled kindly at her but Eve couldn’t reciprocate it.

  “Eve told me she wanted to end her life,” her mum said in a low whisper as if she was embarrassed to say the words. Eve felt like a part of the furnishings, standing next to her mum so numb and empty. The nurse behind the counter smiled again and spoke in a very soft and reassuring tone of voice.

  “You came to the right place, and we will find out how to move forward,” said the nurse. “Why don’t you take a seat here and I will take Eve to see the doctor.”

  Eve felt sad and didn’t feel like this was who she really was. The doctor was a young woman, which comforted Eve. They talked for quite some time, Eve cried all the way through. The doctor listened, asking only a few questions. Eve kept thinking to herself that she didn’t really want to answer any more questions, all she wanted was for someone to tell her the answer, tell her what to do or how to be so she didn’t have to think, feel or react anymore.

  “Let’s bring in your mother.” The doctor went to the door and called Ruth in. “Have a seat. So, your daughter and I have been talking and I can tell y
ou that she is not suicidal.” Tears started to streak down Eve’s cheeks again, not because of what the doctor said, Eve knew she wasn’t suicidal, but having someone else put words to her situation was a relief. Then the doctor started to talk directly to Ruth, and then it happened. The thing that always happens when you are a ‘child’. The adults started talking about her and not with her. They made a plan for Eve but forgot to ask Eve about it. They talked about being a teenager and how hard it is and how hormones can affect young people’s judgement. All Eve heard was ‘her’ being explained away; she was slowly being put back in her box.

  “She is very sad, which is understandable after what she has been through. I would recommend that she starts seeing a psychologist on a regular basis,” the doctor said, smiling. And that was that. Eve and her mum didn’t say a word when they walked to the car. They got in and sat in silence all the way home. It wasn’t until they got home and the door closed behind them that they both felt safe enough to talk again. The doctor was right about one thing and that was at some point it was all meant to come storming out, which it did. Maybe not in the way that Eve had imagined, but it had happened and now they would have to deal with it their way. A few weeks later, Eve went to her mother’s old psychologist. She went for two sessions before she stopped. Eve’s mum had felt she would be the right choice as she knew their story; she wasn’t though, she just seemed interested in how Ruth and Henry were doing.

  “But it was your brother’s father?” the psychologist asked, looking at Eve as if she didn’t understand why Eve was feeling hurt.

  “Yes,” Eve replied, a little confused.

  “You don’t have to see him anymore since the divorce,” the therapist said, completely missing the point.

  “I know. But that’s not what it’s about,” Eve said desperately.

  “What is it about?” she asked completely lacking sense.

  Eve wanted to scream, “ME”, but she felt it would be to no avail. She had finally opened her box of troubles and now it felt like it was being shut down again. If the psychologist didn’t listen, who would? She was once again alone with her demons. It was clear to Eve that her story wasn’t about her; she wasn’t even the main character and she never would be. And, of course, they didn’t tell anyone about the ‘incident’ – not college, not her mum’s work, not friends or family. This was their secret.

  8.

  This is what I have been waiting for my entire life. An actual escape. For years it was nothing but a dream, a figment of my imagination, but now there is a real chance of escape. When people asked me why I was going, I’d tell them it would be a good experience. But the real truth was, I wanted to get as far away as I could from everything I knew. I wanted a chance to be myself.

  “You can start,” he said. The intros to their sessions were getting shorter and shorter; the next time Eve sat down in this room she might as well just start instead of waiting for him.

  “College was something to survive, which I did. I found some great friends but academically I started to struggle with the workload. College was a means to an end, something I needed so I could get into university and leave the country. The awful truth was, I was depressed all the way through college, it made me incapable of focusing on classes, but I somehow managed to pass everything – some classes just by the skin of my teeth, but pass I did. When I finally graduated, things started to change. I was free from all the rigid rules of the public-school system; I was free to choose whatever I wanted to do in life and love. So out with the old and in with the new.

  “I had a new job by the time the summer holiday was over. I decided to take a year off after college, to work, to make money so I could leave the country and finally make my great escape. And to finally escape the parental grab that had been holding me in place for so long. That year was the year I made my own decisions, not because I had to adapt to a situation or to someone else, but because I wanted to. It was a year of new beginnings, a fresh start, new friends and new routines. And for most of us, this was a time to figure out what we really wanted to do with the rest of our lives.

  “I lived in a flat with a friend, going out almost every night. And I learnt that I was good at seducing – I could be anything I wanted to whomever I desired and if I never wanted to see them again I didn’t have to. Flirting came easy to me and I enjoyed it immensely. The weekends were my playground to my hard-working weekdays where I did my due diligence to society and earned a salary and paid my taxes while applying for universities all over the UK. The waiting was as excruciating as it was exciting; if I had had it my way I would have left right then and there, but I needed the money to get there. As I waited, life rolled on, men came and went, winter became spring and then one ordinary day at home with my mum and brother, the phone rang and I picked it up.

  “‘Hello,’ I said. There was complete silence at the other end. ‘Hellooo?’

  “‘Um,’ said a man. ‘Hi, Eve, it’s Dad.’

  “In shock I put the phone down and walked over to my mum. ‘It’s Dad!’ I had completely forgotten about him. I was 20 years old and couldn’t even remember what he looked like, let alone the last time I had spoken to him. I was well and thriving for the first time in many years and he was the last person I’d expected to call.

  “‘Hello, Rick?’ Mum took the phone.

  “‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Where did Eve go?’

  “‘Well, she hasn’t heard from you in a long time, so you can imagine she is a little shocked,’ Mum replied.

  “They talked briefly, Mum said she’d ring him back the following day from work. Probably so I didn’t have to deal with him. And she’d been right in doing so; I didn’t want to deal with Dad right then. He was the one man I could never understand why he would let me down, but then again, he probably never understood it either. I was already in a state of limbo, waiting to leave that place behind with all the bad memories. Why would I want new complications? But, as usual, I was persuaded to forgive him and a weekend later my dad came for coffee at Mum’s and spent an hour explaining why he had disappeared, though he never actually apologised. He never did.

  “‘I can’t change who I am. I will always be an alcoholic,’ Dad said. And that was always his excuse for drinking again when things got to be too much. He would always be an alcoholic so there was nothing to stop him from falling back into his addiction. But he was my father so I gave him another chance, knowing it was always going to be up to me to fix things,” Eve said, looking at the pathetic excuse for a psychologist. “Self-torture in a way, don’t you think?”

  “I couldn’t tell you,” he said, looking up from his notes. No, he couldn’t, but at least he could try and pretend to. Just for her sake so she didn’t have to do all the work.

  “Well, what can you tell me?” she asked. “What do your notes tell you about me?”

  “This is just for later reflection,” he said, a little taken aback.

  “So, what are your reflections on this session?” Eve asked him. “Or are they really just doodles?”

  “No!” he said, outraged by her suggestion and holding his notebook to his chest, suggesting that they really were just doodles.

  “So, let me see them,” she suggested, holding out her hand. “I’ve always wanted to know how I appear to other people.”

  “You can’t see my notes,” he said seriously. “You most certainly can’t. That wouldn’t be ethical.”

  “Because you worry so much about ethics. The ones you swore to uphold when you became a licenced psychologist,” she said, swiftly standing up and walking towards the door. “Right, same time next week.”

  He just looked at her, paralysed, he didn’t reply. Eve left him with his thoughts, half expecting him to jump up at any second with a proper response. But he didn’t. Rookie!

  ***

  As spring started, Eve was back at work after a short break and on that day the most anticipated letter landed in her mailbox. The deal was done, Eve was leaving for London in Sept
ember. Her plans to escape were finally coming true. She thought a lot about her future – where she would end up, who she would meet, and she hoped this really would be the escape she needed and had wished for since childhood. But, in the meantime, Eve’s days were starting to drift together. There was no longer a distinction between her social life and work life. Sandy and Ulrikke, Eve’s best friends from high school, both worked at the same place as Eve. When they finished work, they’d go to the same old hangout spot, The Red Duck, where everyone they worked with would go, which meant looking at the same faces day in and day out.

  “So, the same place as usual tonight?” Sandy asked, standing in front of Eve’s desk.

  “Yes, I can’t think of any other place to go.” Eve leant her head against the wall behind her, her head still heavy from the night before. “Or a better alternative, for that matter. Besides, if we go to any other place then we have to get dressed up and make ourselves look good whereas if we go to our usual place we can just go across the park, five minutes and we’ll have a nice cold beer in our hands and I will be happy as a clam.”

  It was a slow day at the office, hardly anyone was there. It was Friday leading up to a bank holiday weekend, however the mailroom still had to be managed so all three of them were there. They called it the mailroom because the mail got dropped off there but, in actual fact, they were the office supply team and did everything from booking meetings to mail sorting and supplying orders. Things were becoming ordinary. Eve started to feel a need for a change and a challenge. The events in her life had made her impatient or maybe more thrill seeking than normal people. Somehow, all through her life she had gone from one crisis to another, and now that things seemed to be the kind of normal that Eve had longed for her entire childhood, she felt empty.