Sometimes it’s hard not to feel sorry for yourself. You get into this perpetual, downward cycle of melancholy that fastens hold with a steely vengeance.
It strangles the life and the sunshine out of even simple things you thought you enjoyed.
I remember when I was just six.
I received three gifts from an Aunty who has since passed away. They were a ring made of white gold; a Barbie doll and a pink bicycle – the bike was new. I used to play with this doll which I eventually inherited, whenever I went round to see my Aunty: The white gold ring had been given to her by her Gran for loyal service at work; it had an inscription to that effect and a few words in Latin:
Forsan et Haec Olim Meminesse Iuvabit.
It was over one hundred years old and in good condition. I was a young girl - I didn’t have the empathy to understand the value of these presents, but I do remember appreciating them.
For instance, I remember my games of Kings and Queens with the gold band. The bicycle made me feel like part of the crowd- not separate and unworthy as half my possessions make me feel these days. The doll was just great girlie fun. It would always be centre stage in my playful period dramas, always trying to acquire her inheritance - the gold ring. She was the beautiful princess - the poor Cinderella - trying to find that happy ever after the ring bestowed. Around her head, she wore a plastic tiara. It was kept aside, ready to be placed around the front of her head at the end of my stories, as a symbol of victory and how far she’d come to make it to the top.
The fate of my three gifts was sealed within one eventful day.
Barry was my mother’s boyfriend at the time. He never knew I existed. He got into a lot of financial trouble. I remember three men breaking down the door of our old house. I recall three pairs of sandy brown boots standing on our tiled kitchen floor. They were dirty and I can see wet footprints and several boot-sized holes in the door, now hanging off its hinges.
I’d dropped my Barbie doll with fright when they forced their way in. I was cowering in the corner. My mother was screaming. Barry wasn’t there, although he had been ten minutes earlier.
I remember a bouquet of magnolias and several birthday cards on the kitchen table. The aroma of these beautiful flowers permeated the room. It seemed starkly at odds with the caustic words spat from the mouths of the men.
‘No more chances, no more chances.’ and, ‘Time’s up love.’ were the repeated phrases.
I remember my own fearful tears and my mother’s. I could see Jerry - one of my other brothers - outside the kitchen window, throwing empty lemonade bottles towards the broken door. Maybe, some last-ditch attempt to repel the aggressors who had already conquered the castle.
They threatened mother.
She left the room, temporarily leaving me seized with terror, alone in the kitchen with these men. I was frozen to the spot. I never liked thinking about death. I felt close to it in that instant. I literally thought I was about to die. My mother re-entered the room and I wanted to run up to her and for her to wrap me in protective arms, but she rarely does that anyway. I saw nothing in her body language in that instant that suggested she wanted to do that.
Her hand reached out towards the men and within its grasp was my gold ring –
She’d taken it from the top of my drawers in my bedroom. More words exchanged, this time revolving around the money it could bring and a few moments were spent convincing the assailants of its value.
I watched my ring change hands and I guess I had no place to speak. I was powerless; muted.
As the men turned to leave with more venom lancing the air, one of those sandy boots connected with the neck of my doll, crushing its face into the floor, and snapping its neck in two. Her tiara was smashed into tiny pieces. Hardly five minutes before these men appeared, my doll had been given the ring in one of my stories. I’d placed it carefully back on top of my drawers and had come downstairs with the doll alone. If it hadn’t been in my mother’s line of sight when she’d run into my room frantically searching for anything of value to pay off the loan sharks, I think I would still have it to this day.
Barry promptly became another of my mother’s ex’s. On his way out, he’d gone into the shed and taken my bike. He promptly pawned it. We never saw him again. My school-based counsellor suggested that I should be aware of how these far-reaching and long-lasting events can mould you when you are younger.
No shit.
Forsan et Haec Olim Meminesse Iuvabit.
A joy it will be one day “perhaps” to remember even this.
Mis-fit, Misplaced, Miss Shelly Clover Page 8