by Lucy Vine
‘Hannah,’ Mum says to the little girl, and her voice is bright and high. ‘Go get the outdoor cushions. It’s March today, they can go outside now.’
I laugh now. Wherever I am, I laugh so hard. I had forgotten how Mum did this, every year; prematurely taking the outdoor fucking cushions out to the outdoor fucking patio furniture. That ritual. Running in and out with the cushions at the beginning of spring, even though we all knew the rain would continue to come and go for at least another three months. Mum was always determined that spring was here, so optimistic with her outdoor sofa cushions.
I can see her more clearly now. She is pregnant. It is me, and I am suddenly inside her. In the womb, surrounded by pinkness. At first I panic and fight. I am so small and my breathing is all wrong. But then I am OK. It is small, yes, but it is not claustrophobic. It’s nice, comfortable, happy. My mum loves me, I know it through and through. I am flooded with it. I can feel her stroking me through our shared skin and singing songs to me. Badly.
Outside of myself I am sweating and crying. Crying so much.
And then it is later and Steven is there. He’s drunk, like he always was. Like he always is. Except he can’t be drunk now, can he? Not now, lying in hospital with half his brain destroyed, waiting to see if death comes. He can’t be drunk now. But even if he dies, he’ll never be gone really, he’ll always be hanging over things. Over my mum’s life, over her destroyed relationship with me. He is staggering around now, shouting, breaking things. He is shouting at me, shouting at Hannah, shouting at Mark.
Shouting at Mum.
Why won’t she leave him? Why won’t she go? I’m begging her, crying, begging. Over and over for years. Why does she love him more than she loves us? Because that’s what it comes down to: we love her, she loves him, and he loves the bottle. Why can’t she see he will always choose that over her and over us? Why can’t she make him go? This was our home, not his. He came in, took our mum away, got drunk every day, told us we were not wanted. Why is he here?
Then he is gone, and we are sitting around Mum on the settee, in the living room. She is weeping, inconsolable, because he has left again. On another bender, he will be gone for days on end. But I know he will be back because he always comes back eventually. He comes back covered in bruises, stinking from days sleeping rough, saying sorry sorry sorry. But watching Mum cry now, I wish with all I have in me that he won’t come back. I wish for him to die. I wish for him to fall and hit his head and never come back. I want him to be gone for ever, however much it would upset Mum. I want him out of our lives. I want him away from us.
But now I am getting my wish and I can’t stop wishing.
I can’t forgive. I’m stuck in this rut, unable to forgive.
It’s too late. He drove me away. He took my mum away from me. She chose him every time. I mattered less. Everyone leaves. Everyone abandons me eventually. I might as well push them away first, get in there before they leave.
And then everyone is gone and I am in a blackness all alone. It’s what I wanted, isn’t it? For everyone to go. But it doesn’t feel good.
When I open my eyes, it feels like days have passed. I feel absolutely wretched. Broken open, like I’ve just had open heart surgery.
I’m sick.
Wiping my mouth feebly, I look around at everyone else. Joe is sitting up in the dim lighting, looking pale and fragile. He looks like he’s survived something major. Mark is beside him, crying quietly, his eyes closed.
Clara, Maria and Anna are standing by the doorway, laughing quietly, holding each other up. I make a move to join them, but feel too weak. Instead, I lie back down. I need to talk, but not just yet.
It feels like something has loosened inside me. Seeing everything like that – all my worst moments up close and so real – has done something. It was awful and intense and horrible. But those are my experiences; they are me, they are mine. And they’re also long since over. I have survived them, I’m here and I’m OK. I can’t let them keep controlling my life.
I fall asleep, completely wiped out.
21
AWOL.COM/Alice Edwards’ Travel Blog: Living My Dream and Feeling Very #Blessed
3 June – 3.12 p.m.
GOOD EVENING, DREAM CHASERS,
I WRITE TO YOU THIS AFTERNOON IN CAPITALS BECAUSE MY EYES ARE OPEN. MY EYES HAVE BEEN OPENED.
I’ll stop doing that now in case it loses its impact. But seriously, my eyes have been opened by this retreat. I feel so open and free. I have shed my previous life-skin and touched the universe. I am a whole new, better person, looking at the world through the new eyes that I mentioned a minute ago.
I have had the best week of my life. I have learnt so much, felt so much, gave so much. My retreat comrades will be my friends for life, we are bonded for ever. Thank you Mark, Joe, Clara, Craig, Anna, Marie and Guru Shaman Quam. I am lucky to call you my friends. We are blessed to know each other.
LONG LIVE AYAHUASCA. Yes, I did drink a tree bark and I don’t care who knows!! NB. It’s a very well-respected traditional remedy and should not be held against me if I happen to be up for a job in the future.
Sending love from this spiritual place,
Alice xxxx
#LOVEYOUALL #CAPS #MissYouAlready #Ayahuasca #SeeYouHereAgainNextYear #TravelBlogger #GoneAWOL #AliceEdwardsBlog #BloggerLife #Blessed #Brave #DreamChaser
9 Comments · 3 AWOLs · 41 Super Likes
COMMENTS:
Hannah Edwards
| awwww, glad u r havin a g8 time. take care
Clara Weber
| Love you more! Thanks for all the big chats my giraffe friend. I feel wonderful!!
Karen Gill
| Have you been hacked?
Hollie Baker
| What is ayahuasca? Is it a restaurant?
Noah Deer
| More fun than LA?! I’m offended! Guess you should’ve spent more time with me, huh?
Alice Edwards
Replying to Noah Deer
| You had four weeks to ask me out, you blew it, dude.
Noah Deer
| :(
Sarah Sommers
| Oh yeah?! Best week of your life?!!! I know what you’ve been up to, you saucy minx!!
Alice Edwards
Replying to Sarah Sommers
| You are more than this caricature, Sarah. I’m not doing the Slutty thing any more, it makes me uncomfortable. I love you, but no.
We are all crying, weeping into each other’s armpits. Every time we try to break away from the group hug, one of us starts again, and we all lose it and pile back in.
It’s been a very emotional few days.
Craig – because of course it is Craig and I am ashamed of myself for mocking his confusing pronunciation – is the worst of us. He has cried non-stop this whole week.
‘I’ve had my Mike O’Donnell moment,’ he keeps saying, before expanding: ‘I know what’s important now. I’ve got to stop living in the past and chasing my glory days. My glory days are ahead of me if I can only let them be.’ It’s super wise.
He says he’s going back to Austin to beg his ex-wife to take him back. He wants to say sorry for everything he did, and I can confirm, he did do some shitty things, which we have discussed in intricate, awkward detail. He wants to fix things between them. But if she won’t have him back, he has promised me he will respect her decision and let her live her life. Because it is my pet peeve how we teach men not to listen when a woman says no. Persistence is not romantic. If you’ve had an emphatic no – in whatever scenario – BELIEVE HER.
And it’s OK because Craig has a back-up plan. He says if his wife isn’t interested, he’s going to try to woo Leslie Mann because she was ‘really great in 17 Again’. I told him she’s married to a film producer but he didn’t really understand and asked if a ‘Juddapatow’ was anything lik
e Ayahuasca. I have also recommended he check out Freaky Friday, which he has apparently never seen, despite there being seven hundred different versions out there.
Anna and Marie surprised the group by announcing they’ve decided to go their separate ways. It was quite the shocker – they seemed so simpatico – but they have talked a lot and decided it is unfair to Anna’s wife to continue without her knowing. The guilt they’ve been burying for so long has been exposed, and it is too raw, too much for them. Anna is going to tell her wife the truth and see what happens from there. I am sad for them and proud of them, and I very much hope it works out, however it’s meant to.
Clara is joyous, crying with relief. She isn’t going home to change her life like the others. She’s already done that. The retreat has given her what she came for – confirmation that she is OK. That she has done the right thing. That she is great just as she is, and strong enough to survive everything she’s going through. She is excited about her life once more. She’s staying in Thailand for another few weeks, like me, but then she wants to get back to Denmark and she wants to hug everyone she loves. Which now includes all of us. I’ve talked to her about the possibility of me visiting Denmark for my third adventure. She’s very keen. I think it could be great.
Joe has been bouncing off the walls. He says he’s never had so much energy in his life. He saw Gods, he says – many of them. He keeps touching the walls and talking about unicorns. Honestly, I think he might’ve taken something else, along with the Ayahuasca. He says he wants to do it all again, right now. He is the only one though, because the rest of us are all fully broken apart. We’ve told him he has to wait, and he says he never wants to wait for anything again in his life. He wants to try it all and is impatient for all of life to happen now. He keeps looking at Mark while he talks at speed, and I wonder . . .
We have all talked and talked and talked.
Everyone, apart from Mark. Mark has been quiet. He has been involved, encouraging and warm, but quiet about his own stuff.
As have I, actually. I talked a bit about my experience with the blue light and the colours, but I didn’t want to share all I’d seen with my mum and Steven. Especially not with Mark there. I don’t know what he’d think. I don’t know what I think. I’ve been slowly processing everything. It is overwhelming, and something is unravelling inside me. Something big. But I don’t feel ready for it yet. I don’t want it to unravel yet, I’m a little afraid that it’s the only thing holding me together.
When the lot of us finally go our separate ways, all cried out, Mark, Joe and I trudge slowly and silently towards our bus stop. We are heading to a homestay in Koh Chang. I want to check out the night markets, because apparently they sell frozen frogs and roasted scorpion. There is also, I’m told – and this is far more exciting a prospect – Jacob’s Creek wine available. Then we’re going to get a car to the airport where we will fly to northern Thailand, where I want to do some relaxing things. I want to take boat trips. I want to scuba dive, and I want to scream in pain when I inevitably scrape my knee on coral.
I want to stare at some things and process.
The bus pulls up and we climb on board in single file. Mark sits next to me and Joe slumps down in the seats behind us, closing his eyes. He seems to be crashing hard. It is the most zapped I’ve ever seen him; he’s usually puppy-levels of energy at all times.
I am exhausted too. It feels like I’ve never been this tired. I want to sleep for a day. I want to . . .
‘Come on then,’ Mark says suddenly, interrupting my thoughts. He is looking at me intently. He looks, um, angry.
‘What is it?’ I say, feeling defensive. ‘Are you cross with me?’
‘Should I be?’ he says, cryptically.
‘No!’ I reply, my voice raised. ‘Well, I don’t know, should you?’
There is silence between us and I crack first. ‘Look, Mark, I’m sorry, I’m really sorry you’ve been feeling so awful. I didn’t know. I wish you had talked to me . . .’
‘How was I meant to talk to you, Alice?’ he says and it pierces something deep in me. ‘You’ve refused to talk. Every time I’ve mentioned Mum or Steven – every time I’ve just asked to talk – you’ve run off or changed the subject. You literally left the country to avoid talking about it. You’ve left me and Hannah to deal with all of this on our own.’
I sigh. ‘OK, yes, some of that is true, but it’s only partly fair. Me leaving the UK was about way more than just . . . that. And you kept pushing me to talk about Ste . . . about him, when you knew full well I didn’t want to. I didn’t have any idea that you needed to talk about the situation. I would’ve tri—’
‘Did you ask?’ he interrupts, and his voice is raised.
I hang my head. ‘No, I didn’t.’
He shakes his head. ‘I know you didn’t mean to be, but you’ve been really selfish, Alice. Running away, hiding, no thought for anyone else.’
‘I know that,’ I say, but I feel combative. ‘But you could’ve told me you needed me. You didn’t have to hide it from me. You never share anything with me, and I want you to, you know I do. If you’d just told me you were miserable, I would’ve tried to help. I would’ve – would – do anything for you. You just need to ask me, Mark.’
There is a silence and he takes my hand. I think I am forgiven.
‘Talk to Mum, then,’ he says simply, and the anger is no longer in his voice.
I swallow hard.
I haven’t spoken to my mum for five years. Nearly six. Which I know sounds terrible, but it was necessary. It was self-preservation. It was the only thing I could do.
My stepdad, Steven, came into our lives when I was about four. Mark was six, Hannah would’ve been about eight or nine then, I guess. I never knew my real dad, he left us when I was a baby, and at first it was thrilling having a big man-dad type around. We were finally like the other kids in the playground who had two parents. And he was better than everyone else’s dads! He was always laughing and cracking jokes. He was always fun, always throwing us around and playing with us out in the garden. He was the life and soul of parties – and we were suddenly having parties all the time. We went from a one-adult household, to grown-ups everywhere constantly, chatting, laughing, dancing, having barbeques and all-night living room giggling. Mum seemed happier than we’d ever seen her.
It took about a year for everyone to realise why he was always the life and soul. Why we were always having spontaneous parties that lasted all night and all weekend. Why he was always laughing and dancing.
Steven was an alcoholic.
It took Mum a long time to fully comprehend the extent of it because he was so very good at manipulating her, so good at making her feel crazy. She would find bottles hidden down the back of cupboards in the bathroom, or smell something on his breath in the morning and he would laugh and convince her it was nothing or that it was from one of their parties. Sometimes he would just plain make her feel like she was losing her mind.
At some point though, there was no way anyone could deny it any longer. Mum tried for a very long time to get him to cut down, she begged him to stop. And he would, sometimes, but it was never for very long. But, honestly, even then, it wasn’t so bad – not for me, Mark and Hannah anyway. Steven was what they call a high-functioning alcoholic. He held down his day job on a building site, and was still fun to be around for us kids. He still played with us sometimes and made us laugh. It wasn’t like before, but it was fine, y’know? So what if he was drinking from seven in the morning? So what if he smelt bad and his eyes were always red and swollen? We had a dad.
But things changed around about when I started secondary school. The beer became vodka. The loud laughing became loud shouting. He would disappear for days on end, and Mum would be frantic. I would watch silently from the hallway door as she cried down the phone to everyone she knew, asking if they’d seen him. I would watch as she ra
ng round the local bars asking if he was there, begging them not to serve him any more. The police would often be in the living room when we got home from school, taking yet another missing persons report and looking bored. Sometimes they’d bring him home and I would hate them for that. Then Steven started being cruel. First to Mum, then to us. He was never physically violent, but he was nasty. A nasty drunk. We weren’t wanted. We were in the way. He put up with us so he could fuck our mum. He took money from our piggy banks, he emptied out our drawers looking for more. He laughed at us when we cried.
And there was Mum, always in the middle. Always, always defending him. Always calling it an illness. Always excusing his behaviour. Always using our summer holiday money to book him into another rehab centre that he refused to attend, or would leave after a couple of days. She even re-mortgaged our family home to help him.
My mum, always choosing him over us.
When I turned eighteen, I moved away to London and tried to find my own life. But I called every day and visited my mum back in Hertfordshire religiously, once a week. I really, really wanted to save her, I thought I could. I would listen to Steven crashing around the house, looking for bottles, searching for money, breaking things. I pleaded with her to leave. I wanted her to move in with me – I even bought a sofa-bed for my room, so I could be ready for her. I gave her the details of women’s refuges if she didn’t want to stay with me. I only took temp jobs in case I ever needed to run away with her. But she never wanted to hear it, always waved away my speeches, told me he was poorly and she needed to look after him. She always let him off the hook.