by Naomi Jacobs
Lou said Bobby B told her that they were gonna kidnap me and keep me until my mum gave them their drugs back, which she totally has not got, but Bobby B stopped them.
I never listened to him about staying in, though, ’cause as soon as they left I went to the phone box down the road and called Mum at work and told her these scary-looking dudes had come to the house looking for her. Well, everyone came round to the house. Mum told us to pack our bags and me and Simone have been here ever since! I wish Joseph was here; he would know what to do. But no, he’s halfway across the world.
I hope my mum doesn’t die tonight. She’s gone with Alanson (some big scary-looking gangsta who says he’ll vouch for her) to meet with these drug men to convince them she didn’t take their stupid stuff. I wanna cry but I can’t, but this drink is making me feel a bit better. Please, please, please, if there is a God up there, please don’t let them kill my mum. I might complain about her all the time and say I hate her, and she does my head in majorly, but I do really secretly love her and really don’t want anything bad to happen to her. She’s the only mum I’ve got!!!
I felt numb. I could picture my mum’s friend Louise’s house, her daughters’ bunk bed where I was sitting when I wrote this, but I had no memory of how scared and desperate I had felt.
I flipped through the pages.
21 November 1991
Just another day at school, although I knew something was different – I woke up feeling weird, you know? Like in a daze. And then when I walked into school Robert Harris turned round to me and wished me Happy Birthday! And then I remembered, shit, I’m sixteen today, and I’d, like, forgotten, but then I realized so had everybody else! Nobody remembered – my dad, my mum, my sister, my friends all forgot. Nobody has celebrated my birth. But you know what? I don’t care, I really don’t care anymore. It doesn’t matter whether I exist or not. I might as well disappear. My friends are totally doing my head in. Joseph has finally left and I don’t think he’s coming back this time. School is totally wack and I hate devil O’Shea with a passion. My mum is still the Wicked Witch of the West Midlands. Simone is still the Golden Child! And well, my dad just doesn’t seem to care! So why the hell should I?
So I don’t feel anything anymore. I just don’t care anymore. What’s the point?
This was too much for me. I couldn’t remember any of it. I closed the diary, shut my eyes and looked deep into my mind, searching for the memory of that entry.
I saw myself still standing outside the house. The door was open and it was time for me to go in, so I pushed it wider and stepped inside. Total darkness. I felt nothing, just the black emptiness of an unoccupied house.
‘Hello,’ I called out.
I heard nothing, not even an echo of my voice. I knew I had to keep going if I wanted to reach the light. I was afraid, but went in anyway.
As I walked through the large, dark house, I began to see images. Faint images of everything I had seen since I had awoken in the future, images of the small two-bedroom house I shared with Leo and Sophia the cat. Images of my sister and Katie sitting around the table drinking tea. Images of Leo skateboarding and laughing. I felt a mega love for Adult Naomi’s family – my family.
I carried on through the darkness, taking deep breaths. I was afraid of what I would find, what I would see, but I couldn’t turn back. I needed to find her. I needed to find Adult Naomi. As I walked on, more images played out – of the world and the way it had changed, the way it had seemed to worsen. I saw images of war, melting ice caps, CCTV cameras watching everyone, people protesting, hooded youths rioting, governments ignoring. I didn’t like it; the future wasn’t meant to turn out like this. I continued on through the darkness, swallowing my fear.
As I passed the rooms of the house I saw the diaries floating around me and an image of me sitting on the floor reading them. Then the image changed to me sitting at the window of a tram, watching the reflection in the window of my school friends and their laughing faces. These faces were replaced by the faces of Adult Naomi’s friends. They were smoking and crying. I don’t wanna be stoned anymore. I don’t wanna take drugs anymore. There has to be another way, I thought.
And then the images stopped. I stood still, staring at a large, closed door.
I had known that each step through my mind would lead me to this place. The room contained the answer, the answer to why I had woken up in the future, why I was fifteen years old again. I opened the door.
It was a dark room; the walls were black, almost invisible. I couldn’t see the floor, and the ceiling seemed to stretch on forever. The door closed behind me. I stared deeper into the darkness.
‘Hello,’ I whispered.
I was aware of something flickering. Afraid of what I would see, I turned slowly. A blank screen appeared on the black wall. I heard the familiar whir of a projector and an image appeared. I stopped and watched. It was me, in the bedroom I shared with Simone. I was still in my pyjamas, lying on my Marilyn Monroe duvet, writing an entry in the red diary. I could hear my thoughts echoing around the dark room. I watched and listened.
18 April 1992
Dear diary,
Simone left for Malta yesterday! I hope she has a good time. Wish I was going with them, but my first exam – French – is coming up and I’ve got to revise for it. I’m crapping myself a bit ’cause I don’t think I’m gonna do well in my exams. I thought I would but I’ve got loads to learn and I haven’t even finished my book on Dominique for my Child Development GCSE but Sally says I can spend all day Monday with her so that will be cool. I miss my spars; wonder if they’re enjoying their holidays. Even D-Mob’s gone caravanning with her dad. Am I, like, the only one who never gets to go anywhere? God, the last holiday we went on was BUT LINS! When I was, like, nine! My life is so sad! Never been on a plane! I’m the oldest, I should have gone first, yet Simone (the Golden Child) gets to go instead! And she’s gonna come back all tanned and gorgeous and I’ll still be pale and fat and fed up! I hate my life, I hate my GCSEs and I hate everything! I wonder what’s on telly tonight . . . So don’t know where Eve is, but I’m gonna see if she can give me some money, maybe get the new More magazine and some chocolate. I need some new clothes as well. Oh, sack it! I just hate my life full stop. I wanna be in Malta!
Better get revising, Nay, these smeggin’ exams ain’t gonna pass themselves!
The voice grew quiet, the image disappeared. I stood in the darkness, in the silence, and then I remembered. It all came flooding back and I remembered what happened next. The image appeared again on the other side of me and I saw it all.
I was lying on my bed writing and then I heard the front door close and I knew it was my mum. I went downstairs to say hello but changed my mind because her face was like thunder. She didn’t notice me at first until I asked her about money and whether I could go out. This seemed to cause some offence because she freaked out and I just, like, froze on the spot and watched her face change and twist into a tormented anger.
She started to shout at me that she had had enough of my questions, had enough of me.
I exploded. ‘What?’ I shouted back at her. ‘Like, me being here is causing you some form of spaz attack?’
‘You have to go,’ she shouted and waved her arms at me.
I wanted to storm off upstairs like I normally do but I couldn’t move; my legs were stuck and I just stood there and watched her carefully. I was kinda not breathing, hoping she would get lost in her rage and start talking to herself like she sometimes does. Then suddenly something snapped inside me.
‘NO! I’ve had enough of you and I’m sick of hearing about my laziness and bad attitude. I’m frickin’ revising for my GCSEs and if you don’t like it, well then, that’s your problem, ’cause I HAVE TO DO MY EXAMS!!!’
‘And then what?’ she shouted back.
‘What d’ya mean, then what?’ I screamed at her.
‘What the frig are you going to do after your exams, ’cause you’re not staying here anym
ore?’
Are you kidding me? ‘What do you mean? I’ve got school and my—’
‘School’s finished! You’re not going back to school,’ she said.
‘But I’m gonna stay on or go to college with my friends.’
‘Oh no.’ My mum then walked off into the kitchen but I stayed in the living room, totally stunned from what she had just said.
‘You’re not staying here, fuck that!’ she screamed from the kitchen. ‘You’re not going to college here. You’ve left school, there’s nothing for you here.’ She came back to the door, wagging her finger at me.
I sat down on the sofa in shock. I mean, what the smeg? I couldn’t stay?
‘And what friends? You’ve got no friends! Where are they? Simone’s the one with friends, you haven’t friggin’ got any!’ she shouted.
That was it. I stood up ready for a fight but she bounced through the door back into the kitchen, where she angrily informed the pots and pans that I was a lazy bastard, I had no friends and no life and I wasn’t staying in her house any longer.
I was speechless. I mean, totally in shock. I mean, all’s I wanted was some pocket money and it ended with the reality that as soon as my exams were over, I totally had to find somewhere else to live because I was no longer wanted in the house. Hell, even in the town.
Holding back the tears, I went back into the kitchen. ‘But where am I supposed to go? I’ve got nowhere to go.’
She turned to me. ‘What are you on about? You can go live with your dad. He can have you now.’
‘My frickin’ dad?’ I screamed. ‘No way, Jose!’ I shook my head, as if that would shake the reality of moving to Liverpool right out of me.
And then she went crazy on me. The shouts and screams got louder; the words were mouthed more slowly. Everything just got more hurtful. It was mental. I didn’t understand, and then everything just went blurry and I blanked out the rest of what she was saying.
In the dark room I took a step back from the image.
I remembered. I remembered what it had felt like that day seventeen years ago.
The image played on.
And that’s when she dropped the final bomb. ‘I mean, what’s the fucking point of you?’ she screamed.
‘What?’ I stumbled back through the door. Did she just ask me what was the point of me? Did my mother just question my whole existence?
And that’s when I realized she already knew I was going to live with Art, that she had decided that before she had even started. What’s the point of me? Like, why the hell am I here? I thought. What’s my purpose?
I opened my mouth to answer her, but I think the look on my face must have jolted her out of her angry place and told her she had gone too far, as she always did. Her face seemed to morph into a strange mix of righteous indignation, scornful sorrow and regret. I was seriously trying to fight back the tears. I was majorly angry, though. I mean, how could she say such bogus things? I stood there trying to figure out what had I done to deserve this? She’d sent my sister on a fabulous beach holiday and then, like, gone and attacked my very existence the next day.
‘I HATE YOU SO MUCH!’ I screamed at her and ran upstairs to my bedroom. I slammed the door as hard as I could, threw myself on my bed and burst into tears.
All I could think of was that question: What’s the point of you?
After a while, the tears stopped and I figured it out. I don’t know why I am here, so I’ve got no point, right? I asked myself. And if there is no point to me, I might as well not exist, right? I’m gonna fail my exams, I’m gonna fail at life. I am a failure.
After a while I heard the front door slam shut. Eve had left.
I felt so alone but could see it all clearly. There was no point to me. I totally didn’t matter and maybe I shouldn’t have even been born.
I knew that there was only one answer to my problem.
I got off my bed, went into my mum’s room and found a small brown bottle of white pills in the top cupboard of her wardrobe and threw as many as I could down my throat while drinking the tap water from the bathroom sink. I just wanted it over as quickly as possible. I didn’t care about anybody or anything else. I didn’t think about a note, or who would find me, or even why I was doing it. I just wanted it ALL over. I wanted to stop that voice in my head from taunting me, teasing me about my bogus life. I was fat and ugly and nobody was bothered whether I lived or died. I wanted the pain to stop.
If my family don’t even remember my birthday, or drug dealers wanna kidnap me, or boys wanna sexually assault my friends and I can’t protect them, then I don’t matter, how I feel doesn’t matter, so then they won’t miss me when I’m dead, I thought as I drank the water.
I burst into tears again. I had no control over anything but I knew I had control over the amount of drugs I could get in me before the pain became too much. So I swallowed as many as I could and lay on my mum’s bed. It stopped the tears and all of those crap questions eventually faded into the background. It was like I was surrounded by a fog of peace, and my breathing slowed and I felt calm. It felt right. I closed my eyes. I really thought it was time for me to go.
I took a step back from the image and took a deep breath; it was all too much. It was as if the house in my mind knew how I felt because, like with the image that had played before, I heard a voice again. My voice, echoing in the darkness, telling me what had happened the day I had tried to kill myself. I turned and saw myself lying still on the bed. I was sleeping. I looked peaceful.
BAM!
The front door slammed shut and I jumped up out of this semi-conscious state. It was dark outside so I must have fallen asleep. I knew my mum was back and I had to get out of her room, but when I jumped up off her bed my legs went all spazmode on me and I fell to the floor and whacked my head on the door frame. It mashed me up; my head felt strange, I couldn’t get my brain to tell my legs to walk and I knew if she caught me, she would kill me.
‘What are you doing?’ she shouted up at me from the bottom of the stairs.
‘Nothing.’ I tried to give her serious attitude but I sounded kinda drunk.
I used the door frame to pull myself up from the floor and then I felt majorly scared. She had come back too early. I was supposed to be dead. And then something weird happened. I got to the bathroom and stood there just staring at my reflection in the mirror, and I looked like a stranger. It was me, but the older version of me; I didn’t recognize myself. My head was hurting and my heart was beating really fast.
And then it was like a switch flipped in my brain and I just knew. In that second, in the bathroom, on my own staring at this face in the mirror, I couldn’t do it. I knew I had a place, somewhere. I just had to find it. I didn’t want to die. I just needed some time to find where I belonged. To find a point. I just needed help.
So I splashed my face with cold water a few times and stuck my fingers down my throat. It tasted rank but I kept saying, ‘Get a grip, Nay, you smeg,’ until it became my motto for staying alive and I couldn’t throw up anymore. I knew then that I had to tell Eve, there was no choice. I didn’t know what I had taken and could have needed the hospital. I thought after what had happened that morning that she would be feeling mega amounts of guiltiness and would understand why I had reacted the way I did and get me to A&E post haste. I would throw up properly; she would apologise, realize she had made a mistake and allow me to continue on with my plans to stay home. So wrong!
I slowly walked downstairs and into the living room, where she was stood by the coffee table staring out through the window. I looked but couldn’t see what she was looking at.
‘Mum, I’ve just taken some tablets but threw up.’
‘What?’ She spun around and the look of horror on her face as the colour slowly drained from her skin made me feel well bad for what I had done.
‘Where from?’ she shouted angrily.
‘From the top of your wardrobe,’ I told her, and then she grabbed me by my hair. I tried to pull h
er hands away but the more I tried, the tighter she held on. She then proceeded to swing my frickin’ skull back and forth with one hand while slapping me upside the head with the other, all the while screaming unintelligible words at me.
The rest was a blur. My hair still in her hands, she pulled me out of the house, shouting at me all the way to the corner shop.
When we got to the shop, Happy Shopper Harry was stood behind the counter concentrating on something. He was kinda like a pretend uncle – well, he used to let my mum get cigs and milk from his back door when the shop was closed on a Sunday and we played with his daughter until she grew up and went to Camp America, and he would always listen to you, no matter what was wrong or what you had done. Happy Shopper Harry’s shop was the only one we never nicked from when we were kids; he was top bananas. Mum told him what I had done.
‘Oh, Naomi.’ He looked at me over his glasses, a look of pity on his face, and shook his head. ‘Why?’
My mum was on the verge of tears. ‘Because she’s bloody stupid, that’s why.’
I was mortified and just hung my head down in embarrassmental shame while Harry served my mum with two cans of her lager and some cigarettes.
‘Bloody suicide! Her dad would kill me if she bloody kills herself,’ Mum said, looking for some money in her purse.
I wanted to cry, like, right there and then. I still couldn’t believe it!
‘Do you want a lift to the hospital, Eve?’ he asked my mum. ‘I can get Betty to take over.’
Please, no, I thought. I shook my head at him. The thought of anyone else knowing made me wish I had really died.