by Deborah Bee
Counselling!
When my ex-husband crashes through the patio doors with a machete, I’ll remember to say, ‘Hang on a minute, darling, while I try a little mindfulness, would you?’ Perhaps I can ask him to ‘reframe his thoughts and feelings’. Yeah, good idea. No, this is it; I’ll tell him that I have reframed my thoughts, so don’t attack me, there’s a good lad! That’ll do it.
‘What time’s the meeting?’ I say.
‘Three, in Magenta, the big room at the back. Will you bring Clare?’
‘If she wants. Have you asked her?’
‘No, I thought . . .’
‘Well, why don’t you ask her then,’ I say, and gather up the tray and cutlery, ‘cos remember, I don’t actually work here, do I.’ Rhetorical question. ‘Oh, and while you’re here. What’s with the plastic cutlery?’
‘Precaution,’ she says.
‘Precaution against what?’ I say, to her back, as she disappears down the hallway.
*
PC Chapman is here with my bags and I’m not lying, I’ve never been so pleased to see two suitcases in my whole entire life, and she’s dangling my door keys at me and smiling.
‘Thanks so, so much,’ I say, ‘I can’t wait to change my pants.’
‘TMI,’ she says and laughs.
‘Nothing to report,’ she goes. ‘No criminal activity. Apart from the pint of milk you left on the side, which has stunk the whole kitchen out. I got your post too,’ she says. ‘Do you want a hand with anything?’ she says.
‘No, I’m fine,’ I put the keys and letters in my bag, and pick up the suitcases, ‘exercise’ll do me good. Thanks again, and for sorting the milk.’
‘No worries.’
The suitcases started out all right, but by the time I had got halfway up the stairs they had literally doubled in weight. I was dreaming of one of the Stannah stairlift thingies they have on the telly, which would’ve whizzed me up in no time, while I could just sit with my cases on my knee, smiling away like they always do, in the ads, in a nice cosy pink dressing gown. By the time I get to the second-floor landing I can no longer feel my fingers.
‘You got lucky with the third floor,’ says a voice.
It’s the blonde girl. Kitty. She picks up one of my bags.
‘Everyone always wants to be high up,’ I wheeze, between gasps, wondering if I’m going to need life support.
‘Best views,’ she goes.
Best views! You have got to be kidding me.
‘I had a third-floor room but they moved me down, cos they said you had to be in it.’
‘Most women in refuges want the highest floor cos it’s farthest away from the front door,’ I say. ‘Won’t necessarily save ’em, but it helps them sleep at night.’
Best views! I can hardly breathe.
‘From this floor you can get up onto the roof. But shhh, don’t tell Commandant Henry.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I saw the door when the rat man was here. . .’
I wonder what she’s on about and give her a look.
‘Sunbathing!’ she goes. ‘I got my bikini here. I got two bikinis here. No, hang on, I got three!’
It’s not the first thing I’d think of packing for a trip to a women’s refuge; clean underwear, teabags, Nurofen, and oh yeah, three bikinis.
Like I say, there’s something not right about that girl.
‘Can I meet your roomie?’ she goes.
‘Not now,’ I say. ‘She’s asleep.’
‘Can’t you see if she’s awake?’
‘She said she doesn’t want to be disturbed.’
‘Did she actually say that?’ she asks, a bit nasty like.
‘Yeah, she did actually say that,’ I say, pulling the cases through the front door and slamming it.
‘Thanks!’ she shouts through the door, insulted.
‘No problem,’ I shout back.
‘Yeah, right,’ she mutters, thundering down the stairs as loud as she can.
‘Who was that?’ says Clare, standing behind the door where she’d been looking through the gap in the hinges. I nearly crap my pants.
‘Kitty, another resident.’
‘Is that what we call ourselves, residents?’
‘ “Resident” sounds better than “inmate”. “Inmate” sounds better than “victim”. I s’pose we could go for “guest” – but that sounds like we asked for it,’ I say.
She grabs a case and hauls it into my bedroom.
‘Thanks for making my bed,’ she goes. ‘I gave the nightie a miss.’
‘Thought it might give you a laugh,’ I say, unzipping the first case. ‘There’s some quite nice stuff in the garment wardrobe,’ I say and I think, oh my good gawd, I’m institutionalised already. ‘You can wash your own stuff too, if you want, in the laundry room next to the kitchen. You could just borrow something out of the garment wardrobe, for now, cos it’s all clean, I know, because I washed it myself.’
‘I’m all right,’ she goes.
‘That dressing gown smells like it might combust on its own.’
‘I don’t notice the smell anymore,’ she goes, wrapping it around her even more tightly.
There’s a jar of hot chocolate tucked in the corner of my suitcase, which I’d forgotten about completely and I suddenly have a craving for a mug.
‘Fancy some?’ I say, holding up the jar, and I can see her arguing with herself in her own head cos half of her wants it and half of her’s thinking that she’d rather not talk to anyone or see anyone.
‘I’m not . . .’ She stops. ‘Yeah, OK,’ she says, ‘why not?’ As we go down to the kitchen she whispers, ‘What’s that Kitty all about?’
‘You make your own mind up about that one,’ I say. ‘She’s not the full ticket, if you ask me, but each to their own, that’s what I always say.’
‘Is there a type in here, do you think?’ she says.
‘Not according to Mrs H,’ I say. ‘But yeah, I think there’s a type.’
‘Naive and stupid.’ She looks at the stained mugs in the cupboard, as though they have toxic waste on them or something.
‘Trusting and kind,’ I say. ‘And naive and stupid.’
She giggles, which is the first time I’ve seen her smile.
‘There’s a house meeting this afternoon,’ I say.
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s for all the residents, to chat.’
‘I don’t do chat.’
‘Me neither,’ I say. ‘I’m not sure many will want to, apart from the social workers – they’ll want to chat, a lot, they always do.’ I stir the chocolate powder into boiling water. ‘Actually, I’m being unfair, it’s part of the process, meeting other people who are in the same situation as you are – we both are.’
‘I doubt they’ve been in the same situation as me,’ she says mockingly, deliberately copying the way I said it, which is weird because I haven’t seen that side of her.
‘You shouldn’t be like that,’ I say. ‘You’d be surprised. Most of the women here will have been systematically abused, that’s what they call it.’
‘What’s that mean?’ she says.
‘It means no one’s here after a one-off beating. They’ve all had a situation that’s gone on for a while, getting worse and worse, same as you.’
‘How’d you know about me?’ she goes, looking spiky.
‘You hide behind doors, you refuse to speak, you’re afraid of your own shadow . . . I’ve been there too.’
‘Well, I’m still not saying anything,’ she says, blowing over the top of the chocolatey froth so that some of it lands on the table and she wipes it off with the palm of her hand, quickly, too quickly, nervously, looking over her shoulder. Her hands are raw and pink, and they look like they must sting.
‘You don’t have to say anything, it’ll still help,’ I say.
‘I don’t see how.’
‘Knowing you’re not the only one helps,’ I say, thinking of
Hayley, the blood gushing out of her neck and soaking into her long blonde highlights.
*
All different colours and shapes of chairs are arranged in a horseshoe, all different colours and shapes of women take their seats, apart from the lady at the front. That’s the lady from Women’s Aid, and you can pretty much spot a lady from Women’s Aid a mile off. I wonder if the wardrobe comes with the job or the job attracts the type of person who likes to wear tie-dyed skirts to the floor and novelty earrings.
Some of the women in the room look like they actually want to be there; they’ve brought bits of paper and pens, to take notes, and some of the women look totally bored and we haven’t even started yet, and some of them look broken, as though they can’t take one more thing.
Kitty is leaning against the door frame, looking as if she doesn’t belong with these women, doesn’t want to belong with these women. She can sneak out, around the corner, in a second if she wants to and she sees me watching her and she smirks to herself, like she’s glad that I’m looking at her because she thinks I think she’s interesting. Which I don’t; I just don’t think she’s right for here. S’all.
‘Here at York Gate we aim to empower women and children through support,’ says Mrs Women’s Aid. Ho hum. The Indian lady just wrote down what she said. Prashi, the one with the two girls. There’s a woman next to her, in a hijab, and she’s writing everything down too. Jesus wept. Or do I mean Allah?
‘We’re here to enable women to realise the new opportunity they have created for themselves, so that they can live their lives free from domestic violence.’
‘What opportunity is that?’ says the big girl in the leather jacket by the window. She has a surprisingly low voice, and a surprisingly loud voice, compared to Mrs Women’s Aid. She’s thirty-ish, dyed blonde bob, dirty roots, long, perfect, turquoise nails filed to a point.
‘Hello, you’re quite new, aren’t you?’ says Mrs Women’s Aid.
‘Debbie,’ says Debbie. I think she might be the one who ate the Cadbury’s Creme Egg, cos I’ll be honest, she looks like she’s had a few. Or maybe it was the other big one. I mean, I’m not slim myself, I’m no Kate Moss, I’m not. Just saying. Just so you know.
‘Got here two weeks ago when it first opened . . . Was here last week and the week before,’ she goes as if she’s accusing Mrs Women’s Aid of not noticing her, like that was possible.
‘Welcome, Debbie,’ goes Mrs Women’s Aid, looking around the room expectantly.
‘Welcome, Debbie,’ says everyone, apart from me and Clare, who catch on too late. Clare widens her eyes at me and half bites her lip. We couldn’t get seats together, so she’s parked just one away from Mrs Women’s Aid, which means I can’t look at Mrs Women’s Aid without seeing Clare trying not to laugh.
‘Debbie has brought up an interesting thought,’ says Mrs Women’s Aid. ‘Would anyone else like to comment?’
No one says anything. It’s like the French lessons we used to have at school when they’d ask for someone to read out loud. ‘Qui veut lire? Une voluntaire?’ No one wanted to speak then, either.
‘Who would like to talk about opportunity? About how being here presents an opportunity?’ She’s smiling like a Cheshire cat and all. Holy sodding cow, this is worse than embarrassing.
‘I would have thought,’ says Big Debbie, sounding like an articulated truck driver, ‘that, up until now, most of us have been denied opportunity. So, we don’t have something new, do we, really? We just have something that got robbed off us, that we should’ve had in the first place.’
Prashi’s not sure. Should she write it down or not? The woman in the hijab goes for it and begins scribbling, apparently word for word.
‘Aiysha, you seem to find that concept interesting. Would you like to share your view?’ says Mrs Women’s Aid.
Aiysha stops in her tracks, like a rabbit in the headlights, and shakes her hijab and carries on writing, like it’s really important to get every single word down.
It’s all gone hideously quiet. No one is saying anything at all.
*
‘And while we’re on the subject of stuff that got robbed off us – where’s the fucking cutlery gone? You can’t cut a piece of toast with a sodding plastic knife,’ says Big Debbie.
‘I’m sure there’s an excellent and valid reason that the cutlery has been replaced. However. Shall we leave cutlery for now and go back to opportunity?’ says Mrs Women’s Aid.
‘Where’s the usual cutlery?’ says Aiysha, looking concerned. ‘Did someone steal the cutlery? It wasn’t me if that’s what anyone thinks. I haven’t stolen anything. I can see you all think I did, but I . . .’
‘Oh, be quiet, Aiysha,’ says Prashi. ‘No one thinks you’ve stolen anything . . .’
‘I think you’re all talking shit,’ interrupts Big Debbie, suddenly, loudly.
There’s a bit of a gasp from the group. Kitty settles her back against the wall and folds her arms, like the group meeting has finally got interesting.
‘I don’t think we need to swear, Debbie,’ says Mrs Women’s Aid, getting a bit hot under the collar.
‘You asked me what I thought,’ says Debbie. ‘I think you’re talking shit.’
Clare coughs but I swear it was a snort that turned into a cough halfway through.
‘You’re right to feel aggrieved, Debbie,’ says Mrs Women’s Aid. Don’t you just hate it when people do that whole thing with your name, like they’re trying to prove to everyone that they’re so damn caring that they can remember everybody’s names? Like God or something.
‘You’re right, Debbie, it’s not normal to have your opportunities taken away from you, by perhaps someone stronger, more powerful, more convincing, more . . .’
‘What’s normal?’ says Big Debbie, getting properly annoyed. ‘You’re now trying to tell me what’s normal and what’s not normal. I’ll tell you what’s normal. Nothing’s normal. That’s what’s normal. Nothing. This isn’t fucking normal, is it?’ she says, heaving her and her leather jacket out of the ripped plastic chair. ‘Sitting around here like a herd of fucking dairy cows is not fucking normal.’ And she waddles out, her yellow flip-flops slapping against the lino.
Clare is biting her lip so hard it looks like she might bite it off. Mrs Women’s Aid is boiling all over her tie-dyed skirt and novelty earrings. Mrs H bustles in and sits down, taking Big Debbie’s empty chair.
‘Marina,’ she says to the thin woman the other side of me, pretty girl, olive skin, Greek, maybe. ‘Would you like to talk a little bit about opportunity?’ she says. ‘You’ve been in various refuges over a number of years. We’ve got a few new recruits and I’d love it if you could help to explain what we do here at York Gate, to support our residents and prepare them for a new life, full of opportunities.’
Marina nods around the room. ‘I’m Marina,’ she says, and I sat there thinking that I’d never have turned out that confident, not even if nothing had ever happened to me.
‘Welcome, Marina,’ everyone replies in unison. Clare and I are late again. Kitty, I notice, looks like she’s shut down. No expression.
‘I’m from Cyprus.’ Her voice sounds more American than Greek, but who am I to judge? ‘Some of you know me,’ she says, smiling at an older lady sitting two away from Clare. ‘I lived in the United States since I was seven. I have a degree from Harvard Business School in International Economics. After I moved to the UK with my husband – without my family, you understand – I lost my freedom and my independence. My now ex-husband was unable to find a job and became very angry, to the point that he was often violent and controlling.
‘When I first went into a refuge, the one in Kentish Town, I was unable to think straight; I was so used to being told what I could and couldn’t do that I no longer had the ability to make a decision. I found it hard to get up in the morning without being told I could get up. My body no longer knew when I was tired or hungry or thirsty.
‘Since then, I hav
e had behavioural therapy. I’ve learned to reframe my past experiences and move forward. Don’t underestimate how powerful therapy can be, both one-on-one and group,’ she says, looking specifically at Mrs Women’s Aid. ‘You don’t know how grateful I am. I don’t think anyone knows yet,’ she continues, ‘but I’m leaving next week. I’ve got a flat. Just in Hackney, not far, and I’ve found a job in the city. Not as high up as I was before, five years ago, but it’s well-paid. My mum is coming over to live nearby with my little sister, and I’m going to come back here as a volunteer, to help other women in my position, or in a similar position to mine, no two positions are the same.’ And she tips her head to one side and smiles a wide smile, gums and all.
No one is writing now. Aiysha and Prashi are staring, open-mouthed.
‘Grab the opportunity with both hands.’ Marina shrugs, looking like butter wouldn’t melt.
Everyone looks as if they’ve just had some kind of religious experience, except me and Clare, and of course, Kitty.
Kitty looks like someone just told her to eat her greens. She can’t hide her grimace as she stares at Marina. After a while she also tips her head to one side, and smiles, but her attempt at a really wide smile, gums and all, looks almost violent.
Twenty-One
DS Clarke
DS Clarke has seen her fair share of DV cases; in fact, more than her fair share of DV cases, and something about Clare’s didn’t add up.
She tends to go with her gut. Prided herself on always going with her gut. However, when her instinct was in overdrive, sometimes she needed a sounding board, a grown-up conversation, with insightful dialogue, which is why she decided to invite caseworker Celia in – just for an informal.
But apparently, and DS Clarke remembers and quite literally kicks herself about three seconds into the conversation, social workers try not to hold opinions. Not when there is utter vagueness to cling on to. How could she have forgotten such a thing?
‘I think Clare may be having a hard time managing her emotions.’
Really, thinks DS Clarke, mentally rolling her eyes.
‘She may be? Or she is?’
‘She may be,’ repeats Celia, nodding furiously to the point that DS Clarke worried for her neck.