Escaping the Darkness (5 page)

Every second that ticked by on the big, white, plastic surgery clock felt as if it was part of one of those past minutes, one piece of the uncertain hours of my childhood. Unexpectedly, the buzzer behind the receptionist’s desk sounded frantically, breaking up my thoughts. Every set of expectant eyes in the waiting room looked towards the reception desk.

‘Mrs Preston for Dr Tranor,’ the receptionist called out over the heads of the people sitting patiently, waiting their turn. As I stood up and looked across at her, she acknowledged me with a small smile. I managed to smile back hesitantly, but my whole body felt as if it was going to fall apart.

I walked down the corridor past her desk towards Dr Tranor’s room. It was only a short corridor but I felt it was longer than it should have been, extending my journey by a few hundred feet. Each of the small steps I took felt like steps I’d taken whilst I was walking up one of my beloved Lakeland fells, each one more arduous than the last. As I look back at this fateful moment, I can still see the corridor, the reception desk, and everything else so clearly. It’s almost as if I was sitting looking at a photograph, newly created and captured through the lens for the first time.

I knocked gently on the door, opened it, and walked in. Dr Tranor sat beside his desk. I always liked his room. He had a small settee that had a blue cover on it with lots and lots of little toys, many of which were either hand-knitted or hand-made. It always felt homely and welcoming – each of the bookshelves always looked hugely chaotic, which
reminded me of our bookcases at home. The desk he sat at was up against a wall so he faced you when you sat to chat. He never spoke to you across the desk, and I always appreciated the way he deliberately tried to relate to his patients informally, as if we were friends. I always liked this. Dr Tranor was a wonderfully understanding doctor, with a caring, sensitive manner. That day I felt I was visiting him for the first time, when I knew all too well that wasn’t the case.

I had actually known him for almost two years. I first met him when I changed doctors and joined his practice. I was pregnant with Timothy at the time and I wanted a home birth, which my previous doctor would not agree to. Dr Tranor was the only doctor in my area that would take on patients wanting home births.

As I entered the room, he looked up, giving me his warm smiley greeting that always made me feel at ease.

Except this time I didn’t feel at ease. This time my visit was different.

‘Hello Sarah, what can I do for you?’ he began warmly.

I felt his smile would have to work overtime to make his there’s-nothing-to-worry about look make me feel better. I felt cheap, soiled and dirty. All the time I was wondering what he would think of me when he knew the truth. I just did not know where to begin. I had come to see him for guidance about where to find help and who to talk to about my abuse, but as I sat in front of this kind, caring man who I knew would understand what I was about to tell him, I felt my voice sinking away from me. Disappearing further and further, deserting my mouth,
my unspoken words travelling at great speed through my body towards the floor.

He looked at me, realising that I was having trouble talking, trying to tell him about what was troubling me. He sat there not speaking, just looking at me with his gentle deep blue eyes, waiting for the first words I would say to him. He never prompted me with that familiar ‘take your time’ I had heard from so many other doctors before. He just sat patiently waiting. I knew he had other patients to see. It took time to form my words into any kind of comprehensible sense. When I whispered them silently in my head before actually speaking them out loud, they all sounded wrong. I was trying desperately to get them into some semblance of logical order before I spoke. In the end I just gave up. I knew I was taking up too much of his time so I just blurted it all out, not pausing for breath, not slowing down, just blurting it out like a scared little girl who had done something really bad.

When the words came I was like a desperate child with news of something exciting happening, who was eager to tell anyone who would listen.

‘I was abused sexually when I was a girl, when I was eleven, by a friend of my Mum and Dad’s, by my Dad when I was twelve and almost by a neighbour too when I was thirteen. It lasted for four years with the friend of Mum and Dad’s and happened three times with my dad. I didn’t know what to do or where to go. I managed to hide it away but then I saw Bill, Mum’s friend, a little while ago in town. And now I’m having terrible dreams that I can’t
stop. All those memories are new again. I feel like I am back in that terrible room with him standing over me and I’m trapped and can’t escape.’

I started to cry.

Tears were the one thing that I could never stop. They flooded down my face. Someone once told me I could quite easily fill a bath when I cried, and today I felt like it was a definite possibility.

I looked up at Dr Tranor: Keith. I was wondering if he had made any sense of my blurted blubberings, which had spilled out from me so fast without drawing a breath that they made me feel sick! He had a look of despair on his face. I could see his tears starting to form, and I saw one trickle down his cheek.

He quickly wiped his eyes on the back of his hand, trying to keep a sense of professional calmness about him, a calmness that he wanted to pass on to me. He leant over and gave me a small hug. I felt so relieved that finally I had gained enough strength and courage to tell someone other than Sam about my abuse.

I still believed that everything that had happened to me was my fault, that I was to blame. Keith started talking to me slowly. I listened, drying my eyes on the tissues he had passed to me a few moments ago. ‘Sarah,’ he began gently. ‘Try not to worry. I know you are worried, but I can put you in touch with someone who can help you. She’s based at the Cedars Child Development Centre. Do you know where that is?’

‘Is it just a little further down Parsons Lane?’ I asked.

‘Yes. The lady I’m going to ring is called Bess Meyer. She’s really good and this is her field of expertise. She does a lot of work with abused kids.’

‘But isn’t it different? After all, I’m not a child I’m an adult. Will she be able to help me?’

‘Yes, she can Sarah. She’ll know more about how you feel and the emotions you’re going through. The only difference between you and a child is that you have kept them hidden for a long time, and it’s only now that they are starting to surface.’

‘Okay.’

‘I’ll call her once surgery is over and she’ll be in touch with you as soon as she can. You shouldn’t have to wait too long.’

As I rose to leave his room, he looked at me, gave me one of his famous everything’s-fine-now smiles and said everything would be okay. His face gave some of his feelings away; I knew he was shocked by what he had heard, even though he must have heard the same words lots of times before in his profession. He looked so helpless that day, desperate to do more, but he knew he had to go through all the protocol that his work demanded. But I knew he was doing enough. I was glad of his help. I was relieved that at last I could speak out, even if it had only been for a short time.

This was probably the hardest thing I had ever done in my life, apart from when I told Sam. Even giving birth to five babies was a walk in the park compared to speaking out about the abuse I had been subjected to as a young
girl. I think if I could have chosen which of those things I had to do, I would have chosen childbirth every time rather than having to confess to someone other than Sam that I had been abused. Giving birth was certainly much easier. The only problem is – if I had been given such a choice – I’d have probably ended up with fifty babies instead of five.

Leaving Dr Tranor’s room I felt relieved yet anxious. Relieved I had told someone else other than Sam, but extremely anxious that someone other than my husband knew. Now I had to wait again. I didn’t know how the session with Bess would go but inside I knew this was perhaps a huge turning point, the first day of the rest of a life without secrets. At last I was speaking out to someone else. I knew help was on its way, yet the words I had spoken to Dr Tranor that day felt as if they were inconsequential and without true meaning.

They were words that had no real importance attached to them until I saw Bess and spoke them again. Then, and only then, would my statements become real. The words would be given a chance, an opportunity, to escape from out of the box I had sealed them in. They would be out there in the open, ready, waiting patiently to haunt me some more.

As I walked home through the park from Dr Tranor’s surgery, the paths were slowly drying after the latest shower. The air felt warm and clean around me, which eased the pain of the headache that had started to take hold. I felt a little better about what lay in front of me. The next step
would be talking to Bess, a stranger, about all of my past and I knew that wouldn’t be easy. I would have to recall the things, all the terrible details of everything Bill had done to me, and I wasn’t sure how well I would be able to cope with that. I had never met Bess. I knew nothing about her. The only things I knew were the things Keith (Dr Tranor) had told me about her. He had said she was a nice lady in her late forties, and she had twenty years’ experience of dealing with similar matters.

I began to feel apprehensive about our meeting, which was ridiculous, especially when I didn’t know how long it would actually be before I saw her. I told myself I was being silly. This woman was going to help me, she would give me solutions, help me find strategies and develop methods with me that I could use to combat my fears. For a few moments, I actually felt a little better and knew deep inside that once all this was truly out in the open, and with the right kind of help, I could begin the healing process. That was of course if there was anything out there that would heal what I had been through.

As I crossed the road and entered the estate, I noticed Maria was out in her garden. She waved when she saw me and invited me in for a cup of tea. We sat talking and drinking tea for the next half hour, gently letting those carefree thirty minutes slip away until it was time to pick up the children from the playgroup. I instantly felt my spirits lifted. Maria always made me feel better because she was just that kind of person: bubbly and with infectious good humour. I was glad to have her as my friend, but even
though we had become close, I still couldn’t face telling her about my past and the things that had happened to me as a child. It was still a secret: my secret. I knew that if I had plucked up courage to talk to Maria about the past then it would have been all right. She would probably have been the best kind of counsellor I could ever have wished for. But inside I felt so embarrassed, and even though I had shared the shocking news of my abuse with Keith, my doctor, I still continued to feel dirty, ashamed and guilty. These feelings were something I really had problems talking about. I had always dreaded what people would think about me if they found out. What would their reactions be? After all I was Sarah, the woman they knew.

In their eyes I wasn’t the other Sarah, the Sarah who had been
abused and used.

How would they all see me after I told them?

Chapter Six

AS THE WEEK continued to unfold, I tried not to think about the forthcoming meeting that would soon be arranged with Bess. I kept myself active and threw myself into a mad, house-cleaning frenzy, trying desperately to keep myself busy for every hour of the day. It was June now and when I wasn’t busy in the house I spent time in the garden. I loved being outdoors, especially when new plants were unfolding before my eyes, springing into life to give me another season of deliciously scented pleasure. I had decided to grow some sweet peas this year and they were busy scrambling to find their way up the netting on the fence, each one racing against the other for the best spot to catch each new ray of sunshine. If only my path was that easily mapped out, I would have found it so much easier. Instead, mine was filled with anxiety, dread and fear of how people would react to this shocking news if – and
when – I ever gained enough courage to tell those who mattered to me.

By Friday the waiting was proving to be too much for me. Every time the phone rang, I jumped. It had been a particularly busy morning, and it was one of those days when the phone had never stopped ringing. Sam had called twice, my mother three times and Maria also phoned to see if I wanted to call in for a coffee once the afternoon playgroup session had started. As I put the receiver down, the darn thing sprang into life again with its desperate, incessant ring sounding louder than ever, demanding attention with each agitated, shrill tone. As I lifted up the receiver and put it to my ear, this unfamiliar cheery voice on the other end said:

‘Hello, is that Sarah Preston?’

‘Yes it is.’

‘Hi there. My name is Bess Meyer, your doctor asked me if I would contact you so we could chat.’

My immediate thought was one of relief. Talking over the phone, that’s good; at least I wouldn’t have to face anyone new. However, I was quickly brought back to reality by Bess’s next words:

‘Can I call on Monday to see you, at about ten thirty, will that be okay?’

‘Yes that’s fine, I’ll be here.’ I told her.

‘Can you just tell me whereabouts you are, Sarah? I’m not sure if I know Ashleigh all that well.’