Escaping the Darkness (9 page)

But the way I felt at the moment… I would have needed at least a ton of smiles stolen back and brought to me on a lorry. Today was a day I knew smiling would be hard to achieve. As I drifted in and out of my ‘smile’ thoughts, I realised that the door was being knocked on for the second time. I lifted myself out of my daydream
and walked quickly across the lounge and into the hall to open the front door. Bess looked a little perplexed.

‘Hi Sarah, I was beginning to think I had been stood up,’ she told me.

‘Sorry, I was just busy and didn’t hear the door.’

‘Oh that’s okay, don’t worry, at least I’ve found you now.’

As she sat down in the lounge, I noticed she hadn’t occupied her usual spot but she was sitting on the armchair at the far end of the room. Today felt different. She didn’t take out a notebook or her customary bundles of papers. She just sat, putting her bag on the floor at the side of her. I wondered, for the few seconds before she spoke, why she hadn’t got all her usual things with her. I wanted to ask, but I knew that asking would have been nosy. I didn’t want to appear unduly curious. I was drifting off onto another train of thought when Bess’s voice nudged its way into my consciousness.

‘I thought today I’d do things differently,’ Bess explained. ‘I thought I’d just listen and not make notes. I know you’d probably feel more comfortable that way. What do you think?’

I wasn’t sure if this would help. She was still Bess, no different, even though she had no book to write in. She would still think about what I would tell her in the same way, nothing would change that. She was still the therapist. I still saw her in this light. Not having her notebook wouldn’t change that either.

‘All right let’s give it a go if you think it’ll be different,’ I suggested. ‘Do you really think it will make a difference to me and how I will tell you things?’

Bess replied to my query speaking quite softly, looking at me more intently with each word.

‘Not having my notebook should make a difference because you should be able to focus more on what you want to say, not be sitting there wondering all the time about what I may be scribbling down. You’ll also be drawn away from thinking why I wrote down one thing and not the next, when you may feel that the last thing you said was more important than the one before, yet I failed to note it down. Do you see what I mean Sarah?’

‘I think so but I’m not sure really.’

‘Shall we just give it a go and then we’ll see how far we get?’

‘Okay.’

Even though I told Bess I thought it was worth trying, inside I still felt very cynical about everything that she had said to me that morning. I honestly didn’t think what she was about to do could possibly work until I started talking. I took Bess on a journey, travelling back in my memories to the first moment Bill had taken me to the flat and washed me. I hated every second when he was touching me. Talking of it made me physically feel his touch once more, and this shocked me so much that I shivered. It felt as if I was going through that terrible experience for the very first time. I was so desperate to get away, yet I remember feeling as if I had been glued into place.

Unable to move.

Unable to speak.

Unable to run.

Unable to cry out.

And I was so alone, so afraid, so very much an unwilling prisoner.

I glanced at Bess to see what she was doing. She was just looking at me, an expression of sheer bewilderment on her face. Although she didn’t speak, it was as if her questions communicated to me telepathically and were darting around looking for answers.

‘Didn’t he stop at all when he realised you weren’t comfortable with what he was doing to you?’ I heard the unspoken words so clearly and gave her the answer she sought without saying a word.

A little while later I heard my voice, saying:

‘No. He just continued doing what he had planned and intended to do. Nothing I said changed his mind. He was driven by a purpose, his purpose. I wanted it to stop. It didn’t. It never did. He didn’t want it to.’

As I looked up, I thought I saw a tear in Bess’s eye but she didn’t actually cry, so maybe I only imagined it. As I continued to look deeply into her face, trying to read her thoughts, she asked me to tell her more about the events on that particular day. I certainly felt different. Bess was right: talking without the interruptions and presence of her notebook was having the desired effect. At least it was until I revealed my next recollection of that day:

‘Once he had washed me he sat, drying me for ages whilst he kept looking at me, telling me how lovely I was. I knew he didn’t mean me, by that I mean my face, because he was looking at my private parts.’ I sat uncomfortably,
shifting and wriggling around on the chair, pulling my legs up tightly against my chest to defend myself from all the invading memories. At the same time, I was trying to block out the clear memory that made his face appear so photo-perfect in front of me. I closed my eyes and shook my head, yet he was still there. He was a memory ghost. I knew that, so why then did he not start to fade?

Bess asked me to try and talk through my thoughts as I sat there, once again unable to speak. At first the words all seemed to be trapped in my throat, lodged fast, not sounding out when I tried to make them form in the open spaces that were being created between my lips. If Bess could read lips, she would have been able to make sense of the words I’d formed, but instead she sat and looked at me, puzzled, unable to understand my silent voice. I shocked myself from within, trying to pull myself together. These sessions with Bess were getting harder and we hadn’t even touched the surface yet; so much was still hidden. The only thing we’d done was to move a little of the settled dust on the lid of my ‘bad memory box’.

Inside, locked away, were still the memories of having intercourse, oral sex and Bill ejaculating over my body. How would I ever draw the strength I desperately needed to tell Bess about all of these inexcusable nightmares I had lived through as a child, especially with Bill’s ‘ghost’ now sitting in the room with me? His presence was so real. It was just like it was all those years before. He was here now, patiently waiting. I felt cold. How could a memory ghost make me feel this way? Would I ever feel free from all of
this? Bess sat across from me as the minutes of our session drifted hurriedly by.

All at once the hour seemed to have been used up. I had wanted to get further on this time, but the painful memories had all been too much. Even Bess’s words of comfort had had little effect and had not brought with them the same feeling of reassurance as they had done in past weeks. I had wanted to tell Bess far more, be more open and honest; for instance, talking about the first time that Bill had used his penis when he had abused me. For the very first time since my sessions with Bess began, I felt a trust between us.

But time had run out. Bess’s voice became more audible in my ears as she spoke to me. I stared at her and she gave me a look that reassured me that I was doing the right thing. Her expression told me that I had to carry on, to keep talking about the nightmare that was once my past – a past that had no meaning in the world of happy memories that I had been creating.

Now, however, instead of talking, I had to keep this memory locked inside my head for yet another week. Another week that would inevitably hold sleepless nights and nightmares I couldn’t control. I never confided in Bess about the dreams. I was worried she would ask me to go back and see the doctor, and the last thing I wanted was a prescription for pills. I needed to do this my way.

I thanked Bess for her time and showed her to the door. She promised to phone me later in the week to see how I was getting on, knowing all too well how traumatic
today’s session had been. I sat gathering my thoughts for ten minutes or so after Bess had left. I knew that I had to find a way of blocking things out sufficiently for them not to affect the new memories I had created with Sam and the boys. I tried to plan a way of separating the two events. But how could I? I had already lived my past and now I was living my present. I was Sarah, one person. The past I had talked about today, and the future I wanted, belonged to me too. They were both ‘my’ times. My past had once shaped my life, just as the future would too.

At that moment I wanted so desperately to be woken up from the bad dreams; to find myself in a warehouse, putting my ‘bad memory box’ safely onto a high shelf, way back in the storage area, where it would sit until the container fell apart with age, and then light would shine on the contents inside, making the memories fade into nothingness. Yet I knew that would never happen – it wasn’t that simple. These painful memories were mine and mine alone. I had to face them full on to rid myself of them, and I could only do this if I was brave. Courage was a quality I lacked, but inside I had an inkling that it wouldn’t be long before the bravery I so desperately sought would find me.

Chapter Ten

MONDAY NIGHT CAME and went, Tuesday was as busy as usual, and there were always lots of things to do and not enough hours in the day to complete them. I had a mountain of ironing that was overflowing from the wicker basket that lived in a corner on the bedroom floor. The pile was so high you could quite easily have filled five other baskets with its contents.

Usually I was quite focused and always did enough ironing to keep it below the rim of the basket, but over the past two weeks ironing just wasn’t part of my plans. Each morning I looked at the un-ironed clothes as I got out of bed – Sam too had noticed it was at a record high. We both looked at each other and made a commitment to ‘share’ it on Saturday morning. I’d do half an hour then he’d take over and do it for half an hour. This was how we’d approached it last time it had got out of hand. We’d get into
a routine, music would be playing on the stereo, the boys content on the floor doing jigsaws together or playing in the garden, and away we would go – ironing bliss!

Sam was so wonderful. I was lucky not only to have this fine caring husband, but also to have a guy who knew how to iron!

My husband had always been practical and self-sufficient around the house. He had lived alone since leaving school and had started working when he was eighteen, which meant he could turn his hand to most domestic tasks. Thankfully on that day my mind had been so occupied with domestic tasks – as well as organising the boys – that I was left with little time to think about my memories and the events that had unfolded during my session on Monday with Bess.

I knew that once the boys had gone to school and Sam had left for work, I would have to start facing the reality that was my past. I had to think about it. If I didn’t gain enough courage and strength to face my fears, then Bess’s visits would all have been pointless. I had to face my demons no matter how troubled my mind had become.

Another week was speeding by. After dinner we all went off and had a game of cricket for an hour. The weather was particularly warm and it hadn’t rained at all, so the field where we played was dry. It was a good game. The boys were all thoroughly absorbed by their competitiveness to score more runs than each other. Later, once the boys had been bathed and had their stories read to them, Sam and I settled down to spend time together.

I loved the hours we shared alone. It was always so perfect. I wanted to tell Sam everything that night but my head was ruling my heart. I knew that the secrets I held were powerful. Powerful in that they could seriously upset a happy, balanced person, and I didn’t want that. Sam was a warm, caring, gentle man – a man who would do anything for anyone. It wasn’t that my secrets would have been so much of a burden that he would have had his own contentment compromised – that wouldn’t have mattered to Sam. It was that he would have been devastated knowing that the woman he loved and shared his life with had all these terrible memories, and that he couldn’t do anything to stop them from hurting her.

Sam always wanted to make things better – that was just his way. He would want to cleanse the horrid memories from my life forever. I knew that he would have wanted my life to be free from painful memories. In reality, I knew that not even Sam could achieve that.

For the previous forty minutes, as the thoughts had whirled at top speed on the roller-coaster track inside my head, I had closed my eyes to protect anything that was worrying me from showing. I knew that Sam had always, from the moment we met, had a knack for looking into my eyes and seeing my worries, and I didn’t want to spoil our moment by letting anything bubble to the surface.

As I drifted into a light sleep, Bill was there once more, invading my mind, taking up the space he had no right to take. I needed so desperately to expunge him from me,
so that at least he could do no more harm. But getting him out of my head and far away from me was a tricky manoeuvre, and one that on my own I knew I would never achieve.

I woke about an hour later, feeling sleepier than I had before I actually fell asleep. Sam was still at my side reading a book. I loved Sam so much that my insides hurt. I was so blessed to have him. I couldn’t believe it was Sunday again already – the rest of the week had sped past at record-breaking speed, and I couldn’t recall the last few days. Everything was lost in a memory blur.

My ‘monster’ was working overtime inside my head, and the memories were becoming harder to ignore. I wanted to fall asleep and wake up to find that my dreams and the consequences that had been unfolding within them had only ever been one vicious terrifying nightmare…