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Mental Health
[ 6 minute read ]
I once lived in a bedsit. The other bedsit residents and I got on really well. One of them was a lovely twenty-one year old woman who lost her care job because she kept using the office telephone to phone her boyfriend. She turned to luring men into thinking she would have sex for money, and got the money up front and then ran away. She did this to pay her rent for her bed-sit. I was earning more money than I needed from the job I had, but I managed to spend it all anyway. One day, she told me that she would actually go through with the deal she made with the next man who paid. She stole a bottle of Archers and got drunk. Instead of just going out when she had drank her drink, she came to my room. She told me she was going. Then she left. I let her go, and it will haunt me for the rest of my days. I hope I never forgive myself for that. I was selfish and mean, and I let her go. Days later, she stole the wardrobe from her bed-sit and never came back. I let her go a second time. I am so sorry, Emma.
Some time ago, I was on a writing course and our task was to describe someone else by answering certain questions, such as 'What makes this person happy?' and 'What makes this person sad?' There were more questions asked than I had alpha-numeric character space for, so I made two posts on that course into a forum.
However, I decided that I would 'show' two more characters by having them describe the character. I chose the character's partner in Victorian East end of London, and her mother. The description of the character is entirely speech from these two other characters, who are not directly described themselves, so their own speech pattern and use of language describes them, which I hoped would add to the background of the person they are describing.
The third piece here is my post on the same course in response to, 'Describe somewhere where you like to write', I think. I find it difficult to just answer questions in a straightforward way because my mind fizzes with possibilities, so I wrote about someone else's place to write. I used a technique that cinematographers used to use for the opening shots in films. I started from the outside and zoomed through a broken window into a building. This, I hoped would convey the setting in which the little scene took place.
Stitched together, we can get a sense of the downfall of a person from a good position to poverty, (bathos). What remains in the character is that she hopes to get out of her predicament by writing. Of course, in Victorian times she would never be published as a woman, but she still hoped to be, one day.
This little start of a story has appeared in one of my earlier posts. I added into the little story a music-box to tie all the three pieces together.
She doubts herself
"She doubts herself at times but then once she seems to get it together she just can't help letting you know. Mind you, she is very capable. The funny thing is though, for someone so small she can't 'arf make a big mess when she's angry...lot of tidying up to do afterwards. She's a tornado. Funnily enough, that's what makes her 'appy; tidying up, I mean. And that's what she does when she is happy, she sings; and she dances around her broom, and pulls faces into puddles of spilt water and fallen spoons. I came into the kitchen once when she didn't know. Singing away she was. Blimey! You've never seen anything like it. Frozen, she was. Solid. White. Scared witless. Then she kind of deflated, like a balloon. From a block of ice to a candle held too close to a fire. Melted, she did, right down to the floor. I laughed and laughed. I couldn't help it. I'd come home early from the pub. She couldn't work out why. Thought she had done something wrong. So, she rises again, all pitiful and about to cry but holding it in, like. Then she sits, all crumpled up with her head in her hands. I could see she was sobbing, quiet like. I couldn't understand it - she knows she's my bit 'o jam."
"Quite frankly, I cannot fathom why she is with him. He won't marry her. As her mother, I was always the one she came to, but now its him. She's stuck to him like a limpet. All I did was care for her and show kindness, but him.....it's hot and cold with him. I suppose its the making-up. You know, the contrast. He bought her a music box. It doesn't even play anymore, but she winds it anyway and goes off in a dream. She's completely forgotten he over-wound it and that she cried for weeks; more than when her animals died in the fire. She can't stand cruelty - unless it comes from him!
We went to the sea-side last week, she and I. She absolutely loved the Punch and Judy. I honestly thought she might die from laughing. But she can be quite embarrassing. One of the donkeys was in the sea and....passed wind. She pointed at it and shouted 'Ooh Look! Bubbles'. Helpless, she was. I had to walk away from her; quite embarrassing. Tut!
Sometimes, she looks so sad. I asked her one day, "What's wrong, Darling?". She didn't want to tell me. She just looked at me. "Mother, I am scared he might leave me one day." It reminded me of when our gaslights went out at home, and I found her in the dark."
****************
Among the crowd and the cries of the hawkers; where the pickpockets struck, a horse-drawn tram came to a faltering stop. From the rear, into acrid gas-lit fog two men in black capes stepped down. They paused and briefly looked about them, then moved towards a grimy two-storey building. The crowd parted. From an upstairs broken window came porcine grunts. Inside, coins changed hands, but always the shame remained in the smaller body. A clatter of clumsy footsteps retreated down the stairs, paused, as an obsequious greeting was muttered, and then resumed. The two men stepped into the room causing the pale woman to flinch and draw back. Her mouth formed a silent 'o'. She had a pen in her hand, torn paper, ink, a music box, and a single flickering candle before her on a tiny, rickety table. Her belly, once swollen, lay slack from recent childbirth. A flea jumped from her washed-out blue shawl to her hair.
'Mary, we have come to take you home.' she heard.
She glanced into the shadows at her baby and a tear formed in her eye.
-end-
The last sentence in the scene was never written in my writing exercise. The story could have gone a number of ways, including arrest by two constables. I chose for her to be forgiven and rescued.
The flea jumping allows a pause in movement in the rest of the grimy room.
Further editing would vastly improve the whole of it.
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