Millie's scar

Chapter One

’Will others cry when I die?’ Millie asked.

’Is that what this was about?’ he bent to sharpen his pencil over the napkin, raising his eyebrows, frowning and inclined his head.

’Probably. Why do you care? Besides, you are still young for such thoughts.’

’I just want to know, it’s important to me.’

’Probably some of them will cry, and others won’t, it will depend’ - he said, continuing to work intently on thе already deadly point of the pencil.

’It depends on what?’ she asked.

’On a lot of things,’ he left the pencil and the knife, leaned back and continued, glancing at her, then letting his gaze drift to the window.

’Whether there is someone to cry for you, whether you are young or old, whether you are beautiful or ugly, whether ....’

’Wait, ugly? What difference does that make?’

’Oh, it does, believe me! People tend to cry more for the beautiful ones.’

Millie was startled, and she opened her eyes, her heart racing. Even with the first ray of light that found her eyes, she felt the crushing weight in her chest. The events of the last few days passed through her mind like flashes of grim paintings, and the tears welled again in her eyes.

She didn’t want to see anyone and hear anything, she wanted to fall asleep again and to stop thinking. It would be best if she could simply press a button, turn herself off. Immediately and forever. Her life was a morass of suffering and she did not want to live it anymore. Everything was about Bella, the faces and voices of everyone around her, the conversations and meetings that were taking place, all of which added to her loss. Bella had been the closest person to her, who understood her intimately and loved her unconditionally, now she was gone and nothing could change that.

Millie got up, switched the kettle on and began mechanically preparing her coffee. She was currently surviving on caffeine and cigarettes. She went out onto the terrace and lit up. On top of everything else it was raining. It was as if God were mourning too.

Ten minutes later she locked the door and left her apartment. She left herself little time in the morning wishing to sleep as long as possible. On her way to the bus stop, smoking her second cigarette, she looked at the two trees on which she had placed her obituaries. For the first time since Bella’s death it was raining. A rain drops had blurred a wide path the length of the first obituary, and the second was completely soaked. This made her feel even more depressed. Thoughts popped into her mind about the fresh wet grave, with Bella in it.

She stood at the bus stop absently looking in the direction from where the bus came, her thoughts always with Bella. They had found this apartment when they had to move out of their old one at short notice. Their former landlord, was presented with an order by the local authority to upgrade the gas installation, so they had to leave for a month. This new apartment became available at just the right time, at a more affordable price, and with more convenient transport links for both of them.

The bus was passing through wet streets, and Millie stared at the gray landscape out of the window while listening to the radio on her phone and thinking it would be better to just stop breathing and for everything to be over. She had given all of Bella’s personal belongings to her mother, but she had missed a jacket, buried deep in the wardrobe. When she found it, she moved it to a front hanger so that she could give it back to her mother the next weekend. However, every time she glanced at it, it startled her, inflicting the pain of loss anew. The pain was like lightning, a devastating feeling, killing everything it passed through.

She thought she would someday regret not keeping at least something of Bellas, such as the mirror she always carried in her pocket, but she felt she could not endure it anymore. Everything of Bella’s that she saw was killing her. She sensed that if she wanted to survive, she had to cleanse herself of all memories, to leave this apartment and even this city. Not only was she not happy here anymore, but she also knew for sure that for her, happiness had left that place irrevocably and nothing, and no one could return it.

During the day she avoided going out with her colleagues for a cigarette because conversation always turned to Bella, especially if Millie was there. And even if they did not raise the subject, their eyes held such sympathy, Millie couldn’t bear it. They would not have known Bella, but for a temporary position in the office that had become available the previous year. The part-time post meant she could attend lectures and earn at the same time, and: “Most importantly, my dear Millie, I will be closer to you!” - Bella said, hugging her hard. Thus, Millie made the introductions and Bella, having charmed everyone at her interview, took the temporary position. The memory brought tears to Millie’s eyes, she puffed the cigarette several times more and went inside.

The next day around noon, while Millie was in the office, Bella’s brother called.

’Hello Millie how are you? I just wanted to tell you that the court concluded that Bella’s death was accidental. The incident was because of a ridiculous set of circumstances following damage to a section of road and no one is to be held responsible.

"Dear God," – thought Millie, - “to die at the age of 22, a young woman, with her whole life ahead of her, because of a bump on the road!”

They spoke briefly, and Millie hung up.

On the day of the crash, Bella had just missed a bus home, and she had decided to share a taxi with a female colleague. Shortly after they set off, a car blew a tyre, one lane away from them. The seventy-four-year-old woman in the middle lane was startled by the noise and pulled her car to the left. The taxi driver who was driving Bella did the same, in an attempt to avoid the crash but failed. The old woman’s car hit him, the taxi turned over, landing on it’s side, dragging sideways along the carriageway until it was stopped by a pillar. Not a spectacular accident, but fatal for Bella. Broken collarbone, jaw, brain trauma, induced coma and after four days - death. Death at 22. Millie closed her eyes, grabbed her head and hid behind the monitor as her tears fell again.

6 Months Later

“You don’t understand, I don’t want to hear this, just stop talking! You have no right to speak at all! You have not given me a fraction of the love she gave me,” Millie was shouting to her mother. Her face was red and puffy from tears.

“I am not saying anything wrong, it’s just that the girl died, you must get over it, may God rest her soul, and move on,” her mother replied.

“I’m telling you to shut up! You talk about her as if she’s a stranger, you’re disrespecting her - do you understand? She’s not just someone who’s dead, she’s Bella!” - Millie fled the room, trembling with rage.

She washed her face, cooling her hot, red eyes and stared at herself in the mirror, trying to regain her calm. Her mother had trivialised Bella’s death several times, saying, “Well, she died, what is there to do?” This was making Millie very mad. Her mother had no right to speak like that, she was insulting Bella’s memory and what she had meant to Millie. But her mother persisted, even though she saw it was hurting Millie.

The evening went by silently, and soon both of them went to bed, but Millie’s mind was racing. For the past six months, hectic midnight thoughts did not give her peace. Her mind was churning until the morning hours, and it was exhausting her, her head started hurting her, and she could no longer remember the last time she didn’t have a headache. This was Millie’s most difficult year so far. Two months after Bella’s death, she found a small loft on Mill Street. Once it was a two-storey house, later converted into two flats and a loft for rent. Millie did not care what it was, she just wanted to get out of the apartment - it was unbearable for her to stay there. Though she knew that Bella would not return, she was expecting her at any moment. They had lived together only for a little over a year, and they were already making plans to live together for at least another 5 years. Both were single, and neither in a hurry to be in a relationship. They were young, Millie was four years older than Bella, and life was just beginning for them. They enjoyed partying, clubbing, socialising with their friends, and flirting with random boys. They shared their experiences and played make-believe for their future, whether as friends, or why not as relatives? They fantasized about meeting brothers, and marrying them so they would be sisters, or that whoever married first would invite the other to be her maid of honor. Sometimes they even fell asleep together on the sofa in the living room or in Millie’s bedroom. Bella could sleep through anything, and often when they were watching a movie, Millie would find Bella sleeping beside her. For the two months after her death, Bella was an everpresent ghost in the apartment. Millie felt a desperate need to see her, and so she constantly imagined her. She even missed the things about Bella that irritated her, her habitual tardiness and ability to mess up the whole apartment in under three minutes, It got so bad that one day Millie just packed her belongings and took them to the office. She didn’t have much - a suitcase, a backpack and two shopping bags from M&S. She had decided that if she did not find a place to sleep by the end of the day, she would return to the apartment, but without the stuff. The mere act of removing her belongings brought a sense of relief. Even if she was sleeping there, she felt this chapter of her life was closed, she had physically removed herself, and it was only a matter of time before a new one began.

By the end of the day she had found the loft, but the earliest she could move in was a weeks time, so she went to sleep at Daniel’s place for a few days. He lived in a large student house where there was almost always a free room, because of the frequent comings and goings. In this case, it was Daniel himself, as he was doing an internship in Northampton. Daniel had been Bella’s last boyfriend and was also grieving for her. Had the two of them brought their suffering together it would have been too much for them to bear. But this scenario was perfect for Millie, and she moved into Daniel’s room without fuss.

Within a week, Millie moved to the new apartment, which was even closer to her work. She slowly accepted the new place as her home. The Connelly family lived on the ground floor, a husband and wife in their mid 40’s, their daughter was studying at Cambridge. The one-room apartment beneath the loft was available and there was Hampton’s To Let sign in front of the house. Millie would hear potential tenants coming in to look around now and then. Finally, a guy called Erik rented it. He was young, about Millie’s age, and athletic. He had a very expensive bicycle, which he did not appear to ride. As soon as he moved in, he parked the bike in the small space in front of the door, and sometimes Millie had difficulty getting to her room if she was carrying more than one bag. Since childhood, she had developed her own understanding regarding neighbours. They were like relatives. You cannot choose them, but at least you can ignore them.

At school, they were brainwashed from very young with an idealistic vision of a united society, diligently keeping the peace. Millie would have believed in these values, if not for the dreadful signs stuck to the lamp posts of every self-respecting English street. They used to say: “Neighbourhood Watch,” and above the sign were depicted several people who were laughing ominously, worthy of film from Steven King. She was left in no doubt as to the trouble that could befall someone as a result of observant neighbours. That’s why she had become cynical at a very young age about the friendliness of neighbours and with a broad, friendly smile, and without waiting for conversation, she would continue on her way.

So it appeared she lived at peace in her new apartment, but her sadness refused to leave her.

She very gradually began to lose herself, failing to control angry outbursts and being plagued by deeply depressive thoughts. Several times she went out with her old friends, but they had already begun to break apart as a group. No Bella, no group. The lack of female company was isolating her and at the last two meetings she drank too much and became unhinged, screaming and crying and inadvertently insulting those who tried to comfort her. They in turn began avoiding her.

There were also changes in Millie’s work. The company she worked for, ”Excel Package Services" or “EPS”, with a staff of 160 people, was bought out by a company called “Fly”, and much of the management team was replaced. Working methods, clients, and work patterns all changed, as did Millie’s manager. In her place was appointed an odious, lazy, middle-aged, relic who expected his staff to carry him. This was another serious blow to Millie. Her job was fairly monotonous and dull, but the office was friendly, and it was a convenient place to make money. Millie could think about whatever she wanted. About men, about parties, about fun, and lately about her grief at losing Bella. She had never had any issue with her hours, working 8am until 4pm left her plenty of free time to enjoy living in a metropolis like London. Her new manager, Bob Mason, created a two shift pattern. Each staff member was required to work from 6.30am to 3.30pm and from 1.30pm to 10.30pm. Both shifts had a half-hour break and two 10-minute breaks. He also made it clear that he would watch closely to see whether they were being adhered to. He also hinted that redundancies might happen in the future and everyone needed to be on their best behaviour.

Millie felt as if everything was going against her, if it wasn’t one thing going wrong it was another. It was as if life had decided to give her a wake-up call “You’ve been living in a dream, from now on, real life begins”

She felt so alone, with no friends, no relatives, no desire to continue living. It felt a very long time since she had anything to smile about. She had insomnia which meant she suffered from a headache all day long. When she felt things couldn’t get any worse, her mother appeared. After suffering from severe abdominal pain for a while, her GP had referred her to a Consultant Gastroenterologist at Charing Cross Hospital. At first it was just for one consultation, but then it turned into a second and a third. After which followed several laparoscopies to try and identify why she was experiencing so much pain. Her visits were much more frequent than Millie wanted them to be. She said she wanted to stay with Millie to spend more time with her, but the truth was that her second husband was not giving her money again. She would take the money from her salary, set aside some for food and bills, and she would drink away the rest. She couldn’t forget her childhood and how cruel and unjust her parents had been to her, and how she couldn’t wait to leave them when she turned 18. Loyalty meant she had to offer her mother a place to stay while she was in London. Millie kept quiet, hoping that soon the examinations and operations would be over, and her mother would go home to her failed marriage in Bath. But she couldn’t stay silent when her mother spoke so disparagingly about her Bella. Her mother didn’t understand her daughter’s relationship with Bella. She had never felt such a strong love for anyone, much less for a friend.

In the morning her mother prepared breakfast and waited for Millie to wake up. It was a Saturday, and Millie had warned her that because of her shift, she needed to sleep. By the time Millie awoke at 11.00am, her mother had packed her bags and left them by the door. She waited quietly while Millie ate her breakfast, then asked her: “Will you come with me to the station, Millie? You don’t have to, I can go by myself. You may not want to come after last night’s conversation, it’s clear you have little respect for me.”

Millie looked at her, took a deep breath, rolled her eyes in annoyance, and decided that all this was too much for her.

“Listen, mother”- she said. “I don’t understand why you’re so insulted. Can you remember the last time you hugged me? When was the last time you asked me how I am? Do you remember?!” Millie was gaining momentum.

“You don’t remember, do you? Because it’s never happened, mother!” The daughter pointed out and went on. “And Bella? Bella hugged me every day. Every day she told me that she loved me and treated me like a sister!”

Millie grew silent, got up, took her cigarettes and lit one. She took a long drag on the cigarette and continued: “You know what, just go. You don’t need me anymore. The operations are over, I am of no use to you anymore, am I?” She looked at her mother, who was calmly putting on her shoes.

“Say it, mum, say it, at least once, just be honest!”

Her mother turned to her:

“Yes, Millie, you’re right, I was not a good mother, but you don’t know how hard it was for me to raise you...”.

“Оh, please, here we go again” – Millie said, and waved her hand, as a sign for her mother to leave.

“But you know what, Millie,” her mother tried to justify herself, “you were always a burden. With your bad temper, your dark moods, I never felt like I had a daughter. More exactly, I felt like..”. She paused, then bent down, took her bags and left.