Chapter 1
My Mother is in hospital, and I mind the shop and the kids. I have been threatening to leave as the pressure was too much. I, a mere girl, had had enough.
Always tired. I am always so tiresome, quibbling about the time I spent, the times I wanted to feel somehow something.
Daddy and mum had gone insane. They hated each other and felt despondent they had failed to look after us. They had failed their marriage. They got on not as well. She had cheated on him.
He had on her. That made him worse that made her much more. The toxic situation made matters worse. We almost did not have a moment to think or feel.
Minding the things that matter. I was now the adult doing things like cooking cleaning and not stopping until ten or nine o'clock in the evening.
Look it is nasty behaving so well towards people who are out to rob the world of something. Us foreigners should show some respect and allow the English to do so. But this foreign family just slipped. They made waves. They asked for it all. They wanted respect.
Let me tell it, we all wanted things that the Brontes had that the world thought owed us. Our lacking of background and talent meant we did not mean it. We were going to slip and go to the bottom; my sisters said it well.
"We will show her."
"We will matter, and she will not."
You see, they did not mean well.
They had always been bullies, meaning they had to have my ambitions and stuffy nonsense as their own.
They disliked me having the dreams. They would make it happen, while I would not.
From seven till 9. I am so alright. I do nothing but feel there must be another way out. I am so entrapped.
Like chattels and stuff without the marriage or the mating.
No life. Really who needs a life when there is a pair of hands doing the cooking, the cleaning, and then we start all over again?
If the mother does not come if she dies, I will leave.
There is no time to grieve or think. The mountain of work makes it highly unlikely that one notices the time passing.
People come and leave and show some respect that the cooking is still done. I am done for.
What does a woman or a girl do when the mother leaves and the children go to school? She has no real learning to think or feel but is good at physical work. The work continued until I could have screamed with the load. I wept that it may soon stop.
No time to read anything when in there in the bedroom, just sleep. The television won't be silly if the lights do not work. Not at night. Nothing works, and then what we feel about each other changes.
"It was the happiest day of my life." Said Z.
Moments went by, and passing the time did not annoy me any less. Patient self is nothing no more. But the people in the shop in the flat were nothing but worth the salt.
"Oh, this is ridiculous." Said Jane turning round and round in her circular armchair.
I began to leave the salt, and my father left to do the basic chores. You do it; I can't.
"Shut the shop. Do not entertain them."
"Shut down the shop. There is nothing but slavery here."
"I shut the shop."
"You are a beggar." They all said, "and deserve to be made an example."
I am almost this hag. I had been working and worrying ceaselessly for the past six months.
The lights blew, the water was under pressure, the boiler needed doing, and the gas had nearly exploded. We sat in the candlelight and ate our dinner. Burnt and oily.
I went slightly insane thinking about University and doing the same stuff as everyone else.
I am sorry, mother, I am leaving.
"I am sorry?"
"Is that all you can say?"
"Yes, you are well now."
"Don't leave with that insane man."
"You married him."
"I was young and did not know back then why I married him. I made such a mistake." Mother looked like a drowned rat, then she went to her room and stayed for six weeks until her leg had to be amputated.
She went to the hospital, came back in an ambulance, then went to the bedroom, saying she could not believe it, she could not do it. Marriage disagreed with her.
"I will not be coming home; just kiss me and goodbye."
"Mother, what is it?"
"Just say goodbye."
"No,"
If I did not say goodbye, she would not disappear or die. She would come back to us. I did not say it; I did not mean to be rude. I did not speak; I did not want to say goodbye.
She continued doing that every week for five weeks, and then she went without a break, screaming and moaning all day.
"Father, we will take mother to the hospital today."
"We are working."
"Close the shop. We will take her to the hospital; otherwise, no more working."
"But we can't. She is already dead."
"What now you did it. We will take her to the hospital here. The closed sign goes on, and I am not budging. Take the car. We must move it now."
Father did as he was told, and we went to the hospital in Paddington, where we met the hospital staff. I helped with the form that said the mother had her leg taken off.
That day as I did not know why she had not told the staff or what had happened.
The ringing in my ears and the silent eardrums told me nothing. The way I wiggled around in the elevator made a madman squeeze my bottom.
But I gave him a look. He said something to his wife, and she smiled. I did nothing. I wanted to go and see mum. To say that it was okay.
What had happened was she was switched. Another amputee took her place.
She died that night. We were not there when dad went and collected a woman it was the next door, Pink. He lost the car and went to the police station. He screeched and said he was done for.
"But the mother is not dead pa."
"Isn't she?"
"No," I said. I said it sealed my fate; being an immune inhuman, I did not see hope rise in his face. He went and found the car the next day. We went by bus, then he sat, and we said she is not dead.
It lifted his spirits.
He went jointly, and the next thing I knew, he began to drink his whiskey.
"No, you will not drink here.!"
He was a lunatic when he was drunk, and it always ended in rape.
"I will drink and do what I like. This is my house."
"Leave it alone." Sighed B. " I will deal with him."
Fear gripped me. When we woke up, he sat down, grinding his teeth and making obvious cajoling sounds. He had completely gone mad?
He had lost his mind before but not to that extent.
The conviction with which I said the words, the conviction that I felt rose the spirit, and then the children sat down, and we began to plan for the future.
We must not do anything but be silly. We entered a competition and asked what we would do with the money if we won. We were all hopeful we did nothing but be hopeful.
I begot the whole idea. I begot the children, not at all. I begin to make no sense. Someone came crawling inside me, wanting me to sense and not near as they went for the sisters.
Mother screamed. She had failed. She screamed as she died. I felt her and then felt her no more. The friend who came to replace her sat down and counted the money.
"We have got nine thousand while you were out."
