Page 21 of The Day Shelley Woodhouse Woke Up
Annabelle puts an arm around me and guides me to the door. ‘See you, then,’ she says over her shoulder. I say nothing.
Back inside, we get another drink and find a quiet corner.
‘What happened?’ Annabelle asks.
‘He was just a bit handsy. And he tried to get me to go to his car for a quick shag.’
Annabelle rolls her eyes. ‘Men. Was he pushy about it?’
‘Not really. Just trying his luck, I think.’
‘Well, fuck him,’ Annabelle says, downing her drink. It must be her sixth or seventh, but we don’t count. We just weave our way home when things get too blurry and we’ve run out of cigarettes.
I don’t have another drink, though I wait until Annabelle is ready to go home. We live within a five-minute walk of each other, and we always walk home together when we’re both working. While Annabelle drinks and flirts and smokes, I think about Phil, about how it went so wrong, so fast. From him saying something nice about how I looked outside the toilets to calling me a prick tease in the car park a couple of hours later. I wonder, sometimes, if there’s something I give off, some kind of impression of being easy, or up for it. Because I want what all girls I know want. A boyfriend who is nice to me.
On the walk home, Annabelle is too drunk to walk in a straight line. She keeps taking my arm and then almost dragging me into the road. If I was just as drunk, I would find it funny. But there’s nothing like being insulted to sober you up, and I stopped drinking a good hour ago, and now I feel clear-headed and hurt. When we get to Annabelle’s street, she wraps her arms around me and both of us nearly tumble to the ground.
‘Forget about him,’ she says.
I nod, bite my lip.
‘He’s a prick.’ And with that, Annabelle turns and makes her way up her street, and I wait until she gets to her front door before walking away.
At home, I try not to make too much noise, but just as I’m walking through the kitchen, Mick says my name. I jump. The room is in total darkness, but now I can make him out, standing by the sink, a glass in his hand.
‘Where have you been, until this time?’ he asks, his voice low and dangerous.
I have learned to recognise when he’s spoiling for a fight, and this is one of those times.
‘At work,’ I say.
‘It’s one o’clock in the bloody morning. I bet you’ve been with some boy or other.’
‘I haven’t, I…’ I don’t finish. It’s better to ignore him, I remind myself. I turn away and go up the stairs. But not before I hear him speak again.
‘You’re a little slut.’
And then, unexpectedly, there is another voice, coming from the stairs, loud in the dark and quiet room.
‘No!’ It’s Granny Rose. ‘You don’t talk to her like that, you bastard. This is her home.’
‘And mine, too,’ he says, and there’s a sneer in his voice.
‘Well, it’s been hers a lot longer. Come on, Shelley. Let’s get you upstairs to bed.’
Like I did when I was a child, I let Granny Rose lead me up the stairs. On the landing, we hug, and I do not dissolve into tears, but it takes a lot of effort.
I crawl into bed without taking my makeup off or cleaning my teeth. I feel emptied out. Too tired to cry. What do they want, these men? Because in one night I have been insulted for not having sex and for having too much of it. And neither of these things are reflective of the truth. Is this how it will always be? When I talk about it with Annabelle, she insists that there are good men out there, that we will find them and marry them and have gorgeous babies, but I’m not so sure these days. Because it’s a long time since I’ve been made to feel good, or even just about okay, by a boy or a man. And there are only so many times you can be called hideous things before you start to wonder if they might be true.
13
NOW
I wake with a jerk, with my heart thumping. I’m on high alert, as if I’m in danger, and it takes me a while to locate myself. I’m in the hospital. I’m safe. It must have been a dream. I close my eyes and try to remember it, but there’s nothing to cling on to. It’s completely disappeared at the moment of waking. It’s not yet morning, the lights in the unit are still low, and the nurse who’s buzzing around nearby is Harry, my regular night nurse, so Angela hasn’t come on shift yet. I reach for my cup of water and take a long gulp, but it’s warm and doesn’t quench my thirst. Angela said that she and Fern are going to try getting me up and out of bed today, and I’m more than ready. I don’t think I’ve been as still as this, for as long as this, in my entire life. I shuffle around a bit, try to get comfortable. There’s no clock in here, and I don’t have a watch, and it could still be the middle of the night for all I know. I should try to go back to sleep; everyone keeps telling me that rest is healing. I’ve just drifted off when I wake again, and this time I remember what it was I dreamed about. Or perhaps it wasn’t a dream, but a memory.
I feel sure, suddenly, that David is out of my life. Could he be dead? It would fit with the fact that the police haven’t come, thatnobody seems to be treating what happened with any urgency. Because there’s no case to try if the accused is dead, is there? I sit with it for a few minutes, the idea of him being gone. I let it settle. It’s so hard to pinpoint what I would feel. Sadness, of course, but also relief, and hope, and worry. They’re all mixed in with one another and I can’t separate them, can’t pull at any of the threads to see what comes loose.
I must eventually settle back to sleep, because the next thing I’m aware of is Angela wrapping the blood pressure cuff around my arm and smiling at me.
