The wind blows the last remaining autumn leaves off the trees. Soon it’s my birthday, then Christmas. And so on and on, and I have only one thought in my head: To get away.
Later that day I send the children to their dad, pack a bag and head for the BR station. It’s still raining and the train is delayed. I head to the bus stop and board a bus. Soon we are stuck in a traffic jam. Half an hour later we finally arrive at the tube station
I have to change at Bank, but Bank station is closed due to a security alert. I want to scream. It is rather late now and the rush hour has started. Masses of people try boarding the train at the next stop. I squeeze myself out of the exit and fight my way past the crowds. Outside now it’s pouring. I head towards the next pub.
The Eagle and Crown is totally deserted. Two old men are leaning at the bar in states of progressive stupor. I order a pint and gasp at the price. Three pounds and thirty, my grandmother wept! Grimly I pay and make for a corner table. There I sit down for exactly a minute. In this minute the lager just disappears down my throat. Do I feel better? I don’t know. Not really. Ha ha. What am I going to do now?
I have another pint in another pub. This one is a little more cheerful; music is playing from an old fashioned jukebox. Some geezer in a bad fitting black suit approaches me. “ Are you on your own?” “No,” I snarl through clenched teeth, “My husband is watching from opposite the road”. Time to finish that drink too, quickly. It’s only a quarter to six, too early to travel. I start off walking down the strand without a clue.
I feel wet and sticky between my legs and suddenly it hits me that the time of the month is upon me again, and I still haven’t got any tampons. And I’m in the West End that means there are only expensive tampons available. A wail escapes my throat. There: a Tesco 24 hour store. I dash inside and find that there is not enough cash in my pocket. I am exactly 50 pee short. I hand over my debit card and am informed that the bank won’t authorise my payment. At that moment I just want to die. Some nice woman next to me sees my dilemma and puts a pound into my hand. I race to the public toilets. While I queue up I can feel blood running down my legs. My trousers are gonners. I’m not going anywhere today. There is no loo paper in my cubicle and I fumble through my pockets and find only a very old crumpled and hard tissue. I zip up with bloody hands and leave blood marks over my front.
I step out and trip over an abandoned empty bottle. I grab the bottle, get up and hurl it away from me. It collides with a shop window, smashing it.
At the police station I try to explain my day but the male officer just sneers at me and puts me in a cell for being drunk and disorderly. Although I’m not drunk but I wish I was. I spend my evening miserable on my own, weeping. The next morning I am being charged with both drunkenness and criminal damage. Here goes my future.
I am not going back home after all, bloody clothes or not. I use my credit card and squeeze the last pennies available to me out of my credit account then I get on a bus and then on a train and later I arrive in Devon where my friend Cat lives. I try to call her but only get her answering service. But when I get there she is at home. She’s being in bed, depressed.
“It’s so boring here,” she complains. “I was actually thinking of coming to visit you in London.”
I
groan and sink into an Easy chair. “Don’t tell me you have already
bought a ticket,”
“Of course, just this morning, I want to go tomorrow”.
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