Parallel Lives

I do love a good start to a morning when the teenager in your life just grunts at you and dismisses you as one of the low life’s in their life that have to be tolerated. I stand slightly amused by the angst of teenagisum. Their new place in the world is uncomfortable, building into a fever pitch of anger the perpetrator unsure to why this boiling feeling is erupting, so it must be mums fault.

Lost books and fights with hair, just too much to keep hold of her sanity finally it all fell in tears and then came the frustration stage of self pity. I breathe a calming intake of patience and we make it to the car. I wanted to hug her but was afraid of the prickles that had been sharpened on that self pity. Henry shouted his love for her as she made her way to school and as she turned and smiled her humanity came back and sunshine hit her face. We seized our opportunity and ran, Henry needed a hug and so did I.

All the balance of life came back and we made it to the playground to line up. Just as I was getting a grasp on the day Henry got knocked over and ripped his trousers. He began to scream for England with the enthusiasm of an Olympic hopeful. He hates wearing other people’s clothes so it wasn’t very helpful when the Teachers Assistant came striding over and with authority told Henry, he will have to go and find a pair out of the spare clothes box. Henry’s horrified expression brought out the mother in me and I stared at the TA in that universal motherly way and she backed off. Luckily I had a couple of pairs of trousers I was bringing to the school that were getting a little small for Henry so disaster was averted and he went in, being kissed by his latest girlfriends.

My day carried on in this vein and by pickup time I was in no mood to think what I should cook for the evening meal so hurrying off to the supermarket to pick out what we fancied, I braced myself for the arguments it was about to cause. But to my astonishment they were talking, chatting, laughing and agreeing what they would have to eat. A flood of friends and acquaintances stopped and chatted and by checkout I was refreshed from my topsy tervy day.

The children had loaded everything onto the conveyer belt and I noticed the few additions, they looked at me pleading with those eyes that pull at your heart and taking full advantage of my momentary weakness, Henry ran off to get desert. Sophie’s eyes danced at mine and she offered to go and see what he wanted and not to worry she would make sure it didn’t cost too much.

Absentmindedly I looked up along the rows of shoppers unloading their trolleys and loading their bags with the rhythm that it causes, when I noticed a face looking back at me. Instantly I coloured at the intent gaze I was receiving and I knew I should know the face but could not place it.

Time stood in limbo as my mind filtered my history the assistant chatted as I searched my memory banks for the place or name the face belonged to but I just couldn’t place it. I paid for the shopping and turned to leave perturbed by the stare that followed me. Against my will I looked up and met those eyes that looked intently and instantly it dragged my memory to a parallel universe of my life. Two lives that once had been so close and that shared so much together now live totally separately. I looked across at what could have been my destiny. I never really understood why our marriage failed.

As the children come over Henry asks if he has to take back desert beings I had finished paying for the shopping. I smile down at the little fellow and I give him some money to go on self service. Forgetting the edge of frayed younger me that man had caused I brought myself back to my parallel universe, my now reality. Skipping and dancing Henry went with the money and with his sisters help paid and picked up the change running back to me with his accomplishment.

I could feel those eyes follow our every move, unnerved I checked my appearance in the window, not a great look when meeting your ex. But as we tumbled out of the store I had forgotten the other me that other life and we danced and smiled as sweets were held aloft and shopping bundled in the car. The children settled in their seats reading their magazines as I took the trolley back, thinking of the wine I had waiting nicely chilled and the book that I promised I would make time for. Friday night was going to be my night when an old gentleman pushed his trolley into my ankle that then hit the screw that impaled my leg onto the side of the trolley shelter.

His strength my flesh that impact. I stood there leg suspended on a two inch piece of metal wondering what I should do, feeling slightly sick. Children, dogs, book wine came tumbling down on me and the tears began to fall a small but significant ‘bugger’ left my lips and danced on the chilly Christmas air just as the charity organ began to play ‘We Wish You A Merry Christmas’.

A deep and hefty sigh mingled with my resolve and when I looked up to the voice that had indignation and asked me none too politely to move.

‘I can’t you have just clamped my leg to the screw’

Sore the blood bubbled, popped and spilled down my leg. I hadn’t eaten all day and I began to swoon. I’m a bit of “a woose” when it comes to blood anyhow. A face older than I remembered and sadder in the eyes, looked attentively into mine. So there I was impaled as our parallel lives collided into one again. A vortex of emotions flashbacks of happenings that had been my reality but felt like a whole different universe now and unrecognizable to the life I now lead.

As he held my leg gently he organised someone to ring for an ambulance, I could hear his voice, calming, gentle not like it was the last rime I heard it. I looked around at the bubbled and floating faces and found a friend who immediately came to my side. Our eyes locked helping me to focus on my reality pushing the fuzzy mixture of thought and wondering away.

‘Carol could you take the children and ice-cream out of the car and keep them safe?’

‘Will do’ she smiled ‘I’ll keep the ice-cream and the children safe.’ She quickly scanned the scene assessing and taking in what needed to be done with her efficient and caring way that comes so easily to her.

‘I’ll ring David and he can pick them up and I’ll come with you.’ We could hear the siren and she made her way to the children so they wouldn’t panic.

Ian looked at me and the years fell away crossing the parallels making one life sphere. Time, space, life, how strange it all is I thought as the paramedic pumped me full of pain relief that gave my mind more clouds of fluffy haze. They had me wrapped up and seated in their stretcher thing before I realised that my foot was free. My mouth muscles refused to work and I had to think how to speak as Henry asked what was happening. A picture of his worried face freeze framed. He had seen this scene before when his dad had died of a heart attack not even a year ago.

‘Henry they gave me wibbly wobbly medicine so they could take my foot off’ He screamed

‘Off the wire silly’ Sophie explained

‘You look like daddy, mummy’ my stomach lurched.

‘She’s just had an accident Henry; I promise she’ll be fine now. Let the paramedics take her so they can x-ray her foot then she can have a plaster on like the one they put on Izzy. Then she can come home’ Carol explained while holding his hand.

‘What to day?’

‘Maybe tomorrow, that means you will have to have a sleep over with Izzy. That revived him and his worry melted away into an excited adventure (he had never had a sleep over).

Sophie weakly smiled across at me not daring to come for a hug as she knew I would break down and cry. Ian went over to her and they talked. She nodded several times and looked down at me, wide eyed and sympathetic and blew me a kiss and then Carol took the children away so their backs were turned as they put me into the ambulance.

Slight panic (which was all I could muster with the drugs they had given me) as I realised I was on my own when Ian jumped into the ambulance too. I didn’t know which was the worst, being on my own or joined by the ex-husband of fifteen years ago that had never met his daughter and didn’t know she existed. My life was a bit of a shit really.

After all the kafuffle of x-rays doctors and such a splint was put on until the swelling had gone down and a more permanent plaster could be applied. The screw had chipped the bone a little and because it was on the Lateral Malleolus (the sticky out bit of the outside of my ankle) no weight could be put on it as the screw had acted a little like a chisel.

Like I said- my life is a little bit of a shit! A week till Christmas and the kids presents to buy and I’m going to be stuck in plaster. Now I was being held captive by my ex-husband who promptly took me to his home. He now lived five miles from my house. He had sussed that Sophie was his; hardly surprising as she resembled me very little and was a dead ringer for Ian’s little Sister and his mother.

He sat me down in his comfy sofa and elevated my leg as advised by the doctors and asked if I would like a coffee, beings I could not drink with the pain killers  I accepted but felt that I could have done with a little balmy juice and thought of the wine chilling in my fridge. Forlorn I looked around and on a wall a collage of faces hung prominent and proud taking up most of the wall with a beautiful frame of glass and enamel. Before I could focus on it more Ian strode in with coffee for me and a whisky and coffee for him. Like I keep saying, my life is Shit! I could have done with that whisky!

He talked after he downed the whisky giving me time to collect my thoughts and I was grateful of it. He slowly took me through his life and explained about the picture that had won many awards and many commissions for his work. He was and always had been an exceptional photographer.

All the women he had ever had a relationship with were versions of me not just in looks but in likes and thinking. Was he trying on every version of myself until he found the combination that he enjoyed…… liked……. Needed……..Loved? He still hadn’t found her his eyes were too sad for that to be true. As I looked through all the pictures it was amazing how different and yet almost the same people can look. We had been consumed by this idea when young and in-love. The idea that we are not as unique as we like to think our selves that there are copies of us all over the world or the universe. This idea wrapped around us, consumed us and in the end destroyed us. I had found him in bed, in our perfect home with one such look alike.

Those raw feelings floated around me but didn’t get inside me as they once had. They glided over my skin prickled the surface then abated. He was as gently as he possible could have been under the circumstances, trying to explain his behaviour that night. It was all so insignificant to me, what had been had been what it had ment to me no longer was and his life no longer my concern. Why he thought it was, dumbfounded me a little. But it gave me time to think through the ramifications for Sophie and the knock on effect for Henry. Sophie was intelligent and articulate and knew the truth as I had lived it and saw it. I’m not sure he would survive her altercations on the subject. Her debating and confrontation technique had me running for shelter and I was use to her barrage of self-truths. His reasoning of his search for his art would be used against him and knowing that soon the meeting I most feared was upon me I was not going to give him any shield to protect himself with or advice to help him through it.

He then broached the subject of Sophie and why I had not told him about her. With my eyebrows raised in disbelief I reminded him of the day I walked in our home and immediately knew something was wrong. I spared him no detail that his mind had forgotten. I took him through the events through my eyes and thoughts. How I grappled with the deceit from the one person who I thought I could trust and how the word love had become a farce for me.

To his credit he listened with intent and never interrupted, focusing on his hands rubbing his wedding ring that he still wore on his tallest finger on his right hand. When asked I told him what had happened when I went to see his mother when I found out I was pregnant to let her know and to find out where he had gone. How, before I could broach the subject she had explained it was all for the best our break up and never gave me time to explain the true reason for my visit. How after that day of immense hurt I decided they had given up all rights of knowing Sophie. I thought I had been loved as a member of their family and found out that I had only been tolerated. His face was bleak and ashen with the other side of events he had never contemplated before of hurts never imagined. And as I looked down at my vibrating phone the message came ‘on my way x’

I knew he would eventually ask to see her and I didn’t want a preconceived meeting with time to make the best impression for her. He looked at my hand then on to my mobile and then at me.

‘Did you need to ring them to tell them how it went?’

‘I’ve text already, they know!’

Noises and laughter outside the back door as it was flung open I could hear bags of shopping and for the first time considered if he was living with someone, had children. Women’s voices came out to greet him and he strode out to meet them.

I looked around the house, a women’s influence danced around but was not in-control. Again it was spookily similar to my tastes. Of all the people I though who would walk into the room I was not prepared for his mum and his sister. His sister was beaming and came over and sat next to me and I could not get over the similarity of my little girl staring back at me as a grown woman. Then as I looked up the grown woman turned into a pensioners face. To say it freaked me out was a little of an understatement and just as I caught my breath a knock at the door announced the arrival of Sophie. Oh this was going to be fun!

Tilly Moments: Health and Safety in the Writing Room

Tilly Moments: Health and Safety in the Writing Room: I should come with a health warning. I contemplate this as I look out of the office window and consider my predicament while trying to focus...

Health and Safety in the Writing Room

I should come with a health warning. I contemplate this as I look out of the office window and consider my predicament while trying to focus. Taking in the ramifications of such an innocent manoeuvre, I’m astounded at the damage that I've caused. All I did was pivot on my seat while trying to roll closer to the bin and lean; that was the fatal error, I leant between the spokes at the bottom of my office chair.

The fall was in slow motion but the ‘shit, shit, bugger, bugger’ was in rapid fire. I bumped my head on the way down on the corner of the small metal filing cabinet. One arm is now in the broken plastic wastepaper bin, where I had thrown the troublesome short story. I had fallen on a stacked pile of box files that had crumpled under my weight. The irksome chair spindle with its rotating wheel had trapped itself on the desk I was sitting at and the angle of the seat made it impossible for me to move. The arm of the chair dug deep into my rib cadge and the only thing I could think of was how ugly my legs were! They’re like ham hocks, I thought.

With every move I tried to make, came more pain and clearly I’m in shock as silly thoughts whizzed around my dizzy head. It had been a long-long time since I had a fall. Now I understand why old people get so anxious about being unsteady, it is undignified, painful and as you get older and less agile, slower to recover. My husband and I share the office space and his desk was trapping me by the draw I had opened to take the paper out to load in the printer. So I turned to the left and even though my face was being squashed into the box files and my ribcage complained, I wriggled to try to get a grip of anything. My head was down my bum was taking flight and my little legs were scrabbling to get a grip but to no avail, they spluttered and I collapsed.  A quick round of expletive fire shot from my mouth, muffled by the paper debris spread underneath me on the floor.

I now found that the chair was wedging me against the velux window on the sloping ceiling and as looked out the blackbird looked in, with bemusement or pity I couldn’t really tell. But enough resolve surged through me and like the Hulk I emerged from the fragments of my novels.  Triumphant I went to have a coffee, nursing my several bruises, scrapes and aches.

I do suffer for my art!

My husband's reaction to this was 'Oh you fell of the chair then! Why didn't you just put that.'

Perhaps I should've, who really wants to know about my antics?

Password security on the internet?

I am a forty something mother of three and one of your constituents. I use facebook and so do my kids. We look at each others facebook and enjoy the fun side but give each other enough respect not to interfere with how it is used. I am banned from commenting on their facebooks. And although everyone tells me that kids these days know everything about the internet, I know this not to be true, no one can and you can only catch up with hackers not run in-front of them and stop their sick games.
Hackers can get onto your facebook and much more if you use the same password for everything or use a simple one. These days you need a secure place to keep your passwords but how can you be sure the sites that advertise these facilities are safe and why are our schools not teaching our children this very basic safety issue as a general piece of information, we teach our children to cross the roads to keep them safe why not the basics of internet saftey?

When the person who sets up the facebook account has died a hacker has been going around putting unsavoury pictures and comments on. The police are unable to help and facbook needs its members to act, which is not easy to do if you have been shocked or unable to respond. This problem would not arise if all internet users were aware of the simple steps it takes to protect their social networks. Government are increasingly making us use the internet to fill out forms, Vat and passports to name a few things we are encouraged to do on line. We need a gold badge standard of safe sites that we can promote on our social network, which will remind us to do the same in every interaction with the internet. Scams are making a lot of money out of us.

A girl in our town died this week in-front of her friends and ever since her facebook has had tributes and a hacker from Canada put a picture of a girl with her face missing on facebook.  Children and parents all over the network have been affected by this as the facebook principle is to share.
I know there are sick people and the internet enables them to infiltrate our moments and space on this wonderful technology but it does not have to be this way, with careful planning and with the right knowledge. I want to teach my children and myself how to take control. The problem is who do I trust? How do I know how to trust on the internet? How can I look safely for the needle of information in the haystack of technology?

Schools use this technology but on the whole do not know how to simply protect themselves let alone be able to converse with their students about internet security. We teach our children to cross the roads safely, why do we not tech them how to take simple steps to control their space on the internet.