Rhiannon

I walked into the kitchen and she was there, at the table. She was wearing a check workman’s shirt, looking down with her watery eyes at the food she was eating. I said nothing, continuing to listen to Peter’s cruel description of his latest conquest. Although I didn’t dislike Claire, I didn’t mind that he was being cruel, because I thought he was cute, and if he didn’t like Claire, maybe I stood a chance. Yeah, right! I giggled as he mimicked her Yorkshire accent and made fun of her apparent masculinity (she had a motorbike, you see). After the laughter subsided, she quietly asked, “so where are you guys from?” We answered, and courteously asked, “Where are you from?”
“Yorkshire”, she replied, smiling. Peter thought this was hilarious.
I didn’t like her much at that point. I’m not sure why. Maybe it was her Middle English accent, maybe her masked aloofness; maybe the melancholy look she carried about with her.
“Call me Rita”, she offered, when I struggled with her unusual name (as an eighteen year old country bumpkin, it was unusual to me). We got to know each other. She told me about her horrible stepfather. I told her about my crush on Peter. We painted our nails together in the dining room, and moaned at the boys for their boyish ways.
She had caught my attention. The tragic victim of her mother’s second husband, she felt unwanted at home. Her father lived in Kenya, and funded her education, while the authorities took pity on the child of a breast cancer survivor, paying the maximum student benefits.
The drama of it all sucked me in.
“I would have come out to the welcome disco, but I just felt like killing myself. Tony told me I wasn’t welcome at home anymore when he dropped me off”, she confided. Later she showed me scratches on her arms, exclaiming enthusiastically that she’d done it in her sleep.
“You're not one of those people who cuts themselves, are you?” I said, half joking, half cautious.
When she finally came clean, I was triumphant. My very own messed up friend, who I would help conquer feelings of abandonment and guide her through her degree, leaving university a confidant young woman, gushing at her graduation, “I wouldn’t be alive today if it wasn’t for my friend Michelle”.
During our first year, we were inseparable. We went out together, when Rhiannon wanted to, her in clingy mini-dresses, myself in huge sacks of fabric to hide every ugly pound of flab I carried on my frame. Otherwise, we’d just stay in drinking cheap wine, eating take-away and watching TV in Peter’s room. (No, we never got together, but my infatuation for him is another story). She got together with Richard, a third year, conveniently forgetting to mention this to her boyfriend at home. She was mean to Richard, and I tried to let her see the error of her ways, convinced this was fall-out from her troubled home.
“Straight after sex, he always jumps out of bed to put on a t-shirt and boxers. It makes me feel so unattractive” she moaned.
“Maybe he’s just self-conscious about his body” I suggested, but she couldn’t be convinced. She criticised his driving all the time. Richard phoned me one night to tell me she’d jumped out of the car in tears, accusing him of being just like her stepfather. She then ran all the way home.
“What did you say to her?” I asked, appalled.
“I asked her to stop criticising my driving”, he replied, baffled.
Rhiannon’s fragility quickly became apparent. As did her disregard for the maintenance of other people’s self worth. On the night that I pulled at a local nightclub, she announced that she felt suicidal. I ended up sending my unconquered victim home in a taxi after no more than a drunken fumble. Richard was dumped the week before he took his final exams.
By the second year, myself and two friends had made the mistake of moving into a flat with her. One night Rhiannon responded to us going to the cinema without her by taking an “overdose”. She pouted and moaned when I got a job in a pub on Friday nights, dramatizing the purchase of a dress as being a waste of time because she’d never get to wear it. She didn’t think twice about accepting a similar arrangement for herself once I’d quit. Her own needs became a mountain compared to the maintenance of my own, or anyone else’s. Unfortunately for me, I was slow to notice this.
“Rhiannon’s shat on you from a great height”.
These words were a revelation to me. Until a friend pointed this out, the thought hadn’t even occurred to me. I had been manipulated out of fear of letting a friend down, when they had shown nothing but disregard for me. I felt that a weight had been lifted from me, but was still laden with guilt.
“Just cut yourself off from her”, my mum advised, but I knew there would be consequences.
“I bet if I do that, she’ll just try and kill herself or something,” I responded, but knew she was right. I was emotionally and mentally battered, and needed to escape from the control she had on me.
On my return to university, I did my best to avoid her. It was blatantly obvious. I would sneak out of the flat with my other friends, smaning as we made our escape. It sounds cruel, but it was nervous laughter. I knew there would be a backlash. However, I didn’t expect such a spectacular trump card to be played.
Rhiannon had been away for a few days – nothing unusual, especially when you consider the atmosphere that had developed in our flat – when I received a text message from her announcing that she had admitted herself into a mental institution. I was impressed by the extreme originality of it, but not wholly surprised. I was not prepared for the phone call from Kenya, though. Harry wanted to know why his little girl was in the loonie bin.
I mentioned that she aspired to a life much grander than that of the average student.
“Michelle, I give her one hundred and fifty pounds a week pocket money. Does that not sound like enough money to you?” I didn’t disagree, and decided against mentioning her student loan she had taken out without his knowing. Nor did I suggest that maybe if she hadn’t been spoilt rotten by her daddy all her life she wouldn’t be so bloody high maintenance.
I didn’t really speak to Rhiannon again. I got a couple of letters and the odd email, but kept my distance without being rude. It became apparent that one of the reasons for her “breakdown” was because she was unhappy in the course she was doing, something she’d admitted to me in the first year but not done anything about. And so her daddy paid for her to start her degree again. Luckily, not until after I’d left.
In the summer that I graduated I visited my sister in York while she did some research at the university. One day I was walking through the city with another friend when I heard her call my name. She rushed up to give me a big hug, flushed and flatteringly excited. I managed to chat with her for a couple of minutes through my shell shock, and then we said her good-byes. My friend eyed me carefully. She’d heard of Rhiannon.
I saw her again briefly when revisiting my old university. She was working for security at the student’s union, and looked pleased with the new identity this had given her. I said a quick hello before running off with my mates to dance. Looking back, I feel a bit sorry for her, being left behind by the people who were once at her beck and call. But I also know that I made a lucky escape, and look back at her to remind myself how destructive people can be. And how vulnerable I can be to their destruction.