Bin-bag girl

Chapter 1

I am falling. Spiralling downwards at terrifying speed. Hurtling
towards earth. My arms are thrashing around pathetically but there is
nothing to grab hold of. I cannot save myself. I am going too fast to
focus on any one thing. My thoughts, memories come in fragments, like
flash-cards in my mind. I see snippets of my childhood - I see her. I
am falling faster than the speed of light but the scenes being played
out in my mind are as if in slow motion. I can feel the wind in my
hair, tugging at it, whipping it up like seaweed. My stomach is
lurching. I am gasping, gasping to catch my breath but cannot. I feel
as though I am dying. Help me. I am falling. Falling.

I never land. Suspended somewhere in mid-air, I awake with a terror
that has become so familiar to me these past nights. It has immobilised
me. My brain has disconnected from my body and I am unable to move -
not a limb. I am paralysed with fear inside my own skin. I am sweating
profusely and the smell of me, somehow alien and unfamiliar, invades
the damp air of the room, sweet and pungent. All I can do for a while
is listen to the sounds of the house. Unidentifiable noises, magnified
in the darkness, and then the familiar clank of the dodgy piping
sending water spluttering through the system, instant heat pumping out
of the radiators, the floor boards creaking, complaining because of the
warmth.

In the cold grey light of the morning I sit on the edge of my bed and
shiver. Tiredness has disorientated me and I cannot muster the
enthusiasm to face another day although I must have gone back to sleep
at some point because the heating has gone off in the night and now my
breath hangs on the air. Through a chink in the curtains I notice that
moisture has misted the window-pane and I reach over to wipe my hand
across it, disliking the cold wetness on my fingers. I watch without
interest as water trickles down and collects on the sill in little
pools. Through the glass I can see distorted images of the world
outside. A magpie cocks his head and seems to be watching me but I am
not superstitious anymore. He has found something to make a meal out of
on the grass and off he flies with it in his beak. The path is wet,
glistening. It is cold outside.

I do try to make an effort but it is difficult. I just seem to be
shuffling about emptily, pointlessly. I cannot make sense of it all.
All of this. What she did. As I leave my bedroom to go to the bathroom,
I pause outside the room where she spent her last night. My spare room.
The room that she made forever hers. I cannot go in there now. Not this
morning. Perhaps not ever. Although there is nothing left of her. I
sorted out all her things immediately afterwards because, under the
circumstances, I could not bear for anything of hers to remain in my
home.

Why are bathrooms always far colder than any other room in the house? I
am much too cold to strip off and wash properly. Instead, I splash
water on my face and under my arms as I guiltily eye the shower. I have
not showered or washed myself properly for weeks. I smell of misery. I
try, unsuccessfully, to tidy my hair with my fingers and then give up,
leaving it hanging to my shoulders in a tangled mess. I am a mess. I
forgot to buy toothpaste. Damn. I see the old tube, flattened and used
on the bathroom floor where I threw it yesterday and missed the bin.
Dust and hair has already collected around the neck of it where the old
toothpaste has congealed into a solid lump and I manage to force a last
little bit out onto my toothbrush.

What has happened to me, I wonder. I watch myself in the mirror as the
toothpaste froths in my mouth but I am a stranger now, even to myself.
My mind seems to have taken a wrong turning and I cannot find the way
back to how it used to be. How I used to be. There, beyond my
reflection is the door to my spare room. Part of me wonders if it will
open like it did so many mornings before and she will come out, yawning
and stretching, that hideous, filthy candlewick dressing gown she
insisted on wearing never quite meeting at the front.

She visited often over the years referring to my little cottage as
"home", arriving unexpectedly so that I lived in a constant state of
waiting and wondering when would be the next time. It's lovely to be
home. Yet my house had never been her home. I found her presence almost
an insult, an intrusion - her world overlapping into mine. I did not
want her with me, near me. Still she came, thick-skinned and never
getting the message, despite my coldness towards her. For you see, with
her she brought her memories, her disappointments and told me things I
did not always want to hear.