31 Falkner Street (8)

My name is Ella and I am 31 years old. I have a girlfriend called Kath and she is good to me because she lets me live in her house and she is my landlord at the moment because my money has been stopped and she still gets her money and her name is on the house so she shares her money with me which is her being kind to me.

Kath started being my girlfriend when I was living in the YMCA and she was living in the YMCA too and that is how we met. And she wasn’t a lesbian before she met me and she had boyfriends before me who she said were cruel to her and her dad was cruel to her too. And now she has been my girlfriend for 4 years and we have both said we want to get married, and I want to get a tattoo of her name on me arm because I love her so much.

When I lived in the YMCA I was an alcoholic and used to drink a lot of beer. Kath told me to stop drinking and I did, and then I got offered a flat, but I said no because I wanted to stay with Kath in the YMCA, she didn’t want to be all on her own in there because some of the people were well scary and most of them were smackheads. Then Kath’s dad paid for a deposit for her to rent a house and she went to live there and she let me go with her, but her benefits pay the rent so she says I am her tenant and she is my landlord and there is no-one I would rather have as my landlord because she is so gorgeous and pretty and I love her.

We don’t sleep in a bed together at night because my baby doesn’t like it, she sleeps in her bed and I sleep in my own bed in a different room. She doesn’t want to shag me and she doesn’t want me to do stuff to myself either because she can hear me and tells me to shut up. And then sometimes I tell people private things like that and she gets angry and once she set me on fire. It really hurt for ages after but I do get on her nerves when she has to see me all the time and it’s not always nice when I keep talking and pestering her like when I get up early and I make breakfast loudly in the kitchen, or make tea loud late at night when she is sleeping or trying to sleep.

I like living in Falkner Street with my baby, we have a nice house and I like everyone else on the street I think they are funny. I remember seeing Jo in Styal when I was in prison at the same time but we didn’t know each other then. I like everyone on the street, they have all been really nice to me and Kath. I hope that we can start seeing them every night because I have seen them all out together and they look like they are all having a laugh.

When I was little, I went into foster care and into a home because my mum and dad weren’t right and used to do things to me like drop me when I was tiny and not feed me and I remember I had to stand in the corner with a brick in both of my hands and hold the brick up, it really hurt. And when I was standing in the corner I used to peel bits of wallpaper off the wall and eat it because I felt starving. And then when I was a bit older different men would always come in the house and perv on me and other things. Being in a home was shit as well because they didn’t care either and were dead violent to all the kids in there, it was just as bad. But I don’t think it’s like that in homes any more. Kath had a dead bad time growing up too, her dad kicked her out when she was 16 once and she said she had to sleep in a bus stop for the night when it was raining. Her dad is nice to her now, he brings food shopping round every single week. I feel sorry for her and I want her to be happy. That is why I hope that she forgives me after tonight because I don’t mean to get on her nerves, and maybe I will try and get some money and save it up and buy her some earrings.