Doris

My thoughts drop

like a stone in a pond.

Ripples of remembrance

 spread ever outwards.

Spring at Scotney Castle

The hugs, the joy, the I love you's, the jokes, the laughter, me oiking around, saying and doing outrageous things.  There was nothing I couldn't say.

On one occasion coming back from a day out with dad, hawk-eye Linda spied on the arm of the sofa, the corner of a Durex packet.

'Mum, what is this?'

The thought makes me cringe even now!  Did I really tackle her?  Why didn't I turn a blind eye?

'Err... Your dad and I.....' she tailed off

'Come off it Mum, we've been out all day!'

A knowing child... too knowing.  Grown up too fast in this strange rarefied atmosphere.

Oh to be an innocent child; not for me the dice dictated.

***

Doris always enjoyed a drink, looking back I can honestly say she wasn't an alcoholic.  Alcohol softened the pain, a cure, a lessening of the drudgery of her life and the whisperings behind her back: which she never, ever countered.  How she carried on without ever explaining, I'll never know.

The breakdowns became more frequent, the ECT treatments, a recurring nightmare for her to endure, which she absolutely loathed. Dad and I stood helplessly by,   feeling her pain, powerless to help. At least that was how I felt.  His feelings at the time I didn't know. Only later I realised that he was the root cause of the pain.

Psychiatrists came and went.  Couches bore her weight, although never, ever did she unburden herself.

'I couldn't be disloyal to your father!'

I hear the words even now; the import as to what she was trying to tell, took me years to translate. 

I could say anything; Doris didn't feel able to. Locked in this hell that had become her life.