Self Lost and Found

Self Lost And Found

On Saturday my inner child spoke to me. It started off as another of those days when the world seems destined to chew you up and spit you out, leaving you worn and mangled. My ex had let me down. Had to work, he wrote in his early morning text; very urgent studio work that he couldn't avoid. Music came first, it always would.
I slammed my mobile down on the bedside cabinet and laid back down. My head felt heavy on the pillow. Thoughts of my favourite spot by the oak tree on the back lawn, with my Alice Hoffman novel and bottle of sun-cream were rapidly replaced with images of sink taps on full blast, the air thick with hyper-screams as my autistic son showers his beloved trains and the bathroom floor along with them. I shut my eyes, drifting into orangey-red tints of sunlight trapped inside my eyelids. Early morning moments were as precious as a crystal, cherished just for a second before the faint creak of the mattress behind the wall broke them apart; a signal that the day – chaos – had begun.
This was when I first became aware of her, well, properly.
I couldn't lie. I'd been aware of a jabbering in my gut for months. It started as an uncomfortable feeling, a kind of sadness. Then it became a vague twitch, put down to digestive issues; the wrong food, wrong time to eat, wrong everything.
I lay in a fuzzy half asleep state, thinking how it had come to this; my life out of control, constantly let down, stomach gurgling, endless agony. I put my hands on my belly in an attempt to soothe, and finally I listened.
A small voice, similar to my own, but much higher, from deep in the past. My past.
“Be with me,” she said.

****

She was writing. A tiny child, bird-like limbs, white-blonde hair straight to her waist and a razor cut fringe, lying frontwards on a double bed splashed with white tulips, clearly not her own. She was leaning over a thick wad of A4 paper, pen in hand. My eyes half shut, I could see her scribbling, the blue Biro chasing the words that tried to escape, keeping them safe, locked tight in her page, her world. She controlled it, felt it, breathed it.
I shoved the photo back inside the box that I'd wrestled out of the cramped stairs cupboard and knelt beside it. I hadn't looked in that box since leaving university seven years earlier. Not since my soul had been destroyed by the creative writing tutors' endless low marks and sarcastic criticisms. I had tucked everything away; five folders crammed full of childhood stories, primary school English books, the university writing assignments. And that one photo squeezed at the side, jeeringly easy to reach. Mum had taken it, me absorbed, not expecting to see anyone, shocked when it was thrust in my face a week later. Emma Writing Again. What a Joke.
I never expected her to read anything. She never did.
I heard the voice again, urging, desperate.
“I want to show you,” she said. “I need you to see. Please.”
I could see her sitting opposite the cardboard box, her grey-blue eyes peaking underneath her fringe, fixing on me with sad, kid-like longing. A child whose dreams never came true, but who never gave up believing that they might. The pain in my stomach dissolved into a greater force; a breeze in a tornado. Energy bellowed through my heart, my veins.
“I..I can't. I need to see to Callum.”
The series of thumps across the landing and single screech from my bedroom had jolted me back to the here and now.
It was curiously difficult to tear myself away from the box and the remnants of my past. I got awkwardly to my feet, the white walls and laminate floor blurred as if I was in some pale, gluey dream.

****

I was poised at the foot of the stairs with my back against the wall as Callum came flying down to greet me. His seven year old body rammed against my hands, crushing me further against the wall. His eyes were wide and indignant, and high pitch babble indicated his protest at finding me out of bed. I held his arms as he proceeded to squeeze my neck in a monkey-hug, and then he suddenly let go and charged into his favourite place, the kitchen.
Rubbing my neck, I quickly followed, knowing I would find him yanking open the fridge or the cupboard to seek his breakfast. I had to get some door-locks, although Callum would find a way of breaking them. Proper meals were glazed over in favour of chocolate, crisps, biscuits. Hiding them was pointless; Callum would turn the house to pieces until he found them, kicking and thumping me in his torment.
Sure enough, he was standing on the door of the washing machine, the top cupboard wide open. He looked at me and started screeching. Sometimes he would thrust his hand in the direction of what he wanted, but more often he would wait, expecting me to know.
I pulled down the pack of custard creams, but realised my mistake. Callum jumped down from his perch and bit his hand while letting out a long screech. His fingers were bloated and bent like an old man's, covered in crusted skin, despite the cream I applied when he was in a good mood.
He threw himself face down onto the floor kicking at the tiles while I reached into the cupboard and brought out the chocolate wafers.
“Callum!” I grabbed his shoulders, turning him around to thrust the pack in his face. He jumped to his feet, grabbing the one I offered. He ran his eyes over it, checking for any missing corner, any crack. I walked into the lounge and sat at the table, my head in my hands. Callum followed, clutching his wafer, and sat down on the chair opposite. He took a firm bite, entranced by the splinters of chocolate falling onto the table.
The box sat next to the cupboard, where I had left it. I couldn't see it, but it called me. The child's voice echoed through my head, needing something. They all did.

*****

Twenty minutes later Callum was in a vest and nappy, his Thomas The Tank Engine pyjamas lying in a drenched pile in the corner of the bathroom. I showered while he watched, flapping his arms and shrieking as water sprayed through the silver vents and down every part of my skin, washing away the dirt, the toxins, the pain. Shower time, like early morning, was a private bliss; me and the beautiful pristine element merged in a brief moment. A freedom that not even the most ear splitting scream could reach.
But that day I couldn't escape.
The child was back, pulling at my insides like a hungry sparrow.
“You can't ignore me any longer,” she said, bolder this time, the chattering louder and distinct.
“Oh leave me alone,” I snapped. A fiery heat crept through my throat and I closed my eyes, letting the water spill down my eyelids, my cheeks and into my open mouth.
“I'm sorry,” she said in an almost inaudible sing-song lilt, “for hurting you...for the pain. I didn't want to, but it was the only way.”
I opened my eyes to gaze at the dolphin patterns on the wall tiles; the blue curves and the shower droplets glistening like tears, but my brain couldn't register them, or the excited screams and hysterical hiss of water as Callum turned on both sink taps at full pelt.
“What do you mean, the only way?” I demanded. “Only way for what? Getting me to look at my writing? I hate it. That's why I shoved the lot in the cupboard. It doesn't mean anything to me now.”
“No?” My little girl's voice took on an incredulous tone, tinged with sadness. “That's why I'm here, to show you. ”
Callum's gleeful yelling finally caught my awareness as his finger trapped the base of the tap which promptly spurted out jets of water into each corner. The white vest clung to his skin like a pathetic tissue.
“Oh no!” I darted out of the shower to turn off the taps and grab the towel off the radiator. “Everything is soaked again, it will go through the floor!” I felt the first rush of tears as the reality of another long day hit me in an icy burst.

****

I sat on the sofa, the box at my feet. One flap was open from where I had shoved the photo back earlier, and a pile of hardback folders lurked beneath. Thomas the Tank Engine whistled in the background and Callum jumped up and down as Thomas gallivanted towards yet another crash.
I know how you feel mate, I thought.
I reached down and yanked up the other flap. Anticipation coursed through my body like sweat. This was too big, too dark; memories jumping out like terrible spiders. I pulled out the first folder, a blue and green Miss Muffet design; a smiling frog holding a bunch of different coloured balloons.
This was the first one.
“Yes,” said the little voice that I had almost forgotten about. “I wrote these when I was ten and eleven. The Hollywood stories, remember?”
I felt a rush of something I couldn't identify as I opened the folder and flicked through the pages of pink, yellow and blue coloured paper, each filled with childish scribbling.
“Go on,” she said. “Read them. They're special.”
Adrenalin oozed through my veins as I flickered through the pages, skimming through the escapades of the characters that once seemed so tangible right down to their hairstyles and the smell of their perfume.
“I'm so happy you're looking at this!” said the little me. I saw her once again, sitting alone on Mum's bed, breathing in the musky, powdered scent of the empty nightclothes, gripping the pen tight and pouring down her imagination in jet speed. A mesh of pride and sadness made my heart swell. I took her hand, sticky sweet and pink, the miniature of my own. She clasped my thumb between her little digits.
“You know what?” she asked me. “These really are good. That's what I wanted you to know. This is what you're meant to do.”
“What?” I didn't know why I felt the need to whisper against the jingle of the background TV. Callum giggled and danced in a circle as Thomas sped across the screen for the start of his next adventure.
“Remember how it felt?”she continued, her quiet little voice matching my own. “That buzz when writing something. I didn't care that no one would read it. I wrote it anyway, as I needed to. It was my gift. It got me through it all.”
Memories caught in my throat like fish-bones. I coughed, hardly daring to face what I knew all along this would mean.
“But...”I spluttered, “at university...I was terrible. I got low marks compared to everyone else. The tutors were horrible about my work.”
My little girl smiled. “That's what else you need to see. Look in the box again. Go on.”
I reached down into bottom of the box and pulled out a yellow and red striped lever-file with my name on a white label in the top right-hand corner. My heart practically burst through my chest as I opened it and leafed through the plastic wallets until I found the small wad of assignments squashed together at the end.
My face grew clammy as I stared at my writing, at the marks.
“See?” I said out loud. “They haven't changed. They're still awful.”
“Says who?”
“Says the tutors of course.”
“Don't you think you're letting other people's opinions matter too much? Anyway, they're not awful. There's nothing wrong with those marks. Most of the comments were good. Your stories just needed a bit of tidying up that's all. When you've got a unique style you can't please everyone.”
Dust from the raked-up box stung my eyes. I slumped back against the comfort of the sofa cushion.
In a sudden registering of my existence, Callum put his hands lovingly on my face and babbled something unintelligible, then turned back to the TV.
“Th-that's what my school teachers said,” I mumbled. “That I had a unique style.”
“And you have. Don't let other people put you off what you love. ”
“B-but...”
“ Look at all your other folders. Look at the imagination. You wrote those stories Emma. I'm part of you. You wrote them, they're yours. And they're good.”
My eyes were dust and I couldn't see. Then the long stream of cleansing tears fell, for my neglected writing, and for the Self I had lost and desired. It had pushed at the cornerstone of my existence for so long, producing pain, anything to get my attention.
After a few minutes, I bent down to pull the remaining folders from the box, looking with renewed enthusiasm and pride at the prolific number of stories, all different types; Hollywood, mystery, fan fiction, animal adventures, science fiction, family sagas.
“Wow!” I said out loud. “I wrote all this. And it got me through.”
I suddenly knew why it was calling me and why, finally, I had listened.
This is what you're meant to do.
My gaze turned to Callum as he belted his arms up and down with vigour. I took in every movement, every detail of his unique expression. A feeling of love ripened like a tulip in bloom. I walked over and took his hand, his fingers soft and plump, into my own. He stared solemnly into my eyes, then his face broke into pure, uninhibited joy.
As I switched the TV off and prepared for the zoom of activity I felt a lightening of my heart; a glimpse of true freedom.