So when I'm lost in a crowd, I hope that you'll pick me out, oh how I long to be found.
2002-09-16 || 9:34 p.m.

once you said you hated my suffering
and you understood
and you'd take care of me
you would always be there
well
where are you now?

I need to write this entry badly but I'm not well and it may take some time. I may have to do it in parts, so if the title has Part 1, you will know I gave up for tonight and will continue later.

Why do I need to write this entry so badly? Well, partly because I am still feeling terrible about lying, partly because I want to write it all down now. Even the things I could not write before, and partly because it may mean I can make a fresh start although I know the chances of a fresh start for someone like me are tenuous to say the least.

The hard thing is knowing where to start. The other hard thing is knowing when I am being honest and open and when I am just being a plain, good old-fashioned bitch.

Anyway, here goes...

Its a bit of a life story but I'll try and write the abridged version, I'm well aware its of no interest to anyone but myself and possibly that solicitor Alain is threatening me with.

When I was pregnant I was very ill. It took me three months to realise I was pregnant. I guess I was denying it to myself at the time. I remember thinking stuff like, 'oh my God, I'm getting fat!' or 'I must be stressed, I've missed two periods' etc. By the time I did a pregnancy test I was three months gone. I told my mum, got thrown out of home and ended up living in a basement with Alain. I'd not been there long when I began to miscarry. No doctor would come out to me. I was too far from the doctor I was registered with. I was devastated - I was losing my baby. I stayed in bed all day, when I woke up the next morning I had one half of my stomach completely flat and the other half with the outline of a very small baby. The local doctor came out to see me. He was fucking lovely to me. He said I was obviously still pregnant and no-one would ever know but it was most likely I'd been carrying twins and lost one. Funnily enough I'd had my first ante-natal appointment just three days before the 'miscarriage' and they had said I was carrying twins and I was to have a scan the next week to confirm it. Obviously I was carrying twins no more. Anyway, towards the end of my pregnancy I got more and more ill. I had pre-eclampsia, my right kidney failed, I had 3 pluses of protein in my urine - I was rushed in for an emergency caesarian. After I had Rebecca I got post-purperal fever. Again I was very ill. I was on four hourly doses of anti-biotics. After about 4 days I had a salad. I had eaten half of it when I found a green grub crawling around in it. I asked Alain to go and buy me a pizza. I was starving. I was getting better. He refused.

I stopped loving him that day.

I know it sounds stupid. He laughed when I told him.

There had always been a certain degree of violence from him towards me. Once he told me he used to hit his mum when he was younger. Given that I always assumed boys rather loved their mothers, that scared me. I would justify things by telling myself that he did not hit me often - which indeed he did not. But that doesn't make it alright.

I did not want to have sex with him at all. Apparently this happens to a third of women after childbirth. Great!

But I did want to have sex. Just not with him.

In 1991 I started having an affair with a guy named Paul. It was off and on to start with. I didn't love him but I convinced myself I did. I told Alain at the beginning. But then Paul and me split up. I never told him when it recommenced. Eventually I ended it with Paul. I didn't love him. It wasn't fair and I could not stand the lies anymore.

See, I was a liar even then.

1993 was a bad year.

Alain hated me. We went on holiday with friends and they were shocked at how violent he was towards me. Verbally violent that is.

It was not a nice year.

1994 we decided to try for another baby. Nothing happened. I went to the doctor. She examined me and said I had a lump. It turned out to be an ovarian cyst. My second one. The first one was when I was pregnant, possibly it caused the miscarriage. I had to have it removed. I was lucky. My ovaries were fine. The operation was in February 1995.

We started trying for a baby again in the summer of 1995 but still nothing happened. I went back to the doctor.

In 1996 they started doing tests. I was fine. They said there was nothing wrong with me. Alain's sperm sample came back as 'unlikely to get pregnant from this sperm in a million years'. He was fucked off. The cannabis had fucked with his sperm. The consultant said they were deformed and swimming any which way they could. His cannabis smoking had reached epidemic proportions. I asked him to stop smoking it until I got pregnant then he could smoke himself into a stupor.

He promised he would.

I was a bitch at this time. All I wanted was a baby. My hormones were in fucking overdrive and all Alain wanted was to be stoned.

Still nothing happened.

I gave up. I decided it must be my fault. I knew, really, at the back of my mind that Alain had not stopped smoking cannabis but he assured me he had. I dealt with it in the only way I could. Firstly, I told myself it was what I deserved. I had fucked Paul non-stop, I didn't deserve a baby like normal, nice, well behaved people. I saw it as reasonably instant karma. I decided also that I would now only do things for others. I would no longer want things for myself. This is way easier said than done. So I decided I would be a teacher and if it wasn't to be that I could have any more children then I would use the talents I do know I have with children to help other people's children. I wasn't trying to be noble, I just wanted to do the right thing.

For some reason in the middle of all this, in July 1997 Alain attacked me badly and tried to kill me. I cannot for the life of me remember what happened. All I remember is that one minute he was lying on the bed and the next he was choking me and somehow he had my legs up by my head and was kicking me in my sides. It all happened so quickly that I can barely remember it. I know I only got away by saying to him that I knew he was right and if he would let me go I would make a big effort to listen and obey him. Jesus, can you believe I said that? But I had to, I would have died otherwise.

So things went on. There was this Saturday night, Alain promised Rebecca he would take her to the garage and buy her some chocolate or an ice cream or something. Then he got a 'phone call. After that he was vicious to both of us made us both cry, said 'two in a minute!' and I took Rebecca to the garage. When I got back Mat was there. His dealer. After Mat went I said to Alain was he buying drugs. He said 'no'. He looked me in the eyes and said 'no'. He then accused me of being a vicious, suspicious bitch. He was pretty nasty. But I knew. I knew he had made us upset to get us out of the house.

A few days later I was cleaning the kitchen. You know when you just know something but you don't know why. Something in my head told me that day to clean the tops of the cupboards. So I did. I climbed on a chair and then I found his stash. My friend Justine was round. I showed it to her. I then let her roll a couple of joints. I then took it and put it somewhere else. I wanted to throw it away but I didn't have the courage for that.

I went to work that evening. I got a 'phone call.

Alain: Where is it?

Me: Where's what?

Alain: You know exactly what I'm talking about?

Me: I haven't a clue...oh hang on, I did do some cleaning today, threw away a few very old things I found on top of the cupboards, is that what you are talking about.

Alain: its not mine, I was looking after it for someone.

Me:!!!!! yeah, right!

That was the end.

May/June 1998.

That evening Alain smashed up the downstairs. Me and Rebecca lay in bed fucking petrified.

And I started cutting myself.

Our relationship ended that day but we continued to live in the same house. Rebecca slept in with me. Alain slept in the back bedroom.

In February 2000 Alain made some lame excuse about going out somewhere. I had that feeling of doom. I rang him on his mobile. To this day I don't know where he was or what he was doing but for some reason I found myself telling him not to come home that night, I would call the police if he came anywhere near the house, the door would be locked. He took me at my word and went to his parents. The next day I was shocked at what I had done. I wasn't ready to be on my own. I don't know why. Within a couple of days he came back. We had sex. That was the last time ever. After that he slept downstairs and I slept upstairs.

Things have been nasty. Nasty most of all for Rebecca. Nasty for Alain and nasty for me. Its not normal. I worry for Rebecca, what sort of view of relationships does she have?

Seven weeks ago I started having flirty conversations with Ben. He was nice to me. No-one had been nice to me for years. He came out with all the cheesy lines you can imagine and I believed them all - every one of them. I lied outright to him. Told him Alain did not live here. That he hit me when he came round. That was not true. Alain was still living here and he hit me because he was living here. Yes, he did chase me into my bathroom and break the door. Yes he did kick me on my arse. Yes he did throw a camera film at me on parents evening and leave me with a bruised face. Within 24 hours Ben had gone from promising me our relationship would not end to telling me to fuck off. He was pretty hostile. Alain was pretty pissed. I told him it was none of his business. We did not have a relationship, I could have a relationship with whom I choose. Anyway, this Wednesday just gone we had a massive row and this time he did leave and he hasn't been back.

And that's the truth of it all.

And that's what I lied about. I lied about him not living here but I did not lie about anything else. We did not have a relationship from the day I told him not to come home and all I wanted was for someone to like me.

Not much chance of that now.

I would like to say I blame planetary action, but I think its safer to say its all my fault.

Fuck.