motel

something that my childhood has left me with is the desire to make everything ok for people. when i can't it really distresses me. i think i am a sort of compulsive rescuer. i think the root of this is from feeling like i had to look after my parents. neither of them behaved like a grown up. i remember a general feeling of anxiety a lot of the time.

i was particularly anxious when i went on access visits to my mum. things were not always cosy and comfy where she lived; she was very broke and lived in a variety of bedsits and hostels. they tended to have shared bathrooms which weren't all that nice.

on one access visit my mum took me to a motel. this was unusual both because she had so little money and because she did not have a car. the motel was in ascot which is a very posh area. we got the train there and walked from the station. because it was a motel the designers had not allowed for people arriving on foot. we walked up the drive through thick rhododendrons. we had to walk in the road as there was no pavement. my mum got the keys and we went to the chalet where we were going to stay. it had its own little bathroom and was really nice.

during the afternoon my mum drew the curtains. it was still light. as it got dark i went to put the light on so i could read. my mum said we shouldn't. "if we put the light on people going past might think we are having a party and try to get in" she said.

at the time this struck me as strange but i had never been to a motel before. i did not know what to expect. every time cars went past and the lights rolled across the wall my mum would look scared. i put my arms round her and comforted her. i told her if anyone tried to get in i would fight them. we sat in the dark all evening. it seemed a really long evening and we went to bed early. the next day we left without breakfast.

looking back i think my mum might have been ill. more likely was that she was being pursued by her current boyfriend. her boyfriends were difficult characters and often they were violent.
i would have been about 11 when this happened. to this day i cannot bear seeing daylight through curtains in the early evening. i leave it until it is really dark to pull them closed.

on being a mum

this is a comment i wrote on someone else's blog:

my son has always accepted that he has a mum who has a life around him, whether in my work as a lawyer or when i'm knocking down walls and doing up the house.

i am the mum who used to sit him in the back of the car with a jar of peanut butter and a spoon if i forgot to get his tea before we had to rush out. i am the mum who never irons his clothes. i am the mum who has to set up an e-mail reminder for his cookery ingredients and who even then has to write in his message book that the dog ate the cheese.

but i am the mum who fought to get him into a special school, who has never told him a single lie in his 12 years, who explains everything from gender dysmorphia to chrystal meth when he asks.

he knows that he is the main focus of all my endevours, and that i will fight with every breath in my body to protect him and champion him and make his life better wherever i can.

it took me years to work out how to be a mother. there were a number of reasons why it took so long, but a big one was the crazy messages that society gave out about what a proper mum was all about - a model which i could never fit into in a million years. but i'm his mum, the only one he will ever have and he seems pretty happy with that, which is all that matters in the end.

polo neck

one of the things that gets to me is when people i come across at work assume that i have no knowledge of bad things. i am a lawyer and opposing lawyers often try to make me feel guilty because their client has been a victim of violence. these lawyers try to say that this in some way excuses what their client is dishing out to other people. i cannot say that i know more than they think because it would not be professional. in my mind it is not professional to try to guilt trip your opponent either but i can't do anything about it so i just have to keep my mouth shut.

this picture is of me in a polo neck. i have always liked polo necks. when i was young it was because of a character in a tv show called emma peel who drove an e-type jag and wore a polo neck. now it is because i have a double chin. when i was a young woman it was because it hid the bruises.

one problem that hangs over you if you were hit as a child is that it seems normal. when you start to meet men you find that the ones you are attracted to are those who are exciting. exciting often equals violent. so you get hit some more. my second long relationship was with an artist. he was pretty dramatic and clever and volatile. our neuroses interlocked in a way that at the time i thought meant he really understood me. now i know that what this meant was that he really understood how to hurt me, both emotionally and physically.

the other night my friend pretended to strangle me when i said something annoying. she wasn't to know but it was one of those rubber-band moments, when you shoot back to another place in your life. that place was when the artist tried to strangle me. he also hit me in the throat. maybe he wanted me to shut up and stop me shouting at him. it nearly worked. i had to speak at a conference the next day. this was in june or july, in really hot weather. i had a swollen, bruised throat so i had to wear a polo neck. i was sweating like a pig. i was so embarassed.

i later found out that one of the other speakers, who was a well known barrister and writer, had an equally violent partner. i wish i had known. we could have laughed about it in that way people do when there is nothing you can say.

my desk

this is my desk. it is my little corner of the house. i am a bit possessive about it. i resent people just sitting down to use it without asking.

i bought this desk when i was a student. i left home to go to college. this desk was in a local second hand shop. i could not afford it at all but the minute is saw it i had to buy it. i spent ages sanding it down and varnishing it. i took the fold-down lid off and took it to a shop where they put on new green leather with gold squiggles round the edge.

when i was 10 or 11 i had a desk like this. my dad and my step-mum bought one for each of us. they were in the living room. we used to do our homework at them. mine was also a stable for the model horses i played with. the little dividers for envelopes and letters made perfect stalls for the horses.

one day my desk got broken. i cannot even remember what started it. i must have said something to my dad that he took as rude, or cheeky. suddenly he hit me really hard round the head. he didn't hit me often but when he did it was with the full force of a grown man in a rage. for years i would jump if anyone moved suddenly near my head. i fell across the room and landed on the lid of my desk. the hinges broke and the lid was hanging down.

i was terrified and ran upstairs into the room i shared with my sisters. i shut the door. my dad was outside trying to open it but it caught on the rug. i thought he was going to smash it down. i was screaming that the door was stuck. i think my stepmum came up - somehow things calmed down.

i suppose my dad must have fixed my desk. i can't remember. but when i saw the desk in my picture i had to buy it. no-one will break this one.