In my End, is my Beginning

The fig squelched between my teeth, releasing its soft flesh and thousands of little seeds onto my tongue. It was a taste and texture experience I couldn't get enough of, so vastly different from anything I had ever known. Like a rainbow explosion of colour for my mouth, it tempted my senses into places I had never known existed. It was exquisite, a joy so deep it made me feel like weeping.

You see, my world started out grey. I was born in a world of grey, of sludge and cold with the smell of firewood lingering in the air around me. I lived in a grey world for all my life - though my life wasn't very long in the greater scheme of things - varying in shade but never with more than a hint of colour on the edges. The colour was reserved for the others.

The beautiful laughing girl with the golden hair and the white teeth in my class, the one I glanced at on occasion when I'd built up the courage I felt I needed. So vibrant, so alive. She was like an exotic bird, though at that time I didn't know about birds like that - only the black and white magpie's and the black ravens that came looking for treasures that they would never find, where I lived. Because, you see, my world was grey.

Third and fourth-hand clothing, the colour bleached as far as it would go, almost unrecognisable as a garment. Pinched from the bags left outside Charity shops, or sometimes from someone's bin. The unwanted, used and broken bits of someone's life, the bits discarded. Not suitable for rags. But for me, they were all I had. The knitted woollen hat with the hole in the side, that if positioned carefully could be hidden at the back. It only had one hole. It was my pride, that grey woolly knit. That hat was a staple, because where I came from, warmth was a luxury. A luxury that our school offered, one that I could rarely get to. Too often, I was forced to stay home, to look after my mother who was sleeping off the effects of her night in her own pool of stale vomit. I felt neither sadness, or anger. It was a fact of life, one I grew up with, in my bleak world. There were some joys in my first seven years too, grey joys; the stale brown bread my mother would bring home on occasion, the soup I would be offered from the soup kitchen operating out of the Church. Though I wouldn't go very often, not wanting to appear unkempt. Not wanting our lives to be scrutinised by strangers, my mothers mothering skills questioned.

So I don't know how it happened. To this day, I don't know. But I do know that one day after coming back from my usual daily scrounge of dustbins in lieu of school, there was someone waiting. She seemed nice, if officious. But not nice enough to not be regarded with open suspicion. She did not belong here, she had no business here in our world, the world of my mother and I. She did not belong. I glanced briefly at my mother, sitting on the crate we used as a chair, her head held in her hands. Partly to ease the pain of the night before, but also partly to ease the pain of what she knew was the inevitable. She remained silent. The stranger in her black outfit remained standing, not saying a word. Giving my mother a chance, one that she did not take.

'Who are you?' I eventually stammered. Of all the greys in my world, this situation gave the the darkest feeling.

The stranger crouched down to my height, putting her hand out to grasp my arm. Slippery as an eel, I evaded her touch; watching her overbalance and quickly catch herself before she fell. This didn't have any effect on her though, apart from the look of surprise when she found herself grasping air, but she quickly arranged her face back into the neutral position it was in before. She was no longer nice looking, to me. Now she had a distinct look of threat, like a big grey shark; though nothing had changed except that the air around us suddenly seemed charged.

'Beth, I am Janet. I am a social worker. Do you know what that is?'

I ignored her, looking at my grubby hands. I discovered a sticky spot on the one finger - and put it into my mouth quickly to suck it off. She continued talking after a short pause, causing me to frown deeply.

'Beth, you have not been attending school. You look hungry, and you look like you need a wash. We have spoken to your mother many times, and nothing has changed. Beth, it's time we took over your care.'

You see, that was a lie. The first in many, many lies told unwittingly by people that were ignorant of the facts of being a ward of State. The intentions were there - they were maybe even good - but the practicalities were so rotten, right down to the core. At that moment, the moment of the first lie, my grey world turned black.

As black as rot; as black as the lies told to me as a little seven year old child; as black as it is to pull a child away from its mother - regardless of what the conditions are of the world that we had been inhabiting. I loved my mother. And in her own way, she loved me to. We needed each other, and not a day goes by that I don't think of the suffering that we both endured separately, but together, in our grey world. I was passed from family to family, from home to home, often just as a means to an end - the financial greed of the people who were temporarily looking after me. I had to learn fast and I had to learn as I went. They all had expectations. They all had differing standards of what was acceptable. They each had their own rules, that I was expected to follow. And when my usefulness began to wane, I was passed on again. My grey existence was up and down through those five years, sometimes it would seem very light grey and other times the grey was so dark it was black again.

Until I was passed on to him. Maybe it was the way I looked, maybe it was because no one else wanted me. No one cared for me, no one looked out for me. I was a nobody. I was twelve. He was never subjected to the visits by the social worker that the other families were; he was above the Law. He was the Law. He was his own law, a law of hell. But an upstanding citizen, one that was a pillar of society. An example to all the mere mortals around him. Appearances can be deceiving.

When I outgrew my usefulness, he gave me money and a one-way ticket to Spain.

And this is where I find myself now. Alone in the World, but not lonely. The language is one I don't understand, yet. But still, I am not lonely. The colours...my senses are coming alive. They are stretching with fleeting joy, they are learning to grow or maybe regrow. The grey is dimming, slowly being replaced here and there by lightness on the edges. I am hurt, but I am not sad. I am me, but I am also not the person I was before. I am free now. I am in control of my own destiny, and the feeling is intoxicating.

The fig squelches between my teeth, releasing it's soft flesh and thousands of little seeds onto my tongue. It is a taste and texture experience I can't get enough of, so vastly different from anything I have ever known. Like a rainbow explosion of colour for my mouth, it tempts my senses into places I have never known exist. It is exquisite, a joy so deep it made me weep.