sunflower writing ‘I will pack up your lifestyle and present it to you in a neatly folded version of your life’. Before her was a father and daughter, the transaction a blur but the conversation a resonance that would haunt her for years to come. ‘For God’s sake, can’t you make up your mind? Do you want to end up a shop girl like this?!’ This was not really a question, more a statement. She looked at the father, who was looking at his daughter with exasperation. This was a moment, a moment in time. A throw away comment. But for her it was frozen in all time, her time. Her persona to anyone who did not know her, was as a shop girl, a silent, insult me, label me, shop girl. No value, no future, no past, no present and certainly no future, all of it calculated without feeling. Her smile froze, but her inner resolve did not. He may not have directed the message directly to her but the message she had just received pierced her inner soul. At home she had pieced together the jigsaw stunned by the messages that she revealed. ‘I hate you Everyone is having so much fun I am up all night It is all over I do not want to live with you’ The colour was gone from her life, the flowers became black and white images, their yellow bloom faded into shadows and love died. It was a clear signal that love or no love, she had to find a way out, a way through and find her own path. She could not depend on him. Whatever she had achieved, whatever she had experienced, she had to go forward... without him... But really she was running away. It was 1978, her mother was ill in hospital but had given her blessing. Her father had screamed at her with words that she did not want to recall only recoil from, in years to come she may consider them, charitably, as a cry for help but not now. She had turned away, biting her words back, swallowing them until their ugliness and despair was absorbed into her psyche like a saline drip of tears. She was leaving this all behind. Her trunk with her uniform of creative costumes had been sent on ahead of her and was waiting silently at the railway station in the north. If this had not been done, maybe she would have faltered and stayed. She knew that if Thomas had asked her marry him she would have accepted and not gone. But he hadn’t. He had only sent paper flowers, the heat from the sun had left only imitations of sunflowers, she certainly would not be following their gaze. She was tired, afraid and almost defeated by what lay ahead. This latest assault had been the final straw. She stepped off the train feeling raw, naked, this was a new beginning. She discarded the envy, anger, disappointment and sarcasm. Determined to prove them all wrong, her father, her headmistress, everyone who had tried to belittle her, everyone who had indicated that she should not bother to leave the town. Everyone who said she was not capable of further education, that she should stay home, cook, clean, not have aspirations above herself. ‘Who did she think she was?’ ‘What was wrong with working in a shop?’ The voices in her head had become louder, their constant blows and cutting remarks had made her want to curl up in a protective foetus position. At night she would revert to this position to sleep when she had discarded the armour of the day. Her body however alert and in protection mode whilst her dreams were the only free place to live. Her mother understood. All those years of walking, listening quietly, whilst her mother told her her hopes and dreams. Her pride when her daughter had gained a place at the grammar school had been quietly strengthening. But strength had ebbed away as she struggled to fit in and keep up. Her house was not filled with books but with words and cross, angry sentences. There were no theatre trips but enough private drama. Friends were not welcome, family was the enemy. Mealtimes were not shared around a lively dining table as her headmistress had idealised, they were taken on a tray in front of a TV watched by a silent audience where comment was not welcomed.
the sunflower edition ~ 59