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Anorexics and Fudge Cake (Monologue)
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Anorexics and Fudge Cake.
I wrote this for my GCSE Coursework in 2003, but I don't remember what grade I got for it.
THE SPEAKER, A YOUNG GIRL WITH SCARS ON HER BODY IS SAT AT A DESK WITH AN OLDER WOMAN FACING HER. ON THE DESK IS A BOX OF TISSUES, AND A PICTURE FRAME OF A YOUNG CHILD WHO IS SMILING. THE WALLPAPER IS STRIPED AND THE CEILING IS WHITE. THE WOMAN IS VERY SMART BUT HAS A KIND LOOKING FACE. THE GIRL LOOKS DISHEVELLED, AND HAS BRUISES AND SCARS ON HER FACE AND ARMS.
I sit here and look up at you're ceiling, you're talking at me and I'm avoiding your gaze. You ask if I know why I'm here, why I won't say a word to you, why I haven't spoken in over four months since the incident at school. You ask how everything started and how I want it all to end. But most of all you ask about the scars. The scars that cover my body - the old bumpy red scars, the purple bruises that have been imprinted onto my body over and over again so many times that they haven't healed and just stayed there. The older yellowing bruises and the fresh new scars that marred the inside of my arms. I know them all by heart without looking at them. I suppose that's quite sad really, but of course I know, after all I inflicted them, I cut myself, I hit myself, I threw myself downstairs. It was like I was addicted to pain. And yes, of course I know how it all started, of course I know how everything began, but I'm not going to tell, I'm not going to talk. Talking got me in trouble last time. Talking made me come here. Talking spoiled my perfect plan. Talking is why I am sat here staring at your ceiling and counting the stripes on your wallpaper. And me not talking is the reason you have that look of resignation on your face and why you're now standing up telling me that is all we have time for today. I avoid your gaze as I silently close the door behind me and take a long look at the white noise machines that all of you have outside your doors, before silently making my way up to the common room.
(LOCATION CHANGE) SMALL ROOM WITH TELEVISION IN THE CORNER AND A SOFA AND A COUPLE OF CHAIRS. OVER IN THE CORNER IS A TABLE WITH SOME GAMES SPREAD OUT AND SOME VERY THIN GIRLS TALKING.
Before I enter I check to see who's in there - most of the girls here have roommates, but not me. At the beginning of my stay here I was deemed too dangerous to any other girl to be allowed to share a room with any of them. But yet I am allowed to have meals with the others, to be in the common room, study hall and games room with them. How does that work? Where is the logic with that? Seeing as it's 12.46, according to the clock on the wall, most people are in the cafeteria, except the anorexics, they usually don't eat and the wardens don't make them. That's another thing about this place, nothing has its proper name- the nurses aren't called nurses, they are called attendants or wardens, depending on their seniority, the councillors are called councillors - they are never ever referred to as shrinks and most of all this place isn't a loony bin or a nut house. It is Forest View Residential Home and Treatment Facility for Girls with Behavioural Problems, that is to give it its full name; most people here just call it Forest View. Or FV, depending on what mood they are in. I don't call it anything, because I don't say anything. At all. Ever.
Nobody is made to anything here, we are 'positively' encouraged to do what they think is good for us, for the anorexics that is to eat, for the overweight to not eat, for those with anger problems to stop slitting the throats of the attendants and for me to talk and to stop harming myself. Why is what I do any different than somebody who gets their nose or lip pierced, or somebody who has tattoos? Why is it their problem - why not just leave me to get on with it. I look up the clock once again - it's 01.23pm. I have to be at group therapy in seven minutes, prising myself up off the sofa, I catch a few words of the anorexics conversation - they are talking about the different ways of making yourself gag to bring your food back up and the best ways of hiding their food. They are smiling and laughing, and for some reason this seems odd.
As I walk down the corridor, the white, linoleum tiles squeaking underneath my trainers I ponder why this would seem so odd to me, maybe its because teenage girls don't usually talk about bringing food back up, they should be talking about fashion and about fudge cake, not about eating just enough to survive, while keeping their figures. Or maybe it's the smiling that bothers me, I've not smiled since I was eleven years old, when all of this started. But it's time to go, group therapy beckons.
(LOCATION CHANGE) A SMALL WHITE ROOM WITH COLOURFUL CURTAINS WHICH ARE OPEN, ABOUT EIGHT CHAIRS ARE ARRANGED IN A CIRCLE, FIVE ARE FILLED WITH TEENAGE GIRLS, ONE WITH AN OLDER LADY, ABOUT 30 YEARS OLD. THE REST OF THE CHAIRS ARE EMPTY.
I was late because I stopped off at the bathroom. When I enter the room everyone turns to look at me as if expecting an explanation, but I say nothing, of course she doesn't say anything you must be thinking, this is the silent one, the one that never speaks. I sit and while you all talk about your problems I sit and stare out the window at the rolling hills beyond our hilly retreat. Over the hills I can see farms and more farms, the occasional family car or truck and even more occasionally a horse rider or two riding together, I bet there isn't silence up there, I bet people laugh and talk up there, and even more so I bet there are smiles up there. I envy them. There's more crying than smiling here.
(LOCATION CHANGE) BACK IN ROOM AT THE BEGINNING WITH SAME WOMAN AS ABOVE.
Today is the same as every other day, the same office, same councillor, same white noise machine outside door, same wallpaper and ceiling, same box of extra comfy tissues, same pictures of smiling children, probably yours, same questions. Why are you here, how did all this begin, why won't you say anything. You take hold of my wrist and point to the scars; you say whatever is bothering me it can't hurt any more than this. But the truth is, nothing is actually bothering me. It was a long time ago, but you'll never know why. You look me with appealing eyes, you want to know my past, it can't all be contained there on that file you have on me.
What happened started when I was just twelve years old, my father had left us when I was five and had committed suicide when I was seven, my mother had remarried to another man called Trevor, because I was so young I had to call him Uncle Trevor, even though he wasn't my uncle. I liked him at first, he would take me and my sisters out on trips to the countryside and would pick us up from school. As my sisters and I grew up he became more and more attached to my older sister, Lara. Whenever he picked us up from school he would take Lara upstairs and they would come back down about an hour later. Soon after this started, my sister started to go off the rails, but I didn't take any notice of it and she continued to be friends with him and go upstairs with him after school finished. This continued until I was about eleven or twelve, then he started being chummy with me, my sister was now fifteen and she continued being friends with him. Trevor had grown into one of my best friends and he was always buying me and my sister's presents. But then one time while we were upstairs he started to run his hands over my body, usually he would tickle me but this was different. I asked him what he was doing but he just told me not to worry and that it was all a game. Of course, he was one of my best friends and I would do anything to help him, so I believed what he told me. After he had touched me, he told me to go downstairs and send my sister up. I did as I was told, not because I was afraid of what he had done, but because him and my sister were such good friends. After a while his touching became more and more intimate and invasive, but I continued to listen to him. One time after I had come home from school, he started with his usual 'game', and I played along, he made me put my hand down his trousers and he did the same with me. Then he climbed on top of me and pulled my clothes off. All I can remember from that was his face moving and the pain. The pain was horrendous but I said he could carry on because he told me everything was a game and that my sister had been doing it for years. If my sister had done it - what could be wrong with it? My sisters and I never talked about it, and we never told Mum, Trevor told us that she would be mad with us if we did, and we were so gullible we actually believed him. He continued to do this to us for about two or three years, until I was in my GCSE year at school, heading for some results that really weren't up my standard, all this with Uncle Trevor had caused my grades to slip or as some of my teacher put it, my grades didn't just slip - they freefell. I remember everything so well from that day, and you probably have it all written down on that notepad of yours. You probably know I was in my social studies class, you probably know that the class was studying paedophilia and its effects on victims. You probably know that the teacher asked me a question, what did I think should be done with Paedophiles, and you probably know that I burst into tears and ran out of the class. You probably know I haven't spoken since then, and you have probably read the nurses reports about my scars, which I had inflicted on myself. So you already know the rest of the story. But as I look up to see what your reaction is, your expression hasn't changed at all, and you're still jabbering on - of course you are. You didn't hear what I just said, because I didn't say it. And you probably know - that as hard as you try, no matter how much support you give me, I'm never going to talk ever again. Not about my problems, not about television programs, not about wallpapers and not about anorexics and fudge cake. And especially not about my Uncle Trevor.
(FADE OUT)
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