It looks like I will be leaving Kent.
On Saturday, when I was on my way back down to Kent, my mother called me when I was standing outside the train station in Strood, waiting for the replacement bus service.
For a minute I railed. I told her about the whole scene with Monilove and about my discomfort and regret at having to go back to my cousin’s house, and she said to me: “No matter how he treats you, he’ll just blasted well have to knuckle down and help you. These people forget so easily. A (her sister, my aunt) raised those children from scratch! And I did my part too. They owe, and they’ll have to give back, it’s as simple as that.” (This cousin is actually my aunt’s stepson, and she raised him from a little fella until he was a teenager.)
My mother reminded me that there was no short amount of family politics in play here. He knows he owes, that’s why he let me stay, but his own resentments and lack of social skills (and I mean serious lack) is why he treats me the way he does. I told my mother it’s like I’m a recovering crack head and he looks down on me.
I told her, no matter how unfriendly my cousin is, and uncomfortable he makes me, I won’t let him make me feel bad or hold down my head. He owes my aunt a great deal, and she is not here to collect, but I am here… and the same way he would have to do for her, he will blasted well have to do for me.
I told Mummy, I’m not letting Monilove hold down my head either. Mummy told me again, “These people always seem to forget when you help them.
“Don’t bother up your head, chile. Call Aunt L, and see if there’s anything they can do.”
Now to be honest, since I’ve been here, I haven’t made contact with that side of the family. I don’t know why. Maybe it was just the lack of money, not wanting to make much of a fuss, or impose on anyone. I don’t know.
I got back to the house in Kent, walking briskly, but feeling the aridity of the place and a heaviness settle on me with every step.
—-
Remember I told you I had a BITCH story to tell you about my cousin and his girlfriend?
Last week… oh no, week before last, the night I came back back from Birmingham, I got kind of lost in London. I needed to get to London Bridge from Euston Station.
First I got on the right bus, and they told me I needed to catch another one at King’s Cross. When I got to King’s Cross, discovered I had just gotten off the right bus. Hopped on to another one, only to discover it was going in the wrong direction. Had to get off that one, cross the street, walk a block or so and catch another bus going to Victoria where I knew I could get the train through to New Hythe, my station in Kent.
That bus got stuck in traffic for more than an hour, and so decided to stop at Picadilly Circus and said I had to get out and get another bus to Victoria. Got on that bus, but the conductor told me I had the wrong ticket. A nice fella gave me an extra travel card he had, just in case the conductor forced the issue and I had to pay the fare again. She didn’t, but I still got what I needed.
Got off at Victoria, and had to wait to get the train. Hopped on the train and had to change to another at London Bridge The tracks were out between Gravesend and Higham, so I had to get on another bus and travel for about 45 minutes to get to Strood.
When I finally got to Strood, I had missed the last train by an hour.
I was stuck.
Not only had my last cash been spent to get this train ticket down to Kent, I wasn’t getting back the portion I couldn’t use. Also I had about £4 in change in my pocket. The platform attendent told me he’d be happy to call me a taxi, but I didn’t know how to pay for it.
It’s 12.15am.
I called my cousin and asked him what to do.
“Get a taxi,” he tossed at me sounding disgruntled, then he hung up on me.
I called back.
This time his girlfriend answered the phone. I explained the situation to her. She said my cousin had been drinking and was in no condition to drive to Strood to get me. She had her own car with her, since she obviously drove down from London, but she never suggested that she would come for me.
She said she had only £10 to put gas in her car to get to work in the morning. She went to ask my cousin if he had enough money to cover a taxi, and he said no he only had £10.
She asked me if I had any money at all… the tone of the whole conversation was I was making this great imposition and it was this huge sacrifice. My cousin is the Managing Director for the Kent arm of a huge telecom company, his girlfriend is a doctor. £15 seems like such a ridiculously small sum, certainly nothing dramatic like £150 or even £1500 and this certainly qualified as an emergency. Since I’ve been in the house, I ask for so little, don’t get in their way, buy my own food, keep to myself; certainly it wasn’t too much to help me?
Obviously if I had had the £15, I wouldn’t have called and would have made my own way back to the house, and damnit woman, you’re running down the credit on my fucking phone with all this vacillation, are you going to fucking help me or not? (On the inside of course.)
She told me to go ahead and call the cab. We hung up.
I asked the platform manager to call the cab, and I sat down on my little suitcase and cried, cigarette smoke mixing with my breath and pluming away into the flourescent lights of the station, my hot tears first warming then freezing my cheeks. What a thing to be dependent on such selfish people. It was utterly mortifying to me; one to ask, and two to have them be so reluctant to help me at all beyond ‘allowing’ me to stay at the house.
I mean really… what was so hard about paying for the cab? It’s almost as if they would have been quite happy for me to stay in the station until morning, waiting for the first train out; a whole six, seven hours in the freezing night, rather than have me bother them with this ‘shit’. Certainly, my cousin did not give a fuck one way or the other.
I had to wait about half an hour for the cab, and it took about fifteen minutes to get to Larkfield.
When I got to the house, there was a £20 note waiting on the kitchen counter for me; crispy and new.
So exactly WHO was lying about having only £10? Between them, yeah they could have made up £20, but in two £10 pound notes, or four £5 notes, or a combination of £10s and £5s, but a whole £20 note? Somebody was lying, and reiterated my point about not wanting to help me at all, or doing as little as possible to help me.
The cab was £18. I scraped together three of my remain £4 in change, and took back the £5 from the £20 for my cousin.
—–
The next day, my cousin’s girlfriend casually informs me that my cousin has invited his sister (my cousin) and his niece to come up for Christmas from the first week in December, and she (cousin’s girlfriend) has invited her sister and her niece to stay with them for three and a half weeks over Christmas starting two weeks from now.
Like I am sure I’ve said in earlier posts, it’s not like I don’t have to sleep somewhere… I could sleep next to the lake under the trees. They could care less about the horrendous expense I am put to, to make my way into London to crash with one friend or another (of which Mahie is the only one now). It costs me £30 just to get there, forget having to eat, move around and such in London for however long my exile lasts. It’s money I can ill afford.
Of course, those of you who read regularly will know that this is not the first time they, or rather HE has done this to me.
I simply am not important enough to matter at all. He doesn’t care how I eat, about anything to do with my life, or about anything I have done with my life in the past, or my physical or emotional wellbeing in any way.
They eat the little food I bring into the house, and don’t replace anything, forcing me to eat what they have, to add to my beholdeness. It’s as if I simply do not factor into their arrangements or thoughts in any way. I simply do not matter.
Like my mother says, these people forget. They forget that they were helped in life, by my family and so should help others.
More than any other, THIS is the reason why I want to leave Kent forever and never return.
—–
So Saturday, this Saturday gone, after my mother and I talked about the whole Kent situation I went back to the house. My cousin wasn’t there, but came in later, and actually looked surprised to see me.
I went to sleep a little while later, only to be awakened by my cousin BAWLING my name from his bed, a mere ten feet away from where I was sleeping (albeit with doors between us) to come to the phone.
When I got there my mother was on the other line. She told me that my grandmother had called Aunt Lil.
I think my cousin was listening on the other end, because I could hear the feedback from upstairs on the phone. You know what it sounds like, don’t you? Like you can hear someone moving and it’s not the person you’re talking to on the phone? A little echo of your own voice? Besides I never heard the click from him hanging up.
Which is why I was glad that all my mother said was, “Aunt Lil says she’ll do absolutely anything she can to help you, it’s not a problem at all. She said to call her as soon as possible, so call her tomorrow alright?”
So that’s what I did.
Last night I spoke to both Aunt Lil, and my cousin Leila, and they both said it’s no problem they would find a way to help.
In fact Leila told me she’d drive down to Kent and pick me up, then bring me back to her house in Clacton-by-the-Sea over Christmas.
She said she’s looking forward to seeing me, since we haven’t seen each other in about 12 years. The last time we saw each other, she took me through my first past life regression, and the experience changed my life. She and I talked for about six or seven hours straight. We have a great deal in common not least of all a spiritual outlook on life.
I talked to Aunt Lil for about half an hour, and then Leila called me and she and I talked for about half an hour, and the last thing Aunt Lil said to me was, “Don’t worry darling, me and the girls will put our heads together and try and do something for you, you shouldn’t have to feel so alone in England when we are here.”
The last thing Leila said was, “Just hold out this week, and don’t worry… help is on the way! Help is on the WAY!”
Internally, I could only breathe a sigh of relief. Both of them were puzzled why I didn’t call them sooner, and all I could tell them was that I’ve been in a kind of limboish state since I’ve been here, battling depression, trying to stay off the phone here at the house, keeping to myself and mostly pinned down by a lack of money.
It looks like I’ll be out of here next week though, God/dess willing; and not a moment too soon.
I hope never to have to be dependent on such bad minded people ever again, and look forward to seeing and staying with this warm side of my family, who I know and whose warmth I’ve felt already throughout my life.
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