PART 1, 2 AND 3 THE WORLD THROUGH A BOTTLE BY FIONA CUMMINGS

 

THE WORLD THROUGH A BOTTLE

BY FIONA CUMMINGS

There is a world out there  that I needed to discover for myself, not by hearing it from others, my own feelings my own future memories, I want to smell the lemons growing on the trees in Cyprus. Taste the olives in Italy, drink the wine in France and eat Caviar in Russia. I want to feel the different climates and listen to the silence before the storms. See the sunset and the blizzards, the volcanoes erupting and the forest fires I want to help to fight. I want to make peace with the red cross and put my hands on those who no one wants to touch.

But how can I?

I can only imagine such a world.

But you can’t really imagine smells, can you? Not really, someone can tell you about the lemons, and you know what it is like to smell the fresh zest smell of a lemon, but you don’t really smell it, do you?

Yes I can imagine but I want to live it, you live once on this earth, I want to do it, but I can’t and never will be able to. Not a chance on earth, because circumstances prevent me from doing so.

I took the choice to live this life I live.

I made that decision on that mid July day in the summer of 2010.

Now look at me. I never thought it would end up like this?

How could I even  know?

I remember that July, that summer. That life I had then. Only I had that choice and I made it. I chose what I have now, so what is that old saying?

“I made my bed, so now I have to lie on it. Hmm. If only? If only I could?

It was a normal summers day, well, normal to me. I woke up with the head from hell. I rescued some dregs from a bottle that would only be thrown in the bin when found, though finding it, would be rather hard, as I had to really  disguise my empties,  until I got chance to slip them in my car and take them down to the recycle centre for unwanted glass.

I parted with my bottles, as though they were my long lost friends.

And they were?

My bottles were my friends, I could sit with them, talk until I no longer had words to say, they would not argue with me.

They after a while, would make me feel better, like a best friend does.

I used those bottles, like you wouldn’t imagine? I felt guilty throwing them away.

I drank them dry and through them away,  disregarded them like  unworthy rubbish.

Perhaps that is why they left me with someone else’s head for a day, well, until I could have another drink to make the pain again go away.

And that was the trouble. The drink. Because of it, I lost my licence in the end. I walked to the recycling centre. Clunking away with the bottles rattling. As I  passed my neighbours, old friends and strangers,  constantly making excuses, first it was Oh, I was at a party and wanted to help the host to recycle some bottles, oh, I had a  dinner party at the  weekend, and so on, oh the best one was, I am getting rid of these bottles for my Son, they are not mine, but his.  Honest?

I could see in their eyes, they hated me. They would not let their children play with my young daughter and when my son went for local jobs, he was asked,

“Are you Tammie’s Son?” That is why he moved away. I lost him in the end.

Then my little girl. She was eleven when I made that decision. She told me she never wanted to see me again, the worst thing was, the bit which tore my heart out, was she said she did not have a Mum. She hated me too and the words went on,  and on until I just could not bare it any longer. My Husband told me that dreadful day, he wanted me out of his and his, daughters life for good. I could not fight, I had no fight left in me. That fight was removed some years before.

I fought for my marriage. My Husband stopped holding me in his arms. Stopped kissing me before work, stopped making love to me but the worst thing was, in bed, if I turned to face him and happened to touch him with my leg or arm, as you do in the same bed, he shunned me. He recoiled.

I know why now, but didn’t at that time. It was this day which changed my life!

I dropped my daughter off at school, and my Son off at high school, in the next village, as it was pouring with rain and the bus stop was half a mile away. I was on my way to work that way anyway, but I really was in a panic to get the kids to school on time, and I just put on the first thing I could find, sandals and I hadn’t bothered with a coat? That would be OK, but, I had also forgotten, I was to  put the car in the garage for repair after work and it was to go in all night. I was to be  dropped off by my Husband the next day and go to work with the car as normal. But I had forgot all about that and knew that my Husband could not  pick me up as he had to be at a house visit that night. He was an accountant and he had so many clients to visit in their homes in a week. That Wednesday night was one of those nights. So I had a long walk or a couple of busses to make after work that night, so me in summer clothes and footwear, I knew, I had to go home and put on something more sensible?

I would only be  a few minutes late for work, as I got the kids to school for half eight, work was nine, so I quickly put my foot down on the peddle and drove back home.

I pulled up outside the house, I  was unable to  drive on our driveway, because a car was parked there? My Husbands car was in the garage still as he did not go to work until after ten, as he worked from home for an hour before setting off on his day.

 I thought to myself, I am sure we are not due anyone today? I did not recognize the car, looking through the windows, which were slightly tinted, I could see  a black studded leather dice, hanging  from the mirror inside the car, a rolled up newspaper and a bunch of dusters pushed in the indentation on the dashboard. Hmm. No clues there? Nice car though!

As I tried to open the door, I thought it odd, as we never lock our doors through the day?

I opened my bag and took out my keys. Turned the lock and entered the slate floored porch.

Slipped off my sandals and headed for the cupboard under the stairs to retrieve a pair of shoes. I passed the lounge and no one was there, but a bunch of keys lay on my polished coffee table. I was furious as no one was allowed to put anything on there, it was a joke in the family, why have a coffee table, if nothing is allowed to be put on there?

Not even coasters for coffee cups.

Even the kids, knew from a young age, not to ever put anything on my, table.

“Oh no, that’s Mums table, they would tell their friends.

I purchased it on Portabella road just down on the right, there is a small shop very exclusive and incredibly deer. You know, those kind of shops, where nothing has a price on? It’s considered tacky. If you need to know the price, you can’t afford it.

Well I didn’t care how much it was, I had just been promoted at work and I was celebrating.

In those days, I celebrated in a different way to I do now.

So who ever it was obviously through in the dining room, didn’t know me, did not know about my,  coffee table.

I really was curious to know who was in our house, but, also was aware that I was going to be very late, if I didn’t get a move on?

The dining room, I could hear voices, so that is where they were hiding.

It was coming up to my thirtieth birthday, what if my Husband was planning a surprise? What if, that person with the leather dice, was a party planner? What  if I was about to spoil what  my Husband had planned for me?

I decided not to interrupt my secret, and pass the dining room, on tiptoes.

I gently crept upstairs not wanting to even creak the floorboards.

It was then I realised the sounds, the voices from the dining room, were in fact the radio.

I walked into our bedroom to get my jacket and there my world ended. It was there I stopped breathing. It was then my life ended and I couldn’t fight any longer. I had been really trying to save our marriage for some years, in  fact, since the third month of us being newlyweds. Only the seventh month of us  even knowing each other. I thought it was because Chris loved me so much, I was convinced this is why he wanted us to marry so quickly after meeting.

I never thought he would, was, doing this to me?

 I found myself stuck to the bedroom door, looking down at my, husband, my, man, I froze, never imagining he, would look up at me. Never imagined he was like that?

I wanted to regurgitate there and then.

But my throat  was closed. I had died.

I wanted my angel to come for me and take me away from this pain and shock.

He, just looked at me and that is when my drinking started. Nothing not even pills which were prescribed to me could remove pain in the same way a bottle or three could?

It was his, look. It was so hard, He, looked at me. Through, me. Well, he, would?

He didn’t know me.

He had never met me until that day!

 

 

THE WORLD THROUGH A BOTTLE 2

BY FIONA CUMMINGS

So he was gay? My, husband was gay? That explains so much, the hurry to marry, the total detachment from love and eye contact. Oh my God, I walked in on them. In my, our, bed?  I wanted to run, I did not want to be there, but I found myself stuck to the door. The room was spinning. The floor was coming up to meet with me and the ceiling was falling down, suffocating me  like a lid on a coffin!

They said some words but they echoed and reverberated around the room. Breaks of a car scratching in my head, high pitched symbols clashed against my brain, and I was slowly dying. But the worst thing was, I  was not allowed to die and go away. I had to stay, stay on this earth. The last place where I wanted to be.

Don’t get me wrong, my colleague and friend at work is gay and  he and I have the best nights out and the most meaningful and fun chats over a cappuccino and Panini, during our short lunch break, but my, Husband?

It was the coldness too. The ice cold way he reframed from holding me and  keeping me steady. The way in which I, felt the one in the wrong here.

If it was a woman, at least I could say, well, she is prettier than me, a nicer figure or better in bed? But a man? What does, that say for me?

Then my shock turned into the reality of the day, and work, the kids, the car.

I just couldn’t help it, I went mad. I ran down stairs and  removed a knife from the block in the kitchen. I slashed like a worrier fighting for his life, at the strange jacket hanging on the back of the kitchen chair. I ran upstairs, knife pointing out to attack anything I could find. Anything  that got in my way. I ran to my daughters room. I wanted to destroy everything we had bought as a couple in her room. It was bought with false love, false family  values. I was wild with anger. I ran into my Sons room and did the same, his leather jacket that my Husband and I bought for his birthday. That whole day, he would be thinking about his night time visits to clients houses. Well one client?

Then our room.

 

THE WORLD THROUGH A BOTTLE PART 3

BY FIONA CUMMINGS

I didn’t see red, I saw my Husband lying under an olive skinned man whom I didn’t know? Not only did  I  not know him, I didn’t want to know him, he was loving my, Husband. He was doing to my Husband, what I should be doing.  What hurt the most, was my husband’s face was one of pleasure. Enjoyment. Not the cold ice face/expression, which I had to endeavour, every time I even hinted to make love.

Yes, it’s all clear now. I saw a memory of five minutes ago.

I was not seeing what really was in front of me. I was not seeing the real life images of my husband and his lover.

I lashed out at everything that was solid. I heard screams. I felt a sticky warm substance on my fingers and face as spats of blood shot back at me in my eyes. I felt the tugging around my shoulders, but I developed a strength, in which I had never witnessed before.

I wanted to end it all, but what? What was I ending?

I had blood on my hands. I fell to the floor. I went into my head and was woke up in a totally different environment.

Bright lights, a hostile an yet safe place and a bed I didn’t recognise.

Stood at the bottom of my bed,  was my Husband.

He wore a patch on his eye and it looked like he was padded out with bandages.

I lifted up my head and muttered the words

“I did that to you!”

He looked right through me and told me, that he, had done it to me, but he was leaving me and was taking our daughter with him. Our Son could make up his own mind.

Later on that day, I was seen by so many medics, psychologists and police.

My Husband and his  lover, did not want to press charges.

I went home that night, to find my daughter waiting for me. Just to tell me she never wanted to see me again. She didn’t have a Mum.

My little girl, the baby I held with such pride, the tiny hand I supported whilst I taught her to walk. My angel who I took to school on her first day, came home and broke my heart until it was time for me to pick her up again.

My Son stayed with me. Just until he left school that following autumn. I lost all of my friends family and all that was left was my memories and a Son who never could understand why I would want to kill his Dad. I found my comfort, my escape, in the bottles of red wine. I died that day, I had no job, no car, my house had to be sold and the money which was left, not much, was used to bring up my, little girl. I had nowhere to go. Just the shop doors, places where I  once took pride in entering and purchasing anything that took my fancy.

I took with me my rucksack, full of the few memories I could retrieve from our house. Memories of the children.

I don’t know what to do now. I really don’t know?

My brain, what is left and not pickled by the medicine of  the Italian vineyards, tells me to get help with my drinking. But as I lie here, raindrops dropping from the roof above my place of sleep, I shiver with thought of where I  will end up tomorrow?

Another doorway? Another bottle?