The Smaritans

It was 19th November 1978 and as I rushed into Joyce’s room, I glanced at her bed. They must have moved her; or she was up and walking round the ward. The Ward Sister came over to me as I looked through the window at Joyce’s bed. It was all freshly made up. I couldn’t understand why the bed was made at that time of night, something wasn’t right.

The Sister asked who I was. I told her I was Joyce’s best friend. Then she told me, compassionately, that Joyce had died just ten minutes before I’d arrived.

My hand flew up to my mouth and I bit my lip. I couldn’t breathe. My nose stung and then my eyes began to water.

“Oh, oh, nooo! No, no. Oh, no!” I cried. “She was getting better—how could she die?”

The Sister just stood there for a moment and held my hand. Then she turned to continue with clearing up the rest of Joyce’s things.

I stood there in disbelief. I was sure Joyce could not be dead. I searched the faces, yet I failed to spot her amongst all the others patients. Joyce had to be there, she couldn’t have gone. Not without me seeing her. I hadn’t said goodbye.

Les had left without saying goodbye, and now it was happening again. I felt my legs weaken and buckle beneath me and suddenly I felt dizzy. I wanted to cry but the tears didn’t come. I couldn’t speak, my mind screaming inside with the pain. Oh, how the sorrow filled me.

I was stunned, devastated. My whole world collapsed in ten minutes. I stood there, struck down as if by some dreadful stroke. Shaking, speechless, and then a numbness descended; my emotions shut down and my world went into a haze. I didn’t feel anything anymore.

I staggered, half stumbling out into the still night air, and wandered over to the car. Terry appeared to see the shock etched on my face and he must have known she had gone. We drove home in silence. Did I feel angry that he made me late? I didn’t know. I didn’t see any point in blaming him—she was dead.

I felt utterly alone, abandoned and destitute as if back down in Langhedge Lane, only this time I didn’t have the fight for it; all the stuffing had been taken out of me. I was exhausted.

If I could go back and change the world, wind back the clock just a few hours, if I could be given the chance to talk to her… I would have given anything for that. I would have done that for Joyce. Not one person understood the strength of the unspoken bond we had between us. That silent understanding, as much as if we had been of one flesh and of one mind.

I returned home and had to face the split up of my marriage. I didn’t know how long I spent just sitting and looking out of the window wondering what to do. Nothing prepared me for it, there was no rehearsal, it just knocked me off my feet and I knew I had to carry on. But I couldn’t.

I didn’t go to work. I remember thinking that divorce would never happen to me. I thought that marriage was for life. Divorce was unknown in Terry’s family, until Terry felt he needed someone else. We would be the first.

He suggested we live separately, come back in later years, and tell the family we had decided to split. It was a lie and I wasn’t having any of it! Terry and I had a good family and I was part of it. I was always committed to my principles, and I told him so. Yet there was part of me that just wanted to let it all drift. Joyce was dead, and what did I care what he wanted to do?

I phoned my bother Les, and he suggested I go and see a solicitor; that’s all he said. 

I trudged through the snow and saw a lady solicitor. I told her that Terry had left me and gone to live with his lady friend, and I was left alone with Colin. I couldn’t afford to run the flat, and I didn’t have any money to pay her.

She told me to take my son and go, and not to worry about Terry, or about paying her anything.

Stunned at her kindness, I thanked her and walked back home.

Speaking to my mother-in-law Florrie, she advised me to go abroad for six months, and leave Colin with her in the hope Terry would somehow see sense. It seemed a stupid idea. If Terry didn’t want me now, why would he want me later?

I left Colin with Florrie, and went to the flat to pick up some things. Terry was there, and we started talking. I loved him. I didn’t want to end the marriage, and so I ended up staying the night and we made love. In the morning I put a hand across to him to make love again, and he clearly didn’t want to. He had just done it as a favour for me, to save his own feelings.

He got straight up to leave for work. I told him I would be gone before he got back.

I said goodbye to all the rooms. I didn’t know why—it was silly; perhaps I was saying goodbye to my marriage. I gently closed the front door and was walking down the flight of stairs to the exit door, when I spotted Terry. He was walking back to the flat with Lin, or perhaps it was Teresa, I didn’t know. We stopped as we passed on the ramp. I said “Hello”. That was the last I saw of him until the divorce.

I wandered onto the street, knowing my marriage was over.

What was left for me?

I had lost my marriage, my home, my best friend and soul-mate. Most people, when they lose their marriage, at the very least, have their best friend to turn to. I had lost everything. If ever I needed Joyce, it was now.

The strength that sustained me through childhood had gone? I had nothing, no one, no money, no home, and no hope.

I walked to a phone box and phoned the Samaritans.

“Samaritans—hello, my name is Anne,” she said.

“I have,” I sobbed uncontrollably, sniff, sob, “I have...”  It was like a cork floating in a bottle of words. Each time I went to pour, the cork jammed in my throat.

Sob, silence.

“It’s all right, you take as much time as you want.” She heard me, yet I said nothing.

I just cried and sobbed into the telephone.  I had so much to say, but the hurt wouldn’t let me. It was impossible; my mind deserted me in my desperate struggle for help. I choked and cried. My words were my tears, and each tear, my pain, dripping into the phone like blood from an open wound, as surely as if I had just slashed my wrists and let all the blood pour out.

“It’s okay,” she whispered gently, “I’m still here.”

Despite all my efforts, I could not speak. I wanted to—God how I wanted to tell her. My tears, my inner screams of agony, twisted and all churned up, as if a hurricane had slammed into me, and now the aftermath.  I was looking at my shattered self, broken, and completely destroyed.

Language did not have enough for me.

Silence, sob, sob, sniff, swallow. I wiped the tears.

She said nothing, but I knew she was there, holding me close.  I heard her swallow and I knew she felt for me, this lady I did not know.

“I’m still here,” she said. “It’s okay to take your time.”

“My friend… my best friend...” I couldn’t finish anything.

Sob, sob, sniff, sniff. I wiped away the tears and blew my nose.  I caught a glimpse of my face in the mirror, my panda eyes, all red and blotchy.

“I am here still, it’s all right, take your time.”

People passed by the phone box on the street. They must have heard my cries and sobs. Yet they scurried past.

I did not believe that anyone could feel so alone, so utterly, so desperately alone. I felt in a wilderness so vast that time itself was absent, save the gossamer thread of hope that dangled at the end of that phone line. 

I tried to say something again. Nothing came and I clutched the phone like a drowning man. If only I could have told her—I had to tell someone. But still I was struck dumb and no matter how hard I tried, the words did not flow.

“She’s, she’s err… and I am all alone,” I stuttered into my soaking hanky.

“I am still here for you,” she said. “It’s all right.”

I was spiralling down some black hole—I had no more to give.

I dropped the phone and walked out of the box back onto the street, empty.