I’m glad that you got a job in the kitchen, take your mind off things. I’m still licking envelopes just to get enough ‘money’ to call out of here once in a while. It’s the routine that gets to me the most. The fact that you know exactly what is going to happen, when it’s going to happen and once it’s happened you know that it will happen all over again tomorrow. It’s the complete opposite to working in A+E where you don’t know what’s going to happen from one moment to the next, I miss that. I miss a lot of things: mostly I miss wanting to wake up in the morning. Now I just have to force myself out of bed.
I’m interested to hear about this bloke of yours, what’s he like? And you say you were stalked; do you want to tell me about it? I’ll listen if you want, if not then just tell me where to go. You and me are so alike that I’m sure you can’t be real. I think that one of these days I’ll find it’s one of the girls on my wing playing a cruel trick on me and I’ll really be all alone.
Lara
X
Cell 22
G wing
New London Prison
31/10/02
Dear Lara,
I’m sorry to hear about your boyfriend dying, that must be so hard for you. I know mine doesn’t visit, doesn’t write and doesn’t call but at least I know that he’ll be out there enjoying himself and one day he’ll come running back to me like he always does. That’s just his style. You want to know about him? Well, he’s the tall, dark, handsome doctor that you said was just your type (hands off! He’s mine!) He’s arrogant to the point of thinking he’s god but deep down he’s the sweetest, kindest man you could ever meet. We fight all the time because we’re complete opposites but you know what they say, opposites attract. I first met him at med school when he was showing me the ropes and we started dating, it was quite serious and we were together for four years but then I completely screwed up when I believed my ex over him. Luckily I was given a second chance when he moved up to the hospital where I was working and after six years of being apart. We fought like cat and dog for two years and really mastered that love/hate thing. There was so much love and misunderstanding between us that I never thought we’d get it together. But we did, he saved me from a psycho that was stalking me (I’ll explain later) and I realised that I couldn’t cope with it. So just before I went off to Germany he said that he loved me (you have no idea how long I’d waited for him to say that) and from then to now we’ve been together. Despite the ocean or the prison walls between us.
You want to know about my stalker? Well, it’s a long story so I hope you’re sitting comfortably. It started just after my birthday (which is Christmas day, in case you want to send me a present!) when I got a card saying ‘wish I could have been with you’ or some such rubbish. Of course I thought nothing of it but then I started to get little ‘presents’ left all around for me, roses on my locker, on my car, in my car, teddy bears, that sort of thing. By this time I was getting slightly spooked by it. There was a note on my locker one day, I can still remember what it said, ‘you may break; shatter the glass if you will. But the scent of roses will hang round here still’. I contacted the police but they said they couldn’t do anything because he hadn’t hurt me or threatened me. The one-day I got home and found that he’d tidied my flat and put candles all round my bath. I know it doesn’t sound like the scariest thing that could happen but if it were happening to you you’d understand. Then the next day I got a phone call asking me how I’d slept. It was the worst time of my life (worse than being in here, would you believe) and all the time I thought it was Dan who was this creep that fancied me from work and I never thought it would be Tom who was always so nice to me. So one day I went back to his flat and found out we had a lot in common, he ordered Pizza and we were having a nice time until Dan turned up. Later I found out that he’d worked out that Tom was my stalker and was coming to help me but at the time I thought he was following me. Anyway, to cut a long story short, Tom drugged Dan and made it seem like he’d mixed hay fever drugs with alcohol but I got suspicious and when I went to check on him it turned out that none of the tablets had been taken. Then I had a little look around the flat and I found a wall covered with Pictures of me, some when I was sleeping. It was so scary. I tried to call the police but he just wouldn’t let me go so I had to hit him round the head with an ornament to get away.
I thought that was it. He was in hospital and then he would go to prison and I thought I could finally get on with my life again. But then he turned up again at the hospital (I still don’t know how he managed to escape) and smashed my car up. As if that wasn’t bad enough he knocked me out and tied me up on a bed in the disused part of the hospital. He left me there nearly all day while he went to find some drugs. When he got back he made me wear this awful silver dress and dance with him. I didn’t want to touch him, let alone dance with him, but I saw my chance to escape. I kicked him, hard, and ran to the window where I smashed a chair through it and screamed for help with all the strength I had left. Then I remember a needle being stuck in my back and then it all went black. Remember I said that my boyfriend saved my life? Well he came in and gave me mouth to mouth until I came round. If he hadn’t then… It’s too bad to think about.
So, that was basically the story of my life in a few pages.
From
Holly.
Cell 30
B wing
London New Prison
4th November 2002
Dear Holly,
And there was me thinking that I’d had a hard life! But you really win the prize on that front, first being stalked and then being falsely imprisoned, it all happens to you! I hope this guy of yours turns up soon, it’ll be good for you to have some happiness in your life- you deserve it. He sounds really nice, by the way, just like my idiot. Right down to the arrogance covering up his soft side, but I suppose a lot of doctors are like that- kind of goes with the job. If you play god then you end up thinking you are god.
If you think your guy is arrogant then you should meet the jerk that I had to work with before I came in here. He made no secret of the fact that he fancied me and he was particularly insensitive and uncaring about the fact that he was taking over my dead boyfriend’s job and some how he got the idea that he could fill his shoes in more than the professional sense (like I’d ever let him within ten feet of me!). Then when he beat me to the registrar’s job that made his over-inflated ego even bigger. Luckily he turned up at work a few days later with a lovely black eye from when his brother had found out that he was sleeping with his fiancé (no word of a lie!) and that made me feel a million times better.
So I think he is probably the only thing I wont miss about A+E. I haven’t always worked there, of course, for quite a few years U worked in Sierra Leone, which is probably my biggest accomplishment to date. I never thought that I’d have the bottle to go through with something like that. I always thought I was too self-centred to put my life on the line every day for people I didn’t know. I mean working in a hospital with top medical equipment, other doctors and drugs is one thing but really helping people is another. But an old friend of mine talked me into it; she said that if I didn’t take the opportunity I’d regret it for the rest of my life. It still gives me nightmares: the children with limbs missing, with parents missing, the barren landscape the… everything. It was one of the scariest, hardest and most painful times of my life but I wouldn’t swap the experience for anything. After seeing all of those lives destroyed, wasted, it made my will to survive even stronger. It made me a fighter, made me who I am today. I think that maybe if I hadn’t gone there and seen the tings I’ve seen then maybe, just maybe, I would have let him rape me. I wouldn’t have felt strong enough to defend myself, to stand up to him.
That’s another nightmare I have: of the brick not being there, of him being too strong for me. Somehow that seems worse than me killing someone. In my dreams I have war scenes, rapes, car crashes killing people I love, is it any wonder I have bags under my eyes? And when I wake up it’s no better, that’s the worst part.
X-Lara-X
Next