Paid For: My Journey Through Prostitution by Rachel Moran Read Free Book Online

temporarily stopped to clear his path. That in itself had struck fear into me; that the nurse, whom I'd regarded as an authority figure just seconds before, had deferred power to this man. We walked on and I saw that bodies lay in beds all around the ward, or sat up in bed, just staring with a spaced-out resignation that rendered them little more than statues that somehow managed to breathe, and a great air of misery and utter hopelessness permeated the air and made it heavy, so that I felt physically pressed against by it. When we got to my father's bed the nurse walked away and left me there. Everywhere I looked I saw dead colours; shadows of grey, dirty shades of cream, and that horrible decomposing green. I remember thinking how unwell my father looked while he made the gargantuan effort of lifting his head off the pillow. I kept saying, 'Dad, Dad', and pulling at his shoulder, and eventually he slowly raised his head and looked at me. I saw that he was heavily medicated. His eyes were glassy and unfocused and as he recognised me I thought I saw them cloud with shame. He managed the briefest of conversations before he sank back beneath the fog. I cannot remember what was said, but I know that if I could, recounting it would not take up more than a couple of lines. I'm sure he must have asked after my mother, because that was always his first question when he hadn't seen her in a while. I didn't know what to do. I sat on the edge of the bed in the end and stared at the cubicle wall till enough time had passed that seemed reasonable for a visit. I stood up and said goodbye to him and then I went looking for the nurse. When I got home I told my mother about the man who'd frightened me in the hospital and she said to me: 'Your father is afraid of that man because he beats him.' That was a typical example of her thoughtless wounding tongue, and all I could think about after that was my father being beaten by that man, and thinking about it, for a long time, I couldn't stop wishing I had hugged my sleeping father. Memories of childhood are connected to us by a door, the existence of which we rarely consider. We travel back to those places, summoned, whether or not we are desirous of making the journey. The key to this portal morphs and changes from moment to moment. To that time, for me, the key might be that particular shade ofloathsome green in a public toilet; tomorrow it might be a pretty white-painted bench in a public park. But whatever is responsible for bringing me back there in my mind serves the same purpose, to forcibly cause me again to experience that sense of stepping out ofa lift and into a nightmare. I have never liked lifts, but I've never shared that common fear of a sense of forced enclosure. I would imagine that fear engulfs the moment the doors begin to close. I feel the stab of anxiety at the opposite moment, when the doors begin to open. To this day I don't understand why I was allowed, alone, at that age, into the secure ward of a mental hospital. But then Ireland was a different place in the mid-198os, and I'd imagine people scarcely knew what to do when confronted with a young child presenting herself at a mental institution, obviously deeply assured that she had every business to be there. Had they not allowed me in, I'd just have a different dismal memory; I'd be remembering the day I wasn't allowed in to visit my father. I'd be remembering wanting to go in and comfort him and not being allowed to do that; and that is the thing about severe family dysfunction: when the problems come from within, there is almost nothing that can be done to make things better from without. That is not to say that kind-natured strangers did not sometimes try: they did, and the memory of their actions stays with me to this day. I remember when my youngest sister spent several weeks in Cherry Orchard hospital in 1985. She was suffering from some sort of virus and was five at the time. I made the two-legged journey there to