They Thought I Was Dead: Sandy’s Story

46 Jersey, Channel Islands, 2011

Love and hate. Extreme emotions so far apart, yet so much closer than we are aware. They evoke such strong feelings that they can blur your vision — not what you can see just with your eyes, but with your mind too — until you can no longer distinguish the boundary between them. That’s how living with Nicos was making me feel.

Love and hate come from the same place deep in our hearts. And in my relationship with Nicos the darkness and the light lived side by side in a kind of increasingly uneasy and volatile alliance.

It was about 11 p.m., I was on the sofa with a glass of white wine, watching a documentary on television — well, watching through my right eye, my left one was almost closed and I could barely see anything through it. I was praying that eye wasn’t permanently damaged. Yesterday Nicos had got mad at me. Why? Because I wouldn’t let him punish Bruno for throwing a tantrum and breaking a bottle of wine. Bruno hadn’t wanted to go to bed — a frequent occurrence — and in his fury accidentally knocked a bottle of red wine off the breakfast bar — admittedly an expensive one — which smashed on the floor, spraying its contents all over part of Nicos’s precious white carpet.

This changes things for me. Nicos crossed a threshold, hitting me for the first time. And I am more and more concerned with his anger towards Bruno. I know he could hurt him. He’s been punishing him almost daily for just about anything that annoys him — like leaving his socks in the living room, or not putting away his toy cars, or not taking his shoes off after coming in from outside. Bruno is too young, how would he know to do that, for goodness’ sake?

Nicos often yells at him now, and raises his hand as if to slap him. I see Bruno cowering. I scream at Nicos, and tell him to stop. But calm as a summer breeze, he just grabs hold of me, asserting his power. The look he gives me is intense, terrifying. And always he knows he holds the ultimate trump card. My drugs. My anonymity. He has me just where he wants me. Dependent, in so many ways. Much to my disgust — or is it self-loathing?

I can feel it all escalating, I think he will hit Bruno soon.

And when he does I will—

Oh God.

I’m crying again. Crying myself to sleep. To sleep perchance to dream. I’m thinking about that quote from Hamlet. In this sleep of death what dreams may come?

For me, it’s so often the same dream. I’m with Roy. He is smiling, holding me, so glad that I am back. I feel so intensely happy.

Then I wake and Nicos, stinking of cigars, is lying beside me, drunk and snoring.