I’m under the bed. It’s an old bed. I can see the springs, wide at their base winding upwards and tapering to a smaller circle at the top. Each spring is some inches apart from the other springs. They make a regular pattern. There is dust on the frame. The frame is made of metal. Sometimes, at Christmas there are presents under this bed. I saw the red paper with Father Christmas on his sleigh. I knew delight. There are no presents now. Just me and the springs. I can hear loud noises downstairs, plates, cupboard doors, slamming and banging. All of the springs are doing their job holding up the world that is the mattress. A big bang makes my body jump but banging is good. There is still distance between me and the banger. Then what I dread most of all in the world. A noise on the stairs! Footsteps on the stairs! I stop breathing. My eyes are like saucers. I know there is a street outside and I must get to it but right now I am upstairs. Banging upstairs. The voice that is angry - without love. I can always jump from the window. I have tried this out because I am interested in how to get in and out of things. I landed on the roof of the parlour bay window. From there I jumped into the front garden. I feel successful when I can escape. Once I climbed up the drainpipe that runs up the back of the house and climbed into the house through the tiny toilet window. My legs were the last thing to enter. They stuck out of the small mouth like a forked tongue. The window is just below the eaves of the roof. The window is a long way from the ground. The voice is closer. My belly seems to have moved up to my throat. The thing that calms my belly down is Kaolin and Morphine. There is a bottle of it downstairs in the cupboard. When the smoke has cleared I will find a quiet moment and swig from the slim bottle. Its content separate when left to settle; most of the medicine is clay coloured, a light beige, but on top sits caramel-coloured liquid that looks like the sauce on a crème caramel. I will shake the bottle and mix the contents. I will take a swig from the bottle. I will wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. It will make my belly settle. I will drink a lot of it.
When I am afraid I am also resourceful and build up my own strategies; places of safety, escape routes, forms of soothing. Sometimes strategies come from bottles sometimes other places. Under the bed was my favourite safety strategy although I sometimes plumped for the wardrobe. When my sister was young she preferred to hide under the kitchen table. In those days table clothes afforded protection. Of course, you were easily found under the table or the bed, but the instinct and attempt to access physical, mental and emotionally safety was alive and active nevertheless. But you cant always rely on beds and tables. I can’t remember when I began to imagine safe spaces in my mind, it might have been when I was very young, but my hunch is that it was a little later because I was still hoping that others would provide a safe space for me. For one reason or another that didn’t always happen.
My favourite safe space in my mind is a cabin in the woods. It is made of logs and had checkered red curtains. There is a wood stove, a table and chairs, and a bed with a tartan cover. From the windows I can see the snow slowly piling up in the arms of the trees. The cabin is warm and quiet, cosy and safe. The most significant thing about it is that here, in my safety fantasy, there are never any other people. There is just me, maybe a Robin on a snow covered branch outside or a shy deer nibbling a fir needle. There is quiet and peace and beauty. Dreaming up the cabin means I can sleep.
Colette Power 2016
