Wake Up, Mummy Read Free Page A

Judith slammed the front door behind her and set off from the house to walk the short distance to the rectory. Twenty minutes later, she was sitting in an ancient, overstuffed leather armchair in a room lined by equally overstuffed bookshelves, letting the words spill out of her.
    The priest sat with his hands resting on the desk in front of him, his fingertips lightly touching, whileJudith talked about her fears, the chaos of her uncontrollable emotions, and how she often did things she was ashamed of simply because she didn’t know how not to do them.
    No one knows what the priest said to Judith that day. Clearly, though, when he offered to give her a lift home in his car, she felt comfortable enough to agree. Bernadette heard the sound of its engine idling for a moment on the road outside the house and then, a few seconds later, Judith burst through the front door, flung her bag on the hall table and exploded into the kitchen, shouting, ‘That fucking bastard! Thanks, Mum, for delivering me into the hands of that lecherous old pervert.’
    Bernadette’s heart began to thump. She longed to cover her ears with her hands and block out the sound of her daughter’s terrible accusations. Instead, she turned away, clutched the edge of the kitchen sink so tightly her fingers ached, and prayed, ‘Please, God, when I turn around, please let her be gone.’
    But Judith was determined to be heard.
    ‘Shall I tell you what he’s really like, that saintly old man you admire so much?’ Her voice had risen to a scream. ‘I told him stuff I’ve never told anyone before, and do you know what he did? That fucking bastard brought me home in his car and tried to put his hand up my skirt. Thanks, Mum! You’ve really helped a lot.’
    Breathless with fury, Judith glared at her mother’s trembling back. And then, suddenly, Bernadette spun round, took a step towards her daughter and slapped her hard across the face.
    ‘How dare you!’ Bernadette shouted, anger erupting from her violently shaking body. ‘How dare you tell your filthy, evil lies about that good man? Stop it, Judith! For pity’s sake, stop lying. Stop trying to make yourself important and special. Don’t you realise that trouble and hurt follow you wherever you go? Stop it – now – or I don’t know what’s going to become of you.’
    For a moment, Judith stood completely still, gently touching the red mark on her cheek with her fingertips, her eyes flashing with resentment and hurt. Then she burst into tears and ran from the room.
    No one ever really knew whether Judith’s story about the priest was true. It certainly became more elaborate and outrageous each time she told it, and she always blamed him for her lifelong distrust of the Church in general. Otherwise, it changed nothing in her life. She continued to be vicious, both verbally and physically, and to alienate anyone who might have been able to help her.
    Sometimes, Judith’s heavy drinking was an attempt at self-medication. When she was manic, alcohol would slow the racing of her mind; and when she was depressed, it would mask her intense sadness and feelings of hopelessness– for a while, at least. But it was also simply an addiction, too, and she would do almost anything to raise the money to buy drink.
    At the age of 14, she returned to school drunk one day after lunch, hit one of her teachers and was expelled. After that, no other school in the area would take her, and her parents eventually enrolled her at a college, which at least allowed her to continue with some sort of education and gave a degree of structure to her days. Unfortunately, however, it also meant that she was mixing with older teenagers and had much more freedom than she’d had at school, and she began to drink even more determinedly, going to pubs at lunchtimes and in the evenings – which is where she met Paul.
    Paul and Judith were brought together by their mutual love of alcohol – apart from which, they seem to have had