Read by Cliff Chapman
January 18, 1993
Had a fight with Dean Ward at school today. He said my mum was a prostitute. I said no she's not, yours is and he gave me a dead arm so I booted him in the shin.
I don't know what a prostitute is. I asked my mum but she told me to stop asking daft questions and go and watch telly. When I did there was a news story about a prostitute being murdered. She is the fourth one to get killed. I was going to ask mum again what a prostitute is, but she looked as me as if to say don't even ask me and came and changed the channel. Everyone round here calls the murderer the Strangler because that's how he kills the prostitutes. I'm glad my mum isn't a prostitute. It's not safe.
January 20
Went in Carl's house cos it was raining. His brother was on the computer so we went in Carl's room and did ghost stories. Carl made up stories about the Strangler. He can't even say Strangler properly – he says “Strangular”.
January 21
Played on bikes with Carl. I did a wheelie. He said wheelies are gay and endos are better. He's just jealous cos I can do a wheelie for 12 seconds and he can't hardly do one for two seconds.
Went in and had spaghetti bolognese for tea. Mum cuts her spaghetti up with a knife and fork but I twirl mine round on a spoon – that's the proper way to do it.
January 22
Shaznay babysat for me tonight. I like her. Carl says horrible things about black people but there is nothing wrong with Shaznay. I showed her my painting of an elephant seal that I did at school and she said it was good enough to go in an art gallery. She said are you going to be an artist when you grow up. I said I might be or I might work in a supermarket like mum. But if I do work in a supermarket I don't want to work nights like my mum does because if I have any kids I would like to see them instead of just going out and leaving them with a babysitter.
January 23
I did my first ever endo today. I said to Carl how do you like that then and he said endos are yesterday's news. Carl is a proper sore loser. We had to play kerby after that because he knows he can nearly always beat me at kerby but really that's just because he has a football at home so he can practise when I'm not there.
January 25
I asked mum why she always wears a fur coat when fur coats are made of dead animals, which is cruel. She said because it's warm and that the animals were dead anyway and that it would have been a waste if they had just thrown the fur away. I said if you want to be warm why don't you wear jeans instead of wearing a really short skirt. You can't hardly see the bottom of her skirt when she has got her coat on. She told me to shut up and watch telly. Then Claire arrived and mum went to work. Claire said she liked my elephant seal painting, but she didn't sound like she meant it very much.
January 28
I beat Carl at kerby twice today and he got in a proper mood about it. I told him not to beef about it. He said at least he was allowed to stay up till ten o'clock. I said I can stay up till eleven some days, depending on who is babysitting when my mum goes to Tesco’s. He said that my mum doesn't even work at Tesco’s, cos his mum told him. I said of course she does, where does she even work then if she doesn't work at Tesco’s. He said he didn't know cos his mum wouldn't tell him. Probably she works at a poo factory as a poo taster, he said. That's not even a thing, I said.
February 2
I had a nightmare again last night. I dreamt that the Strangler broke into our house and came in my room. I woke up before he got me but I was still really scared. I told my mum in the morning. She said don't worry sweetheart, the Strangler doesn't even get children, just grown-ups. I asked mum if she could get another job so she wasn't out late at night and so I could get in bed with her if I was scared. She said that you get paid more for working nights and that we need all the money we can get cos that's what pays for fancy things like new bikes. She always says that. I said to her I love you more than I love my bike. That was a true fact as well. All my bike does is cause arguments with Carl. I still like it though.
February 7
I got 12 out of 12 in my mental arithmetic today for the first time ever! The only other person who got 12 was David Webb and he is a swot so it doesn't really count. I wish my grandma was still alive. She always used to say how are you doing with your sums even though I told her it's not called sums, but she always gave me money for sweets if I got good marks, like more than 7 or something. She'd have been really proud of me for getting them all right. I've been practising times tables loads.
February 12
Chloe was babysitting last night. I hate her even though she lets me stay up as late as I want. She smokes and drinks Frosty Jacks and phones people up and she treats me like an idiot but probably I am cleverer than her, and I'm not even joking. I asked her if she could think of five words that rhyme with choir and she only did two and then I said try harder and she swore at me and said what about you, how many cigarettes can you smoke. I told her I would never have a cigarette because they give you cancer and that is what my grandma died of. Then she asked me what job my mum does and I said she works in a supermarket and she laughed at me and said is that what you call it, funny supermarket. I asked her what she was on about but she just said forget it.
Then she started being weird and horrible. She said to me I bet you haven't seen a pair of boobs before have you. I told her I'd seen my mum's and she said that doesn't count. She said she bet I'd run a mile if I saw somebody else's. She said she bet I'd never seen a pair like these and then she started squeezing her own but with her top still on. She said what would you do if I showed you mine now. I said I didn't want to see them. She said why not, are you gay? I said no and she said you must be. She said maybe I'll just show you mine and then she lifted up her top and I could see her bra. It was all dirty looking and so was her skin. It was horrible.
Then she started to mess with her bra like she was going to take it off and I was terrified and didn't know what to do but then we heard the door opening and Chloe pulled her top back down really quickly and my mum walked in. She was early because the ten o'clock news had just started. She looked in a right state, like she had been crying. I went and gave her a big cuddle and said what's wrong. She said go to bed.
I went to my bedroom but I tried to listen to what they were saying. Mum said it's Shaznay, he got Shaznay, and then Chloe started saying swearwords and they both started crying.
February 13
Mum was acting weird today and wouldn't even let me watch telly at all. She told me to play out with Carl instead but I told her Carl isn't even talking to me. So then she made me sit with her and she said I've something to tell you, and the thing she wanted to tell me was that Shaznay had been killed by the Strangler. Then I cried and mum cuddled me and then she cried a bit. I asked her if she wanted me to make her a cup of tea because that’s what people do on the telly when somebody has died. She laughed a little bit when I said that and said no thanks love but thanks for offering. And then I begged her not to go to work tonight and she said she wouldn't, probably because I was crying loads. I hope she doesn't get in trouble with her boss at the supermarket.
February 15
I'm in the police station. My mum isn't here. I keep asking them where my mum is but nobody will tell me anything. I have never been so scared in my whole life. I wish this was was all just a dream. I am going to pinch myself lots of times and pray that I wake up.
* * *
The diary ends there. The pages that follow are bare and off-white and tell nothing of months spent in care homes, nothing of the constant media intrusion, nothing of the nightmares.
My mum, of course, did not work at Tesco’s – she was a prostitute, just like the women who babysat for me when she was working. When they weren't stood on the street corners looking for their next trick, they were babysitting each others' kids. They looked after each other.
The last time I saw my mother's face was on the news. Like so many of her friends she became a photo in the top-right corner of the screen. The head-shot they used was cropped from a photo of her holding me a baby, taken about six months after my father left.
I never wrote another diary. Hell, I barely even spoke for months after it all happened, but now, on the twentieth anniversary of that last entry, much like on the fifth, the tenth, the fifteenth anniversaries, they come to me asking me to talk: to share everything for this documentary, for that magazine article. How did you cope? they ask. Do you still have nightmares? they ask. And they say: If you could speak to the Strangler now, what would you say?
And it's a stupid question because it's obvious what I'd say to the Strangler. I'd say why did you do it? Did you enjoy killing? Did you just have a deep-seated hatred of prostitutes or were your acts the manifestation of your own self-loathing? Were you abused as a child? Were you mentally ill? Why did you take my childhood away from me?
And there is a part of me that wonders, maybe even hopes, that she would look me in the eye and say “I did it for you love. I was just eliminating the competition. You see, we needed all the money we could get, cos that's what pays for fancy things like new bikes.”
(c) Paul Robinson, 2013
Having mourned the extended hiatus of Liars’ League Leeds for almost a year, Paul Robinson was delighted to find that southern town London had launched its own event, and immediately wrote the story you are about to hear. He is a sometime blogger whose work can be found at http://robbo-thecube.blogspot.co.uk/
Cliff Chapman is Leicester born, Manx raised and available with a number of bonus features including: theatre; voice acting; audiobook directing; idents; music videos, short films and commercials. He is represented by Meredith Westwood Management and is easily won over by red wine.
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