When it first came out I was mildly obsessed with the movie Sliding Doors, and when I thought about writing the ‘dreaded second novel’ in 2017 I wanted it to be a sliding doors novel (this is ridiculously difficult I have discovered). I don’t think I am alone, I think many writers fancy attempting the Sliding Doors of novels, some achieve it too.

If you haven’t watched it, firstly, HOW? And second, go do that now – it’s too good to miss. Some more info, because yes, as that movie is still so good here is an interview with the director to explain why …

https://www.theringer.com/movies/2018/4/24/17261506/sliding-doors-20th-anniversary

Anyway, after stumbling around for 7 drafts of The Rabbit Girls I thought I would save my Sliding Doors novel until I was a little more proficient at the actual writing of novels.

Sensible.  

So even though I have yet to write a Sliding Doors novel in the same sense as the movie somehow – somehow The Puzzle Women is still my sliding doors novel – what happened to Mama in The Puzzle Women is what would have happened to me in a junction in my life if I had ‘missed the train.’

8 years ago:

I was stood in the middle of the living room, pacing, rising up on the balls of my feet, bouncing my baby a little, unable to stop moving, unable to move closer to the window, unable to leave it either. If he came back now I knew I would be killed, I just knew it.

But at that moment I held my tiny son close and waited for what might be help, but what also might be our last moments together.

We were stuck, waiting. Would my family get to me or would my husband? All I could do was hold my baby and watch the bright day through the window.

I spent an hour, longer, thinking these were my last moments, and I was frozen, waiting them out – waiting. There was no way out. I held my son, my last moments were with him. That is all I would have wanted. Him close, in my arms, as we waited.

There is a powerlessness that lives on in me from this moment, a formative experience, an entire shift that powers through my heart like a train. This moment lives in abundant fragments that are still leaking into the present. The lifeless museum of my son and I is still in the atmosphere we breathe, the childhood he has emerged into, it is with me now, it is re-memory, it is trauma, it is the cusp of death, but it is also a single moment of truth, of light. I would protect him and that meant protecting me too. I was fighting for us to live a life free from abuse. I knew I could die trying to achieve that.

If I’d have stayed or, if my husband had come home first, I could have been like Mama in The Puzzle Women. My life forced down a very different path to the one I am on now.

Thankfully, it wasn’t my ex-husband who came through the doors, it was my family. They helped me leave when I couldn’t do it alone. They believed me when no-one else would and they supported me when everything went wrong.

I am one of the very, very lucky few.

I know this now.

Leaving is not as easy as this; and to be honest I did not think it very easy at the time. I was very fortunate. Mama in The Puzzle Women is not, she is forced to return through coercion, poverty and a lack of systems to support her. She exists in a victim blaming society which enables the abuser to maintain control, manipulate and destroy lives. Our society today is no different.

I am so grateful I ‘caught the train’ but two women a week are killed in the UK by abusive partners; I feel my life free from abuse has given me the opportunity to shine light on all those women who were/are not as lucky as me, so that until their survival is no longer based on luck, or a postcode lottery, but on systems that support them to escape systemic abuse and live fulfilling fear-free lives, I will always be on the other side of that (sliding) door, prising it open, offering hope and a voice that was once quietened, but never, quite, silenced.

If you are interested in finding out further information, Women’s Aid is a great resource, below is their published Domestic Abuse report.

https://www.womensaid.org.uk/research-and-publications/the-domestic-abuse-report/

If this has affected you, you are not alone, please reach out and speak to a trusted person, a local domestic abuse charity or Women’s Aid themselves.