Sunday 11th May 2008
Shilma still hasn’t come home. I’m so frustrated about her she seems to pick up and look as though she’s going to make a good recovery and then a few days later she’s dropped back down again. She sloughed this morning which is a great sign, even better is the fact that she ate her skin. This is something that a lot of lizards do; the skin is full of nutrients. A sick lizard usually won’t take their skin and has no interest in pulling it off. Shilma did. Mindy rang me up to tell me and we were both excited because it’s a fantastic sign. An hour later she rang back to tell me that she’d thrown it back up. When a sick reptile regurgitates it’s far more serious than if we do. When they throw up they can quickly lose too many of their necessary electrolytes (the good gut flora that they need to digest their food). I made the decision that I’d pick Shilma up after work and take her to the vets tomorrow to have her put to sleep. I felt that it wasn’t fair to keep her fighting when she had nothing left to fight with. Not only is she a beautiful lizard, but she’s also quite a rare morph and it’s such a shame that this has happened to her. Mindy thinks that the problem is due to her having a slightly over-shot jaw, and yes, that could affect her ability to hunt but I don’t think that’s the reason that she’s consistently gone downhill since we got her. One day she jumped out of Russ’ hands onto the floor a fall of about three feet and although she seemed okay at the time she was never the same since.
Just before I closed the shop the phone rang, it was Mindy. She said that she’d had one last attempt at feeding Shilma just after she rang me last about seven hours earlier. She took two rat pinkies with very little bother and had kept them down. We’ve about turned again and I’m holding off taking her to the vets again. If she wants to live, who the hell am I to take that right from her. If she’s still fighting then don’t I owe it to her to let her?
This is the last stop though, if she goes down again I’m going to end it because she can’t carry on like this. I want her home to assess the situation myself but as long as she’s eating it would be wrong to move her.
The little leos are still giving me loads of worry. Akora the larger of the two took four wax worms from the tongs this morning. I think he might just be okay. It’s still touch and go for him because although he’s far bigger than Neako, he’s still dangerously emaciated but he’s eating and keeping down so that’s all good.
I haven’t seen Neako eat anything. I’m desperately trying to avoid force feeding her because with her being so weak anyway that would signal the end for her. Still, considering her state she’s a perky little thing and is coming out and roaming around the faunarium. I want to worm all three of the new ones but at the moment they are too weak to attempt that. If I can get them to twenty grams I’ll do it then but in the mean time it’s a vicious circle because if they do have any internal parasites they are going to be feeding off any nutrients that the animals take on. I’m loading their drinking water with Repti-boost which is an electrolyte replacement which will counterbalance any harm that possible parasites might be causing. If they don’t have worms, and it’s unlikely with captive bred animals then the Repti-boost can only do them good. Because even the small crickets are too big for them I’ve been ant hunting. Now would you believe that two weeks ago we had a problem with ants? Of course I can’t put powder down to get rid of them because of the animals so ten times a day I was having to sweep them up and put them out of the front door, now I can’t find one! Sods bloody law. I’ve been combing the pavements every day just to find twenty ants for Neako.
Benji is a darling everybody loves him. He’s got such a sweet, gentle nature that even rattiephobes can’t help but take to him. Jeannie and Nigel the new karaoke runners from the Gaunt gave us a lift home and came in for a brew the other night. Once they’d got over the shock of my house they were captivated by the animals. I know that with all the work and money that I’ve put into my displays that they are damned impressive. My animals get the best that I can give them. Jeannie said that when I’d said I had reptiles she expected a few fishtank type things about the room. She said that my living room looks better than any pet shop she’s ever been in. She had a hold of some of the calmer lizards but despite having a ‘thing’ about rat’s tails, Benji was firm favourite. She has a tiny little Schitsu dog and she said that Benji is almost the same size as him. That’s something that I’m working on but I still find myself giving him the odd treat and I’m not the only offender I caught Marty giving him half a buttered scone the other day and Russ sneakily feeds him too. It’s so hard to refuse him when he’s got his paws up and his nose twitching, but mostly we’ve got him on a diet, not a strict diet maybe, but like I say, mostly!
We went out tonight. I so wish we hadn’t. I had the most awful experience. My chaos magnet went into warp drive again and brought trouble to sit violently at my feet. I have been accused of severely beating up a small eighteen-year-old girl.
Mandy and I were outside the Gaunt having a cig. She isn’t working there at the moment but she still comes in on a Sunday. I was talking to Louise, one of the other customers who is also a mate although I don’t know her very well. I’ve got talking to her because she always asks me to sing Candy Staton’s Young Hearts with her. Anyway she introduced us to her daughter who was out that night celebrating her eighteenth birthday. Louise whispered into my ear that it was a bit embarrassing because the daughter was a lesbian and she’d brought a load of her gay friends and her partner out with them. I told her that they were great kids letting off steam and not to be embarrassed.
While we were talking outside on the pavement, Katie, The daughter’s girlfriend, dropped to one knee in front of Lisa and said, “Lisa, I love you so much, you mean the world to me. Will you marry me?”
Louise burst into tears and had a right go at them. “How could you do that now in front of all my friends? Don’t rub it in everybody’s face.”
Things became heated and both mother and daughter were in tears. Louise turned to me and fell into my arms crying, “Why does she have to be like that, why can’t she just be normal.”
“What a lesbian, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
“Because that’s the way she is mate. Look,” since she asked for my opinion I was going to give it, “those two obviously really love each other. What just happened was beautiful. Wouldn’t you rather that she was with somebody who loves and cares about her regardless of their gender than somebody who beats her to a pulp every night.” These words turned out to be oddly prophetic, but in the most twisted around way imaginable. “What I’d be concerned about is not the fact that she’s marrying a woman, but the fact that she’s so young. It’s her eighteenth birthday and she’s happy. I think today of all days you should put what you want her to be on a back burner and just let her be what she is. Nobody else was upset by what they did. Go and make it up with her and give her a birthday to remember.” By the time I went back in they were cuddling and everybody seemed to be happy.
An hour later Louise came up and tapped me on the shoulder, she was crying again. “Jane, will you come up to the toilets with me please.” Russ shook his head at me and told me to leave it, but she was upset and if somebody wants my help I’m not going to refuse them.
I went into the ladies and there was a young lad in there with a broken bottle to his throat. He was threatening to kill himself. By this time all the youngsters in the birthday party were extremely drunk and this lad was no exception. Great gaggles of people were in there all talking at once. I told Louise to get all of the youngsters out because they weren’t helping.
It was just Louise, the lad and me. He was saying that it was all too much to bear and that he couldn’t do it anymore, that he had no choice but to kill himself. I kept my voice calm and neutral and sounded bored. “Always choices mate. Fist off, if you are going to do it I wouldn’t use a broken bottle. I wouldn’t do it here and I wouldn’t do it now when you’re in an emotional state. For a start off, I’m bigger than you and I’ll have the bottle off you before you’ve had the chance to do much damage. Then you’ll be carted off in an ambulance and spend the next month in a psyche clinic and then you’re just back to square one… and anyway you might feel differently in the morning.”
“I’ve felt like this for two years.”
“Like what?”
And then he got to do what he wanted to do which was talk. It turned out that his brother had been killed two years before in an accident. During an argument one day his mother did the unforgivable and said that she wished that it was him who had died instead of his brother. He moved out that day and hasn’t seen any of his family since. He felt that he was despised for being gay, to the point that even his own family wished him dead.
We all had a big group hug and the lad was fine and would be fine until the next time he had too much to drink and all of his pain resurfaced and then he’d be in some other pub toilet with a bottle to his throat. I said that he should go home and see his family and that his mother probably deeply regretted what she’d said in the heat of the moment. Louise said that she’d be proud to have a son like him and yet she’s ashamed of her lesbian daughter! I left them talking and it sounded as though Louise had really had an eye opening experience and a lesson in acceptance, a couple of years down the line and it could be her daughter who was screwed up because her mother couldn’t let her ‘be’.
Everything was good until the end of the night. The birthday lot continued to drink and Katie (the girlfriend) was in a particularly bad way.
I was outside and only got a second hand description of what happened next. Apparently this neanderthal man who is a complete dick hit on Katie, who I have to say is absolutely stunning, or at least she was when she still had teeth. Lisa understandably became jealous and a scuffle broke out. From what I was told Lisa was being very mature and well behaved, it was Katie who went berserk. She overturned two tables full of drinks and when Julie and Maller, bar staff and bouncer, rushed over, Katie spat full in Julie’s face. Julie and Maller are a couple and Maller wasn’t standing for that. Apart from anything, Jules is a force to be reckoned with on her own, so Maller picked Katie up and carried her across the room and threw her out of the door before Julie got hold of her.
I was standing outside talking to somebody; I haven’t even a clue who. Suddenly Maller came through the door and literally threw the girl onto the pavement screaming at her that she was damned lucky that she was female because if she’d been a man he’d have killed her for spitting in his fiance’s face.
The next thing was that Lisa came charging out of the door with Louise right behind her. Lisa was yelling, “It’s my birthday. It’s my eighteenth birthday and you’ve spoiled it. We’re finished, you bitch.”
Katie picked herself up off the floor and they walked off down the road arguing like hell. Louise lit a fag and I told her that they’d been fine tomorrow when they’d sobered up.
When they got about fifty yards down the road they stopped. Katie turned to Lisa and punched her in the face. I want to make it clear that Katie did hit Lisa first, although later there wasn’t a mark on Lisa. Katie only hit her the once, and he’s only a tiny girl. Lisa is a big butch lass twice her size. She hit Katie back punching her full on in the face. Katie fell to the floor flat on her back; it was probably that first punch that knocked her out. I have never seen anything like what happened next. With Katie on the floor Lisa began to kick her. If somebody didn’t stop her she was going to kill the girl. Louise and I began to run down the road. We were the only people outside the pub at the time apart from the young lad from earlier who’d been going to kill himself.
While we were running I saw Lisa kick Katie in the head five times. Then she moved onto her body. She had big boots on and was completely out of control kicking her from top to toe with all of her force. I honestly thought we were running towards a dead body. She stopped kicking her when she wore herself out and was leaning over with her hand on her knees trying to breathe by the time we got there. The attack had taken less than thirty seconds. Louise went over to Lisa and I was left to see to Katie. The girl was unconscious and completely covered in blood. It seemed to be pouring from just about everywhere. She was flat on her back and out cold. Although she had head and possible spinal wounds and shouldn’t be moved she was bleeding profusely from the nose and mouth and in real danger of choking on the blood. I made the decision to put her in the recovery position. As I moved her she began to regain consciousness and started to moan. I told her just to lie still and took the first opportunity to look over at Louise. She’d moved away with Lisa and was shouting at her. She’d made no attempt to call an ambulance. I told her to ring one, but she took no notice of me.
By this time Katie had come round and was trying to fight. She was struggling to get to her feet. She was concussed and didn’t know where she was or what had happened. I told her to lie still and tried to hold her down. She was screaming.
Suddenly I felt a huge weight on my back. Lisa had jumped me from behind and was punching me on the back. I stood up to defend myself. “What have you done to her? Oh my God what have you done to my girlfriend?” said Lisa.
Katie was struggling to her feet. She was pulling at something in her mouth and then she was upright and hysterical. I watched as she spat her two front teeth onto the road. She was pulling at her face and screaming her head off. Her jaw was horribly displaced and already her face had swollen to twice its normal size. She was bleeding heavily and still nobody had called an ambulance or the police. Katie had another tooth in her hand from the bottom of her mouth.
Lisa was trying to get to me and Louise was doing her best to hold her back. “Why have you hit her? Look what you’ve done to my girlfriend?” Her body was pushed forward, her face was contorted and screaming into my face and Louise had hold of both of her arms from behind her.
Suddenly what she was screaming at me sank in. She was accusing me of doing this. Katie was wobbling all over the road and I grabbed her from behind and literally just supported her body as she fell against me.
Lisa still wanted to fight me and kept asking over and over why I’d beaten her girlfriend up. We were all still slap bang in the middle of the road and I was trying to get the half conscious girl onto the pavement. Lisa made another lunge for me and then started wrestling Katie out of my arms. I held Katie’s face up and turned the tables on Lisa by telling her, “Look, look what you’ve done. You did this to her. You were kicking hell out of her. You did this, not me.”
Lisa’s face crumpled and she started crying her eyes out. She was trying to get near to Katie while I was pushing her back, Katie remembering what had happened was screaming at her to get off her and to keep her away. I’ve seen a lot of play-acting in my time and I have to say that Lisa’s performance seemed genuine when she spread her hands and said, “Katie, I love you, you’re my world, I could never do this to you.” She honestly seemed to have had some kind of psychotic blackout and had forgotten what she’d done. There wasn’t a mark on her, yet I’m the one holding her girlfriend up, and we’re both covered head to foot in blood. I suppose if she couldn’t remember attacking Katie, then it’s logical that I’d get the blame.
“You did this, you did it.” She screamed at me, “Mam,” she turned to Louise, “Tell her, tell her what she’s done. She said I was gorgeous Mam. She’s jealous of Katie.”
Earlier on when Louise had very first introduced us she’d said to me, “This is my daughter, isn’t she beautiful.” I’d smiled and said, “Yes, she’s a gorgeous girl.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I turned to Louise, she wasn’t saying anything, she’d seen what her daughter had done but I suppose she didn’t want to incriminate her. I was getting scared, the police must surely arrive soon and if I didn’t have any back-up I could end up in a lot for trouble for this. A crowd had gathered outside the pub now and they were all listening. I looked at the young lad. He had his head in his hands and was rocking backwards and forwards whinging, he was going to be useless. I said to Louise, “Tell her.”
Louise held Lisa by the arm and said, “You’ve got to stop hitting Katie like this, Lisa.” Thank God, Louise had admitted that it wasn’t me. I felt sick as I realised from her words that this must have happened before, though presumably not as violently. This girl must have a history of violence towards her girlfriend.
Lisa tried to get to Katie crying and saying over and over again that she was sorry and loved her. Katie was terrified and kept trying to get away from her. I held her back and told her to leave it tonight and to sort it all out tomorrow.
I said that I’d get Katie to hospital and take responsibility for her for the night. I didn’t think that the girls should be together that night. They’d come from working in a hotel at Kendal where they all worked and the lot of them were all staying at Louise’s that night. Louise got frightened and said that she didn’t want the hospital involved that they’d deal with it themselves. I said that the girl had at least two broken bones that we knew about, she’d lost three teeth, she had head and body trauma and really needed to be checked out.
The next thing I knew Katie was going mental to get way from me. She was lashing out hitting me and scratching me, saying that she wouldn’t go to hospital because Lisa would end up in prison and she loved her. Louise took her from me and helped her off down the street and the last I saw of them was them all stumbling around the corner with the lad taking up the rear wailing like a banshee.
I was standing alone in the middle of the street.
As far as I’m aware the police were never involved, though I’m sure at some point that girl will have to have taken medical attention. I just hope that Louise was with it enough to look after her. Head trauma and drink are a lethal combination on their own and that’s without taking into account all of her other injuries or what her psychotic daughter might do next. I expect they’ll have gone to hospital with some tale of mysterious unknown attackers jumping the girl.
I made my way back to the pub. I was shaking like a leaf. I’d only wanted to help and had almost found myself in trouble for grievous bodily harm. I got to the pub and stood next to Maller and began telling him what had happened. I took a cig out of my packet and was just putting it to my lips when he went mental too.
He snatched the cigarette from my hands, threw it in the street and was shouting in my face. What the hell had gone wrong with everybody?
I focussed on what he was saying.
“Now,” he yelled at me.
“Eh?”
“The cigarette was soaked in blood from your hands and I don’t suppose it was yours. Get upstairs now and get washed. Jesus you don’t mess around with somebody else’s blood girl,” he said more gently. I looked at the bloody cigarette then down at myself for the first time. My hands were literally dripping with the girl’s blood; my clothes were covered in it. It’s one of the most vicious attacks by one woman to another that I’ve ever seen. If our kids are inflicting that kind of damage on each other what kind of world are we living in?
In the toilet Julie sat in a corner with her head in her hands. “She spat in my face, Jane,” she said. I told her that the poor kid had been well beaten.
“Good, I’ll kill the little whore if she ever comes in here again.”
I suppose in her circumstance I might well feel the same.
And Russ, my Russ bless him. He was up singing a song on the karaoke oblivious to all but the initial fight in the pub.
“Serves you right,” he said later in bed, “might teach you to mind your own business.”
