Strange Sally Diamond

by Liz Nugent

Away, away, from men and towns, To the wild wood and the downs— To the silent wilderness, Where the soul need not repress Its music.

“Put me out with the trash,” he said regularly.

I’ll be dead, so I won’t know any different.

I’d laugh too...

we both knew that I wouldn’t be crying my eyes o...

I didn’t kill him; it wasn’t like that.

Dragging the garbage bag across the yard to the barn was hard.

I knew that corpses decomposed and began to rot and smell, so I carefully placed the bag into the incinerator barrel.

It’s ironic, I suppose, because I didn’t like people in real life. Most people.

They said I was

autistic, even though my psychiatrist dad had told me I definitely wasn’t. I

I think the villagers see a forty-two-year-old “deaf” woman walking in and out of the village and occasionally driving an ancient Fiat.

I get benefits because Dad said I am socially deficient.

Thomas Diamond wasn’t my real dad. I was nine years old when he first told me.

In the days after Dad died, it was quiet. Maybe I did miss him? I had nobody to talk to, nobody to make tea for, nobody to spoon-feed ice cream to.

He studied the human mind. He told me that my mind worked perfectly but that I was emotionally disconnected.

I cared about them. I didn’t want any harm to come to them. I didn’t like to see them upset. I thought that was love.

I didn’t like hugging, or to be touched. But I never stopped wondering about love. Was that my emotional disconnection?

“There’s no funeral,” I said. “I cremated him myself.”

then. I would be forty-three years old. I felt like it was going to be a good year.

In the letter, your dad said you should ring me when he died.”

They asked me three times to tell the story of my dad’s death, and I got a bit annoyed at having to say the same thing over and over.

“Schools are full of liars. When I was at school, everybody lied about me. It was a dreadful place.”

Tuesday 19th December was the funeral service.

You are you. As unique and different as every other person on the planet. Your oddities are not disabilities (although we call them disabilities to get your welfare allowance),

In the outside

world, you will find more people who are kind than people who are not. Seek them out.

Why would I move house? I liked living here. I didn’t want to be in the village, and I certainly didn’t want to socialize.

I was also having noise therapy to acclimatize me to “normal” levels of sound. I still found this one difficult.

But you can’t judge a book by its cover, or a kidnapping rapist by the smile on his face.

On 31st March, Dad returned victorious with two passports in the names of Steven Armstrong and James Armstrong.

They haven’t picked up the story here yet. Your stupid mother seems to have forgotten about you. They don’t appear to know you exist, and by the time they do, we’ll be on the other side of the world.”

Again, she asked me if there was anything I remembered from the period of my captivity.

I told her I’d decided to sell the house. It was even more urgent now, because I didn’t feel safe there alone.

When I said it to Dad, he warned me off interacting with other people.

The trip to the lake was a mistake. The whole friendship was a mistake, and everything was my fault, but setting off that day, I felt happier than I ever had in my life.

I couldn’t wait to tell Tina that I had passed this social test with flying colors.

“Steven and Rangi are not friends. Steven has often complained that your son has come here uninvited.

I did as I was told, but I didn’t like it. He didn’t know Rangi. He had never even spoken to him. He’d lied about him.

All these clothes are enough change for me. I like my hair the way it is. I don’t want to change my face or my nails or my hair. I hope you understand.

“Necrotic hominoid contagion,” said Dad. “I’m sure your dad will know plenty about it, but I’ll bet he’s never seen a case.

Today I liked what I saw in the mirror. The short skirt swished and flared at the hem. I brushed my hair out and let it hang to see what it was like.

Was this what happiness felt like? Laughing and smiling came easily to me today. Until I heard the high-pitched whistle.

I wished she would learn to accept it, that her place was here with us. It was too late after two years to release her. She was stuck with us.

ear. Why did it take me so long to realize that my father was a pedophile?

“Mark Butler is a troubled man. He changed his surname by deed poll before they got married, for a good reason.”

I wanted to bury my head in this stranger’s shoulder, but I turned and left the shop.

Everyone touched me in the hospital, the nurses, the doctors, the police, the social worker, the chaplain.

Anger is a secondary emotion. Rage can be sparked by fear or any emotion where we feel vulnerable or helpless.

No sound would ever escape, nor would Lindy ever hear the outside world. That was her last escape attempt. She gave up. We settled into a less fraught relationship.