Bank Holiday Glumday

31^st August 2009

Bank holiday Monday and Steve suggests we go to Notting hill carnival. Yes busy crowds and a bruised breast do not mix, but I need a distraction. So we head down on the central line with my youngest daughter to stand on Trini hill. Yes my husband is Trinidadian and full of himself as he says. We get off at Notting hill tube station and as I walk with the crowd to the exit a young boy of barely sixteen years drops a sharp pointy object. My heart sinks as he quickly picks it back up placing it back in his pocket with a smile to his friends.

Idiot I think to myself. I actually felt like shouting you F****** fool, but they don’t care.
This is London life for the young people and a joke. Fit and healthy and you want to throw it away because you feel you need a weapon. For gods’ sake use your brain it is the best weapon anyone has not a sharp implement.

Working with young people has its own down falls you never switch off to what is really happening around you. Even though London youth feel that a Yorkshire lass cannot connect with what they are going through and the pressures. I have a nineteen year old daughter. My life is not totally switched off to what is happening on the streets.

My husband looks at me and holds my hand while carrying Sophia through the busy underground.
“Did you see that?” I whisper keeping my eyes on the youths ahead of us.
“Yes, let’s just move out of here.” We follow the one way system set up for the carnival until we leave Notting hill underground station.
We head for Trini hill to watch the carnival and see if my husband can spot anyone he knows.
A Trinidadian man spots my daughter and says “She needs to see her roots, her roots. Don’t let her forget her roots my brotha.”
We smile and nod at the man excepting his words without a word said.
I look on and smile as Sophia dances on my husband’s shoulders to the beat of soca.
What if I’m not here next year?
What if it is cancer and it has spread throw my body?
I watch all the young women dancing in carnival costume and my eyes are drawn to their breasts.
I look at my husband and think would he notice? Does he care if I lose my breasts?
We have not spoken about it and I want to talk. Coming to the carnival has made me realise what I have to loss, but I’m a fighter. I’ve gone through worse before now and I will beat it. I’m fighting the tears that I so want to show. I can understand the madness such a disease can create. You can begin to question the whole situation, but you are left with no answers.

As a young women walks up to my husband in a sequined bikini I feel an internal ache. There is no real way of explaining this emotion except it hurts like hell. Not physically, but mentally it leaves you numb. The pit of your stomach aches with jealousy and fear rolled into one. You begin to question trust your whole relationship can it come through this? Will it survive? Or like so many other marriages will it kill us.

Like every marriage we have ups and downs, but will this be the icing on the cake? Could this be the excuse that can end our marriage?

Some men or women cannot handle the stress that this disease creates. The tears the emotional support that is needed. I am a strong person, but will my strength fail me this time. I love Steve dearly, but even I have doubts.

I smile as Steve talks to people he knows and laughs, but I have no reason to laugh or smile. Women are flirting in front of me with healthy breasts and I feel jealous. I listen on to the conversation and it has no impact on my situation. It is like I’m leading a double life and I feel uncomfortable. Why do I have to keep it a secret?

It feels dirty somehow like I cannot upset the people around me.
Steve takes me over to a stall to get a bite to eat.
“This will make you feel better.” He says “Come on Sarah relax.”
I smile and eat a doubles (Curried chick peas with tamarind encased in pastry wrap) he has bought me with some sweet tamarind sauce.