Free Sarah Vaughan is Not My Mother: A Memoir of Madness by MaryJane Thomson Page A

cigarettes. No one is around. I sit on the grass in the sun.
    The voice starts speaking to me, telling me to get my lunch.
    â€œI don’t feel like it.” I can quite happily exist on coffee and cigarettes, I think to myself.
    â€œBut you have to eat.”
    â€œI’ll eat a tomato. That’s all I want.”
    I continue smoking. I can see Jo and Nga in the smokers’ room and don’t feel like talking to them. The voice says, “Go and have your tomato.” I walk the long way around to my room, out the end of the yard, through the sliding door, and past the kitchen and lounge. I get the tomato out of my room and go into the TV room. Nora is there, sniffing glue and watching a chat show. “Hey bro,” she says.
    â€œHey.”
    I sit and stare out at the sun. The voice says, “I’m your real mother. You were born in Africa and your real name is Ea because you are the first child of creation. The moon is your mother and the sun is your father. I am in your stomach.” I look at my stomach. Nora is so out of it she wouldn’t notice. My stomach tells me to finish my tomato and then go look at a map.
    I go outside through the side door, sit on the green three-seater chair and have a quick smoke, then I make my way to the occupational therapy room. I stand right in front of the map that’s facing out into the corridor. My head gets led to Mauritania on the west coast of Africa. I walk past the table in the middle of the room to the door at the back that leads to a garden. Liz is leaning against the door. I ask her if I can use the internet. “Sure you can.” She connects me and I look up Mauritania. It turns out it’s the founding place of hip hop and one of the wealthiest African nations. Just as I’m starting to read about it a nurse, Stephanie, pokes her head around the door and says, “Your mother’s here.”
    I stand up straight away, filled with rage. I walk up to my mother and say, “What are you doing here? Leave me alone.”
    â€œI just want to talk to you and I’ve brought you some fruit.”
    I say aggressively, “Leave me alone.”
    She keeps talking at me. I lean forward and scream, “You’re a rapist.” I say it so loudly and forcefully she swoons back and heads quickly for the door. Stephanie is standing there. She has clearly dealt with these situations in the past. I’m shaking with rage. She says, “Come with me. We’ll have a cigarette and I’ll give you something.” She disappears into the back of the nurses’ station, brings out a couple of pills and I swallow them.
    â€œI never want to see my parents again,” I say.
    â€œYes, but we need to establish why you keep going back to them.”
    â€œI don’t want to. Sometimes it’s my only choice.” I’m so angry I am unable to articulate what I’m thinking. Stephanie gives me one of her cigarettes, a tailor-made.
    â€œI don’t like her turning up. I’m twenty-six, old enough to look after myself.”
    â€œBut you still need support.”
    The pills slowly start to work and I feel my rage dissipating. I think to myself, that’s the first time I’ve ever verbally attacked anyone like that. I was so angry I wanted to hit her. I felt like some savage beast. It was lucky I didn’t have any dangerous weapons.
    I finish smoking and head back to my room feeling a bit drowsy. I lie on my bed and drift in and out of consciousness. I can feel myself wanting to cry, wanting to ring somebody, but there is no one to ring. I don’t even feel like picking up my guitar. I drift off to sleep.
    I am woken two hours later by Waris. “MaryJane, MaryJane, you’ve been asleep all afternoon. Your mother is very upset. What happened?”
    I’m very sleepy. I say, “Cigarette.” I get off the bed. “Talk to me in ten minutes, cigarette