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Around mid-morning, there was sudden loud noise from a pneumatic drill and I looked outside to see a lorry from the water company and someone digging a hole right in the centre of the end of our driveway. Only a few moments before, there'd been a knock at our front door, which my mother had answered, therefore, when the noise started I went to ask her if she knew anything about it. She feigned a look of puzzlement and claimed to know nothing whatsoever.
So I made towards the front door, saying I would go outside to see what they were doing – as you would naturally do when someone is digging a hole right in front of your driveway and it isn't for you - and I believed my action was protecting her, “the householder” – and ask why they were doing it on a Saturday.
Only then she begged me not to do anything - truly in panic - and admitted then that she knew it was for the next door neighbour. I still wanted to know what it was, why this needed to be done in our driveway and why at the weekend with no prior warning. Then there was still the possibility that, even if she did know about it, that she might have been coerced into agreeing to something that was not necessarily in her own interests through not understanding.
Before I went outside, logically, I retrieved my front door key. My mother looked at my hand with an expression of alarm, as if she thought I'd picked up a weapon or something. It was neither the look nor the reaction of a rational person.
Once outside, at a volume appropriate to be heard over a pneumatic drill (I was later accused of shouting), I politely asked the workman what the work was, why there in our driveway and why on a Saturday - it did not appear to be as a result of an emergency necessitating urgent weekend work. The workman told me it was because the company has a backlog. To be honest, that was still unsatisfactory, given it’s a day when people should be able to rest. Then while I was simply asking who I should contact to discuss this further, out came the neighbour.
With breath smelling strongly of alcohol (note the time of day) and using a threatening manner, he proceeded to be verbally abusive to me, constantly using the word “fucking”, ordering me to "get inside now" or he'll call the police, pushing his face to within two inches of mine. He then tells me he believes that I am not ill and accused me of laying around doing nothing, as if this is a crime. Unprovoked, out of nowhere and irrelevant to the events of the day.
Now clearly, he could not know that I “lay around” inside our house … unless my mother has been telling him that this is what she thinks I do. This would be when I'm laying down in agony and exhaustion, of course, but clearly she refuses to believe that I could ever lie down for any justifiable reason.
When this neighbour had called to the house a week or so previously, allegedly to read our gas / electric meters, I'd caught him peering into the window of my room. When I complained about this, my mother was adamant that he was only looking at the meter, but this could not have been the case, because the meter is below window height and his gaze was quite clearly straight ahead through the window, with his face virtually pressed up against the glass. He would have seen that I was lying down at that moment, but seeing me for one split second would surely not be enough for anyone to have drawn such conclusion? Indeed, logic suggests that he wouldn't have even thought to look in the window, unless someone, had told him a) which room I use and b) given him some reason to want to look. This alone makes me feel that my privacy has been abused and invaded. For this and various other reasons, I no longer open the curtains.
The wife then came out and, once again, added similar false assertions, cruelly dismissing my illness, even when told that I have a diagnosis from a specialist, in writing and thus irrefutable and then she went off on some unintelligible tangent about how my parents must love and have wanted me because “they did not put me into care.” I asked her what care had to do with anything and she gave no clear answer, but walked away. Again, her opinions and judgements can only be based only on some twisted and false information my mother has fed her.
The neighbour also spouted some rubbish about “you always stand by your parents.” Er, what the feck does she think I'm doing here then, when I could - and clearly should - have told my mother where to get off with her crap years ago? Then she made a very serious false accusation: that since I've come back to the UK, I've been killing my mother. Mother claims she is “only just alive” and is portraying herself as the victim. This is common amongst abusers.
The drunk from next door then said – still only about two inches from my face - that he did not care if I was a woman, if I didn't go indoors immediately (as if he thinks he has some right to bully me and dictate where I am permitted to go), he would … and then he threatened to punch me. Whilst I made great effort to remain calm and stand unmoved under this unprovoked attack, all three; the husband, the wife and my own mother all accused me of needing “mental help” - my mother was screaming this like a banshee - in front of the two workmen.
The husband then said he'd been told about things I have written about them. This is not true. I've written on my blog – necessarily to create a dated record - about the day when I was verbally attacked, unjustifiably and slanderously, in front of another neighbour, in the middle of the street. I haven't named anyone in the report, so if this neighbour thinks it's about them, it can only be because they believe they're guilty. And I told him so. He shut up then. Since what I wrote is true, my conscience would be entirely clear even if had named them.
At one point, my mother had taken one of the workmen by the arm to tell him to “take no notice”. Bearing in mind that I'd merely enquired why this job needed to be done on a Saturday and, while doing so, a male neighbour, his wife and my mother (behaving like a mad woman): all three began verbally attacking and threatening me and bringing up personal matters of my health, my alleged laziness, accusing me of needing “mental help”, etc., which to any onlooker will have seemed unprovoked and out of nowhere, one wonders what he will have thought he should take no notice of? My mother's ham acting, putting her hands to her head, wailing and pretending to be the mentally injured party, perhaps?
