Gay, Ray And Catty....

I told that Psychologist Guy I was seeing a while ago that when I wrote my story I would send him a copy, so I may as well tell him, and anyone else who might still be listening, what I thought about our little healing sessions and why I thought I needed them in the first place.

Ever since I can remember I have had intense thoughts. I can't say if many three year olds think in the same way that I did, but I would be highly surprised if many of them do. Just after my birthday one year I moved house and we had to get a new baby sitter. Luckily, for me, she was a very happy baby sitter named Gay. She was magic. She could make chips out of potatoes. She was the mother of one of my Sister's friends, Kylee, and had two sons as well, named Mark and Ian.

I would go there everyday with my baby Sister while my Parents worked and my older Sisters were at school. I really liked her house. It had a staircase with a little room underneath it and they had six Willow trees in the backyard. One day I was playing near the laundry, making the grey slater bugs curl up into little balls and stomping on the red ants, when Gay came outside and became very angry at me for squashing them all flat. I cry off and climbed one of the trees. When Gay goes back into the house I sneak out of the yard and walk home. I cross two roads and walk three blocks. I half expect that she will catch me before I get there, actually, but she doesn't come.

I know my way even though I am always driven home. I hide in the big white cupboard on the back verandah that my Father keeps his wine in. After a while Gay comes looking for me, she is screaming out my name in a mad panic. I don't answer her even though I know I should; and even though my Parents will get angry at me for running away I'm still secretly smiling on the inside that she doesn't just open the door and find me in there.It would be better, in the long run, if I come out now, while I've still got the chance, then then Gay goes and leaves me and I haven't come out of the cupboard yet, and she's gone back to look for me at her house again and it's too late.

I go as fast as I can back to her house. I cross two roads and walk three blocks. I sneak back into her yard and climb back up the Willow tree, and when I see Gay is looking for me outside again I come down and tell her I'm sorry for running away home- and that I didn't think she would miss me being gone. I wondered later why she thought I would have gone home. I didn't realise that she knew that I was capable of doing it. After all, all she really knew about me was that I liked licking the chocolate icing off the beaters and that I liked her better than my first baby sitter, Ray, because she had stolen my Reddy Teddy from me when she moved away.

If that particular old bitch is still alive and remembers the story at all she would tell you that I had merely forgotten to take her home with me, but the truth is that she took her from me to give to some other little kids. You have to understand this was my favourite teddy in the world at the time; I slept with her and even took her to Grandmother's house when we visited her; she was dressed in a red and white dress with tiny pink strawberries dotted upon it. I'm not sure if she was a dog or a cat or a mouse anymore, but there was suddenly a day when Ray told me that I only had three more days to remember to take her home with me or I would lose her for good.

I don't know why she didn't give her to my Mother then, on that day, or put her in my little bag for me so I couldn't forget her. And how she managed to distract me for just long enough for me to forget when it was home time to collect her, like on the afternoon that I hit that awful freckled girl on the head with the big wooden block and Ray made me sit in her front room, shut away from all the other kids, to think about what I had done and why I should feel sorry for it- even if I wasn't.

Then there were only two more days to remember, remember Ray?

You made sure that I knew the consequences if I kept forgetting to take her home, that there would be no second chances to get her back. Why would you pack her up and take her with you? You could have left her outside on the step for me to find. You could have sent her with the postman. You promised to remind me before I went home today. And now there's only one day left to remember, and the inevitable thing happens and I forget her at the end of the day and Ray moves away and then she's gone for good; and it only makes me think more about my black and white panda teddy that I got for Christmas that fell apart that my Father took to the dump for the seagulls to make a nest in...

The only person I missed seeing- once Ray had moved away- was the little girl called Catty who was my only friend there. Catty had shorty blond hair and a face that was always sticky. She was about nine months younger than me and we had to have our daytime sleeps together in Ray's big creaky bed with it's ugly itchy crocheted cover. We never get much rest; we are always sneaking Ray's Minties into the bed with us and then we would have to rip up the wrappers into a hundred tiny pieces and then stow them in our pockets so she wouldn't discover what we had been doing when we were supposed to be sleeping. Catty would keep an eye out for Ray at the crack of her bedrom door and if she came back to check on us we would jump into the bed as fast as fleas and pretend to be fast asleep.

I don't really know what ever happened to Catty. I think I was told that she moved away to the country and that she got a pet lamb and had horses in the paddock.

I think it went something like that anyway...