Dear Diary,
Although my outlook is still quite bleak, not everything is going badly. I have a new job at a beautiful ladies clothing shop – very select. The ladies there are very polite, and the pay is a third more than what I had been paid at Birling’s, so I’m fitting in well.
Also, at the Palace Bar the other night, I was just drinking my vodka, when that huge Joe whatshisname, Joe Meggarty – he ambled over to me and started pressing himself against me! Well, I was so disgusted I didn’t do anything – he was almost suffocating with his stench of body odour and cigar smoke.
I was about to kick him in the family jewels, when suddenly a young, handsome stranger pulled him off of me, and gave him a right telling off. My heart was fluttering madly, I can tell you. I’ve never felt so thrilled! He came over to me afterwards, and took my hand gently.
“Are you all right, Madam?” he asked, polite as you can be. Well, I didn’t know what to say, so I just nodded. He was ever so charming, and so good looking.
He took me back to my home that night, and told me ever so kindly that if I needed anything, that I must call. He was about to leave, when I called him back – we soon found ourselves in an embrace.
I never meant for it to happen… but it felt so very right.
Dear Diary,
Things can only get better! Gerald (the lovely young man) gave me money, food and a nice place to stay. He also gave me something else… but that’s more of an action.
I think I’m falling so hard for him. He seeps into my dreams, emblazons into my mind at the most inappropriate times. I was working today, when I remembered a kiss we had shared earlier – according to Mavis, I blushed most ungracefully. I was serving Lady Green at that moment… had she noticed, I could have been reprimanded quite severely.
Dear Diary,
Someone scrape me off of this earth and dump me in a doggy bag. Please.
Gerald told me today that he has a partner – a fiancée! He described her in great detail, which means he obviously loves her dearly. I think I handled it quite well, although the expletives I hurled at him on the way out were quite uncomplimentary. I don’t think he heard me, however.
So he loves another woman.
To add to this… to this monstrosity, I was fired AGAIN. This time from somewhere I was perfectly happy working in – and this time it was not my fault. A young woman came into our boutique, and began trying on a series of dresses. I was lost in my own little world, so I had hardly noticed her there. I remembered something funny that Gerald had told me the night before, and I laughed loudly. The girl’s eyes flew to mine, and she looked rather affronted. I hadn’t realised what she thought I had done until Betty hissed to me that I was in for it big time.
Madame Grey called me into her office and told me that the woman had made a formal complaint about me – I was incredibly insulted, and began to defend myself, but this seemed to make Madame Grey even angrier. She fired me on the spot, no warnings. I cried with anger the moment I stepped out of the shop.
I’m crying now. Not that you can comfort me… not that you can hear my cries of pain.
Dear Diary,
Oh the shame of what I’ve done. A few months ago, Gerald left me with money and food, feeling too guilty with his love for that girl he was seeing. So I went back to the Palace Bar, hoping to bump into him – but instead, I met someone else. Younger, not so good-looking but sweet. He was rather drunk, but that doesn’t bother me.
So he took me back to a new place I’d rented with Gerald’s money, and we… did what we all do when we’re drunk and have nothing else to do.
When I awoke the next morning, he was gone. I was terribly hung over, but not that upset. I didn’t really mind – he hadn’t been much of a talking fellow, and an obvious drunk.
So, about a month ago, I began becoming constantly sick in the mornings, and sometimes the evenings. I visited a doctor, who informed me I was a month pregnant. I was reeling – the shock of being told this was unbelievable. He said the baby was nice and healthy, and that I had nothing to worry about. I couldn’t have cared less! I knew that soon I would run out of Gerald’s money, and that the young boy that fertilised me that night would not return.
The only thing I could do was to pray that he would come back. He did, one stormy night, and threw some notes into my hand. I told him my news, and he got down on one knee, and for one shocking moment I thought he would propose.
“Eva,” he said quietly, “I don’t love you. It was one night, and I really don’t want it to continue. Take this money, and help yourself. Just don’t… don’t let anyone know it was me that did this.”
I am so unloved. All I have is this foetus inside of me that I don’t want.
God must hate me.
Dear Diary,
I appealed for help… desperately. I went to a woman that headed a help-service for women like me. I used the name Birling, which had apparently been this young mans surname. I still do not know why, but the woman seemed so offended when I explained this. She refused my plea, and turned me back out on the streets.
Now, I’m cold, hungry, and living in a cold little flat in Hackney. Rats scurry past to get to their young children, to feed them caringly – whilst the only person I have is I, and the voices that keep my company in my head. Am I now going insane, Diary? Will I rot away in this hell I’ve dug myself into?
I’m lost. I’m lost in my own world, lost in a haze that won’t clear from my eyes. I wonder now if there is any reason for me to be living. I ma loved my no-one, and I love no-one. Gerald was my one and only… but he is already loved, and the woman is loved in return.
I’m so very empty.
Dear Diary,
Oh God. Oh dear Lord, save me. I’ve swallowed a bottle of disinfectant… it’ll kick in soon. But the worst thing has happened – everything has come together. I found out from people today…
Mr. Birling was married to the woman that I appealed to for help, explaining why she was so insulted when I used her name. Gerald is engaged to the vain woman who got me fired, which makes me feel worse as I feel as if I insulted his fiancée. And that young boy that I slept with the one time – Mr. and Mrs. Birling’s son.
It’s all come together with little snippets of information, but now it’s too late… I can’t do anything. I’ve swallowed my death, and its coming ever closer.
I had a chance to take it all back, to sort it out…
And its gone.