(WARNING- disturbing subject matter)

Well, let’s see…

There’s the father who, completely out of the blue three months before she was born, told her mother (and then just about everyone else in town) that he wanted a divorce and a DNA test.

There are the paternal grandparents who, when her mother agreed to the DNA test, helped him to weasel out of it and disappear.

There’s the maternal grandmother who, not reacting particularly well to the scandal, never referred to her by her name (preferring “the baby,” and later on, “that girl”).

There are the neighbours who would tell her older brother and sister how adorable they looked, and walk on without acknowledging her.

There’s the Year Two teacher who, finding her irritating without quite knowing why, frequently lost her temper with her and punished her for things that she might have otherwise let slide.

There are the boys in her class who, knowing a sucker when they saw one, would frequently suggest to her that they play some trick in order to get revenge on the teacher, and, having done it, would leave her to take the blame.

There’s the Year Three teacher who, on the first day back, stood her up in front of the rest of the class and told her that he’d heard about what she got up to, that children like her were a drain on the school, and that if she tried that stuff with him she’d soon be laughing out of the other side of her face.

There’s the librarian who, whenever she brought a book back, picked it up by the corner as though it was toxic and flicked through it, checking meticulously for stains.

There are the kids down the road, who took her with them that time they went into town, caused a riot in the shopping centre, and all got arrested.

There’s the mother of her best friend, who decided that she was a bad influence and banned her daughter from spending time with her (something that her daughter, to her credit, ignored).

There’s the girls who spent the first week of secondary school telling her that, with her shabby clothes and psycho reputation, she’d better not think that she could sit with them at lunch.

There’s the older sister who was told to look after her when their mother was working late, who would take her out into town and leave her to entertain herself while she talked to her friends in the pub, and who would usually forget about her and go somewhere else, leaving her to walk home alone.

There’s the man outside the pub while she was walking home one night, forty years old with muscles on his muscles, who told her she was a beautiful angel when he thought she was interested and a worthless bitch when he realised she wasn’t, and who wouldn’t take no for an answer.

There’s the moody nurse at the hospital that night, who told her that the hospital staff referred to cases like hers as “Failure to Pay.”

There are the girls who giggled behind her back the next day at school, who left spiteful notes in her locker and speculated on whether she’d caught any diseases that she didn’t have before.

There’s the man she met outside a different pub some weeks later, when, wanting to avoid the harsh words and the pain, she decided to smile, thank him for his compliments and do exactly what he wanted.

There’s the one after him, and the one after him.

There’s the woman who turned up outside the school gates one day, screaming her head off and accusing her of having it away with her husband.

There’s the son she wasn’t developed enough to carry to term, who died almost immediately after he was born.

There’s the grandfather who told everyone else in the family that if he ever saw her again, he’d whip the skin from her back.

There’s the headmaster who called her into his office the day she came back, to tell her that he wasn’t legally allowed to expel her for what she had done, but that if he found out she’d said a word about her “predicament” to the good girls, he could make her life very unpleasant indeed.

There’s the Maths teacher who told her he could improve her grade, for a price, and failed her when she said no.

There’s the new stepfather who, upon seeing that she’d been accepted into the Sixth Form, spent the next two years complaining about how she was a burden, and why didn’t she just go out and get a job, after all she’d put them through?

There’s the mother who, when the time came for university applications, told her that the joke was over, and now she needed to work for a living.

There’s the manager of the supermarket where she worked, who sacked her for being off sick two days in a row.

There’s the boyfriend who told her he knew how she could make a little extra money, and who threatened to knock her teeth out when she wasn’t sure.

There’s the friend of her father’s who bought what she had to sell, and then told everyone he knew, “Like mother, like daughter.”

There’s the undercover policeman who arrested her, and the judge who sentenced her to six months in prison.

There’s the prison guard who hit her round the face, breaking her nose and giving her a permanent scar.

There’s the older brother who wrote a letter disowning her, and the rest of the family, who more or less followed his lead.

There’s the cellmate who got her hooked on heroin.

There are the companies, every one of them, who turned her CV down after she was released.

There’s the manager of the cafe where I met her, who only agreed to take her on when she agreed to be completely off the books and paid less than minimum wage, which amounted to less than half of what he paid me and the others.

There are all the customers who forgot to tip us, or who ran away without paying the bill at all (for which the manager made us pay).

There’s the woman who screamed at her for spilling her tea, calling her an incompetent, shit-for-brains little slut (for which, I’m pleased to say, she stealthily added two pounds to the service charge on the woman’s bill, telling me later that she didn’t look as though she could read).

There’s the shop attendant who, just after I first asked her out, spent the entire time we were in the shop following her around, looking at her suspiciously, not even bothering to be subtle about it.

There’s the doctor at A&E the night she narrowly avoided going into a coma, who told her that people like her were a waste of his time, and that she should go and die in the gutter and free up more medical care for people who really needed it.

There are the boys who lived near her and hung around on the street, who would follow her around when she left her flat, calling her “Scarface” and making rude suggestions.

There’s the guy at the vocational course she was on, who’d heard a few rumours about her, and who, after she disagreed with him in class that time, proceeded to spread them to all his friends on the course (fortunately, what with his personality and all, he didn’t have many).

There’s one of my friends at university, who told everyone that I must have gone insane (“Or blind,” he’d add with a low chuckle), and then acted hurt when I stopped talking to him.

There’s another of my friends, who came round to borrow some books while she was going through withdrawal, and who, when I told him she had the flu, didn’t even pretend to believe me.

There’s the man who stopped me in the corner shop one day and told me her entire life story (some of which I already knew), beginning with, “I thought you should know what you’re marrying.”

There are her co-workers at her new job, who made her do their work for them half the time, and laughed at her behind her back.

There’s my aunt, who refused to come to the wedding.

There’s whoever it was that cut out our wedding picture from the local paper, stuck in on a piece of paper, wrote a list of accusations (including that she’d only married me for my money), scanned off a load of copies, and posted them to all our neighbours.

There’s the co-workers who spread it around that she’d only got her promotion because she was sleeping with the boss, and the boss who, wanting to be thought of as a ladykiller, deliberately avoided denying it.

There’s the woman (and she may have been one of the other people mentioned above) who came and hung around outside our building on the day we moved away, apparently just so she could wait until we were driving out of the car park, spit in our parking space and yell, “Good riddance!”

There’s the person who, after we’d been living on the other side of the country for seven months, sent her a bunch of flowers and a card reading, “I’m sorry,” but who forgot to sign their name.

And there’s me, for not being able to forget about this stuff and see her in the way she wants me to.