Dear Diary IV

Dear Diary IV

1. January

On the morning of the first of January, a Saturday, Kirsty wrote ‘Dear Diary, let me introduce myself. My name is Kirsty, I’m 21 years old, and I wear glasses all the time. If that’s not enough of an introduction, you’d better look at my previous diaries. That’s if you can read. Anyway, I am guilty because I have not written so much in my last few diaries, this is because I have been having so much fun with Ed, my boyfriend. You might be surprised that I have a boyfriend, being a super-speccy geek girl. Well, that may be so, but he is even more of a speccy geek than me! And he’s mine! He’s been a bit on-and-off over the last couple of years, sometimes telling me he’s not sure for a bit, then I just do my best to get him interested again. I think sometimes that he can’t believe he can actually be attractive to someone.’

She paused, and then wrote ‘People have seen me waggle my glasses at Ed, and he does the same back. It is so funny, because we know what that means - “lets have sex!” How stupid those poor idiots are who are without glasses. I couldn’t do this without them. Perhaps being extremely shortsighted isn’t all bad. Anyway, things are going really well for us two - I feel very happy with Ed and glad and happy to have met him. Maybe I might settle down with him? Mmmm.’

After a long pause, she wrote ‘Haven’t a clue. I’ll just keep enjoying what life has to offer me with him. We are happy, so why change things?’ She tucked the diary under the side of the bed they shared when she was here in Ed’s flat - an extremely likely possibility at that time, it has to be said, since they were more or less living together anyway.

A few days later Kirsty was home again for the only time that week: when she went downstairs into the living room, she abruptly noticed that something was missing - “what?” She wondered mutely for a moment, and then it struck her. The photo of Emma was gone. Kirsty wondered why, but the reason wasn’t hard to guess, even if it were hard to take. Her mother had had a pretty terrible time coping with it, and had alternated from anger to fear and back again, and had now decided to try her best to forget about Emma, at least in terms of what she had done, and presumably doing, being as they’d heard and seen nothing of her for three years. Kirsty hoped she was still alive, true, but having a prostitute for a sister wasn’t something to talk about. All families had black sheep of one sort or another, it was just that in her family, that sheep was blacker than most. It had all been hushed up beyond the close family, but in doing so the strain had nearly broken her mother.

She went upstairs, into her seldom-used bedroom, and looked around. A lot of her stuff wasn’t here; it was at Ed’s where she’d more or less moved in. Without it, it seemed rather impersonal and strange. She remembered some of the times she’d sat on the bed and wept, stared into space in blank incomprehension at the world and its petty unfairness, and other happier times, when perhaps things weren’t so bad. It occurred to her that the family home was now rather forlorn and empty: out of her four sisters only Louise lived there permanently. Little Louise, was now 12 years old: she was a small child when Kirsty was her age. 21 seemed a lofty and extremely adult age to Kirsty. She pushed open the door into Emma’s room. It hadn’t been left as it was when she went away: her mother had cleared away the clutter and stowed it in boxes, as if ready to be removed and the room to receive someone else instead. It had been offered to Louise, but she’d turned it down; perhaps she thought Emma might come back. Kirsty doubted that.

A week later Kirsty came out of the opticians sporting her new glasses. The world seemed again razor sharp, shining bright and immediate. She’d had this feeling before, the feeling of seeing clearly afresh after months of blur, but this time it wasn’t anywhere near as acute as before: her eyes were stabilizing at 14 dioptres of myopia, at long last. She was lucky, being as it was just on the borderline before the optician might have started seriously suggesting myodisks. Kirsty didn’t like them; preferring to put with the extra thickness and weight for a little more normality of appearance. She sat on the bench in front of the opticians, looked around, and then up at the sky: it seemed like the world was as it should be to her.

She sat and wrote in her Diary that night, whilst Ed was in the bath ‘I got my new glasses today - it is always so lovely to see perfectly clearly, even if I have to wear glasses to do it. You get used to things, you really do. Being with Ed helps.’

After a pause, something occurred to her, and she wrote ‘I just thought. I have never known Ed to get new glasses. Odd, that. I have got them twice since I met him about 3 1/2 years ago. I would have thought that he would have, no should have, at least gone to have his eyes checked, but he never said so. Especially with his poor vision. I’ll have to ask him. Maybe he did and I forgot?’

She sat in the bath herself, wiping the steam off her glasses a couple of times, trying to remember when Ed had last at least gone to opticians for an eye test, even if he didn’t then proceed to get new glasses. Some time later, she was forced to concede to herself that she couldn’t remember him going, possibly because he’d not told her. She couldn’t quite believe he’d do that, being as they were both myopic: glasses and seeing were important to both of them, she thought, or possibly because he simply hadn’t gone. The thought of not going to the optician when one could or rather should surprised her. She resolved to ask him about it.

Once out of the bath, she moved the conversation towards glasses, and what it was like to see clearly through new ones, and subsequently asked ‘Ed, when did you last go to the optician?’ ‘Oh, last year some time - I forget exactly when - March, or April.’ Kirsty considered for a moment, trying to remember what happened then: she didn’t remember him going. She said dubiously, ‘I don’t remember that. Are you sure?’ ‘Yes, I’m sure I did.’ He didn’t sound quite as sure as he wanted to, so Kirsty said, ‘you know, you should go every two years, especially if you have bad eyes like me. I don’t think you went last year - you wouldn’t do it in secret, would you? I’d have seen you wearing new glasses. Those are the same ones you wore when I met you.’ ‘No, I have different lenses in.’ ‘I recognise them, the left one has a little scratch in that I noticed the first night we went out together.’

He fell silent, and she said ‘Ed?’ He shrugged, and then admitted, ‘maybe I didn’t go.’ ‘Perhaps you’d better go then.’ ‘Maybe.’ ‘Not maybe, Ed, you should go. Please, I don’t want you to have vision problems.’

Rather irritably, he then proceeded to prove that he could see just as well as she could with her new glasses, with a series of ‘what does that say’ type challenges. Kirsty stood with her hands on her hips, and said, ‘yeah, OK, you can see, but you need to go, they need to check other stuff as well as how well you can see. You know that as well as I do. How many times have you been to the optician, and you’ve forgotten that?’ He nodded gravely. She told him firmly ‘Ed, please go and make an appointment.’ With reluctance in his voice, he replied, ‘yeah, OK.’

A few days later Kirsty wrote in her Diary ‘I’ve been pestering and cajoling Ed about getting an appointment at the optician. He seems to want to change the subject, or just ignore me, but I’m going to make him go. I don’t quite understand it - he’s worn thick glasses for years, and suddenly he’s got a problem with it? Maybe he’s hiding something. Maybe he’s got bigger problems than he’s told me about. I feel a little guilty about it. But, he should go. I wish he would tell me why he’s afraid. I might be able to help. After all, I know something about wearing glasses.’

Finally, after almost another week, he was fed up with being pestered, and she fed up with doing the pestering, so he agreed to go. He made an appointment, told Kirsty when and where, and promised to tell her the result. Kirsty felt rather relieved that at least he was doing what she wanted and he ought to do, at last.

The next morning Ed excused himself from work, giving the explanation of his eye test, and went out the door of the computer shop. Kirsty went to the window, watched him walk up the road, and then also excused herself, saying that she had something to deliver, and went out the door after him. This was her plan: to follow him, as she didn’t quite trust him. She tailed him into the town centre, and indeed he did go to the optician, which made her feel somewhat more relieved. He paused in front of it, and as Kirsty peeked around the corner, he shrugged, then walked on. Kirsty gave a small but extremely exasperated sigh, saying to herself ‘Ed, perhaps I ought to drag you in. I wish I could.’ Self evidently, he wasn’t going in of his own volition.

She followed him around for some time, and then he went into a shop selling CD’s. She waited outside for a bit, and then concluded that he had no intention whatsoever of going to the opticians. Quietly, anger started to build in her at being lied to and generally “led a merry dance”. She did her best to keep calm, but she gave a frosty look to someone who smiled at her as she went inside after him. There he was; looking at CD’s as if nothing else were of concern in the world. “Killing time, that’s all,” she thought heatedly, then grit her teeth, and walked up to him.

He sensed someone standing beside him, so turned and looked up from the CD rack he was perusing; there stood his girlfriend, Kirsty. For a brief, useless moment, he smiled at her, and then realised from her expression that wasn’t going to do any good. She stared up at him from behind her thick glasses. He said numbly, ‘it’s you…’ She stared at him for a long moment, with a note of ice in her tone ‘Ed, what’s going on?’ ‘What do you mean?’ She looked a little disgusted at that, as well she might have done, then stomped off, briefly stopping a few feet away to tell him sternly, ‘come on, then, come and tell me what this is all about.’ He followed her in guilty silence.

They found a bench in a quieter part of the town centre; no easy thing, and sat together. She glared at him, and demanded ‘Ed, now you’d better tell me what is wrong. You told me you were going to the opticians, and I followed you - yes, I followed you, I didn’t quite believe you: don’t you look hurt at me, I’m the one being lied to here. You’d better square with me.’ There was a heavily pregnant silence. Ed looked like he was about to cry, which shocked and shamed Kirsty a little. He whispered ‘I’m scared….’ ‘Pardon?’ ‘I said I’m scared.’

Kirsty’s angry, icy tone softened a little into curiosity and concern. If he had a problem, he didn’t deserve her being angry at him for it. She asked, ‘what are you scared of? The optician?’ Slowly, he said, ‘kind of. I don’t want to have poor vision. I hate it so much.’ ‘I know, don’t I know too. But, dearie, you should go.’ ‘I don’t want thicker glasses. Mine are thick enough. People think I’m stupid or something.’ He started to sob a little, thus causing Kirsty’s anger to evaporate. She threw her arms around him and hugged him tight, telling him how much she loved him. It was a long hug on the bench: the boss wondered what had happened to them when they got back, so they had to make more excuses.

That night Kirsty wrote in her Diary ‘I’d better shut up about opticians with Ed around. I don’t want to upset him again. Poor, poor Ed. I feel so guilty about tailing him, but at least I know the truth. I’d better leave him be. After all, he doesn’t pester me to go to the optician. And he can see clearly just as well as I can. Perhaps I’m worrying about nothing.’

Little did she realise, at that moment, Ed was in the bath mentally wiping his brow, and saying to himself for what seemed like the hundredth time that day, ‘phew, I think I got away with that - for now!’ Then he thought “hopefully this will stop her pestering me about opticians for a while. I’m kicking myself, I should have known this would have come up sometime. I must think of something to say or do next time it happens.”

2. February

On the second day of February, a Wednesday, Louise clambered up and reached down her diary from the top shelf, sat at her writing desk with it, opened it and wrote ‘Hey, Diary, this is me, Louise. I know you were surprised to hear from me last year when I started this diary stuff. It’s because I found out my big sister Kirsty was into it and I thought I’d do it too. Anyway, this is me, Louise. Yet another kid with glasses, that’s right. I’m the youngest of five, and I’ve got the oddest glasses of them all. My right lens is thicker than the left one. Makes me look kinda uneven, as well as a geek. They’re not that strong, the strongest (right) one is about half what Kirsty’s is now, I think, and the other one, a bit less than hers.

I’ve been very naughty, but it’s in a good cause, I hope. Last October there was a letter from the optician saying I ought to go for a checkup. For everyone else in my family, that would mean just new glasses and “oh, I can see clearly again, how about you?” And stuff like that. For me - that’s not so good. About 4 years ago my right eye started getting amblelyopiea or whatever it is - everything went all fuzzy. They caught me at school, I think, and then I had to put up with horrible patching for months and months. The kids at school, some were nice, some were horrid to me. Hated it, hated them.

Anyway, to cut the story short, I got to the letter first, and ripped it up, because it said to come for a check-up. I haven’t been for ages - can’t remember when. Mum’s been a bit kooky for a while, because of Emma leaving. She was kinda kooky before, but now, so kooky she forgets stuff. She goes into a sort of trance sometimes, and that’s a bit scary. Maybe those pills she takes now do it, I don’t know. Anyway, this is what I did. There’s no problem, I can see perfectly OK with my left eye - I suppose. I wouldn’t dare get into a glasses talk with anyone. They’d spill my secret, and before I knew it, I might be “little miss apatche lens” again - no thanks.’

She paused, covered her right lens and eye with her palm, and looked around. Everything seemed pretty normal to her. Something told her it wasn’t crystal sharp, but it would be good enough for a long time, she hoped.

She wrote: ‘I can see OK with my good eye - I can read the board at school, what more do I need?’ Her pen stopped, and then started again, as she admitted ‘My right eye isn’t so good.’

Again she paused and covered a lens and eye, this time her left. The world seemed to vanish into an alarmingly blurry, foggy mess: she couldn’t read the writing in her diary very far away at all, perhaps only about six inches away at best. A few moments glancing around told her that “not so good” was an understatement. She uncovered her good eye, and her brain instantly reverted to the much clearer view of the world offered by her good eye - and in doing so, contributing further to the decline of visual acuity of her worse eye.

She continued ‘Yep, it’s pretty poor, my right eye. But I don’t, repeat do not, want to be patched again. It was horrible the first time. That’s why I tore up the letter. I don’t want to go back to the optician again - maybe the blur is just more short sight - and I’ll get new lenses and be OK, but in case it isn’t, I had to do it. Glad my mum isn’t with it these days. Glad also Kirsty’s not around, she’d figure it out, I bet. The others, they’re no problem. Amy and Melissa have such crud vision they’d have no idea anyway - and as for Emma - if she were here, she’d be too into boys to be worried about me and my glasses. That’s what I want to get into, boys, not dumb stupid patches. Oh, and I know this is silly, but don’t tell anyone about this. It’s our little secret, yeah?’

Nearly two weeks later Kirsty was rummaging around in Ed’s stuff : mostly for the purpose of tidying up and de-junking, pausing often to look at things, naturally wondering why he had them, or what use they were. She found a small box, opened it and found it contained some family photos. Fascinated, she looked through them: there were photos of him, his parents and family at various ages, some when he was young, others when a bit older. It was only after she’d looked at most of them that she started to realise something wasn’t quite right. She went back to one of his school photos, with him in a typical school uniform, but that wasn’t the thing bothering her: it was that there was no sign of glasses.

She sat staring at it, thinking back over what he’d told her about his life, especially those bits to do with glasses, and was sure that she remembered him telling her that by 13 he was wearing horribly thick glasses similar in strength to her own at that stage. Yet here he was, she was quite certain it was him, and quite plainly there were no glasses, thin or thick. She wondered if perhaps the photographer had advised him to take them off, but that didn’t seem quite right, after all she’d never been offered that option for her school photos. She looked at it more closely, and gave a soft, puzzled “mmmm”, as she noticed that the tell-tale marks typically caused by a pair of glasses, as thick and heavy as his or hers, having been recently removed were absent from the bridge of his nose. She heard him come in, hurriedly put it back, a strange sort of guilt making her think she was prying into something too private for her. As he came up the stairs, she pushed the box back in the cupboard. She had the vague sensation that something was not right about Ed, but that soon passed. He brought bad news: his car needed fixing, and he was preoccupied with that.

Towards the end of the month Kirsty was sitting in a train, on the way home from a training day in the next town. The train was fairly well packed out, with some people standing. Her mind wandered as she considered the world sliding past her, which was mostly built up but also some parks and woods. Suddenly she thought of her glasses, and realised that maybe she was used to seeing the world through them - and clearly too! Was it really that easy to forget about glasses? Perhaps not, because when she started to think only a little harder, she thought about all the heartache and trouble they’d caused her. And now she was with Ed, and everything was great, even the sex.

Except when her mind wandered back to the puzzle of the school photos without glasses. Surely there was an innocent answer to that, she thought, that perhaps he’d broken them, or had them broken for him, and perhaps didn’t look so great: as if such glasses looked great, in her opinion at that time. But that didn’t explain the lack of nosepad marks. Just as she was puzzling over that, she heard a noise, turned to look, and someone brushed past her, knocking her glasses, pushing them into her face and awry: the culprit, a man of about Ed’s age stopped to apologize, and as soon as Kirsty had straightened her glasses, she glared at him and called him something unmentionable. He seemed to shrink a little, apologized again, and scuttled off. Angry thoughts about those who would be so careless and stupid quickly drove the puzzle of Ed’s photo from her mind.

3. March

Early in March, Kirsty found a box well buried in another of Ed’s numerous cupboards stuffed full of junk and seemingly useless stuff: in her opinion, he was an inveterate hoarder, that was his problem. Kirsty thought that she’d have to introduce him the idea of throwing things away. This box was marked with a label saying “contact lenses”: she thought it would contain the daily wear contacts that he used to reduce his glasses strength by 2 or so dioptres. It was full of electronics junk, of no interest or meaning to her. But as she was about to close the lid, she spotted something inside: a small wad of paper. She pulled it out and saw that they were pre-printed forms to write down glasses prescriptions on, but they were all blank: this puzzled her greatly, but there was something else. The address at the top was for a firm of opticians she’d never heard of, and the address was where Ed and her were living together. She put the papers aside, and resolved to ask him about it when he came home from getting his car checked out.

She did ask him after a while, and he told her, ‘yeah, Kirsty, you see, these contact lenses are expensive - you know that, don’t you?’ She nodded gravely, and he then said, ‘well, if pretend I’m an optician, I can get them cheaper wholesale, that is if I buy a load at a time.’ ‘I’m surprised they are so stupid. Don’t they check you out?’ ‘Naw, they just get a signed prescription from me, and I get cheap contacts. They don’t care as long as they’re making money.’ That did make some sense to her, even if it was something she’d never dare try herself. Knowing her luck, she’d get found out if she did, she thought grimly. He offered to get her glasses the same way: it didn’t occur to her that it was strange he’d never offered her this before now, but she replied ‘I think I’ll stick to the normal way for me, thanks.’

A short time later the puzzle of Ed’s glasses, no visit to the optician and no glasses in the photo started to dance around in her head gaily, but then the phone rang. Ed answered it, and after a moment called ‘Kirsty - it’s your mum.’ When he handed over the phone to her, he informed her, ‘she doesn’t sound too good.’ Kirsty ignored that, and stood speaking to her mum for a long while. Ed heard her say things like, ‘don’t worry, Mum’, ‘It’ll be alright’ and later on ‘Shall I come and stay with you?’

When it was over, she went to tell Ed about it ‘Mum’s work has been nasty to her. They’re telling her she has to stop taking time off work because of her depression, and also they’re saying her cleaning isn’t so good. That’s so unfair, she’s got AMD, she can’t see too well. They can’t treat her like that, can they?’ Ed shook his head, and said firmly, ’no, there’s laws against that sort of discrimination. You need to go and see a lawyer or a union rep about it, get some backing and take them to court for it.’ Kirsty suddenly felt very much comforted by Ed’s knowledge, and forgot all about little worries about his glasses and contacts and faking prescriptions, instead coming to the conclusion ‘I’ll have to go home, and look after my Mum. She’s been through a lot this last 2-3 years, what with Emma and her eyesight.’ Ed wasn’t unduly worried, just remarking, ‘as long as you come back, I don’t mind.’ ‘Oh, don’t worry, Ed, I’ll be back,’ she replied firmly.

A week later, Kirsty wrote in her Diary ‘Diary, I have some genuine good news for you. My younger sister, Amy, she’s pregnant! That’s right, my partially blind sister, and her even more blind boyfriend, they’re going to have a baby! I’m so excited, even though I’ll have to wait for nine months, because I’ll be an aunt! I wonder if it will be a boy or girl. It doesn’t matter, they’re such a lovely pair and they deserve whatever happiness they can get. So do I, I suppose, but I think babies aren’t right just now. Something tells me Ed’s up to something, or into something, and I would like to know what it is before I start making children. Still, I can babysit or something, though I’m sure with the family I have, I’ll have some competition for that job!’

4. April

On the first evening of April, Louise wrote in her Diary ‘Hi Diary, it’s me again. I was looking at the teacher doing assembly in the morning, and was squashed in the corner so I couldn’t get a good look at him. Well, I know what he really looks like, but today I could only see him with my right eye, because some dumb stupid boy’s head was in the way of my other eye. I was so shocked, I forgot to listen to what he was saying - it’s never very exciting, anyway, despite what they say about it being important. I can’t see a thing hardly with my right eye. It’s all blurry. I do hope that it’s just more short sight, and they can stick another lens in and it’s all OK - coz if not then I’m doomed to being “Little Miss Patchy Lens” again - yuk! That’s if I tell anyone but you. I can’t tell anyone else, they’ll rat on me, I know it.’

A few days later, on the following Friday, Kirsty wrote in her Diary ‘I’ve been home with Mum about three weeks now. She did take quite a bit of calming down and reassuring. She’s really not herself, and I doubt she will ever be quite the same Mum as we knew before Emma left. We’ve been to see a lawyer and got him to write to her employer telling her the facts - which are she’s got problems and they ought to leave her alone, or else we’ll sue em! Hopefully she’ll be OK and I can go back to living with Ed.’

After a pause, she concluded ‘We’re all going out tomorrow - well, that is Me, Mum and Louise. A sort of family outing, for a sort of family. We’re going to the zoo. Should be fun, and perhaps we’ll learn something there too.’

The next day dawned, and during the midmorning they were all standing waiting for the bus. Kirsty said to Louise, who seemed to be determined to look the wrong way, ‘here it comes!’ Louise turned, and said casually, ‘oh, yeah.’ She’d learnt to avoid situations where her distance vision might be called into question. Her mother’s was worse than her left eye, so she could get away with it easily, she thought, but as for Kirsty, well, she’d have to be careful with her around.

Once in the Zoo, there was the usual selection of caged up and slightly pathetic and bored-looking animals stuck in not particularly big cages, and the all-pervasive smell of animal excrement. Louise was careful to spot potential problems for herself as soon as she could, but she felt a little anxious with Kirsty around, and thus tried not to spend too much time near her. For her, the day went smoothly, even beyond lunch in the overpriced restaurant: she had no trouble reading the menu at a distance, after all, her vision with her left eye was about the same required to drive legally, and the restaurant didn’t want to give anyone with normal vision eyestrain.

Louise sat almost opposite her big sister, and for no reason met her gaze for several seconds. Kirsty’s glasses were considerably stronger than hers, and Louise felt herself hoping she would not need such strong lenses to see. Then she imagined what Kirsty might be thinking, panicked a little, and looked away, ostensibly looking at people going by. It never really occurred to her that her right eye was staring at the same thing as her left, but seeing just a foggy blur. Her brain seemed to neatly ignore it, and so did she, more or less. She glanced back at Kirsty, and smiled with perfect innocence.

After that, they went to see the penguins getting fed, and once that was over, to look at some owls nesting. The owls didn’t take kindly to all and sundry looking in, so a special contrivance was arranged for each nest: a kind of tube like a telescope, but wider, but only wide enough to look though with one eye at a time. Kirsty’s mum didn’t bother with it, excusing herself on the grounds that it was too dark in there for her to see very well.

Kirsty and particularly Louise both peeked into the viewing tubes with some abandon. Of course, Louise only had one eye that was worth looking at the eggs with, but Kirsty didn’t notice; she was busy shoving whichever glasses lens best fit into the end of the various tubes. There was one nest that happened to have two tubes, without any obvious necessity or explanation; Kirsty peeked into the nearest one, then said, ‘oh, look, chicks.’ Louise came over, and asked, ’let me look.’ Kirsty told her to get her own tube, so Louise went over to the unoccupied one.

There she found that she had a small problem: someone had put the viewing tube too far into the corner of the corridor, so when Louise tried to peek down it with her left eye, she simply bashed her head against the wall. That left only her right eye, and for what she could see with that, she might as well as stood 10 miles away and looked. She looked over at Kirsty, and found she was still looking through her tube, so had to simply play along: she dared not make any fuss about getting the wrong tube. This was easy enough at first, because Kirsty was happy enough to look, but then her big sister asked, ‘what’s that in the corner?’ Louise had to answer rather evasively, ‘which corner?’ ‘The one nearest you.’ ‘I don’t know.’ Which was honest, simply because Louise couldn’t see the corner, let alone anything in it.

Kirsty could be annoyingly persistent, Louise thought, wishing she hadn’t come back to stay with them just at that time. And so she proved to be, coming over to Louise’s tube and asking for a look. Louise had to let her, so Kirsty looked with her right eye, after finding, as Louise found, that she also couldn’t use her left eye, with or without glasses - not that doing without glasses occurred to her. But what Kirsty could do with her right eye, which Louise could not, was see clearly, and Kirsty soon said, ‘oh yeah…. I think it’s a hidden camera or something.’ Then she turned to Louise, with a quizzical look, and Louise froze inside, wondering what was coming next. Then Kirsty shrugged, and walked out of the place, with her youngest sister following her, feeling imperfectly relieved, hoping she’d got away with it.

They looked at some more animals, and slowly Louise started to relax, and thought that Kirsty might have forgotten about what she had half sensed: that there was something not quite right with Louise’s vision, but what exactly, she didn’t know. While waiting at the bus stop, Louise watched the wrong buses go by with their usual frequency, so that within fifteen minutes, they were all longing to see the right bus. Bus after bus appeared around the corner, the number coming into view in the distance, and each one disappointed them. One in particular came around; it must have been the twentieth, or thirtieth, nobody was counting, and Kirsty said vaguely, ‘is that it?’ Louise looked her best look, but said nothing. Neither did Kirsty, neither did her mother, who with her poor corrected visual acuity, wasn’t in the best position to see into the distance anyway. She’d grown to rely on Louise for such things. Louise looked at Kirsty, and then a moment later, Kirsty glanced at her, and glanced away, ‘yes, at last.’ Instead of feeling relief that the bus was finally here, Louise felt panic.

Once on the bus, Kirsty said nothing of note, certainly nothing beyond the normal, but once home, Kirsty went into a particular drawer in her mother’s room, being as she was well old enough to be let in without question by now, and after some determined rummaging, found evidence of what she’d suspected most of the afternoon. The last time Louise had been to the optician was three years ago: there was a letter telling her mother to bring her “two years from now,” but that was dated just over three years ago. It also said “the Amblyopia that she has suffered from seems to be under control, but please refer to me if there are problems in future.” That brought back memories of her little sister, crying and moaning at her patch, and all that went with it. Suddenly, something flashed in Kirsty’s mind - suspicion, and more. It was all to do with the viewing tubes at the owl centre. She crammed the letter in her pocket and went to help her mother.

After dinner, Kirsty went into Louise’s bedroom, and sat on her bed. Louise seemed a little agitated, a little ruffled, as if expecting what Kirsty was going to ask. And she did ‘Louise, when did you last go to the optician?’ ‘Oh, last year some time… I forget when exactly.’ Kirsty rather solemnly pulled the letter from her pocket and showed it to her. Louise looked at her, and said, ‘yeah, I went since then.’ ‘Really? Are you sure?’ ‘Yeah, you know, you’ve not been around all the time, you know.’

Kirsty appeared to accept that, because that was the truth, returned to her bedroom, but a short time later she was back, and asked ‘Louise, if you have a problem with your vision, you’d tell me, wouldn’t you?’ Louise answered, with a little quaver in her voice ‘I don’t have a problem. I can see perfectly well.’ Kirsty made a knowing “mmmm” sound, and then said, ‘just come with me.’ ‘Why?’ ‘You’ll see. Perhaps.’

Kirsty got her to go to her bedroom door, and then told her, ‘you must go in backwards.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Because there’s something there I want to you see, but only with me with you. Go on, it won’t bite you.’ With obvious reluctance, Louise did as she was asked, allowing Kirsty to guide her through the door backwards, Then Kirsty told her, ’turn around.’ As Louise did so, Kirsty grabbed her left arm, and then covered her left lens and eye with her own left hand. Louise naturally squealed a little, and then relaxed. She was looking at Kirsty’s bed with only her bad eye. Kirsty asked, ‘what books can you see on the bed?’

Louise said nothing. Then she said, ’err…..' This was because she could only just be sure that it was a bed she was looking at, and as for books, they might as well have been on the moon for all she was aware of. Now Kirsty sounded a little alarmed as she asked, ‘can’t you see the books?’ Louise said quietly, distantly, ’no….' Kirsty let her go, and turned her to face her. She asked her, sympathetically, ‘Louise, you’ve got a problem, haven’t you?’ Louise nodded, slowly, guiltily. Then she turned to look at the bed, and said, with a note of futile hope in her voice ‘I can see the books now.’ It didn’t need to be said that wasn’t the point.

Louise then turned to Kirsty, and softly asked, ‘what are you going to do?’ ‘What do you think I should do?’ ‘Please, please, don’t tell anyone. Please, don’t tell mum.’ Kirsty looked away, gave a little sigh, then met her gaze and said ‘Louise, I have to tell her. You must go to the optician and get your eyes checked. It’s for your own good.’ Louise started to sob, and plead a little, and then said unhappily, ‘it’s not good for me, it’s horrible. I don’t want to be patched again.’ Kirsty did her best to placate her, telling her it might not need a patch, but in her heart, she doubted her own words, despite their kind intentions.

It was some time later that Kirsty told her mother: she was shocked, and rather devastated, but the effort of caring for five myopic children had rather worn her down over the years. When the following week came, it was Kirsty who rang the optician on behalf of her mother and her youngest sister, since her mother was too heavily engaged with her own problems at work. And inevitably it was the capable, dependable Kirsty who took Louise to the optician, Kirsty who had to bear the brunt of the optician’s shock and surprise at the problem not being detected, and of course, when Louise was told she’d probably have to wear a patch, the reaction was predictable: Kirsty had to deal with it all.

A week later Louise’s new glasses were ready, so Kirsty took her along to get them fitted. Louise looked miserably at them: the left lens was already patched. She could see the bit of white papery stuff on it which her right eye demanded, so that it could be put back into use. She wondered what it would be like to see without her left eye. She didn’t have that long to wait in order to find out: within minutes her old glasses were taken from her, and the new ones sitting on her face. For most people, this would have the compensation of noticeably better vision; for her, it was the opposite. All the vision she had was dependent on her right eye and the thick lens it needed to see as well as it could - and that was not very good. She blinked away tears, looking helplessly at Kirsty, silently wishing this was not how things were for her.

A couple of days later Louise wrote in her Diary ‘Well, I got found out, I told you before. Now I am in a world of fuzziness - that’s bad, I know. The optician said it would get better. But, you know, its not just the poor vision that I have, it’s the way I look. I hate the way people look at me - and some of them are already whispering about me. Someone is going to be nasty to me, I know it.’

5. May

On the morning of the second Saturday in May Kirsty was woken by the postman ringing the doorbell. Ed wasn’t here: his father had been having heart trouble, so he’d had to go away and visit him, thus she had the place to herself. She groped blindly for her glasses, found them, pushed them on, then shambled rather sleepily to the door and opened it. The postman presented her with a box, for which she said “thanks” as he walked away. After shutting the door, she saw that it was a box just like the one she’d found in the cupboard. But, unlike that one, she assumed this was full of contact lenses. She yawned, carried it back into the bedroom, put it down, for a moment forgetting it, then she suddenly realised something: she’d been here most of two years, off and on, and this had never happened to her. If he’d been getting contacts regularly, how had they come? She’d never seen them delivered.

Curious again, she went over to it, pulled out the delivery note from its little clear polythene envelope stuck on top of the box, and unfolded it. It all seemed straightforward to her, as she or anyone else might have expected. But then the obvious problem jumped out at her: the column stating their strength was not minus 2, or something that she assumed it ought to be. It was plus 14! She said aloud, ’eh?' Furrowing her brow, she then thought, “plus 14? They’ve made a mistake, the stupid idiots! Poor Ed, he’ll won’t be able to use these, I hope he’s still got enough from the last batch, otherwise he’ll run out and he’ll be stuck with those other thicker glasses of his - he won’t like that! I’d better sort it out for him. He doesn’t need to worry about this with him having to care for his father too.”

She went to the phone, carrying the delivery note, and rang the number printed at the bottom. A female voice replied, so Kirsty pretended to be the optician’s receptionist, or something of that ilk: anyway, the owner of the voice didn’t seem to imagine that she might be covering up for Ed’s money saving plan - it wasn’t a bad plan after all, as long as nobody knew about it. The voice asked for his account number, so Kirsty read it out to her, then she heard some tapping at a keyboard.

Then the voice asked, ’now, what seems to be the problem?' ‘Oh, it’s this latest batch of contact lenses - order number, errr, 8370581-76. They aren’t the right strength.’ ‘Let’s see…’ The voice read off a prescription, some of which Kirsty recognised as being sensible, but she heard the word “plus” mentioned twice. Again her brow furrowed. The voice announced, ’that is the prescription that has been ordered.' Kirsty replied, with an uncertain quaver in her tone, ’there must be some mistake…' ‘No… I don’t think so. All your orders have been for this strength for the past 5 years.’ ‘Pardon?’

Kirsty couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing. The voice repeated itself rather boredly, but Kirsty didn’t say a word to that. She was puzzled, confused and generally befuddled by this news. The voice asked, slightly impatiently, ‘hello?’ Kirsty gathered herself as best she could, and said, ‘ahh… Err - yes, oh, I think I’ve been looking at the wrong patient. Err… Yes, I have. Oh, I do apologize. Thank you, goodbye.’ Slowly Kirsty put the phone down, then shambled back into the bedroom, looking and feeling rather blank. She sat trying to think about it, and it made no sense whatsoever. So, as she so done so many times before, she went to get her diary, and started to write. ‘I don’t understand. What would Ed do with plus 14 contacts? They’d be no good for looking through, not for him with minus 16 of myopia. They’d make his vision worse, not better. He’s hiding something from me, I know for certain now, and I want to find out what and why. He’s a good, kind man, but I don’t like being lied to. If there’s something he’s doing that’s illegal, I mean really illegal, then he must tell me. This is just so crazy. He wore these contacts just about every day - hey, I wonder, are these the same as the other ones? Could he be getting two different strengths of contact lens from two different suppliers, just to confuse them?’ She stopped, shrugged, and concluded ‘He’s doing a great job of confusing me.’

She got herself dressed, then took one set of contact lenses from each of the new delivery and the remains of the last box left behind by Ed. She went out into town, took them straight to her optician and asked to speak to the contact lens specialist she’d briefly been a customer of 4 years ago. The receptionist was new, the specialist the same as before, a little older and greyer, but just as friendly. He remained friendly even when she made it obvious that she wasn’t about to try contacts again. She took the four contact lenses, sealed in their little papery sealed bags, and asked him, ‘can you tell what strength a contact lens is, just by looking at it? I’d try it myself, but I doubt my eyes would pat me on the back for it.’ ‘Well, not just by looking at it, but I can estimate it.’

He took them from her, then spent some time fiddling with some of his equipment; Kirsty wasn’t sure what he was doing, but then he came back to the desk where she was sitting and said flatly, as if that was all she wanted, ‘yes, it looks to me that you’ve got four contact lenses at plus 14 with a little cylinder there, obviously two right and two left.’ That was hardly the news Kirsty was hoping for. He asked, concerned at her bemused expression, ‘is everything alright?’ ‘I don’t know. Something’s wrong with my boyfriend. It’s all a bit weird: you see, these are his contact lenses.’ ‘Right…’ ‘But I don’t understand it at all, he wears glasses because he’s more myopic than me!’ ‘Ahhh…. Tell me more about him, please.’

Kirsty spilt out some of her experiences with Ed: that he had told her that he usually wore a weak pair of contacts under his glasses, just so that he could wear glasses a little less strong, which had seemed perfectly reasonable to her at the time, in fact this was so right up until that very morning. But suddenly, she had found out that his supposedly weak contacts weren’t weak at all, and indeed were instead plus, so she asked him if they would make his vision worse? He confirmed that this idea was quite right. She told him some other things, for instance that he seemed reluctant to go to the optician; that didn’t impress him, as she might have expected, and also that he didn’t say exactly how he got his contacts - it was just “online”.

When she finished, he sat in deep thought for half a minute. She asked, ‘do you have any idea what he might be up to? Is it illegal?’ He made a strange expression, and then told her, ‘yes… I think there is an explanation - but it isn’t illegal. I remember talking to someone at a convention - a sort of annual meetup of opticians. Someone there told me about this man who actually wanted to wear thick glasses.’ Kirsty looked suitably amazed at that, and blurted out, ‘you’re joking!’ ‘No, he was serious. He said he liked to see the effect of thick glasses on other people, apparently. He called it “going GOC” - that is, “Glasses Over Contacts.”’ Kirsty shook her head, not quite understanding him. To her, the only effect on most people she was aware of was to scare them off, unfortunately including those men more attractive than average!

He continued, ‘yes, this optician was persuaded by this man to supply him with thick minus glasses, and strong plus lenses to compensate - so he could still see clearly. I think your Ed is doing the same.’ As the truth of the situation sunk in, Kirsty quivered a little, and sat open mouthed for longer than she’d ever want to, then shut her mouth, then opened it to ask, ‘you mean Ed doesn’t really need those thick glasses like he says he does?’ ‘He may not even need glasses at all, or perhaps just now and again.’ Kirsty gaped again as that news sank in, and then dropped her head, shaking it, then murmured, ’now I get it. Oh, now I get it. That’s why…' She thought of the school photo with no glasses; now it all made sense. She said, sadly, but to nobody in particular ‘I’ve been hoodwinked by Ed. He’s been lying to me all along. What a bastard!’

She addressed the optician again, controlling her spiralling anger, ‘why do you think he wants to wear such thick glasses? Why would anyone? I wear thick glasses, and I hate them!’ Uncertainly, he suggested, ‘perhaps he thought he might attract attention, maybe sexual attention, who knows? I don’t know.’ Kirsty dimly recollected her first encounter with Ed, when he appeared without glasses, and then, a day or two later, in the thick glasses she was accustomed to. She’d run though her life with Ed a few times since the incident with the optician, and more so after discovering the mysterious school photo; but now, it all made perfect sense. He’d done this to get Kirsty interested in him, and she’d fallen into the trap like a stupid fool. She whispered to herself, ‘he did it so he could screw me! Bastard!’ Barely controlling her anger, she thanked him, went out and home, fuming at the thought of being deceived.

He came home the next day, and found Kirsty sitting in the lounge, with the school photo in her hand and the box of contact lenses by her side. She was ready to explode, and rightly so. He came in, and said, ‘hello, Kirsty.’ She didn’t reply, so he said, ‘something wrong, darling?’ ‘Don’t you “darling” me. I know exactly what you’ve been up to all this time!’ He said, in a surprised tone, ’eh?' And then noticed the box of contact lenses by her side. At that, he said, ‘oh… They came… Ahh…’ As he realised that, for the first time, he’d not been there to intercept them. He coughed, and then said, ‘yes, let me explain…’ Her voice cut harshly though his ‘No, let ME explain. I know all about “GOC” now, and don’t try to pretend you’ve never heard of it. I know you have perfect vision - without glasses or contacts - and this is how I know.’

She showed him the photo, and his shoulders slumped a little. He said waveringly ‘I’m sorry, Kirsty, but… I thought you looked so lovely in your glasses, and I wanted you to feel as if you could be with someone who knew what it was like to be you. Someone who had experienced the same troubles, the same hassles.’ He looked at her hopefully. She replied flatly, ‘yes, I get you that found me attractive, that’s not my problem. My problem is that for you, it’s all lies, all one big lie to get me in bed with you! And don’t you dare tell me that’s not the truth!’ Of course, he couldn’t. Admittedly, once he’d got to know Kirsty, he’d found a lovely, sweet person to be with, but initially, all he wanted to do was get in bed with her. Again he said, in a pathetic tone ‘I’m sorry, Kirsty… can you forgive me? What about the good times we had together? Can’t we still be together?’ She hesitated for just a fraction of a second, and then said firmly, ’no. It was all fake. You lied to me, and that’s no good for me. As of now, I’m not your girlfriend anymore. I’m going home!'

Some time later Kirsty arrived home with her suitcases, then collapsed sobbing into the arms of her ever-loving but long-suffering mother. Kirsty told her it was over between her and Ed, and she didn’t ask anything else: that was just as well, because if Kirsty had told her all about it, she’d have thought she was making it all up.

The rest of that month was decidedly frosty at work, at least between Kirsty and Ed. Kirsty felt that she couldn’t talk to Ed, and thus avoided him whenever possible. She discreetly made sure everyone else who needed to know knew it was over, so that nobody said something awkward. The last week was a relief for her, because Ed took a week off on holiday, so Kirsty was able to almost stop thinking about him.

During the middle of the afternoon of last Friday of that week, an odd thing happened: a smart car drove up, parked outside, and a large, well-built man got out, smartly dressed, looking rather like a nightclub bouncer, with an expression that stood for no nonsense. He handed a small envelope to the receptionist, then left without Kirsty seeing him. A few minutes later Kirsty was looking at this envelope: it simply said ‘Kirsty’ on the front, with no address and no stamp. She opened it, and as she unfolded it, she thought it might have come from Ed: she imagined for a moment that perhaps he was trying to crawl back to her. But it clearly wasn’t, being as it wasn’t his handwriting. It said

“Hi Big Sis - I need your help - ring me on this number - Love, Emma”

Kirsty sat back in her office chair, completely amazed; mostly on account that for the first time in three years she’d heard something of her younger sister, but also that she said she needed help - now that was news! The idea of the amazingly self-assured Emma needing, and also admitting that she needed such a thing filled Kirsty’s mind as she went home on the bus: it seemed almost absurd. Then she considered that if she did say she needed help, then she really, really needed help, and that she ought to see what her trouble was. As if she didn’t have troubles of her own, she mused.

6. June

Early on in June Kirsty wrote in her Diary: ‘I’m torn by a terrible dilemma. Emma has contacted me, and I have her phone number! It’s not the one I had before, I tried that two years ago, and got no answer. If this is really her phone number, shall I tell Mum that I know how to contact her? I’m not sure it will do her any good. Half the time she wants to forget about her, as she imagines what sort of things she’s up to - she wants to disown her, and that’s terrible, I suppose, even for a sheep as black as Emma. Other times she’s worried about her, and why not, she’s her daughter. I’m worried about her, too.’

Kirsty sat in silent thought for a long time, and then wrote ‘I think I’d better say nothing just for now, I don’t to set Mum off again. I think I need to see what Emma’s up to down in London, although I have a feeling I won’t like it.’

A few days later, it was a Saturday afternoon, and Kirsty was sitting on a train pulling into the station in London wondering what would happen, what Emma would be like, and wondering what she wanted help with. She’d rung the number a few days ago, got through to her, chatted about everything and nothing, got evasive answers to her questions as to why she needed help, so Kirsty had decided to go and see for herself. As the train pulled into the station, Kirsty thought she saw a familiar figure, then as she pulled her case along, she realised who it was: it was Emma, in the flesh! She was dressed in a sort of padded jacket, and wore a skirt barely long enough to be considered decent in polite company; and when she moved, it was obvious that she was wearing a top that bared at least some of her generous cleavage. She smiled, waved, and her eyes shone from behind thick glasses with admiration and delight.

‘Kirsty! Kirsty! Over here!’ Kirsty had to stop herself saying, ‘yes, I can see you!’ Instead, the pair of them embraced like lovers for a moment, then Kirsty asked, ‘did you wait long?’ ‘Naw. I can read a train timetable, you know. The glasses help.’ Kirsty smiled at her: it was good to see her long-lost sister, even considering what she imagined she’d been up to for the last three years.

Emma took her arm possessively, then led her out of the station to a waiting car, driven by a man similar to the one who brought her the message a few days ago. Emma asked, ‘how’s Louise getting on with her patch?’ ‘Not too good. She gets very grumpy when people talk about it. I think the school kids are getting to her, I don’t want to ask about it and set her off.’ ‘oh, poor Louise, that must be terrible. Please give her a hug from me when you see her.’ Kirsty nodded, then for a moment, there was an awkward pause, then Kirsty asked, ‘so, what have you been doing since you left?’

Emma eyed her curiously, as if not realising someone could not know what sort of business she was in. Then she said, smiling gently, ‘oh, just selling things… You know.’ Kirsty’s eyes rolled upward behind her thick lenses. She then asked Emma about contacts, whether she’d tried them or not. Emma shook her head, and said, ’no, I never did, and never will. There’s something I must tell you… Some men like girls to wear glasses….’ Kirsty nodded, and replied, ‘yes, I know something about that!’ In reply, Emma gave her a curious look.

Before long they arrived at what passed for Emma’s place of business, or at least part of it. It was an office in the back of an old abandoned factory, deceptively innocent-looking. Inside, it was oddly similar to Kirsty’s normal place of work. Emma sat down in what was evidently her chair, and offered Kirsty another. She didn’t have to say “this is my office”: it was sufficiently obvious from the way she carried herself, and by the way the driver deferred to her. With a cup of coffee sat before her, Kirsty eyed Emma. After a moment, Emma coughed slightly awkwardly, and then said ‘I suppose you’re wondering why I asked you to come?’ Kirsty nodded, ‘well, it’s because I have had a little trouble controlling what goes on with some of my business associates, and where the money goes. You see, there is this guy…’ Emma talked for a while in needless detail, but the gist of it was that she was under the control of someone else and wanted to break away, and set up with her friends alone.

Kirsty had to ask, ‘why do you want me to help?’ For Emma, the answer was obvious, as it always was for her ‘I want you to be with me. I need someone I can trust. There is no-one else I really trust, when I am out on the streets doing business, you know. And it’s not just that’ Kirsty asked numbly, ’no?' ‘No, no. It’s because, well, men I’ve been with have asked if I had a sister. For their friends, or whatever. Well, I have a sister: you.’ Kirsty felt vaguely uneasy about that. Emma could be extremely offhand and dismissive about men, that was her, but - was she suggesting… ‘You want me to go on the game with you?’ ‘yes… If that is what you want to call it. Don’t worry about it, I never do.’ With rising enthusiasm in her voice, she continued, ‘it’ll be great. Me and you, working together for ourselves! We can do it, you know! Men like girls like us, you know, perhaps they won’t admit it, but the ones who do, and are prepared to go with someone like me, they’ll pay for it. You’ll be the new girl, they love the new girls and pay extra for that. I - we - need the money to pay off that guy I told you about so’s he’ll leave us in peace. And I know you won’t let me down or run off with the money. You’re my sister, after all.’ For a long moment Kirsty stared at her in a mixture of confusion and vague disgust. It was as if Emma had magically transformed the world from one where a few men liked girls like herself, in which Kirsty struggled to find one, to one where they were aching to meet her, screw her silly and pay her into the bargain! Kirsty opened her mouth to say something, but then there was a knock at the door, and thus her half-formed objection was lost.

The door opened at Emma’s behest, and the cause of the knock was thus revealed: a tall, elegant, slim woman in a tight red dress stood in the doorway, pretty with gingery-blonde hair, formed into a cascade of ringlets around her face, slightly younger than Kirsty. She wore glasses, not nearly as strong as Kirsty’s, but still strong enough to require them to be near-plano on the front and 5-6mm thick at the outside edges, sticking past the silver metal frames. She looked at Emma, asked “where are we going tonight?” - and then she took in Kirsty, noticed the similarity, then exclaimed, ‘is this your sister?’ Emma nodded, and introduced her, ‘yes, this is Kirsty, my big sister. Kirsty, this is “Silver”, my associate.’

Silver turned to her, and said to Kirsty in silky-smooth and oddly respectful tones, ‘oh, your sister has told me so much about you…’ ‘Nothing bad I hope.’ ‘There’s nothing bad I’ve heard.’ Silver then turned to her “boss” and asked, ‘is… She interested?’ Emma waved her toward a chair: evidently men were not the only things that she was in charge of. She then directed her gaze at Kirsty, and at that moment, Kirsty felt the full force of her younger sister’s bespectacled gaze boring into her like a piece of hot iron into ice; Emma’s willpower melting away her doubts. But softly, kindly, respectfully she asked, ‘well, Kirsty, are you interested?’

Kirsty stuttered, perhaps not fully realising what her younger sister was now like, and then nodded, saying quietly, ‘yes, I’ll help you. What do you want me to do?’ Emma smiled, then exclaimed, ’excellent! Wonderful! We shall go and work the streets together, and all will be well!’ Kirsty did her best to ignore the confident, exultant tone of her younger sister’s voice, but couldn’t quite. She sat wondering where her younger sister had gone, thinking “boy, has she changed! What caused that?” She then thought of the time she’d got those hand-me-down glasses a few years ago, something she herself wouldn’t have exactly loved if it were her, but then, maybe this was just how Emma would have turned out anyway: loudmouthed, confident, brash, and that wasn’t anything to do with having big boobs. It seemed quite strange to Kirsty that Emma was in as much control of her life at 17 as Kirsty wasn’t at 22. Kirsty suddenly felt a pang of envy: for Emma, who seemed to know what she wanted and exactly how to get it, even if it meant doing something morally bad, the ends somehow justified it. She thought to herself “look at my life. It’s all one big mess. All that with Ed, all that crap before looking around for somebody nice. Why am I wasting my time on that?”

Her reflection was rudely interrupted by Emma asking her, ‘have you got something… More daring than that to wear?’ For a moment Kirsty met her gaze in some confusion, and then realised to what she was referring. Kirsty wore comfortable, less than brand new jeans and t-shirt; perfectly suited to a train journey, not so for her proposed “employment” tonight. Kirsty hadn’t quite expected this, but had brought some clothes suitable for a night out or two; she’d harboured vague hopes of “pulling”, but not in the fashion she’d now agreed to try. Kirsty replied, ‘yes, I think so.’ Emma had the driver bring in her case, and then Kirsty opened it to show her. She showed her a couple of tops; Emma made a face and shook her head. Then Kirsty pulled out the miniskirt and low cut white top she’d hoped to wear going out. Emma told her in a calm voice, ’now that is better. Yes, much better. Do you mind putting it on now? You can have a shower if you want in there too.'

Kirsty went into the bathroom to put it all on, and came out transformed from traveller to highly attractive young woman. A pair of high heels added their own contribution to the effect. Emma was generous in her praise, ‘oh, you’ll get them swarming over you tonight, big sis.’ Silver nodded dutifully, and added, ‘you’re such a pretty girl, you’ll be heavily in demand.’ Emma agreed, then suggested she pull down the neck a little more, just so that if the man looked at the right angle, he’d see a little bra: apparently some men liked that. Then Emma asked if she wanted to wear makeup; Kirsty didn’t mind, so they spent some time together doing just that. Emma was pretty well covered in the stuff all day long, but seemed to enjoy talking about it with Kirsty, talking about old times when they used to help each other and the twins. The end result was a bit more than Kirsty normally wore, but not really like Emma’s.

Some time later they sped along in a comfortable, expensive car towards a somewhat seedier area, where they were dropped off. Charlie, the driver, doubled as a bodyguard and stooge, keeping in regular touch by phone, driving further along the street then waiting just in case of trouble. Emma assured her that there was another such driver doing the same thing not far away: she was talking to him on the phone as they got out. Kirsty followed Emma rather sheepishly as they went to sit on a wall. Silver, however, stood up, smoking a cigarette stuck into a small holder and looking deceptively casual: Kirsty got the impression she knew exactly what she was doing, in stark contrast to herself, who suddenly felt a wave of panic, being as she didn’t know what to do.

Emma looked at Kirsty, and said ‘Big Sis, if you don’t want to do this, you don’t have to. I don’t mind, I’ll still love you… You know that, don’t you?’ Kirsty nodded, and as firmly as she could, replied ‘I’m doing it, OK?’ Emma smiled gently, and told her, ’thanks, Big Sis.' After a pause, she said, ’try waggling your hips a bit more when you walk. And even if you feel nervous, try not to show it. It puts them off. Here,' she reached into her pocket, then pulled out several sets of keys. She pondered one, then another briefly, before handing the first to Kirsty: it had a little plastic key fob attached. On it was the address to which those keys opened the door: “12a Kingston Road.” She told her where it was, then started giving her lots of advice, such as what to do if they turned violent or wouldn’t pay: it was usually either “call me” or “call Charlie or James”, for which purpose she had obtained their phone numbers.

Emma’s phone rang, so she got up and walked away a little in order to talk privately. Silver stubbed out her cigarette, then sat down beside her, all in one lithe movement. Kirsty looked at her legs, and wished she could have legs like that. Silver spoke, ‘your sister knows a lot about this game. She’ll help us all do well out of this. I should know, she’s helped me so much: when I first met her on the streets, I wasn’t doing so well. I feel so much better doing this than fooling around in a factory, and she’s done so much for me.’ Kirsty looked at Silver curiously, surprised she might have done something as mundane as factory work. She continued, ‘we all need to eat. Emma, she showed me how to really use what I had, showed me I didn’t have to go back to slaving away for nothing. As for men, I don’t worry about them anymore.’ For Kirsty, who had spent something like the last ten years worrying about men, or boys, the difference being irrelevant, this seemed oddly comforting. She wondered what sex in these circumstances would be like. Silver seemed to read her mind, saying, ‘it’s just sex after all. What’s the big fuss? And we’re making money!’ She laughed out loud, tossing her head back, her hair flopping about, glasses glinting wildly. It seemed to Kirsty that Emma’s huge self-confidence seemed to have induced a similar attitude in Silver: almost something resembling dementia, she thought. Never mind, she looked and seemed a nice enough person.

She seemed ready enough to drop her inhibitions too: somebody in a car drove past slowly, and for a moment Kirsty was caught unawares. Then Silver spread her legs, called out something suggestive, twisting a strand of her hair and pouting. Kirsty’s innocent view of the scene was abruptly shattered as she realised it was a “customer”. In minutes Silver was gone, leaving Emma still talking energetically on the phone. After a minute or two, Emma stopped talking, then her eyes rolled behind her glasses; she sighed and said, ’the troubles some people cause me…' ‘What’s wrong?’ ‘The Police.’ She said firmly. Kirsty didn’t ask her to elaborate, but she did, ‘we might get some other girls down here. Don’t worry, it’s not a problem. Let me worry about it.’ Kirsty wondered how much worrying Emma really did, but then Emma spoke again, ’this is really good, you know.' ‘What, being a prostitute?’ Emma looked at her sharply, as if commanding her not to have doubts. Then she continued, ’no. Us girls with glasses, doing this. The police don’t seem to realise that girls with glasses can be attractive too. Now, I think that is really funny.' Kirsty smiled knowingly. They’d be less likely to bother them, thinking they’re doing something other than what they are really doing.

At that another car came strolling around the corner and up the road, slowing slightly when nearer Emma and Kirsty. Kirsty turned to her younger but much more experienced sister, ‘is it…?’ ‘Yes, go on, get in there.’ Kirsty got to her feet feeling distinctly wobbly, and that wasn’t simply because she wore higher heels than normal. However, she soon righted herself, and waved, calling out, ‘hi!’ with a confidence she didn’t feel. The man inside the car was quite young: not much older than Ed, although thankfully he didn’t cross her mind at that moment. Before she knew it, she was off to 12a Kingston Road.

About an hour later she was back: Silver was back, Emma gone, and before long Silver was gone again, and then Emma came back. She asked, ‘was that OK with you? Did you like it? Was it nice?’ Kirsty nodded, and commented, ‘he was really kind to me, I think he knew I’d never done this before.’ Emma smiled, and said, ’there’s a first time for everything. And you get the “new girl” bonus. Did you get his money?' Kirsty bit her lip slightly, and then admitted, ‘I let him off. Sorry.’ Emma wasn’t concerned. She told her, ‘seen girls do that before. Don’t worry about it… But don’t do it again, please. We’re not really doing this for fun. It’s for the cash… Geddit?’ Kirsty started giggling, and so Emma admitted gaily, ‘alright, alright, it’s for the fun, too!’

The rest of the evening wore on in a similar fashion, one or two of them gone “on business”, the other holding the fort. Kirsty felt good about this, for some strange reason more good than she’d thought she would. It was fun. She’d thought all the men using girls like her would be disgusting old men, but perhaps she’d been lucky. She spent two weeks with Emma, helping her build up “business” away from her old “associates”, and then kept going back and forth to London every weekend in the rest of June, telling her mother when she asked that she’d met someone living there, but in reality she was making money the easy way. A few days before the end of the month came more good news. Ed had left her place of normal employment. She noted in her diary ‘Yippie! He’s gone, I feel a huge weight has gone from my life. Anyway my weekend business is far more exciting!’

7. July

On the first Wednesday of July, Kirsty noted in her Diary ‘Things are very busy for me, and in fact for most of my family. Louise isn’t getting on well with her patch. To say she doesn’t like it is stating the obvious. She really really hates it. Yet, what else can be done? Mum had to threaten to remove her left lens last week, or was it the week before, to stop her trying to sneak a peek though it. She had a check last month, new right lens, good news is that her vision in her right eye is improving - about 2/3 as bad as it was. Who knows, she might get used to it before she has it taken off. She’s started a new fashion of hair draped over her patched lens - I told her she looked ridiculous, I don’t think that helped. Oops, even big sisters get it wrong sometimes.’

‘About me and Emma. This is a very strange thing for me, I know I’ve said it before, but it seems OK for me to be having sex and being paid for it. All the men I’ve met have been so kind and gentle to me. One was an older man, I didn’t ask his age in case it scared me, but he was the nicest, kindest sort of man you could meet in a long time. Said I was beautiful and wished he was younger! Blush, blush, blush…. Actually the money side of it is a bit of a problem for me. I have no problem with men wanting to screw me. I have no problem actually being screwed by them, either. I just feel a little guilty asking for money for it, because I’m still just an insecure girly with thick glasses, even now, especially now after what happened with Ed. It is as if after his big lie, my whole life is somehow out in the open as it should be. Now, Emma, she does not give a shit. She’s not greedy, I think, but she is damned sure that she wants to be on top, and does not care if men like or hate her. She has this powerful personality that binds you to her, makes her do as she wants. Silver is besotted with her - in the nonsexual meaning (!) Wow, I think I’ve met my first ever real live tyrant - and she happens to be my younger sister. How scary is that?’

The following weekend Kirsty was back in London “seeing her new boyfriend” as she had told her mother. She didn’t dare tell her what she was really doing - “goodness knows what she’d say” was her thought on this issue. The evening started off in by-now predictable, normal fashion, with Emma going on a “job” with a “customer”, as they might euphemistically be called: a man who seemed as obsessed with her glasses as with her large bust and larger ego. She told Kirsty to look after things while she was gone. It seemed to Kirsty that it was a difficult thing, running a group of prostitutes and being one yourself. Silver sat and chatted with her some more, at one of their usual haunts: this one was along the river, so there were places to sit as well as standing around. Not that any of them stood or sat all night anyway.

Silver sat down next to her and toyed with her little cigarette holder: a seemingly pointless affectation, but then that was Silver: all hair, beauty and lithe elegance, and a little slightly fake uppityness at times. Kirsty asked her, ‘is “Silver” your real name?’ Silver chuckled a little, and replied, ’no, that’s just what Emma christened me. It’s because I wear silver metal framed glasses, my real name is Joanne.' There was a brief pause, and then Kirsty asked, ‘what do you think about all this, then? ‘About what?’ ‘About men, well some men, wanting to be with, or… Screw - girls with glasses?’ Silver shrugged, and replied noncommittally, ‘it doesn’t worry me, as long as I get paid.’ Kirsty smiled, knowing what she meant, but wishing there could be more to it than that. She continued to probe, asking ‘I mean, it’s supposed to be nice too, you know, sex, I mean?’ Silver stared out at the river gliding past her, and said distantly, ‘it would be nice to have some man to be with, to love, I suppose…’ Kirsty wasn’t actively trying to convert Silver from being a prostitute, but at that moment, she felt as though she might be succeeding. However Silver then considered, ‘I do have to eat, though. And I feel very much myself doing this.’

Kirsty was also looking dreamily at something, but not into the distance. Instead, she sat looking through the tiny sliver of the world refracted through Silver’s left lens, seeing how it was bent and distorted, considerably smaller than the real thing, but almost appallingly sharp and clear. She saw Silver’s eye move slightly behind its lens, and then Kirsty noticed an almost imperceptible stiffening of her neck and shoulders. Then she spoke, slightly hesitatingly ‘I can’t imagine what your life , and Emma’s life, was like - growing up with glasses like yours.’ Silver turned her head, and her bespectacled gaze met Kirsty’s. ‘Those glasses of those are so thick and ugly…’ Kirsty replied sharply, ’thanks a lot!’ ‘Sorry… Anyway, I shouldn’t be saying that, don’t tell Emma I said such a thing: you know, she says that the men love them really - although I’m not totally convinced about that.’ Kirsty replied, knowingly, ‘oh, they like them alright: it’s just a bit of a problem getting the truth out of them.’

There followed a pause, and then Silver asked, ‘do they…. Ever ask to feel them?’ Kirsty nodded. ‘Do you let them?’ ‘Of course, but I tell them if they break them, I’ll send Emma to beat them black and blue!’ Silver clapped her hands, laughing. Then, when she had stopped, she said, ’they do like me wearing them, but so far they come off for sex.' ‘Oh, they do far more than that with me, some of them, anyway. One of them - well perhaps you’d not believe it.’ Curious, Silver asked, ‘really?’ ‘Yes… I’ve done some odd things before, but…’ ‘Aren’t you going to tell me?’ Silver looked slightly hurt, in a sort of make-believe fashion. Kirsty sighed, then made a little beckoning motion with her finger. Silver turned her head, Kirsty bent close to her, looking at her silver earpiece of her glasses, and her lenses side on, sticking out slightly around the frames. She whispered into Silver’s ear.

When she’d done, Silver turned and looked curiously at her, looking rather astonished, ‘really?’ ‘Yes, really. And I had him clean it all off too afterwards, otherwise I told him I couldn’t see - well, I couldn’t.’ Silver chuckled at that, then said playfully, ’there’s still a bit on the side, you know.' Kirsty shook her head, stuck her tongue out at her, then said, ’no, I checked the morning after. Anyway, you see us girls in thick glasses get some male interest too.' ‘Yeah, but they’re all weird.’

Kirsty was about to answer her when she heard footsteps coming up the road behind her. She was expecting Emma back soon, after all, but she turned to look anyway, and saw a young black woman behind her, walking toward her. Normally she wouldn’t have given her a second thought, apart from the word “tarty”’ coming to her mind about her mode of dress: but then a moment later she remembered she was dressed similarly. Silver turned to look, and then looked at Kirsty, shrugged, and said uncertainly, ‘must be the competition?’ Kirsty saw that she was wearing glasses too - and replied slowly ‘I don’t know. Perhaps she wants to eavesdrop on us.’ ‘In that case we’d better keep whispering.’

Kirsty chuckled softly to herself, whilst watching her come closer and closer. The woman was young: around her age, about her height, quite curvy and large breasted, although not as big as her boisterous younger sister. She wore high heels, a tight black t-shirt, and a red-and-black miniskirt that flopped around her hips as she walked. She wore her shortish black hair in a neatly combed fashion around her face and head. The glasses she wore were fairly big squarish black plastic frames, with lenses that shrunk her dark eyes considerably, and surrounded them with the coke bottles in a fashion that Kirsty was quite familiar with: she evidently had something like the amount of myopia that Kirsty’s had.

She didn’t say anything, but returned Kirsty’s stare. As she came within a few feet, she smiled gently, her white teeth flashing brightly against her dark brown skin. Then she stopped before the pair of them, looked briefly at Silver, then back at Kirsty. It registered in Kirsty’s mind that her right ear seemed to stick out. She spoke ‘Emma? Which of you is Emma?’ Her voice had a peculiar character to it: flat, toneless, with some of the tones very odd-sounding. For a moment Kirsty thought she was foreign. The way she stared, shrunken eyes blinking softly behind her thick lenses, was vaguely off-putting, it occurred to her. Silver told her, ’neither of us. She’s not here, she’s gone on a job, should be back soon.' The girl turned her head to look at Silver, and said in her strange voice, ‘pardon?’ Silver looked slightly puzzled, not sure why anyone couldn’t hear her. Kirsty, however, saw something: a little piece of brown plastic behind her right ear, an imperfect match to her own skin colour, and another little piece of clear plastic sticking into her ear. Suddenly the penny dropped in Kirsty: the thought “she’s deaf” crystallized in her mind.

Kirsty had never met anyone deaf before, but thought she knew how to handle it. She waved her hand a little, thus getting the girl’s attention, then said slowly, enunciating each word more clearly than Silver’s breathless gabble ‘Emma is not here. She will be here soon.’ She nodded, understanding that at least. Kirsty then shuffled sideways to let her sit, which she did, instantly turning to face her, and said, ‘my name is Charity. I’m deaf. You noticed?’ Kirsty nodded, and introduced herself and Silver. Silver gave Kirsty a slightly quizzical look, as if she wondered why she was here: Kirsty gave a slight shrug, turning not to let Charity notice.

Charity didn’t turn out to be a great conversationalist, but that didn’t matter, being as Emma reappeared within ten minutes, and predictably, instantly resumed the implied reins of control. She took Charity aside, then sat talking to her on the low wall that separated the river from the rest of the world. Emma didn’t speak loudly, but did talk firmly, as she did to Silver sometimes: she didn’t dare talk quite like that to her eldest sister. Charity listened, or rather watched, attentively. After that, Emma came back to them, and rather belatedly told them Charity was joining them. Kirsty asked, ‘are we only having girls with glasses, then?’ ‘I don’t know, it depends who is willing to join us, and how things go. Can’t make people join who don’t want to, can we?’ ‘yeah… Hey, aren’t we supposed to be running this thing together?’ Emma looked slightly uncomfortable, and replied, ’errrm… I’d assumed you weren’t so keen on this business - because you haven’t given up your regular job, yes?' Kirsty nodded uncertainly, not entirely sure where the balance of power lay between her and her sister. Would Emma ask her advice at all? Would she listen? Kirsty doubted it, but the pretence was worth something. She replied, ‘oh, well, I want to see how things go.’ Emma shrugged, and they got on with the business of soliciting trade.

On the following Monday evening, Louise wrote in her Diary ‘Hey, Diary, it’s me again, Louise. It’s going to be school holiday time again soon, and I am sooo looking forward to it. I’ve been wearing my patch on my left lens like a good girl, or should I say a kinda girl that would get moaned at by my big sister if I didn’t. My vision in my bad eye is not so bad as it was - but it is still pretty bad. Still can’t read the blackboard further than 10 feet or so, which is basically at the front of the class and a bit closer still. So embarrassing, when you want to melt into the background and just get on with life, it does this to you. People at school noticed immediately - they’d have to be blinder than me not to - but so far only a few sniggers and laughs behind my back. This is why I want it to be holidays soon. I know, I’m sure, it’s going to get worse, and if my vision gets good enough over the summer holidays, with luck I can be back to normal by next term, and no teasing or name-calling. Had enough of that last time.’

The following Saturday came, and Kirsty was back with Emma. As it transpired, Charity proved just as popular with the “customers”; whether it was despite being deaf or because of it wasn’t entirely clear. During the late afternoon, Kirsty was alone with Emma, standing around against a wall near a corner. The pavement they were standing on was cracked and broken in places, with some of the paving slabs lifted at the edges. Kirsty prodded at one with her foot, and said, looking at Emma, ’that’s dangerous, someone could trip over it.' Emma shrugged disinterestedly.

A moment later someone came around the corner and bumped into Kirsty. She stumbled forward, tripped on the pavement she’d just complained about, and fell with a cry. Emma laughed unhelpfully, so Kirsty looked up at who had knocked her over. It happened to be a priest - or vicar: it wasn’t obvious which particular branch of Christianity he represented. Oddly, he was quite young, and attractive too, especially to Kirsty’s momentary bemusement. He took her in too: her short skirt, tight, low-cut top and fishnet stockings. He offered his hand, and said, a smile in his voice, ‘here, I’m supposed to be helping fallen women, so here I go doing it for you.’

Once Kirsty was back on her feet, it was clear he wasn’t going to leave them alone. He started talking to Kirsty, and then Emma too. Emma pointedly ignored him: she wasn’t interested, and looked as if she wished he’d go away. Kirsty, however, was much more receptive. They stood talking for a while, he not really preaching at her, but suggesting she ought not really be doing this, and Kirsty tried to tell him some of the reasons why she was doing it. At last he left them alone, not before he invited Kirsty to come to his church, to which Emma gave an extremely exasperated sigh, ‘oh, for crying out loud, I thought he’d never go. They’re always trying to interfere with our business.’ Kirsty looked surprised, and replied ‘I don’t know, he’s only trying to do a job, just like us.’ She fell into thought, and the two sisters did not converse for a long time.

Some time later Kirsty asked Emma ‘What’s the oddest thing they’ve asked you to do?’ Emma considered longer than Kirsty might have thought she would, and then answered ‘I remember one wanting to masturbate with my glasses, but I told him no.’ Kirsty’s eyes nearly popped out of her skull, and replied, ‘Really?’ ‘What about smearing cum all over your lenses?’ ‘Yeah, done that. Had them lick it off, too. Some of these men are just sick, you know.’ Kirsty nodded. Emma added with firm enthusiasm, ‘but I charge a lot for that.’ At that a car sped past, pausing only to slow, and some man yelled out of the window, ‘get off the streets, you freaks!’ Kirsty looked at Emma, wondering what that was all about. Emma shrugged, not sure herself what it meant.

It all started to make a lot more sense as the evening wore on: it was about 7pm when Charity went on another “job”, and a few minutes later Kirsty herself went on one. Kirsty came back, and after a short time, went on another. She came back well after 8.30, and found Silver looking pensive. Kirsty asked, ‘where’s Charity? Hasn’t she come back yet?’ ‘No, not yet.’ They stood in silence, and after what seemed forever, but was really just 10 minutes, Emma reappeared. She asked, ‘did she come back?’ ‘No.’ Irritated, Emma hissed, ‘where is she? She’s been ages. Can’t spend that sort of time on one customer.’ Kirsty looked at her younger sister sharply, and Emma caught her gaze. She asked, ‘what’s up?’ ‘Oh, just surprised that you don’t consider that she might have been hurt or something.’ Emma softened a little, and said, ‘yeah, there is that. Yes, I am worried about her.’ Kirsty didn’t say that she didn’t feel convinced by that.

It was gone 9pm when Emma got a message on her phone. It said, ‘help. I got beat up.’ It also had a rather abbreviated address. Emma instantly phoned Charlie, and told him to fetch her. Some time later he arrived with Charity in the passenger seat; they all went over to look. Emma opened the door, Kirsty peeked past her and could see she looked a mess: she held her ribs along her left side with her right hand, her left arm hanging limply, uselessly, down at her side. She had a cut on her temple, her dark skin saved her from looking more beat up than perhaps otherwise she might, but her glasses certainly had suffered: they were missing the left lens. She sat there alternately sobbing and looking totally confused and generally unhappy. Emma teased out of her what had happened, at least in outline. She got up, looked at Silver and Kirsty, then decided ‘Silver, can you take her to hospital to get her arm X-rayed?’ ‘Yeah, sure.’ She got in with Charlie, and they were soon whisked away.

Kirsty looked around anxiously. She asked Emma, ‘are we still doing this tonight?’ Emma didn’t look quite sure herself, at least for a moment, but then said, ‘yes, we are still here and can still get customers.’ Part of Kirsty rather wished she’d said no. Quite soon, Emma went on a job, and for a while Kirsty was left all alone. Given what had happened, she really felt nervous, and very alone.

Presently, a car appeared, stopped up the road, and a couple of men got out, walked along the road toward her, purpose in their step. Something tweaked in the already nervy Kirsty: they looked rather like Charlie. They both looked at her casually as they got closer, then looked away. Kirsty felt nervous, but not quite nervous enough to run: perhaps they were “customers”, although she didn’t have Emma’s experience in these matters. They spoke in low voices, then they stopped in front of her. Kirsty looked at one, then the other: they didn’t look friendly at all. She shook a little. One spoke, ‘a Hooker with glasses… Whatever next?’ At that, the other pulled out a knife and pushed her against the wall: Kirsty shrieked as he pushed the point against her throat. The other spoke, telling her, ‘we are here to tell you to stop doing this. And tell Emma we want Charity back. Or else, we’ll do what was done to her to you.’ Kirsty looked like the frightened, caged animal she felt like.

Then the one with the knife said, ‘how about a freebie for me and my friend, before you give this game up?’ Kirsty was almost scared enough to agree, but really didn’t want to be raped. They were both, of course, bigger than her, obviously stronger and not scared of her in the slightest. She didn’t see any way to stop them doing whatever they wished with her: she just stood there, shaking slightly. Then the other one reached out, not for her body as perhaps might be expected, but to her face. He wanted her glasses: he said, ‘I’ll take those as a souvenir.’ Kirsty stiffened: she didn’t want to be deprived of her glasses, so decided to try to fight back. She still looked and was scared, but now, an instant later, she kicked the one with the knife between the legs as hard as she could, pushed the other one away, then ran. Once around the corner, she pulled off her shoes and sprinted up the road to James’s Car, the other thug hot on her heels. He let her in, then she commanded, ‘get me out of here!’ He started the car just as the thug caught up with it, reversed it into him, then sped off leaving him to curse at them.

James asked politely, ‘where do you want to go?’ Kirsty said, ’let’s go and pick Emma up. This isn’t safe: we can’t carry on tonight.' Kirsty then phoned Emma. Thankfully she was finished, and on her way back. Kirsty related what had happened to her. Kirsty finished, saying ‘Emma, I’m scared. Please, we’ve got to give up for the evening.’ Emma was silent, then said ‘OK, we’ll meet up back at my office.’ Kirsty ended the call, and then started to weep a little in response to the fright she’d just had.

Some time later Kirsty arrived back at the industrial unit where Emma’s office was situated. The door was open and the light on, and as Kirsty went in, she found Emma sitting at her desk staring into the distance, her glasses sat on the desk before her. She squinted up at Kirsty and asked uncertainly ‘Kirsty?’ ‘Yeah, it’s me.’ Kirsty shook a little, in a reminder of the fear she had just experienced. Abruptly she said, ’this isn’t fun anymore, Emma….' ‘I never said it was, Big Sis.’ There was a pause, then Emma got to her feet, and went to her sister, feeling her way slightly, then she embraced her beloved big sister. Kirsty was surprised to see her crying a little, but then she wasn’t far off that herself.

The next day Kirsty had made her mind up. She went to see her sister again and, after a little, announced ‘Emma, I can’t do this. I thought I could, I thought it was fun being a myopic prostitute, but I don’t think it’s going to be right for me. I know you’ll be disappointed.’ Emma nodded sombrely, now wearing her glasses again, and replied, ‘I expected as much. Don’t worry, it’ll work out alright.’ Some of her natural toughness was there: her resilience, that thing that allowed her to work her way out of tight problems. Then Kirsty asked about Charity, and was told, ‘she has a broken arm and bruises here and there, but will mend. She’s at home, recovering right now.’ ‘what about you, Emma? Are you going out on the streets again?’ Emma nodded, slowly. Kirsty looked rather amazed, and Emma saw this, so said, ‘what else do I do?’ Some hours later, there was a tearful goodbye at the railway station, with Silver in attendance too, but there was no helping it: Kirsty didn’t want to be a prostitute anymore.

8. August

During the first week of August, Louise wrote in her diary ‘My vision is getting better! I can now see half as badly as I could in April when I got caught out. Unfortunately, that is still quite bad. I am praying that my eye will improve before the start of the next school year. I’ve somehow been lucky with the teasing so far. Wish I could see with both eyes again. It’s so frustrating, everything is really blurry and strange looking. Mum tells me it’s for my own good. In fact so does Kirsty. I’m so fed up with it, it’s not fair.’

On the following Saturday, Louise went with a group of her school friends to a funfair. There were thankfully a couple of mothers around to make sure they didn’t get up to too much mischief, or else have mischief done to them. There were several rides there with evocative-sounding names like “Inferno”, “Quasar” and suchlike; usually nothing much to do with what happened on the ride, but that didn’t bother anyone.

After some time, they joined the queue to go an a ride called “Explosion”. The queues for the best rides were predictably long, given that this was in the middle of the school holidays, and a pleasant day to boot; thus the queue for this was no exception. It was wound up and down in a long line like a concertina in order to take up less space, with the lines of variously bored, impatient and excited people separated by low, sparse wooden fences, facing each other as they shuffled past each other. Louise was no exception to this: she stopped at the end of the current bit of fence, and then shuffled around the corner, so that she was now looking straight at the ride. Curiously, she squinted up at the high tower that was “Explosion”. Her friend Vicky saw her squint, and rather lamely asked, ‘can’t you see it, Louise?’ ‘Course I can…’

She didn’t need to add “kind of”. Her vision was improving, and wasn’t so bad anyway that she couldn’t see something as big as the tower they’d soon be shot up and dropped down, it was that her vision still lacked detail. People up there were just people, undefinable things that made shrieks and yells. She looked along at the row of people facing her: despite the 11.75 dioptre lens her unpatched eye looked through, her view of the world was still quite poor. People’s faces melted into a sort of pink-brown blur beyond twenty feet, less than the length of the fences. Telling friends apart not in school uniform was much easier, through she had to memorise what clothes they were wearing at the outset. Telling them apart in school uniform had been really hard: it was more a question of listening and gathering clues, and a little educated guesswork. Sometimes she’d got it wrong: recently that had got easier too. Being forced to work had made the vision in her right eye improve.

She couldn’t tell this, but most of the way down the queue facing her, someone had joined the queue, spotted her and was immediately interested. He was a young kid of around her age, notably spotty but otherwise unremarkable, other than his interest in bespectacled girls of his age. After a couple of minutes, Louise and her little group of friends moved closer to him, but she didn’t notice, as she was too busy talking excitedly to her friends. Louise had got fairly used to being stared at, but this time she didn’t notice. And he was staring, wondering exactly why she was wearing this strange white, slightly pearlescent patch stretched tautly over the front of her left lens, leaving just her right eye to do the work. And that lens, so thick, he mused, as he saw it edge-on. He really wished she would look at him!

They passed each other unknowingly, at least as far as Louise was concerned, then headed for the ends, turned and came back, rather like a very slow joust without weapons and horses. It was the third “joust” when she noticed him: her eye fell on him: she could tell he was young and male, but at the range she saw him, she could tell little else. He held her gaze for a moment, hopefully smiling. There was no response, not because Louise wasn’t interested, but because for Louise his smile was merged into the pink mass of his face, and thus unknown to her. She watched him intermittently as he came closer, wondering if he were actually looking at her. It was hard for her to tell, and she fervently wished she could tear off the patch and see clearly, and be certain, instead of guessing. After a couple of smiles, he’d given up, and indeed had looked away, thus spoiling things. If only he’d known that Louise couldn’t see clearly, and she was usual trying her best to hide that by not squinting too much when boys were around, at least the ones she didn’t know to be ugly.

After a couple more turns, he looked again at her, this time from closer to, and by now Louise had gained a better impression of his appearance as was possible with her feeble vision. At a few feet away she could see his face clearly enough to see his features, but not his spots. She thought he was looking at her, so she smiled a little, hoping that he might be nice, available, and not put off by her eyepatch. Her friend Vicky intervened, whispering to her, ‘he’s all spotty. Can’t you see?’ Louise squinted just for the sake of trying, then admitted, ’no.' For the next two or three “jousts” Louise wondered whether he was looking at her, which he was, and also wondered how bad the spots were. For a moment she thought they might be OK, since she couldn’t see them, but then remembered she hoped to be seeing clearly soon, and then wondered what would they look like: that thought put her off. It occurred to her that perhaps poor vision wasn’t quite so terrible after all.

At that, they were at the head of the queue, and quite soon after getting themselves strapped into the ride, all giggles and excitement. An attendant appeared in front of Louise’s monovisual field, and asked in a flat, faintly bored tone, ‘miss, can I take your glasses?’ Louise started a little at that, and asked, ‘why?’ The attendant looked and sounded more bored, and also with largely suppressed frustration as he replied, ‘because they might fall and break, that’s why. Don’t worry, I’ll put them in the basket and nobody will touch them.’

Uncertainly, Louise looked at where the attendant pointed. The blur she saw was the basket he was talking about, so she reluctantly removed her glasses, then handed them to him. Vicky shouted at her from around the corner of the ride, but Louise didn’t pay any attention to her. She was trying to see; her brain trying to adjust to uncorrected and uneven vision. Her head spun a little, then she looked down at the hard plastic restraint that had come down over her: for her vision, it was soft, fuzzy and uncertain, conversely for her fingers and body, hard and reassuring. The ride started, pulling them all up into the air with alarming rapidity. Louise looked rather forlornly at the ground: seeing the world as she did, it was just green and brown blurs, with nothing worth looking at for long. She had fleetingly wondered what it would look like, when she was patiently waiting: now she still didn’t really know, because she didn’t realise things like glasses would be taken from her.

Once at the top, the ride paused, and Louise squinted uselessly at the ground. Vicky cried out something at her, ending with the words, ’look at that! Can you see it?' Alas, Vicky was unaware that Louise was bereft of correction; worse still, her brain was confusing her, thus making her feel dizzy. She wanted her glasses; even with a patch on it would be better than this. She shut her eyes and wiped away a little tear. As the ride shot down and up a couple of times, all she thought was “not fair… Not fair.”

Louise was more than glad to get off: the view for her was hardly worth bothering with and certainly not worth the sick, unhappy feeling she now had. Her precious glasses were restored to her as she got off, and her vision went from a confusing, meaningless collection of blobs to the much slighter fuzziness she was used to: she was glad to see as well as she could. A nascent headache then appeared in her skull. Her friends, including Vicky, were excited and delighted; most of them ignored her rather muted and forced agreement that “it was great”. Vicky then walked with her, and said rather apologetically, ‘sorry, Louise, I didn’t realise they took your glasses and you couldn’t see.’ ’that’s OK, you didn’t know. Don’t worry about it.'

Some time later they congregated around a small stall playing the “hit a bullseye” game. As usual, Louise had to get close to see the sign, then squinted hopefully but ineffectually at the dartboard. For her it was difficult to see: some of her friends had a go, including Vicky, but despite a few of them attempting to persuade her to try it, Louise refused, saying, “no, I can’t see it very well.” She honestly couldn’t see the bullseye, nor tell where the darts were landing with any degree of certainty.

Then as Louise was squinting, one of her other friends, a plumpish blonde girl called Carla elbowed her in the side and hissed, ’look…!' Louise turned to look, and following Carla’s gaze, saw a girl about 10 feet away. Louise struggled to see the details, but took in enough to know it was someone she didn’t know. She was skinny, pale, and short, even by the standards of a 13-year-old girl; less than 5 feet tall. But despite Louise’s poor vision, she could tell that she wore glasses. To her, the lenses looked like strange, bulbous, oddly shimmering things in their frames. Her eyes were magnified hugely by them, for Louise two great big black blobs floating and fluttering around behind them. She was busy eating a bit of candy floss, totally oblivious to her audience. Another of her friends, Leanne, look note of their distraction, saw her and stifled a giggle badly. The girl glanced at them rather innocently, and then looked through her thick glasses at something else, turning her head a little as she did.

That was enough for for Carla to blurt out with a taunt, “look at Little Miss Lightbulbs!” Leanne laughed, causing the girl looked at them curiously, then she looked away with a resigned look on her face. She took a few steps away from them, as if trying to avoid further trouble from them. A couple of her other friends laughed a little, having seen her, but Louise did nothing. She almost felt like admonishing Carla, but didn’t want her to start making fun of her instead. She could, and did on occasion, and sometimes it got under her skin. Other times she could be nice enough, so Louise tolerated her occasionally cruel tongue. Moments later an adult, female voice called out “Michelle”. The girl looked up and around, her head movements slightly exaggerated, making up for her poor field of view, and then she went around the side of the next stall, and was gone.

On the Saturday two weeks later, Kirsty found herself out in her local town centre, shopping alone. Wandering down the street, she walked past a church, as she had done many times before without its presence registering in her mind, nor her thinking about it for more than a moment. This time, though, it was as if something clicked in her; she faltered in her stride. Whether it was some whim, or more perhaps that she wanted somewhere cool to sit in peace, she stopped, turned then walked in. The church was smallish, plainly decorated apart from the raised altar area, with its depiction of Christ on the Cross, and some of the other things similarly related to Christian ritual.

Kirsty chose a pew near the door, dumped her bags and sat down on the hard wooden seat. She sat for some time simply relaxing, then looked around at the detail of the place, coarse in places, fine in others; wondering vaguely what it was people got out of coming to a place like this. Kirsty herself had had no personal contact with religion of any kind, although she had been to church for weddings and funerals: she was a Christian almost by default rather than intention.

She fell to thinking: her recent experiences had loomed large in her thoughts of late, and now that she was sat doing virtually nothing except idly looking around, they loomed again. Emma’s approach to the world might be justified for Emma, for it seemed to work despite the setbacks, but for Kirsty it patently wasn’t right. Then there was that time spent with Ed: to think that she’d been so stupid as to be taken in by him: yet his lies seemed so convincing until the end. How could she imagine the world was as it really was, rather than how she thought it was? And before that, all that time spent chasing her tail looking for someone who might appreciate her, despite her thick glasses, or even because of them. Yes, she’d found men who’d liked her because she wore glasses when she was with Emma: that felt extremely satisfying, especially as she’d got paid for it too, but then again some weren’t exactly what she was looking for, and of course some were married. Kirsty felt a little guilty at that, but not too much: it was their own fault, after all she hadn’t made them come to her. She asked herself softly, ‘so, where were all the decent men?’

Obviously not there, since the place was empty beside herself, but then it occurred to her that if this place was what it was supposed to be, then it ought to be worth - praying? For a moment that thought struck her as odd, then conversely natural - for what exactly was wrong with praying in a church? A few moments later she knelt down on the Spartan cushion provided, put her hands together, and thought in a manner she imagined was prayer of a sort. Hesitatingly, she began “Dear God, if there is any chance you are listening, and not too busy with keeping the world running, then perhaps you could find me a man. Yeah, I know that sounds really corny - sorry. Oh, if you do have one available, can you make sure he is handsome, unmarried and also likes girls with glasses. And please make sure he appears before I am 90 years old, because I don’t know if I can wait that long before I meet the right man. You know, sooner rather than later, OK?' For a long moment, she sat there, feeling faintly foolish for thinking such a thing, and then wondering if there would be some miraculous flash of light, and something akin to a saintly vision appearing, bearing the man she’d prayed for a moment ago. But there was nothing but silence.

Feeling somewhat deflated, she got up, collected her things, then walked out. As she got to the door, someone came the other way; he barely stopped for her nor waited for her to pass. Kirsty glanced at him, seeing that he was quite young, similar in years to Ed. Then she walked down the street, for a while thinking that prayer was pointless, that God wasn’t concerned about silly things like her problems with men. Despite that, she thought for some reason that she’d seen him before, or perhaps it was some unexpunged memory of Ed; she wasn’t sure. However, while she sat on the bus, she thought of him again, and it struck her like a thunderbolt that she had seen him before: on the train, way back in February. He was the one who’d blundered past her, nearly breaking her glasses in the process. Her thoughts fell into displeasure and disgust that someone could be so clumsy and stupid, as she had thought at the time. To think that she was just starting to dream that he was the man she’d prayed for!

9. September

On the 3rd of September, Louise wrote in her Diary ‘Starting school again tomorrow. Bad news is, I’ve still got fuzzy vision. It’s just as bad as it was when I started my holiday, and that was weeks ago. So much for clear vision and back to normal in time for my new school year. I feel so depressed. Wish I could see clearly, with two eyes. Wish no glasses, too.’

The next day Louise went back to school, and soon got sorted out into her new school year lessons. There was an unfamiliar name on the lists that September, “Michelle Wilson”. Despite Louise’s poor, but slowly improving vision, she recognized the bearer of the name pretty quickly: it was the girl from the funfair, thick glasses and all. She heard Carla from behind her whisper derisively, ’look, it’s “Lightbulb Girl” again.' There were a few stifled giggles at that, which Louise pretended not to hear. So did Michelle, although Louise thought she must have: in fact only the teacher appeared to be totally unaware. Louise’s low mood at being back at school, with a lens still patched, wasn’t helped by these events. She had the vague sense of trouble brewing.

Thankfully for all concerned, Michelle ended up sitting next to a totally disinterested boy, but there was plenty more to come. Gradually, in all the lessons that Michelle and Louise happened to share, it seemed apparent that Michelle wasn’t particularly clever, being as whenever someone asked her a question, she spoke really slowly and deliberately, or said something stupid, but never very much. Carla said her glasses were the brightest thing about her, and although that was a nasty way to say it, it seemed to be painfully true.

Therefore it didn’t come as a big shock that Carla and her equally cruel, but less imaginative comrade Leanne had confronted the unfortunate Michelle a couple of days later. Louise wasn’t aware of it, but when she said “hello” to her a little while later, she could see Michelle wasn’t happy - and not interested at that point in making new friends. Subsequently, by Friday, Louise was talking to her best friend Vicky, saying, ‘why don’t we talk to Michelle? You know, that new girl, she might be nice. We could be her friends.’ Vicky nodded, but made it clear she wasn’t completely excited by the prospect, saying, ‘she’s such a dummy, Louise… And she…’ She bit her lip, forcing herself not to mention her thick glasses.

By the middle of the following week, Michelle was still being very much ostracised by all the girls Louise knew at school, and that was just the ones who were being kind to her. Carla made some cruel jibes about her, sometimes about her less than spectacular mental powers, as they appeared, but mostly about her glasses. The boys weren’t interested in her at all, so unsurprisingly she was lonely and friendless. One lunchbreak, Louise sat with Vicky, and peered uncertainly into the distance - she saw someone, but didn’t know who. She then asked ‘Vicky, is that Michelle Wilson?’ Vicky looked, and said boredly, ‘yeah, it’s her.’ After a moment, Louise said, ‘I’m gonna say hello to her.’ Vicky said nothing, not wishing to upset her friend. But then she asked, ‘why?’ ‘she’s all alone. Don’t you feel sorry for her?’ Vicky shrugged noncommittally, not wishing to admit she really didn’t want to. Louise got to her feet, and said firmly, ‘well, if you don’t like being friendly, I’ll do it.’ Vicky watched in silence as her friend Louise walked off: she wondered if perhaps the patch was making her nutty.

Louise walked over to Michelle, who by now was sitting on the grass by herself, unsurprisingly. She looked at Louise approaching with some trepidation, and some curiosity, but also a little hope that someone might just be nice to her for a change. Presently Louise was standing before her, and said, ‘hello… Can I sit with you?’ Quietly, Michelle answered ‘OK.’ Louise sat down next to her, and for a moment silence reigned supreme. Then she said, as if were news, ‘so you’re new here, then?’ Michelle nodded sombrely. Louise then asked, ‘did you have lunch yet?’ Michelle looked at her, and from the distance she sat at, her inflated gaze was quite obvious even to the poor-sighted Louise. She answered, ‘Y..Y…Yes… I did.’ A lot of things fell into place: Michelle had a stammer, which she did her best to hide by talking little and slowly, and hence appearing to be a bit dumb. Poor girl, thought Louise. Having a stammer, and in addition having to wear those thick horrid glasses. It didn’t seem fair, and that was something she knew all about.

Michelle seemed to mirror those thoughts. She asked, talking deliberately, ‘M….Must be strange….’ ‘What’s strange?’ ‘P…Patch on your lens.’ Louise gave her the shortened, edited highlights of why needed to have a patch on her left lens, ending with, ‘hopefully it’ll come off soon.’ Michelle listened attentively, and then commented slowly, ‘That’s u… Un.. Unlucky. Like m…Me. I’ve G… G… Longsight. C… Can’t see c… Close.’ ‘Can’t see close up? At the moment I can’t see far in the distance. Look, over there, that’s my friend Vicky.’ Michelle looked, turning her head to do so, rather than her eyes. Louise asked, ‘Is she looking?’ Michelle nodded, so Louise beckoned to her. Vicky sat for a moment, not sure what to do, then got up, shaking her head: it was something that Louise didn’t see, but Michelle did. She said nothing about it, however, as Vicky walked over.

When she was nearby, Louise introduced her. Vicky seemed far less friendly than the girl that Louise knew so well. Despite that, out of deference for Louise, she sat next to her, although as far as she could decently from Michelle, saying a polite, if not exactly warm, ‘hello.’ And for the moment, left things at that.

During the rest of the lunch break, they sat together, Louise and Michelle beginning to get along, talking about things they knew about, but as for Vicky, well honestly Louise felt a little let down by her: she almost felt like giving her a kick, being as although she’d not been cruel like Carla, she’d been a bit frosty. She wondered what had got into her. When she talked to Vicky alone, she asked ‘Vicky, don’t you like Michelle?’ ‘I’m.. not sure. There’s something about her.’ Louise sighed, and said firmly, ‘don’t be mean to her. She’s a new girl, there’s nothing wrong with her except being shy. I remember you being shy once, and I became your friend.’ Vicky was obliged to admit the truth of that, and perhaps a little grudgingly accepted that there was no satisfactory explanation as to why she shouldn’t be nice to Michelle, but for some reason Louise wasn’t entirely convinced by all that. She herself wasn’t concerned how Michelle looked or sounded: she was a girl who wore glasses like herself, and that was good enough for her.

That Friday evening she wrote in her Diary ‘This week I made friends with Michelle. I let her sit next to me, well, across from Vicky that is. She’s alright once you know her and she knows you. Bit quiet and shy, but that’s not surprising, she doesn’t know anyone. But some of my friends are being nasty to her. Carla - well, I’m beginning to wish I’d never thought of her as a friend, I knew she had a sharp tongue but, wow, she’s just a big meanie when she wants to be. And some of the others, they look as if they’ve got a bad smell under their noses when I’m with Michelle. Is being friendly such a bad thing to do?’

By the afternoon of the following Monday, Louise was just beginning to wonder whether she’d done the right thing: Carla was still making fun and sniggering inanely about Michelle. Then at Lunch she suddenly turned on Louise, after calling Michelle “Lightbulb Features”, out came the predictable “Patchy Lens”. After that it was “look, it’s Miss Lightbulbs and Miss Patchy Lens, the two blind freaks… Ha ha ha… Louise sighed and looked at her new friend sympathetically, wondering why exactly she’d ever thought of Carla as her friend. She suddenly wished that she’d never heard of her.

A couple of days later Louise went looking for Michelle, not a particularly easy thing for her in her situation, but with the cooperation of friends, not so difficult. This time, even Vicky hadn’t seen any trace of her. Louise wandered about the entire Lunch hour fruitlessly. It slowly dawned on her that she might not even be in school, so at the end of the hour she decided to skip her lessons and go searching around outside. It meant half an hour of wandering about squinting at people, wondering if they might be Michelle, but to no avail. There was only one place left that she thought would be a plausible hiding place: the Copse near the school, a small patch of woodland, not exactly big enough to get lost in, but certainly big enough to hide in. Louise went in, wandered about for a few minutes, meandered almost to the other side, and then heard something that sounded like sobbing. She quickly decided that was exactly what it was.

Louise headed straight for the sound, and found it came from behind a dense bit of bush. Behind the bush was Michelle, sitting on a tree stump, sobbing, her hands pushing up her glasses and covering her eyes. Louise asked ‘Michelle?’ At that, Michelle looked up, wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands, then let her glasses fall into place to help her see. Her eyes, magnified by her thick lenses, were red from crying. Sometimes Louise felt like crying, so she had that in common with her. She walked up to her, and then sat down beside her on the ground, and then asked, ‘what’s wrong?’ Michelle promptly burst into a tears again.

It took a while to determine that Carla had been unkind to her during the lunch break. Michelle dried her eyes, spoke some more, at first hesitatingly, then more fluidly as she began to relax in Louise’s company. She then suddenly started crying again, because she thought nobody liked her. Louise did her best to tell her she liked her and wanted to be her friend, but that didn’t completely quell the tears. “Is it because I have a patched lens? Louise asked herself, and then, “perhaps she’d really like a normal friend.” She started to feel a little low herself, so went to hug Michelle for comfort. Michelle initially made to push her away, but then accepted that Louise was just being kind and friendly.

A few days later Louise wrote in her Diary ‘Poor Michelle and her lightbulb glasses - and don’t you dare tell her I said that about her glasses, she’ll never speak to me again. She says she is fed up with wearing them, but has no choice in the matter, because she can’t see without them. Well, I’m just the same, with the added bonus of having a patch over my left lens. Today I had new glasses, my right lens is now minus 12, and my left lens 7.25. It’s really crazy, I get a new lens for my left eye and it immediately gets covered up. I barely got to look through it more than about 2 minutes. I could feel my brain suddenly finding out that it could see: wow, didn’t the world look clear. Then, wham! They patched it and I’m back in my familiar fuzzy world. My vision is now 20/100 with just my unpatched eye. I did ask how long it would be before I got my patch off, and he said it might be early next year before I’m back to clarity and two eyes! Arrgh! I wish I’d never asked! I’m kind of getting used to the blur and the one-eyedness much more than I thought. Not that I like it, though. Vicky is starting to treat me like a one-eyed freak, which isn’t nice. Is it because of Michelle? Hope not. Poor Michelle, and poor me also.’

Quite soon Louise was being tormented by Carla and some of her “friends” just as much as Michelle; she started “vanishing” again, so Louise went to find her over and over again. Quite soon they were just bunking off school simply to avoid the trouble caused by the bullies. Soon after their absences were noticed; so one afternoon when they were sitting chatting about life, thick glasses, and everything else thus related whilst behind the bush in the copse, someone appeared around the side of the bush. Louise didn’t immediately notice who it was, and Michelle with her poor field of view didn’t see them at all. But they both heard the voice say, ‘oh, I thought I’d find you here.’ Louise started, and looked up: she couldn’t quite see who it was, but recognized the voice very well. It was her eldest sister, Kirsty.

Kirsty walked over to Louise, and stood before her, a stern look on her face. She pushed up her thick glasses, and asked firmly, ‘well,you’d better tell me what this is all about, then.’ Louise told her they were being bullied by Carla and some of her friends, that her friend Vicky was acting strange, and it was all because she’d wanted to be friends with Michelle, and that they had been really mean to her. Kirsty then asked Michelle, and finding her stuttering badly, realised far more than what she’d been told. Kirsty was well aware of being different, and how others viewed you because of it: either they were really, really nice or really mean, or sometimes they just go on as normal.

She took them back to school, during which Louise asked, ‘how did you know we were there?’ ‘Because I used to hide there when I was your age.’ Once they were back in school, she was able to explain to the head teacher what was going on, and he immediately started to take action; they were put temporarily into a new class, then over the next few days Carla and the rest of the bullies were warned what would happen if they carried on as they had. Vicky wasn’t the worst offender, so got off lightly, and afterwards came to Louise to apologize. Quite soon things were back to calm, and something like normal, except that Louise’s little group of friends had been sliced neatly down the middle.

Towards the end of the month Kirsty started thinking about the man from the church - wondering what he was; was he like her, a visitor, or a regular church goer, also more importantly, could he possibly be the man she had prayed for: “perhaps,” she thought, then “I should have asked God to tell me which one it was, so I’d know.” However, she started to think that perhaps he was the right one. In addition, she wondered if she wanted to become a regular churchgoer just in case she saw him again, and also whether that was a good thing for her.

On the last Saturday of the month she decided to go again, about the same time in the afternoon, as well as she could reckon it - but there was no sign of him. She felt a bit embarrassed about praying again, in order to ask where he might be, or something like that, she thought. Hadn’t God produced the man for her, and she’d just walked away a few weeks ago, thinking what an idiot he was for nearly knocking her glasses months ago? She thought perhaps she’d best be patient, or persistent. She started coming into the church at all sorts of odd times, hoping he might be around: there were often other people, but not the one she wanted. She then wondered whether it would be a good idea to go to a service? She decided to try it one Sunday, but although there were plenty of people there, he wasn’t amongst them. Something told her she’d have to live here in order to find him, and that struck her as ridiculous.

10. October

On the first Saturday in October, Kirsty was queuing up at the Cinema, waiting to see the latest film about a young bespectacled wizard and his adventures, entitled “Parry Hotter and the Crystal of Power”. Kirsty hadn’t read the book, but fortunately she had with her two people who had: her little sister Louise, and her friend Michelle. Louise’s vision was just about good enough to be able to watch films at the cinema. Michelle, despite her strange, blobby glasses, had no such problems. Louise asked Kirsty, ‘why can’t I get in half price?’ Kirsty looked at her curiously, so Louise explained ‘I’m going watch it with one eye, so why can’t I get it half price?’ Her smile told Kirsty she wasn’t being serious, so Kirsty shrugged and left her wondering.

During the film Kirsty watched keenly, not so interested in the plot, but more in the actor playing the lead role: he was evidently not the 13-year-old he pretended to be. The glasses helped, and then she remembered, bitterly, the last time she had a bespectacled boyfriend: Ed, and his contemptible lying. It was just like that on screen, as he wore quite obviously fake glasses. Real glasses would have been far, far better, she told herself with the wisdom borne of experience. Despite this, Kirsty did her best to enjoy the film: maybe there was some magical way to mend her broken life, her shattered hopes.

Just over a week later, Kirsty came home to find her mother in tears. It was as they’d expected, but still not nice by any stretch of the imagination: her employer had finally decided to get rid of her, due to her poor sick record and poor vision. She’d made an appointment to see the union already: it was scheduled for the following day. Although Kirsty wasn’t able to come, she spent all morning worrying about it, making all sorts of silly mistakes, and then decided if she was going to pray for her mother, she might as well go and do it the right place, so during her lunch break went to the church.

Once there she found that up one side had appeared a scaffolding tower, and up at the top was a man working, fixing the roof or something of that ilk: she only spared a glance at him, more interested in the inside than the outside. Once inside, she prayed for her mother, and then, as she was there, and she hoped God was there still listening, she asked, ‘dear God, I know I asked you to send a nice man my way, well, if and when you do, can you please make it clear that he’s the one you’re sending me?’ After a bit, she went outside, and looked up again at the tower along the side of the church. The man was now further down, and she could see far more: he seemed to be fiddling with the grey metal lead holding the bits of the stained glass together, and seemed to be repairing them, she thought. This was interesting, but not nearly as much as who was doing it. It was the man again! The one she’d walked past so nonchalantly: now, a lot made sense to her. She realised that he couldn’t have been a regular churchgoer, but instead he was someone who’d been hired to fix the stained glass! She realised that he must have come to check it out a few weeks ago, then returned now to do the work.

Then her mind returned to what she’d prayed for: a sign, or something, that this was the one. If there was a sign, she couldn’t see it. She felt like going back in to ask what sign God might use for such a situation, but thought better of it. She saw him doing something that made a strange kind of sense to her, given what she’d asked: there he was, rubbing at a piece of glass with a buffing rag, and she thought ‘I asked him to make it clear, and there he is, making something clear. It must be him!’ She felt excitement rising inside her, but she somehow held it down, standing quietly watching him in growing wonder. It all seemed to make growing sense to her: he was a glazier - he must appreciate what glass should look like. She thought to herself “oh, wow, he must be the ultimate girl in glasses lover!”

At that moment, he happened to turn to her, and saw this delicious young woman standing there watching him, dressed in a sober business suit, with nice legs and nicer figure only partly suggested, not wholly revealed, and the thickest pair of glasses he’d seen on anyone in ages; certainly of someone her age. He smiled gently, and she smiled back. She was pretty, despite, or perhaps because of, the glasses; it all seemed to meld together in something like harmony, and melt him a little. He called out, ‘hello…. Are you enjoying the show?’ Kirsty’s eyes blinked behind her glasses as she smiled dumbly at him, musing on how good looking he was.

He decided to get down and see what she wanted, so did so, eventually walking up her and stopping a few feet from her. She continued to smile up at him. When he’d stopped, she said, ‘sorry… I didn’t mean to interrupt you.’ ‘That’s alright, it’s always alright when someone as pretty as you comes by.’ There was a brief pause, and then Kirsty jumped straight in. Her times as a prostitute had changed her, she admitted to herself later. She asked, ‘well, aren’t you going to ask me out?’ He gaped at her, so she shrugged a little, and said, ‘only if you want to…’ Of course, he had no sensible objection, so within a few minutes Kirsty had his phone number, had given hers away, and had herself a date!

Kirsty wrote in her Diary the night after the date ‘Wow! His name is Mike and he’s amazing. He’s so kind, oozes charm, loves girls with glasses, I know that, despite him not saying. He says I look beautiful, and spent ages looking into my eyes, saying nice things about me: Ed used to do that, I know, but I feel that Mike means it. He’s a glazier, and when something glassy is good, he should know.’

‘I also have news about Amy. She’s going to have a baby. I saw her this morning, she’s huge! The baby is due in 3 weeks and I’m so excited! There’s one strange thing: her vision is getting worse again. The optician says it’s something to do with being pregnant, but for Amy, that’s a problem. She has plenty of myopia already. Never mind, Steve is a lovely man, and I know that they will both love the kid like crazy, even if it is born with crud vision, as Amy said it might.’

After a pause, she concluded ‘I wonder what it would be like to have a child. Perhaps, with Mike, I might even find out.’

During the following week Kirsty went for a job interview at a large insurance corporation’s headquarters. It was quite daunting, for her, who up till now has only worked in a computer shop and then a fish and chip shop. The woman who interviewed her wore quite thick glasses, blobby ones like Louise’s friend Michelle; but unlike any of them, she had no apparent qualms about being seen in glasses. Kirsty wondered later that maybe one day she would get used to herself in glasses, and maybe even the world might get similarly used to her in them too. The interviewer was of course not concerned about her vision or correction, but more interested in her work experience. She went home to await for the result.

11. November

Early in November Kirsty was at home when the phone rang. It was a surprise, it was her friend Alice. They talked and talked, and then Alice said ‘I haven’t seen Jessica for a while, so why don’t we all get together?’ ‘Yeah, let’s all go out to lunch or something?’ ‘Saturday? That’s if I can get hold of her?’ ‘OK.’

The following Saturday soon arrived, and Kirsty arrived at the pub-cum-restaurant that would serve as their meeting and eating point: Alice was already there. Kirsty gave her a hug for old time’s sake, then sat waiting at a table chatting with a drink each. Some time later Jessica appeared: she, like Alice and Kirsty hadn’t changed much, but for one thing: perched on her face were a pair of glasses. Alice and Kirsty stared at her: they were black-metal frames, and the lenses betrayed quite a bit of power - nothing like what Kirsty needed, but plenty enough for her to need them full-time. She said, ‘hi’ in a strangely quiet voice, and then sat down.

After a long moment of silence, she asked, ‘what’s wrong?’ Alice coughed politely, then said, ‘oh, nothing, just haven’t seen you in ages.’ Jessica shrugged, and nervously fiddled with her glasses. Judging from their thickness, and the way they shrunk her eyes, they were only minus 2 or 3. It seemed for a moment that she was desperate to take them off: Kirsty could well relate to that. Boldly she looked at Kirsty, and said, ‘see, I’m getting more like you now.’ She seemed quite self-conscious in her glasses: something Kirsty was slowly getting over. It had taken her years and years, and she doubted the feeling would go away completely: that everyone was looking at her, judging her on her glasses alone, usually unfairly too.

Slowly they got the story out of her: she’d been having trouble seeing, so went to the optician a couple of years ago, and had been prescribed fairly weak glasses, for TV and suchlike; then her vision had got worse, and now here she was, wearing glasses full time. ‘I only got these a couple of weeks ago. I’ve been trying them full-time, and then not.’ Kirsty smiled, wishing that option was available for her: going without was the same as being blind from her point of view. For some reason, probably curiosity, they decided to swap glasses: Kirsty tried Jessica’s, and commented, ’these are very weak for me, I can’t see very much better.' Jessica gasped, looking at the world through Kirsty’s ‘How on earth can you see anything through these?’ She passed them to Alice, who tried them on, her eyes blinking, struggling to focus with them on, then said to Kirsty, ‘wow, they really hurt my eyes… I feel a headache coming…. How do I look?’ Kirsty said, ‘how should I know? I need my glasses to see. Your face looks like a big pink glob.’ ‘Thanks a lot!’

Quickly all the glasses were returned to their rightful owners. As Kirsty settled hers onto her face, smoothing her hair around them to try to regain the prettiness that her glasses took from her, Alice said, ‘well, I’m the odd one out now.’ The rest of the evening passed in pleasant reminiscences, chat about more recent times, and events since they’d all last met up. Kirsty obviously didn’t tell of her times as a part-time prostitute: that was something she kept to herself. But she did come away from the reunion feeling faintly smug, thinking that Jessica now knew what it was like to wear glasses. She wondered if perhaps she too was having trouble finding a boyfriend.

During the lunch-break of the Wednesday after that, Louise was walking along the pavement that led to the playing field, where she intended to find Michelle and Vicky. By now Vicky was OK about Michelle, even rubbing along with her quite well, and Michelle, despite her eggy lightbulbs lenses and stutter, was friendly enough when given the chance. She saw someone coming toward her: a kid, a boy. Even now they had to be fairly close for her to recognise for certain. She’d seen him before: Danny Smith. He slowed, and said, ‘hi, beautiful!’ Louise looked at him with her unpatched eye for a second, then hurried away.

Once out of his sight, she slowed, wondering “‘is it for real? How can I be beautiful? Only a few weeks ago people were calling me ugly! Is he mad, or just making fun of me? Yeah, I bet it’s a huge joke for him.” She walked over to her friends, still musing over what had just happened, and finding them by the fact that they never hid from her, sitting in roughly the same spot day after day. Vicky looked up at her, watching her temporarily one-eyed friend Louise arrive. She looked thoughtful, she thought to herself.

It wasn’t long before Vicky was asking Louise what the matter was, and Louise had to tell her: she was her best friend, despite everything. Louise concluded ‘I think he was just having a laugh with me.’ ‘I don’t know… He might like you.’ Michelle nodded, saying ‘H..He m..Might L.. L… Like girls in g..Glasses with p..P..Patches.’ Louise looked at her askance, as if she had spoken of something that couldn’t possibly true, like the sky being orange. After a while, she said, ‘please don’t tell anyone about this. I hope he leaves me alone… I think.’

Later, that evening, Louise wrote in her Diary ‘Hey Diary, I’ve got something strange to tell you. No, not that my patch is coming off. It’s that someone thinks I look beautiful - even despite the thing. I don’t quite understand this. I thought I looked awful in glasses, and worse still with this stupid patch. Now, it’s maybe not. Or maybe still, and he was just joking. Just a minute, though, because if it is good to be patched - maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing after all. Saying that, I’d much rather not have it at all, thank you.’

She sat preening her hair, looking at herself in a mirror, trying to convince herself that she was beautiful. Somehow, she could not turn her view of herself into beautiful. The patch in the middle of her face just ruined everything, what little there was, at least in her opinion.

About a week later, Kirsty got the news she’d been hoping for: she’d got a new job and would be starting in the New Year. She rang her new boyfriend Mike, so he invited her out to dinner to celebrate.

Afterwards she wrote in her Diary ‘Wow, I have a new job. That means I can get away from all the memories of Ed and all the rest of it. Mike, well, he doesn’t wear glasses, but I can tell he really likes girls in glasses, especially this one here telling you this! He spent all night looking doe-eyed into my eyes, telling me how lovely and beautiful I looked, how he liked the way light played off my lenses at the front. Oh, he’s so romantic, I’ve never had man say such things before, well perhaps occasionally when they want some sex. This one is so kind and gentle, and never comes on like that at all.’

After a pause, she continued ‘Oh, by the way, my mother heard about her employment tribunal: she will have it at the end of January, and the Union says she should have no problem with her case. To think they can treat people like that! She’s partially blind and stressed up to the eyeballs too.’

It was the last Friday night in November, and Kirsty was in bed with Mike: they were relaxing after sex. She could remember vividly his gentle caresses, his touching of her lenses with his fingertips, covering her lenses with one hand, then the other, but not so that she couldn’t see. Kirsty thought the idea of an eye test in bed was quite strange, but sexy too. Of course, she wore her glasses to bed. She’d done it before lots of times to the poor, rather sad men who’d paid her for it, and of course Ed. Mike was far better than any of them.

Suddenly Kirsty’s mobile phone rang, and she got out of bed completely naked, except for glasses, picked it up, pushed her glasses firmly onto her nose, and said, ‘hello?’ She listened intently, her face forming into a expression of anticipation and joy. After that, she ended the call and said excitedly to Mark ‘Amy’s gone into labour. She’s having her baby! Come on, Mike, let’s get dressed and go and see her!’

They did just that, and 45 minutes later found them at the hospital. There was a small crowd of people there already: her mother, Melissa and her boyfriend, and even Louise, despite it being way past her bedtime. Steve was there too, being guided by whoever was best suited to the task. Amy saw Kirsty come in, but couldn’t really talk much; she was far too busy doing things like breathing and having contractions. The nurses shooed some of them away again, but Kirsty was able to peek through the door every now and again. About 2am there was a tell-tale wail, and thus everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Quite soon one of the nurses brought them in to show them the new baby. He was perfect, according to Amy, who despite her ordeal really fussed over him. His name was Joey. Steve asked, ‘is it possible to check whether he can see?’ One of the nurses replied ‘I can tell if he’s blind or not, but beyond that, it’s hard to tell. You’ll have to wait a few weeks to be sure.’ The nurse then found a little torch, and after flashing it in each eye and getting a response, declared that he wasn’t blind.

12. December

Early on December, Louise was in her class when they are deciding on the school play. Normally, Louise would have loved to be in it: being up on stage in glasses when was younger was no problem, but now, with a lens still firmly patched and no end of that status in sight, she wasn’t so sure she wanted to be in it. She thought to herself “Maybe I can play the part of the donkey - a one eyed one, though.” Despite her reservations, she was bushwhacked into being “Mary”. Her problem was that she was pretty good on stage, having a good clear speaking voice.

That evening she wrote in her Diary ‘Hey Diary, it’s me, your friend Louise. I’ve been chosen to be Mary in the school nativity play. Trouble is I don’t really want to do it. You know why? Because I don’t want to be seen up on stage with my lens patch on. My teacher asked me if I was against being Mary because of my patch, whether it might be OK to take it off just for the performance. Oh, I’m not sure if Mum or Kirsty will be agree to that. It’s been such a battle to get my vision back to what it is now, and it needs more. I don’t want to cost myself any more time patched just for the sake of being unpatched for half an hour. What do I do?’

Louise saw Michelle walking towards the library one day: suddenly some boy walked past her, then turned and crept up behind her with an evil smirk on his face. He put his hands over her eyes - glasses included, and asked, ‘guess who?’ Michelle cried wordlessly out in alarm, and then squirmed away from him, saying, ‘M…My glasses…!’ Louise ran over to help Michelle, but she was able to reposition her glasses on her face herself. So instead she contented herself with calling the boy an idiot. She then turned and saw Danny Smith, with a curious look on his face - he wasn’t looking shocked that someone could do that to a bespectacled girl, he was more… Thoughtful, maybe curious? He walked off, and left them to it.

Kirsty came home from work at the end of a Tuesday in the middle of December, and found to her dismay that she could hear sobbing. She was well used to dealing with her mother, Emma, Louise, and even herself going through bad times with glasses and men, so she naturally thought it might be her mother or Louise; they seemed to be the two likeliest candidates. She pushed open the lounge door, and found her sister Melissa was in there with her mother. For a moment she stood still in surprise, wondering what had happened, watching her mother hug her. Her mother looked up, and said ‘I’ll be with you in a minute.’ It was half an hour later before her mother emerged, and told her the bad news, saying unhappily, ‘oh, she’s been dumped by Mark.’ Kirsty sighed: of all the people who deserved that, Melissa was the last of all. Once she’d been in to talk to her, it transpired that Mark had found another girlfriend: one with rather more normal glasses. Kirsty fumed pointlessly.

It was the night before the School broke up for the Christmas Holiday. Many parents had gathered to watch the school nativity play; Louise was getting ready in the changing rooms, putting on the long cloak and hood that would cover her up. She’d had Michelle on standby to help, if she needed it for the most important thing: the patch. All during the rehearsals she’d kept the patch on just as normal, but tonight, she’d made up her mind it was coming off. She had a small screwdriver in her pocket, and thus used that to loosen the frame screw. Then, she pushed the lens out, her fingers feeling the lens, bringing it close to her face to see it clearly with her poor uncorrected vision. After that she removed the patch, pushed the lens back in, and with Michelle’s help got the screw done up tightly. Then she breathed, and put on her unpatched glasses. The whole world seemed utterly different: it was amazing how much her brain had got used to seeing with one eye, not two. She felt her brain using her good eye almost instantly - ignoring the bad one. But, oh, it was so worth it to see properly again! The world suddenly seemed almost alarmingly clear, and so bright!

Out on stage, she initially covered up what was her patched eye, but after a while was obliged to drop the hood. She saw a faint ripple of surprise in some of the faces who’d got used to seeing her with a lens patched. And she saw her eldest sister Kirsty, and her mother. Her mother couldn’t see too well, but Kirsty certainly could: she instantly saw what Louise had done, and thus made a “naughty” sign in the air, by means of wagging her finger. Louise simply got on with being Mary, and felt that things were much better like this, seeing clearly and all, and not looking quite such a geek, despite the glasses. But afterwards, when they went off the stage, Kirsty followed her off, and waited outside the changing area. Louise had Michelle restore the patch to her lens: she didn’t want to push whatever luck she might have. It was nice to see clearly again briefly, but now, it was back to fuzzy.

When she got out, Kirsty collared her, asking sternly, ‘well, Miss, what was that all about? You know you’re not supposed to do that, don’t you?’ Louise turned and regarded Kirsty with just her unpatched eye and lens, as she was by now long accustomed, then said with little apology in her tone, ‘sorry Kirsty, but I didn’t want to look like a complete geek; you know, I wanted to look normal.’ At that, Kirsty swallowed, thinking how well she could relate to that. Louise interjected before she could scold her ‘I’ve been very good with this patch, you know. I really wanted to tear the thing off and scream the house down many times, and I didn’t. So don’t get mad at me, it’s just this once, and now I’m back patched till the optician says I can take it off for good.’ Kirsty relented, so left her alone: after all, she had been as good as she had said. Afterwards, Louise said to Michelle ‘I can’t believe I got away with that! But, I doubt I could do it again. Hopefully there won’t have to be a next time, though.’

Louise wrote in her Diary on Christmas Eve ‘Dear Santa Claus, please can you make sure that as soon as possible, I can start seeing with both eyes. This thing is getting beyond a joke. I don’t know if those kids will start making fun of me again, and Michelle too, so can you do something about that as well. And no more stupid boys calling me beautiful when I’m not.’

https://vision-and-spex.com/dear-diary-iv-t614.html