Someone's Someone

Someone's Someone - Chapter Three

Henna...

It's a funny feeling that you are left with when you know that the person who saved you is somewhere out there. I've been going back and forth to work, becoming more and more aware of the homeless problem in Bristol. I hadn't realised, or maybe just didn't care, that there are so many people living out on our streets.

Everywhere I seem to go, I am looking for the face who saved me.

Every time I park around the back of the bar, I am peering into all the doorways as I walk the short distance back to my flat, hoping to find the person who so bravely stopped those muggers all those days before. The aches to my body have faded, but the need to thank this man hasn't. Fi and Keith still don't understand my need to thank him, and maybe I'm not explaining myself very well. Either way, it's just something I still feel I have to do. Only, I can't find him in order to do it.
It's now Saturday and I'm having a little mooch around the shops before going to see my dad. He still doesn't know about what happened. Although my chin is much better, he will certainly ask about it when he sees me. I even thought about calling him, and maybe go and see him once my cut and bruises were fully gone, but dad called the other night wanting to make sure that I was coming over as he said he needed to talk to me about something. So, there's no getting out of it—I have to tell him about being mugged.

He will freak.

Totally freak.

I'm a daddy's girl.

I'm thirty two and a self confessed daddy's girl.

Dad's fathering of me has always been constant and unconditional. But he can also be fiercely protective and sometimes a little overbearing. It's just his way. He hates the fact that I live alone, when he has a three bedroomed house all to himself in Clifton. He is constantly asking me to return back home, but I need my womanly space.

I am thirty two. I need to do 'things' that a thirty two year old woman does—and without the beady eyes of her father on her while she does it.

And I'm not just talking about sex here. I'm talking about just being a woman—watching girly stuff, walking around half-naked whilst doing my nails, leaving my make up on the living room floor, eating out of takeaway boxes, packets of tampons on the top of the toilet, plucking my eyebrows in the kitchen and blobs of hair conditioning treatment in the bottom of the bath—things that I freely need to do.

Which is why I moved out four years ago. I needed to spread my Henna Nolan wings. I felt that if I didn't move out, I would never mature as a woman. Me and Fi would often go out in the Old Market area of Bristol, as it has many gorgeous and ancient buildings, trendy bars, lovely cafes and lots of thriving shops. KB's had long been a favourite bar of ours, that's how we became such good friends with Keith. When he mentioned that his tenant was vacating the flat above the bar, I seized the opportunity and decided to move in as soon as I could. Dad wasn't keen, but when he met Keith, he felt a little better about my decision to finally leave home.

And I'm happy in my flat.

It's small. It's in Old Market. It's great.

But the mugging has definitely unnerved me. Only dad can't know that. If he thought I was feeling scared 24/7, he'd apply the pressure for me to return to Clifton. And I love Clifton. I do. There will always be a big piece of my heart there, as that is where I happily grew up. But I need to give myself the space to grow somewhere else. I need to continue being independent. My independence means a lot to me. Like I've said before, I'm a daddy's girl. Throughout life, he has always been there. But the older I got, I realised I was too dependent on him. Maybe, I still am?