I used to make the tea at a rape crisis centre.
Okay, so that’s not all I did in the six months I spent there but that’s what I remember the most.
I answered the phone, answered the door, did bits and bobs that they gave me to do, sorted the post, showed people to rooms.
But mostly I made tea for the people that come in. The (victims, the survivors, the clints, the service users) people who needed help and support after a traumatic violation of their body. Their being.
I sat with them on the soft sofas and made small talk so they wouldn’t be alone while they waited for the police or the support worker or the health care professional. I made them drinks and sat in silence sometimes too, just so – in this little non-descript house in Leicester they had never been to before (and probably never even noticed) – they weren’t alone.
I was just an anxious kid back then, barely 21, and a non-threatening presence for any person using the centre but I can’t imagine I was much comfort. I learnt very early on in my life that I am not good with words verbally, and as I got older, realise I wasn’t much cop at social situations. I was and am a good bluffer though, I can pretend well especially if there are other people to copy and over the years I have gotten better.
It’s still doesn’t mean I know what to say when something bad happens.
Or even when something good happens. I remember pissing my aunt off when I was a teenager because she told us she was pregnant, and I just told her I knew. I was happy for her, excited even, but I didn’t show it, didn’t say it because my 16-year-old brain had already sussed that she was pregnant somehow and the anxious idiot in me came out with that instead, basically anything else.
So, good or bad, I don’t know what to say. I have some stock phrases, but I’ve always known I was better when I could write my words.
But my time at the rape crisis centre did teach me that, it’s not what you say, but what you do. I wish I could’ve done more, stayed longer, been more useful. But sometimes the tea, a few words about the weather or silent company is more than enough.
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