The Madness of Esme and Shaz

By Sarah Daniels

SHAZ. (without emotion) Three years after I was taken into care
my Mother died. I didn’t feel anything. I thought. ‘That’s it
then. My Mother’s dead.’ She’d not visited me in three
years. I was in care because she put him before me.

(PAT. Women’s conditioning is so strong.)

SHAZ. (without looking at her) You won’t find any easy answers
for this in the books you’ve read.

(PAT. I’m sorry. Go on.)

SHAZ. But when she died a feeling of hope went. Anyway

several years later my Father married again. They had two
children a boy, and a baby girl. I left care when I was
sixteen. You had to. I got a job in an old people’s home. I
was – Oh I don’t know. My behavior was rather strange.
I used to cut myself. No one ever knew. They told me I was
very good at my job. They had no idea. I was – it was like I
was very cut off. I decided to look for and found my
Father. He was pleased enough to be reunited. I baby-sat for
them. They gave me a key to the house. Sometimes when I
knew they were out I would let myself in and write stuff
with her lipstick over the mirror. Tip her perfume over the
bed. Smear body lotion into the carpet. One evening I was
babysitting. (She stops.)

(PAT. You, you killed the little boy?)

SHAZ. {No.} I murdered the baby. Girl. I picked her up from

her crib thing and held her. Squeezed her. Until she
stopped breathing. When I knew she was dead, I sat down,
turned the telly up and waited for them to come home.