Julie Chimes - A Stranger in Paradise: A remarkable memoir of survival and forgiveness

JULIE CHIMES

First published in Great Britain 1995
Copyright 1995 by Julie Chimes

This electronic edition published 2011 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

The right of Julie Chimes to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted
by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise
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Bloomsbury Publishing London New York Berlin Sydney

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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 4088 25938

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My thanks to my family and friends for their love and support and to everyone who read, commented on, questioned, corrected, criticised and discussed the many stages of the manuscript; to all at Bloomsbury for their encouragement and sensitivity; to the trustees of the estate of Max Wall for permission to publish Ode to an Odd Soul; to Bartholomew for all the laughter, insights and inspiration; to those who devote their lives to the awakening of human consciousness; and finally to Richard for all those cups of tea.

TO
MY MOTHERS TREASURED MEMORY
MY BELOVED HUSBAND
AND
THE LIGHT WITHIN US
(THAT SHOULD COVER EVERYONE)

This is an autobiographical work based on a kaleidoscope of events and experiences that happened to me, a working, fun-loving woman, whose life almost ended as a result of an out of the blue vicious and frenzied stabbing. It is an extraordinary story, told from the unusual perspective of the one who was supposed to be dead.

It is a multi-faceted real life drama; a story of crime due to mental illness; a story about survival; the battle to regain physical and mental well-being; a womans quest for truth; an account of false accusation and injustice; an adventure far beyond the confines of a physical body; a humorous narrative of a voyage through our supposedly caring and free-speaking society a society where justice is very often directly proportional to the amount you can afford to pay your lawyer; it is, ultimately, the story of a spiritual awakening.

Other than the obligatory police statement, taken whilst I was reeling from the pain and disbelief that constitute deep shock, nobody in the system, which was supposed to support me, asked me what I experienced. Most people were so busy piecing the crime together, or covering their rears, they seemed to overlook the fact that I had survived. I was not a corpse on the marble slab of the mortuary, whose body and life could be dissected and judged by a group of strangers, but a very alive and questioning woman, with ideas and opinions that contradicted much of the official storyline. I was also a woman with a willingness to look beyond the mundane for answers. All that I experienced leading up to the attempted murder, during the attack and my recovery, provides a bizarre and humorous insight into life, death, and the western way of dealing with it.

It was not something I had ever anticipated to find the only thing between myself and a paranoid schizophrenic woman intent on saving the world to be a fourteen-inch carving knife buried in my chest. Nothing in my life had prepared me being murdered was nothing like I would have imagined it to be. It was considered something of a miracle for the victim of such mindless savagery to stick around after the event, and even more unusual was the fact I could remember all that happened during the assault.

It has not been easy to relive the incident and the subsequent events. Many times I have given up, filled with despondency and hopelessness, experiencing a mental paralysis that led to deep depression. Other than my beloved husband no one could have guessed the depth of my despair and no one could have given me such constant support, patience and love and convinced me that I had to continue. In the darkness of my human confusion he reminded me constantly that I also had the memory of something incredible. For in the midst of attempted murder, I had discovered a place filled with love, light, compassion, laughter and excitement, a place so vast it contained all of creation in its arms. I had found that not only does God exist but He also has a wonderful sense of humour, and although I could not change what had happened to me, I could change my attitude. Within that memory lay the miracle of my recovery. I am now convinced that the moment we stop blaming whatever is out there for the state of our lives, we fling open the doors of our hearts and discover a far greater canvas on which to paint our future.

Having spent several years leading the self-inquiry into my attempted murder, and my subsequent experiences, I realise that to isolate and lay the blame for what happened that day on any one of the many incidents or persons is perhaps the biggest crime of all. A Stranger in Paradise is not a witch-hunt. For this reason, I have changed many of the names. Everyone involved in this story is responsible. We will all have to face ourselves one day, and stand accountable to our highest Self for all we have ever done. Divine justice prevails. No one gets away with anything, for as we sow, we do indeed reap. The fruits of our thoughts and actions are manifest every moment of our lives. If we learn to read the signs, we can learn so much about ourselves, and the purpose of our life.

At the time, fighting for my physical life, I cried out to God to help me. I believed I was alone, life was totally unfair, and God was a myth marketed by religious zealots. Thanks to my many experiences, including writing this book, I have discovered that He was in fact with me all the way.

How will you tell the story, they asked.

I will tell the truth.

Dont be ridiculous, they chorused.

THIS

IS

A

TRUE

STORY

WELL,

AS

TRUE

AS

MY

UNDERSTANDING

CAN

BE

WITHIN

THIS

MOMENT

OF

INFINITY.

I should have realised my life was going to be different from most. To be born to a mother who was to be chosen as one of the most beautiful women in the world before I had reached my first birthday was a good start. Less than a year later she left my father to live with and then marry one of Britains stranger entertainers. She was innocent and passionate enough to announce to the British press that she could not believe that God intended people to remain together if they could not love each other. This provided a fertile bed in which to grow a nonconformist child.

My early memories were a kaleidoscope of images: Max Wall, comedian, musician, dancer, writer, manic-depressive, estranged father of five, and target for Fleet Streets venom. A man in black tights, black centre-parted wig, shoes a foot longer than his feet, shuffling up and down by my cot, his bum sticking out at right angles. The expression on his face closely resembling London zoos Guy the gorilla, a creature we visited regularly, Max and Guy fascinated by each other the human personification of this magnificent beast humming the St Louis Blues for all he was worth as he attempted to lull me to sleep. The same man stripped of his stage persona, on his knees, like a child, side by side with my mother, praying that all those they knew be blessed and protected in Gods Grace, followed by readings of Shakespearean plays and sonnets, extracts from Gibbons