put my old life behind me and feverishly looking forward to exploring Amsterdam. I’d never been to Holland, so I went to the library and borrowed guide books listing just about everything anyone would ever want to know about Amsterdam.
I was surprised to discover that although it was the capital city of Holland (or The Kingdom of The Netherlands, as the country is formally known) it wasn’t actually the place where the Dutch government and all the major official organisations – the police, the law courts and all the foreign embassies, for example – had their headquarters. They were all located nearly 100 kilometres away in The Hague. Amsterdam, the books explained, was primarily a cultural and business centre. And above all, it was a tourist destination – the so-called ‘Venice of The North’ and the fifth most popular city in Europe, especially for British visitors.
I pored over the books and their photographs. I fell in love with the architecture – the 17th-century wooden buildings lining Amsterdam’s famous four semi-circular canals looked like something out of a Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale. I imagined myself living in one of them, cycling to work along the canal towpaths as every real ‘Amsterdammer’ seemed to do. And I smiled at the coy references each book made to the city’s two most famous tourist attractions: the cafés which sold – semi-legally – marijuana and cannabis, and the infamous Red Light District with its hundreds of prostitutes brazenly touting for business from full-length glass windows.
I’d never taken drugs and thought the Red Light District looked distinctly seedy, but the books stressed that Amsterdam was a city of tolerance and freedom. The city even had a motto – ‘Heroic, Determined, Merciful’ – and since the Dutch government had allowed both the cafés and the glass windows to operate for many years, what right did I have to criticise?
Mum, of course, saw it differently. She was increasingly anxious about me leaving Gateshead and doubted that I was sufficiently mature to cope with a city as colourful and potentially dangerous as Amsterdam. She was also desperately worried by what she saw – rightly – as my naïve and glib responses whenever she brought the subjects up. Drugs, prostitution, the temptations of a big city nightlife … Already I’d managed to mess up more than once in the past few years – and that was in the relative safety of Gateshead. What on earth did I think was likely to happen once I was away from her discipline and influence? I would end up partying the nights away, smoking pot (as she quaintly put it) and getting myself fired for being a bad employee. And – no doubt – I’d then expect her to step in and bail me out.
‘Well, thank you very much, Sarah, but I’ve had quite enough to deal with – what with your father, the abuse, you going into Care, and all the rest of it. I’ve got your sister to think of – and your brother: you might give a thought to them and what they feel.’
Of course I didn’t listen. How could I? My ears were blocked – just as my eyes were dazzled – by the glittering future that lay ahead of me in Amsterdam, Venice of The North. And so I told her that I would be perfectly safe. I didn’t plan on spending much time in the Red Light District – my voice dripped with sarcasm as I spat this sentence out – and I had absolutely no interest in drugs or in the cafés that peddled them. And as for my brother and sister – well, maybe they were simply jealous.
But no matter what I said I couldn’t convince Mum that I would really be safe there. Living with my dad all those years had opened her eyes to the reality that – whatever a woman’s good intentions – bad and manipulative men would always find a way to get what they wanted. And in her experience what they wanted usually revolved around sex and money. Add drugs – and especially an open trade in them – to that mixture
I was surprised to discover that although it was the capital city of Holland (or The Kingdom of The Netherlands, as the country is formally known) it wasn’t actually the place where the Dutch government and all the major official organisations – the police, the law courts and all the foreign embassies, for example – had their headquarters. They were all located nearly 100 kilometres away in The Hague. Amsterdam, the books explained, was primarily a cultural and business centre. And above all, it was a tourist destination – the so-called ‘Venice of The North’ and the fifth most popular city in Europe, especially for British visitors.
I pored over the books and their photographs. I fell in love with the architecture – the 17th-century wooden buildings lining Amsterdam’s famous four semi-circular canals looked like something out of a Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale. I imagined myself living in one of them, cycling to work along the canal towpaths as every real ‘Amsterdammer’ seemed to do. And I smiled at the coy references each book made to the city’s two most famous tourist attractions: the cafés which sold – semi-legally – marijuana and cannabis, and the infamous Red Light District with its hundreds of prostitutes brazenly touting for business from full-length glass windows.
I’d never taken drugs and thought the Red Light District looked distinctly seedy, but the books stressed that Amsterdam was a city of tolerance and freedom. The city even had a motto – ‘Heroic, Determined, Merciful’ – and since the Dutch government had allowed both the cafés and the glass windows to operate for many years, what right did I have to criticise?
Mum, of course, saw it differently. She was increasingly anxious about me leaving Gateshead and doubted that I was sufficiently mature to cope with a city as colourful and potentially dangerous as Amsterdam. She was also desperately worried by what she saw – rightly – as my naïve and glib responses whenever she brought the subjects up. Drugs, prostitution, the temptations of a big city nightlife … Already I’d managed to mess up more than once in the past few years – and that was in the relative safety of Gateshead. What on earth did I think was likely to happen once I was away from her discipline and influence? I would end up partying the nights away, smoking pot (as she quaintly put it) and getting myself fired for being a bad employee. And – no doubt – I’d then expect her to step in and bail me out.
‘Well, thank you very much, Sarah, but I’ve had quite enough to deal with – what with your father, the abuse, you going into Care, and all the rest of it. I’ve got your sister to think of – and your brother: you might give a thought to them and what they feel.’
Of course I didn’t listen. How could I? My ears were blocked – just as my eyes were dazzled – by the glittering future that lay ahead of me in Amsterdam, Venice of The North. And so I told her that I would be perfectly safe. I didn’t plan on spending much time in the Red Light District – my voice dripped with sarcasm as I spat this sentence out – and I had absolutely no interest in drugs or in the cafés that peddled them. And as for my brother and sister – well, maybe they were simply jealous.
But no matter what I said I couldn’t convince Mum that I would really be safe there. Living with my dad all those years had opened her eyes to the reality that – whatever a woman’s good intentions – bad and manipulative men would always find a way to get what they wanted. And in her experience what they wanted usually revolved around sex and money. Add drugs – and especially an open trade in them – to that mixture
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