Documentary filmmaker Helena Třeštíková (73) watched Mallory Neradová’s struggle for life for thirteen years. They met at the time when, after giving birth to her son, she decided to quit drugs after almost twenty years and start a normal life. She longed for work and the possibility of having somewhere to return from it. However, the journey was not easy. Mallory lived on the street in a car for a long time, and despite repeated requests for social housing for her and her son, she did not receive help. In the end, she had to arrange everything herself. The story of the fighter Mallory is broadcast by Czech Television.
Director Helena Třeštíková met the then thirty-three-year-old Miroslava Neradová alias Mallory in 2002 in the sheltered housing Sanarin, where she filmed a documentary about addicted women. Among the others, Mallory caught her eye and decided to film more with her.
Drugs as a form of protest
Mallory started taking drugs when she was thirteen years old. At that time, her younger brother was born and her parents did not give her as much space as she would have imagined. While traveling to visit her grandmother in Most, she got together with a group that was riding in a feta. As a young and immature girl, she felt like she had found a new family, and it wasn’t long before she got her first injection of morphine from one of them.
“Fetting was a form of protest. Against parents, against society or against that stupid Bolshevik, simply against everyone,” Mallory describes her beginnings on drugs in the documentary. “I took an awful lot of drugs in my life until I ended up on heroin. I thought many times why I take the drugs and why not take them and if it is really worth not taking them, because the normal life offered me very little. Back then, fettling had its own mystery,” he acknowledges with sadness in his voice.
The first son did not live to be young
In an effort to find her place in the company, she took a job Mallory many parties and subcultures, from skinheads to punks to bikers. In that latter period, she earned her nickname Mallory after a character from the movie Such Normal Killers, who had as sharp elbows as she did.
Mallory took drugs for almost twenty years, alternating between the streets, asylums and prison. When she was in her twenties, she got pregnant for the first time and decided to stop fetidating. However, the son was born very sick and died at the age of four and a half. Because of this impulse, she tried to kill Mallory as well, and when it didn’t work right away, she decided to at least kill herself. Fortunately, she didn’t succeed.
Mallory: I’m sure I’m done
Mallory then went to Prague, where, due to her lifestyle, she did not avoid petty theft, for which she subsequently served a year in prison. After returning to freedom, a single night with her then-partner was enough for her to become pregnant again. For the second time, she was faced with the challenge of quitting drugs for good, which she succeeded in doing this time.
“I’m convinced that I’m done. Heroin has already given me everything he could, and Kryštof now gives me something every day. It’s terribly strange. I feel as if I’ve woken up. I want to stay like this.” she said in 2002 to Helena Třeštíková in the sheltered house Sanarin, where she lived with Kryštůfek.
When they met again after seven years, Mallory was living in a car with her new boyfriend Vráťa. Her ex-boyfriend Gábin, who had a problem with alcohol and gambling, kicked her and Kryštof out onto the street shortly before. At first, at least Kryštůfek lived with his grandmother, but after a while she realized that she could not take care of him. So Mallory went for an arranged stay in a psychiatric hospital, where Vráť was also being treated for neurotic conditions.
There is nothing to fear on drugs
Although he and his friend Vráťa loved each other very much, their relationship was not without clouds either. When he lost his job and couldn’t find another for a while, it took a toll on his fragile psyche. He started drinking more and behaving violently. Mallory was unhappy with him and their situation.
“You don’t fear anything on drugs,” cried Mallory in the documentary. “You’re not cold, you’re not hungry, you’re not afraid of anything. The only thing you’re afraid of is that abstinence will come and you’ll start to fear. The only identical fear, there’s nothing else, except that you won’t have the next day. But there’s nothing else, there’s no conscience. There’s no feelings. There’s nothing. It’s just you and that shit. Without them, you feel naked.”
It is said that being with yourself is even more difficult than not taking. “Everything is bad without them. It’s great that I’ve been abstinent for the eighth year, but… Every day is hard work. And now I’m not talking about the hard work of not getting married. The hard work of being myself. I come to work and the girls there they are having fun with each other, how one washed the windows and the other cooked this for dinner, the third did that, and I try to communicate with them, but it’s hard to tell them that I dusted the covers in the car.” described the barriers Mallory has to overcome in life.
The behavior of the authorities did not leave Třeštíková cold either
When Mallory went to the office in 2009 to apply for an asylum apartment where she could live with her son, Třeštíková was also impressed by the lack of interest in helping her. They treated her with a similar non-participation, even when she asked for immediate material help to go to a hostel. She also lost her job as a bartender at that time. The reason was supposed to be her maladaptive behavior. Finding a new one wasn’t easy at all. It all culminated to the point that Mallory attempted demonstrative suicide by slitting her wrists.
“The period when Mallory was living in a car on the street was quite dramatic. We saw each other quite often because the situation was changing a lot and we wanted to capture the turning point. I did not believe that dealing with the authorities was so frustrating and that it would take so long, before Mallory will live again. It is quite significant that she had to help herself in the end. She found an apartment and a job on her own.” said Třeštíková in an interview for CT.
But then the situation finally turned around and Mallory found a job, which included an apartment. “These are the keys to the normal life I’ve always dreamed of” she enthusiastically showed the staff her apartment, where she moved in together with her son Kryštof and her friend Vráťa. After some time, she was left alone with Kryštůfek, when Vráť’s alcoholism began to show again and one day he even hit Mallory in front of his son.
Hero Jiří Bartošek
The man of Mallory’s life is the actor Jiří Bartoška. She first met him as a begging drug addict on Charles Bridge in the fifth month of her pregnancy with Kryštof. He then gave her two thousand and asked her about her story, she told him the whole story and he convinced her that she should stop using drugs. Mallory sees this conversation as a slap in the face that made her come to her senses.
Jiří Bartoška then helped her once more in her life, when in 2014 she decided to become a social worker and go to secondary school. She then wrote him a letter asking for help in getting a scholarship and he arranged it for her. Úshe therefore hastily graduated from the Evangelical Academy and majored in social work.
Where is Mallory today?
“Mallory had to take a shot after the movie. When she recovered from watching thirteen years of her life, she had several comments and requests for editing. We accepted them and even finished a piece of supplementary statement,” Třeštíková revealed to ČT how her heroine reacted to the film in which she played the main role. They are said to have remained friends even after the filming ended.
Currently, Mallory works in the organization Prak – prevention and counseling, where he speaks at talks warning against drug use and crime.
She and her son Kryštof, who will be over twenty years old, are active on social networks and seem to be doing well.
Mallory’s story airs CT2 on Tuesday, February 28 at 8:00 p.m.
