Page 41 of Am I Allergic to Men?
Emma nods but I hold a hand to the air. ‘No… he’s here? He came?’
Beth and I did the full Facebook stalk of him the other day. It turns out we weren’t friends on there but it was easy to see from his profile pictures that he married someone when he was about twenty-four and they had two sons together. He’s not a footballer any more, he fixes domestic appliances and has his own van, which Beth was angry about because it had the words ‘specialises in fridge’s’ and the apostrophe catastrophe made her bare teeth. It felt awful seeing him. It felt like this was someone I’d spent nearly every minute of every day with. In my mind, we’re still together. Back then, he had a souped-up little Vauxhall Corsa, which was his pride and joy and we used to sit in deserted car parks in it and have sex, smoke weed and listen to music until my mum would text in full caps telling me to haul my arse home. My seventeen-year-old self adored his bones, gave herself to him completely and adoringly. That was what I thought love was at that age. It was consuming and full of energy and desire and, even after all my sisters told me about how it finished, I can’t quite believe that something so potent just stopped existing.
‘Mum won’t engage with him and she thinks this is an awful idea after this morning, but it’s your call.’
‘How do I look?’ I ask Emma.
‘Pale and bald.’
‘You’re such a cow. But what if I see him and it all comes flooding back? The memories? He is one of the last people I remember, maybe it will trigger something…’ Emma and Beth’s faces drop to hear the desperation in my tone. ‘Maybe if it’s just to say hello, it can’t hurt.’
‘Five minutes maybe?’ Emma suggests.
Beth nods. ‘I’ll get him up then.’
As soon as she leaves the room, I turn to the dresser next to me. ‘Should I wear a hat? How pale am I? Do you have any blusher? Lip balm? Do I look like a fricking zombie?’
‘You look like you. The Lucy I know wouldn’t care,’ she says, putting a hand to my forehead. The footsteps tread heavy on the stairs. Trip, trap, trip, trap. Emma goes to the bedroom door to open it. Oh. Hi. Josh.
In my mind, Josh still wears jeans and Puma sweatshirts and, my days, he had good hair. A group of us dated the lads from the Sheen Lions football team and we’d go to the matches and be indiscreet and cheer every time the boy we were dating had the ball, which didn’t go down well with the coach, who eventually barred us. The one thing Josh had in spades was presence. He made us all laugh by taking the piss out of everyone and everything. He was the group alpha and I was drawn to that. However, the man at the door of my room is not that same cocksure guy I once knew. The hair is now gone, shaved, except he’s got hints of a dodgy goatee, bags under his eyes, and a questionable tattoo that winds its way around his neck. Is that a name? He’s in a zipped-up tracksuit top and there’s a hole in the big toe of one of his socks as Mum has obviously asked him to remove his shoes. There’s a feeling in the pit of my stomach to see him, I want to call them butterflies but they feel more like old moths just fluttering around in there not really knowing where they’re going.
‘Lucy. God…’
His face reads horror, maybe relief that he’s dodged a bullet. I don’t know why. We have matching haircuts. But he has no other words, which is quite unlike him. His voice is deeper, more gravelly. Unfamiliar.
‘Josh… hey…’ Christ. Say something. ‘I’ll take it those are for me?’ I ask, trying to break the silence.
‘Yeah, I didn’t know what to bring, you know?’
My first thoughts are that they’re not tulips and that he’s left the price tag sticker on. He got them at a reduced price. Classy.
‘That’s kind of you. Thanks. Thank you for coming.’
I await all the memories flooding back but nothing. I sigh and slump my shoulders over. That’s a bloody disappointment because I’m going to have to entertain him, aren’t I? I wasn’t sure what I was going to feel when I saw him. Possibly something like a surge of electricity running through me, I’d jump into his arms like we’d never been apart and we’d have sex in my mum’s spare room. Time would not have got in the way of all that love and lust we shared for each other.The Notebookreally has a lot to answer for. Instead, he stands there with his hands in his pockets, a shadow of the lad I once knew, all grown up.
‘Yeah, I heard from a mate what happened and then I got in touch with Beth. She said you thought we were still a thing?’ he mutters.
‘Well, it’s the last thing I remember.’
‘Oh, so you’ve got, like, that ammer-ne-sia thing?’
‘Amnesia,’ Emma says, correcting him. He looks at her, and takes a step back, almost intimidated.
‘Yeah. I mean, don’t worry. I know you’re married now with kids so maybe I just thought meeting you might bring something back…’
‘And?’
‘Nothing. Sorry. That’s not a reflection on you. So what happened with the football? You had those trials with Fulham. Did that not happen?’
I get a sense that hits a nerve by the change in his expression. ‘Did my Achilles in, didn’t I? Just wasn’t meant to be. Like you with the acting. These things have a million in one chance of turning out.’
‘I’m still an actress.’
‘Oh. Would I have seen you in stuff? Like on the TV?’
I shake my head.
It used to be all we talked about in his car. How I was going to be his WAG with a respectable sideline in winning BAFTAs while he’d be some England hero who’d score a deciding penalty on the world stage and then have a career in punditry and advertising Paco Rabanne. But I guess that’s what you do when you’re young and your whole life is in front of you. Everything is soaked in hope and youthful dreams.
