Page 42 of Am I Allergic to Men?
‘And you fix fridges now?’ I ask, hoping I’m not pissing too much on his present endeavours.
‘Yeah, I’ll leave a card with your mum. Dishwashers, dryers, freezers. Steph is in the beauty biz.’
‘And Steph is your wife?’
He nods, a little worry in his face that the news may break me but I get it. He married someone else and I’m cool with that. Now I’ve seen him in the flesh, I know I haven’t missed out on some great love.
‘Yep. And we have two boys, Hudson and Hunter.’
‘Oh, are they twins?’ Emma asks.
‘Nah.’
He gets out his phone to show me a screensaver of him and the family on holiday. Steph is preened and skinny and the lashes are a statement. She’s not me because I get the sense I’d be drunk on that holiday and unable to stand. This is the moment when I should smile and pour praise on this little foursome outside some restaurant in Spain, looking tanned and happy, the boys in matching outfits to their dad. But unfortunately, along with the picture there is also a text message from someone called Henno.
Still shaggable, mate? Or a complete munter now? Or like a complete veg from the accident? Still would if she’s still fit.
Naturally, Josh thinks my shock comes from the picture so looks horrified as he takes his phone away.
‘Luce, are you OK?’ Emma asks, coming over.
‘We broke up in 2010. I’m sorry if you’re upset,’ Josh adds.
I reach down and take the phone from his hand, turning it to face him. His face drains of colour.
‘Oh shit, that’s awful. Like, he’s not even a good mate. Well, he is but that was a bad joke to make. I didn’t come here for that. I came to see you because Beth said what happened…’
Emma glares at the phone, wondering what she should be doing.What was the joke?If you can call it that. But the fact is I’m not upset. I’m disgusted, silently fuming. I feel old Lucy would have quicker reactions than the ones I do right now. I heard she once threw someone’s phone out of a window. Good for her.
‘My sisters tell me what we had ended in Oceana. Farah found me because she saw you all over some girl in the toilets.’
‘Well, yeah… you don’t remember that? We’d had a proper fight because you were going off to uni.’
‘So you just hooked up with the next girl that came along?’
It feels strange to call him to task on this over a decade after the event but the rage simmers in me. If I was full-strength Lucy then I suspect I’d launch myself at him. I hope I did at the time.
‘This was a pretty long time ago.’ He keeps looking over at Emma, hoping she will intervene, but she stands there, arms folded.
‘Why don’t you tell Lucy what happened at the time?’ Emma says.
‘It was your birthday. We were all celebrating that and A-Level results and all your sisters were there, they’d all come down for the night. Are you sure you don’t remember this?’ he asks tentatively.
I shake my head.
‘It was your eldest sister who went for me first. The other girl involved then went for Beth, they properly had it out and it was all a bit of a do. We got thrown out and I think you and your sisters were barred because you went for a bouncer, and then we never spoke to each other again. No, I lie. I think I did when I came round accusing you of slashing my tyres and then your mum chased me down the road and said if I wanted to see real criminal damage then she’d show me.’
I try to hold in my smile. And suddenly, all these notions of young love just escape like hot air into nothing. Thank the lord I did not try and salvage that or flog that relationship for years. It wasn’t love at all, in any shape or form.
‘So basically, you were a knob.’
‘I was called far worse that night.’
I laugh. ‘Well, you can tell your mate, Henno, that I’m still shaggable, I’m not a vegetable and he should go stick his dick in a bear trap.’ Emma realises what I saw before and her jaw drops in horror. ‘I may now know why we’re not mates a decade later.’
I’d like to say he shows an ounce of repentance or guilt but, instead, his back straightens out. ‘Look, I came here to be nice, to help you access all them lost memories, not to be made to feel guilty for something I did a long time ago.’
‘Tell me, Josh. Did you get run over by a bus?’ I say, completely deadpan.
