Page 75 of Am I Allergic to Men?
‘How so?’ I enquire.
‘The Lucy I knew was so sure of herself and where she was going in life. No one was going to tell you different. Your confidence was like this elixir, it was certainly what attracted me to you.’
I pause as she manages to analyse that so accurately within half an hour of just being in my presence.
‘I’m still me. I’m just… you covered a lot of it in your lecture. I feel I’ve lost a sense of who I ever was: my identity, my mind… I can’t seem to find it. I can’t seem to work out how I got to being that person.’
She takes a large sip of her coffee and puts a hand into mine.
‘It was all through the process of living the last ten years. You don’t just grow as a person overnight. Maybe you need to give it time. You spent the last ten years learning, becoming. It’s why you did so many degrees. You always just wanted to be better. A better actress, a better dancer, you were so driven.’
‘Maybe that’s what’s missing… my drive. I remember having it at seventeen. I just can’t seem to locate it at the moment…’
‘Well, can I do anything? Is there anything you need?’
‘I need my damn memory back, that’s what I want. I want to be me: that Lucy who is supremely confident, who walks up to a man or woman, flirts mercilessly with them and has random liberating sexual encounters.’
‘Have you not slept with anyone since…?’
‘The accident… no. I saw Tony’s penis in a pub though, don’t judge.’
She laughs. ‘I knew that already. The Lucy I knew wouldn’t care for people’s judgement though, she would never have said that at the end of a sentence.’
‘I guess I’m just scared,’ I say, my voice trailing off to admit that emotion out loud.
Jill looks over at me in disbelief at this person before her and I feel sheepish. Lucy Callaghan was never scared, of no person, thing or thought. People describe her to me and I picture her out and about dressed like some sort of female gladiator taking on the world. She was a force of nature. I don’t feel like that very much at the moment. I feel like a low-level earthquake that flips over a few garden chairs, capable of a few tremors but little else.
‘Tony’s back in town next month. You should give him a call.’
‘So we can have sex?’ I say, horrified.
‘So you can have sex with someone who’ll look after you. Have you felt the need/desire since the accident?’
‘I think I have. Tony helped. I’ve buttered my own bagel if you know what I mean?’
She chortles. That feels like a Lucy thing to say.
‘You were always very sexually liberated. You were one of those people not tainted by fear or shame. You did and tried it all.’
‘She sounds awesome.’
‘She is awesome.’
And therein lies the problem. For the past few months I’ve kept looking to this other Lucy as another person, comparing myself to her constantly, thinking I need to live up to her, to become her. Maybe she’s always been there.
‘But maybe going out, having some fun, it won’t help you remember but at least it’ll help you to live in the present rather than reminiscing about a past you can’t remember and you can’t relive…’
When she says those words, my face blanches a bit with an emotion I can’t quite describe. I think everything I’ve done up to this point has been an attempt to turn on the lights again, to find that girl I used to be. But maybe this is it. Maybe I need to accept I’ll never find that house again, I need to build a new one, brick by bloody brick.
‘So you’re saying I need to get shagging?’ I ask.
‘You need to stop walking around this university thinking it’ll bring it all back. Let me help?’
‘With the shagging?’
‘No, silly. But I’d love to help enrol you in a course here maybe. If you need to start from scratch.’
Start from scratch. Would that start here, again? Do I need to find another lesbian to help me rediscover my bisexual side? How does one find that? Tinder? Her eyes shift to the side to the young man I spotted before, reading Proust.
