Page 12 of The Truth About You and Me
‘I was wondering, why?’
‘Why?’
She puts on an American accent. ‘Why in all the cinemas, in all the towns, in all the world, you walked into mine.’
‘Guess, I’m just lucky.’
And for the first time in almost a year, I feel it.
8
MAGGIE
Jack is shrugging off his jacket while on screen Mary Stewart Masterson, our heroine, holds her drumsticks in red leather biker gloves and pounds on the drums as the eighties intro music starts. I sneak a glance at him as he folds his jacket, placing it on the seat beside him. He’s wearing cufflinks. Actual cufflinks. I’ve never seen anyone wear cufflinks in my life. They catch the reflection from the screen as he settles back into his seat.
My encounters with the opposite sex have been few and far between. It’s hard to build a relationship with someone when you have a running commentary to their thoughts as they kiss you.
Jared Hill behind the bike sheds at school:
How long do I have to kiss her before I go for her tits?
Not long, as it turned out.
Joseph Simm in the common room:
She tastes like cheese and onion crisps.
Rude considering he tasted like cigarettes and garlic.
Pip Finnegan, while snogging me at the school disco to ‘My Heart Will Go On’:
This will get Clara’s attention.
Is she looking?
Yes! I’ll grab her ass… What’s her name again?
It did get Clara’s attention, and ruinedTitanicfor me forever.
And then there was Luke.
I met Luke in the supermarket. Not exactly Richard Curtis levels of meet-cute, but when his bag broke, and tins of tomatoes and sweetcorn careered along the aisles, I helped pick them up. He was kind, funny, liked to cook, and he was patient. With me. But that was all before I found out, just six months later, that he thought it was perfectly fine to shag someone else behind my back. That was one of those moments when I was both resentful of yet thankful for my gift.
The first time I heard thoughts, I didn’t realise that what I was experiencing was different. I knew my parents had died, that they had gone out in a car and that it took my parents to heaven, but I think I was too young to grasp the concept of death. When I revisit my first memory, when I try to unpick it, I remember a deep sense of confusion. There is the image of a small house with a cherry tree in the garden. But no matter how many times I try to imagine opening the door, and stepping inside to where my early memories are hidden, I get no further. There are no images of the family I was once part of. Nothing but a locked door with ivy growing around the porch.
My first real memory is of Grandma sitting on a pale blue sofa.
The sun was streaming in through the windows. It was a warm day, I had a red polka-dot dress on, and my hair was in pigtails. There was an ice-cream truck outside playing ‘Greensleeves’. It was a happy day and Grandma was smiling when I asked if I could have an ice-cream. I don’t remember the journey from the sitting room to the pavement, but I remember her hand taking hold of mine. She was smiling, her eyes were kind, but then I heard her:
What am I going to do with her?
She doesn’t belong here with me.
I’m too old.
Too frail.
But she was smiling, she bought me an extra flake and strawberry sauce. It was a sunny day and children were laughing, and I was happy because I had an ice-cream.
