Katy Regan - The Story of You

Before Andy, I’d given up on any kind of normal. I’d realized normal – as in marriage and kids – was not the way it was going for me. And that was fine, I’d made my peace with that. Kaye and I had decided that, if all else failed, we’d join a hippy commune and grow our armpit hair and eat biscuits all day like we did at work. But then Andy came along and he made me believe in normal again. He made me want it.

I topped the bath up with more hot water and lay back, staring despairingly at the damp patch on the bathroom ceiling, which was encroaching like an oily tide.

Finishing with Andy had probably been the most amicable ending of a relationship I’d ever known, perhaps because I’d never been more than someone nice to fill a space for him, and that was fine. It was as though he’d swooped in, post-separation, for some respite care at the Hospice of St Kindness (i.e. me, or anyone else who would listen to him) and was now recharged, ready to take on the world again. When I’d told him it was over, he’d looked disappointed and taken aback, but not hurt, I noted. It was the sort of expression you might wear if you’d just been told there was no more carrot soup on the menu and you’d have to have leek and potato.

After leaving the restaurant, we’d walked to the Tube together, even chatted as we glided down the escalator. As would be the case, a busker was singing Adele’s ‘Someone Like You’ with accompanying pan-pipe backing track when we got to the bottom. He’d taken hold of my elbows and we’d gazed at one another with sad smiles as the busker sang how sometimes it lasts in love, and sometimes it hurts instead. Then Andy said, ‘I’ll be in touch.’

And I’d smiled, because he couldn’t help himself, he couldn’t help but promise, even at the end, something he couldn’t deliver.

‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘You don’t have to.’

‘At least let’s have a cuddle, then?’ he’d said, opening his arms; and we did, and it was nice. Andy’s a good hugger. It’s the one thing we’d both done well probably because there’s no pressure in a hug, is there?

‘Okay, bye then,’ I’d said.

‘Yeah, I will call though, yeah?’

‘Yeah,’ I’d said.

‘Take care of yourself, honey.’

Then we’d turned and gone our separate ways. Two minutes later, I was gliding up the escalator when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw him coming down the other way.

‘Sorry, I went the wrong way,’ he said, and I laughed to myself all the way home because, was there ever the end of a relationship that so exactly replicated the relationship itself? Hit-and-miss, half-baked, stop-start. Just a little bit of a shambles, basically, with some farce thrown in.

No, finishing with Andy Cullen was the right thing to do, I decided, lying there until the bath water grew cool. I didn’t want to see him, I was just scared and putting off getting back to Joe.

I decided to ring my sister, Leah, instead. It’s practically impossible to have a normal conversation on the phone with her these days because she’s always so busy with the kids, so it’s a numbers game: if you ring her ten times, you might just get lucky once. Jack, my five-year-old nephew answered. We had a short discussion about peregrine falcons – I totally dig the conversations I have with my nephew – then I said, ‘Is Mummy there?’

There was some high-pitched squealing in the background, which could have been Leah or Eden, my three-year-old niece – it was difficult to tell.

‘She’s cleaning up Eden’s poo,’ said Jack.

‘Oh,’ I said, darkly.

‘She needed the toilet but didn’t make it. A poo fell out of her skirt in the kitchen.’

I laughed. Then stopped. Jack wasn’t laughing. This is because Jack knew that a poo in the kitchen was on a par with the apocalypse for his mother.

‘Okay, well, don’t worry. Tell Mummy—’ I was about to tell him I’d call back later when Jack shouted:

‘Mummy! Aunty Robyn’s on the phone!’

I could hear Leah’s sigh, literally metres away in the kitchen.

‘Well, tell Aunty Robyn that I am knee-deep in your sister’s crap at the moment and that her beautiful, adorable, butter-wouldn’t-melt niece’s bum has exploded all over my new kitchen floor.’

‘Oh.’ Jack came back on the phone. ‘Mummy said the C word.’

‘Mm,’ I said, ‘she did. That must mean she is very stressed. Tell her I’ll call her later, okay?’

‘She’ll call you later, Mummy!’

‘Ha! Well, she can try, but I’ll be doing bedtime then …’

I reasoned that I may not have got to speak to my sister, but at least any yearnings for Andy, and/or a boyfriend or family life had been very successfully abated.

That evening, I sat on the sofa, nursing a bottle of wine, writing fantasy replies to Joe, hoping that, the drunker I got, the more likely I’d be just to press ‘Send’.

Dear Joe,

I’m so sorry to hear about your mum and ordinarily I’d love to come to the funeral, but unfortunately I am on holiday …

Dear Joe,

I can hardly believe it’s taken me three days … the reason is, I was trying to think of a way of telling you …

Dear Joe,

Oh, my God, what must you think of me?! I rarely log onto Facebook so …

In the end, three days, in fact, after Joe sent me the message, and mainly because I ran out of different ways to apologize, I wrote:

Dear Joe,

I’ll be there. See you at 3 p.m.

Robyn x

Dear Lily

I was thinking today that of all the things I’ve told you so far, I haven’t told you how I got together with your father. He says it’s typical of me, that the day we should get together is the day I save him, when what he doesn’t know is that he saved me.

The date was 18 May 1997 – almost sixteen years ago! It was the end of the summer term, of high school, and we were signing one another’s shirts: SHINE ON, YOU CRAZY DIAMOND! Although, personally, I was doing nothing of the sort …

Picture your mother: I am sixteen, I have thick dark hair with a fringe, and very recently I’ve committed trichological suicide by trying to dye it peroxide blonde. Your granddad didn’t notice for a fortnight, which gives a very good indication of how he was at that time. The barnet is an atrocity; every time I get it wet, it goes green for some reason, and so my sister Leah gives me a ‘body perm’ in the kitchen one Saturday, in the hope this will distract the eye (it doesn’t).

It’s been six months since we lost Mum and I’m blown apart. There seem to be bits of me everywhere; some shrapnel is still inside. I don’t know who I am, or who to be, and so I try different guises: ‘arty’, ‘rebel’, ‘one of the crowd’. Mostly, I am just all over the shop. But you have to at least believe it’s going to be okay, don’t you? And even though Mum is gone, I still believe in life. I think, if I can get past this bit, it will get better. Your grandma always said I was the strong one, and I’m determined to prove her right.

So here I am, this mad, sad, determined girl with green hair on the day I save your dad’s life at Black Horse Quarry. On the day he saves mine.

In those days, the quarry was a glittering lagoon to us; our little piece of paradise. Now, I realize, it’s a death trap, surrounded with dog-turd-laden scrubland (funny how what you remember and what actually was are often two different things). The wayward among us would bunk off and go down there in those last weeks of term. That day, I was there with my best friend, Beth, as usual. Your father was there with Voz and other members of ‘The Farmers’. There were also some ‘Townies’ (named because they went to school in the town, rather than in Kilterdale – the back of beyond – like us ‘Farmers’); all that strange, male, tribal rivalry. Saul Butler was ringleader of the Townies. Your dad had a love – hate friendship with him (i.e., he knew he was an idiot but that it was wise to keep on the right side of him too).