The Story of You
Your past will always be part of you, but does it have to define your future? Or can you rewrite your story?I want to explain it all to you. How this happened. How that summer – the summer I was 16 – made me the person I am today.I want to share my memories with you: the happy memories are like sunbursts, sparkling on the sea. But then, like a current dragging me under, there's that summer of 1997.The summer my life exploded.The summer I had to grow up.The summer you came into my life.And so this is the story of you.
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KATY REGAN
The Story of You
In loving memory of Nanna R and Grandad F
Table of Contents
Mid-May 2013
The first time it happens, I’m on the Tube; coming back from a Depression Alliance coffee morning with Levi, which would be about as much fun as it sounds if Levi wasn’t one of my favourite patients (I know you’re not supposed to have favourites in this job, but sometimes you can’t help it).
It’s Friday, rush hour, in the middle of a May heat wave, so you can imagine the fun and games. I’m sardined in at all sides, about halfway down the aisle, right hand gripping the bar above, really wishing I’d shaved my armpits.
‘Everyone move down the aisle,’ the driver shouts through the Tannoy. ‘This train’s not moving until everyone moves down.’
Most people just tut and stand there. It annoys me when people do that. There’s a time for rebellion, I think, and rush hour on a Friday is not it. I want to get back, jump in the shower, then pop into the Turkish bakery for some of those pastries my sister Leah likes, and get to her house before 7.30 p.m. to catch the kids before we talk. If you get to my sister’s house at 7.33 p.m., forget it. Toys packed away, entire house wiped down. It’s like she never had kids.
I nudge the person next to me to get her to budge up. She staggers slightly and I murmur an apology. She’s trying to eat a prawn-cocktail salad standing up and I think: that’s dedication, that is. That’s hungry.
Eventually, the doors close and we jolt into action; soon I’m hurtling through the dark.
I crane my neck to look at the Tube map above: fifteen stops to Archway, which is home, but only four till Leicester Square, when all the tourists will pile out. It’s not so bad when you break it down like that. A poster grabs my attention: something about match.com and ‘making love happen’ and, just below it, a woman wearing a badge in the design of a Tube stop that says BABY ON BOARD. My eyes drift automatically to her midriff: there’s no sign of a bump yet beneath her white, broderie-anglaise blouse. Probably in those first vulnerable months, I think. Maybe just found out, giddy with excitement. I watch her, imagining her life. I like this game – it comes with the territory of the job, I suppose. I think, here’s a woman who knows how to do pregnancy; this is no martyr, soldiering on. I imagine she will get home tonight to her Victorian conversion, where husband (Steve, thirty-four, civil servant) will be waiting with a vast shepherd’s pie and give her strict instructions not to lift a finger.
There will be a pile of pristine baby-grows already in the drawer; a basket filling daily with talcs and wipes and cotton-wool buds. I was obsessed with the baby basket when Mum was pregnant with Niamh. I would pull it from under her bed and pore over the baby-scented goods; count what new items she’d got that week, grilling her about names: Niamh or Sadie if it’s a girl, Richie if it’s a boy. (Richie King! What a name! He’d have got the ladies, if he’d ever made it into the world.)
I imagine this woman will call her baby Ben; Ben or Holly – something safe that will never go out of fashion. The train stops at Embankment and many get off, but the hordes get on. A woman listening to Daft Punk next to me disappears and is replaced by a man wearing white, stained overalls. He’s sweating and smells as if he’s had a few after work – as well as of something else, something heady, which hits you immediately between the eyes. Turps. Takes me a while to put a name to it. Must be a decorator, I think.
The train hisses on to Charing Cross. It’s becoming like a furnace in here now; I can feel the hand that’s gripping the bar above is clammy with sweat, and the straps of my rucksack are rubbing on my shoulders. The carriage sways and shudders along, the man who smells of turps accidentally puts his hand over mine and we exchange a shy smile. I can see the pearls of perspiration form on his shiny head, and then, before he can stop them with the handkerchief he is struggling to take from his pocket, run down to his ears and onto his eyebrows. I feel sorry for him; I think, I bet he can’t wait to get out of here.
Woman with the prawn-cocktail salad is hanging on with one arm in front of us now, wilting with the heat. She suddenly yawns, a huge, wide, doggy yawn, revealing bits of iceberg lettuce. When she eventually clamps her mouth shut, a gust of fishy breath envelops us. Man who smells of turps and I exchange an eyebrow raise.
