Don't You Forget About Me

by Mhairi McFarlane

  I close the notebook, in a shocked silence, as a tear rolls down my cheek. One clap, two claps, it builds and bursts into thunderous applause and everyone stands up.

  My friends come up to the stage and hug me, in tears too.

  Over their shoulders, I see Lucas McCarthy bound to the door to the stairs and wrench it open, without a look back at me, and disappear. I don’t care.

  I feel a light-headedness, and a newfound lightness. I’m not carrying it anymore. I spoke the words aloud, used my words, and broke the curse.

  42

  The only downside to discussing what went on with Richard Hardy is that my friends, especially Jo, are stricken that I never felt I could tell them. I’ve tried to reassure them that I could’ve been friends with Oprah Winfrey and I still wouldn’t have spoken about it. ‘Why now?’ they asked, not unreasonably.

  I told them: the writing contest theme, almost like a challenge from the universe. Robin, and his exploitative invasions, ventriloquising me. Richard Hardy, and him having a little girl I have no doubt he’d never want treated that way. The fact he emerged unscathed to have that happiness. And Lucas McCarthy. Rejecting me a second time. The price of keeping the secret, it was too high to keep paying. I had snapped.

  As much as they were appalled at my ordeal, Clem struggled to cope with the raw drama and intrigue of Oh my God that gorgeous bar bloke is the ex-boyfriend? Oh MY GOD – before Rav gave her a look that could turn her to stone.

  Esther, make-up streaked down her cheeks, came up and clung to me like a koala. ‘Why didn’t you tell me!’ she said, while poor Mark hovered in the background, eyes to the floor and hands folded, as if he was a kindly vicar with his parishioners.

  ‘I’ve not told anyone, honestly. I wouldn’t tell myself. I had to tell myself, first, and that has only just happened. I didn’t mean for you to find out like this.’

  ‘Oh don’t be a dick.’ Esther paused, wiped her eyes again. ‘We joke around with you and chivvy you, George, but we all think the absolute world of you. We want the world for you. Sorry if that got lost.’

  ‘I know,’ I say.

  I didn’t win the competition. It went to a man called Tom with a man bun who told a story about vomiting Kendal Mint Cake on a geography field trip to Mam Tor.

  But I did win. For the first time, I’m not scared of the future. I want to use its potential. Words saved me. My words.

  At ten, the following night, the front doorbell goes. Kids running past sometimes ring it, I’ll ignore it unless it sounds twice.

  A few minutes later, the doorbell rings again.

  Either Karen ordered a pizza, or we have a visitor who’s never been to the house before and doesn’t know to knock at the kitchen at the back. Karen’s spark-out, I can hear the snoring from the stairs, so I hope it isn’t a twelve-inch thin crust margarita with extra jalapenos, as I’ll have to risk waking her to see if she’s responsible, or letting her go nuts that I didn’t. I also really fancy eating it.

  I poke my head warily round the side of the curtain and see a tall, dark-haired man on the other side, his hands thrust deep in his coat pockets, his chin buried in his chest. My stomach does a queasy revolution.

  I can feel my heart beat in my neck. I take a very deep breath, and open the door.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Hello,’ I say.

  ‘Sorry to turn up like this. I wasn’t sure how to word it, on a phone. Can I come in?’ Lucas says.

  I stand back to let him past.

  ‘Let’s talk in the kitchen,’ I say, pretending to be steady. ‘The door closes on that room.’

  Lucas nods and follows me. I click the door shut. We position ourselves either side of the dining room table.

  ‘I saw you do your reading, at the pub.’

  ‘I know. I saw you. You left straight after.’

  ‘I …’ I realise he’s momentarily unable to speak, and it shocks me. I stare at him, as a moment stretches between us. Lucas’s eyes fill up. He blinks back the tears and clears his throat.

  ‘… I had to leave as I needed to think, and I didn’t want to speak to you in company. I hope you didn’t think I was flouncing or anything.’

  ‘Well. I wasn’t sure. I was kind of in my own head space, really.’

  Lucas nods. ‘Please, please believe me when I say that I had no idea what happened to you, Georgina. Not the slightest clue. I know that’s bad in itself.’

  ‘I know you didn’t,’ I say. ‘I’d have had to tell you and I didn’t tell you. I didn’t tell anyone.’

  ‘I didn’t ask though,’ Lucas says.

  I swallow. I’ve come too far to say the easy thing, rather than the honest thing.

  ‘No, you didn’t.’

  Lucas shakes his head as he composes himself and we sit in silence again. I wouldn’t call it a comfortable silence, but it’s not a blank or an unwelcome silence either. Letting things settle.

  ‘I was … hearing you describe what went on. I failed you so badly. I am such an arrogant bastard that I thought the story of my life was people failing me, but that’s not true. I failed you in the most awful way.’

  I shake my head. ‘You made decisions without all the information, which I’ve discovered is how we make every decision.’

  I sound calm. I notice I’m gripping the back of the chair in front me so tightly that my knuckles are white.

  ‘I did, Georgina, I failed you then, and I failed you now. That night … I keep thinking about me saying that I didn’t want you afterwards, how it must have felt. It makes me want to cut my own tongue out.’ He rubs his face with his hands, looks back at me. I nod slowly. I can’t pull these punches, not now.

  ‘Yeah. It hurt. Like I am damaged goods.’

  ‘And you saying you were worried about us, thinking about us, when you were trapped with him …’

  Us. After all this time, he is using ‘us’, and he’ll never know what that means to me.

  Lucas has his arms folded in front of him, leaning back against the counter, long legs propping himself up. ‘Georgina, I saw what person you are – I mean, I already knew, I should’ve known – and I saw what person I am. Petulant and self-absorbed.’

  I give a small laugh. ‘Bit harsh.’

  Lucas closes his eyes. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘It wasn’t true, either.’ He clears his throat. ‘I did still want you, afterwards, of course I did. But I was so full of jealousy and outrage, I lashed out, using someone else. Thought I’d show you I didn’t want you, if you didn’t want me.’

  My heart contracts for the people we once were and I have to clear my throat, too, before I can speak. ‘I thought that was what it was but I couldn’t be sure. It didn’t make things much better, so I didn’t set too much store by it.’

  ‘It was cruel, immature shit on my part.’

  ‘I think eventually it became easier to believe you’d never cared, rather than it being revenge, as it would’ve meant Richard Hardy truly ruined everything for me. And when you said you didn’t remember me this time round, it confirmed it.’

  Lucas shakes his head.

  ‘I didn’t know how to deal with it, when you asked me if I recognised you, that night after the stripper fracas. I took the first exit, as fast as possible. I reasoned I’d never mattered to you, so best off acting like it was the same for me. In wounded male ego, I might’ve overdone it and come off as this arch, “dozens of bed notches” tosser.’

  I laugh and he winces. ‘I’d thought I might see you in passing in Sheffield, I braced myself for it. Then there you were behind the bar with my brother at the wake and I almost fainted. I had a few minutes to get my face straight, to decide how to play it.’

  ‘Ha, well, I completely believed you.’

  ‘Well, I had a lot staked on you believing me.’

  He pauses. I wonder if bracing himself, almost fainting, if these things mean we still have something left here.

  ‘It’s not righ
t that I had to find out something so awful had gone on, to have any compassion for you. I saw how you were treated afterwards, I heard what people said. I shouldn’t have needed to be told you were assaulted. There’s such a thing as peer pressure. There’s such a thing as just making a mistake, or being a kid. Given what we had, to ask you, “Tell me what happened” … that question should not have been beyond me. Imagine how different things could’ve been if I’d had that much courage.’

  My eyes are smarting now. ‘I was never the best at resisting the crowd. I know you didn’t like that about me. Playing to the gallery. Wanting to be popular.’

  ‘Getting to know you at this age, I could reassess all that. Yeah, seeing you again, I came in with that prejudice – that you were somehow shallow and meaningless, didn’t have any real principles. What do they say, “a feather for any wind”? But now I see that you please other people, you put their feelings first. That generosity of caring what someone else thinks, it’s a great quality, it’s not weakness. It’s not your fault if others have exploited it. Sorry, I’m mansplaining you to yourself.’

  I laugh.

  ‘And George, at school, I was just insecure. Frightened those people would be more appealing to you, than me. You did what you had to, to get by. We all did. I had no right to judge you. And if I couldn’t manage that at eighteen, I fucking well should’ve been man enough by thirty.’

  Lucas draws breath.

  ‘I shouldn’t have needed to hear what you said last night. I wanted to be everything to you, and instead I was another one of the men who was angry with you for not being able to have you, the way I wanted.’

  I expected Lucas, if he found out, to feel bad. I hadn’t expected this level of self-reflection, or self-excoriation. For all my yearning to hear his side of it, I actually hadn’t dwelt on what his reaction to the truth might be, until now.

  I, in turn, underestimated him.

  Why didn’t I message Lucas, in the weeks after, and say: Hey, just so you know, that wasn’t what it looked like? Because he was either that easily unfaithful or he’d gone with another girl to rub my face in it, so there was nothing left to fight for.

  Because I didn’t think he’d believe me. And I thought, in the brutal laws of teenaged courtship, with the naiveté of inexperience, that I had done what they were saying.

  But most of all, it was because in my gut I knew that if Lucas had said: Now I know you’re a victim, you can have my heart again, it wouldn’t have been worth anything.

  Love isn’t meant to work like that.

  43

  There is a pause while we recalibrate with the new information we both have. It’s not uncomfortable, just reflective.

  Lucas looks up, smiles a bashful half smile at me.

  ‘I have other thoughts, but apology now made, do you want me to go on, or do you want me to sod off out of your kitchen?’ he says.

  ‘I want you to go on. Tell me whatever you want. If I disagree, I have a voice I can use here too.’ I smile.

  Lucas nods, and swallows.

  ‘I think you might know, maybe you didn’t, but I had a weapons-grade crush on you, before we were put together on that English homework.’ He smiles at me, this adult version of Lucas, and I can’t believe I was ever so lucky. ‘I worshipped you.’

  Oh. Wow. I definitely didn’t fall in love by myself. I can have those memories back, restored, like old prints colourised.

  ‘I knew you’d not be able to pick me out of a line-up, in return. It was a grind of a couple of years, to be honest, coming to Yorkshire, leaving my mates behind in Ireland, being teased for my accent and trying to play it down. Then I saw this vision, with an infectious laugh that I could hear across the common room. You were like the human antidote to my misery. A rainbow in the grey. I felt like God sent me the girl with the golden hair, to remind me there were still things worth hanging around for.’

  I don’t know what to say, other than grin like an idiot.

  Lucas shuffles his feet and breaks eye contact.

  ‘You didn’t know how well liked you were, how popular you were. Not only with the dickheads, with everyone, because you were kind. You had a lot more status than you thought. You talked on stage about having to work for approval, being some sort of an also-ran, but that’s not how it appeared to everyone else. Having got to know you as an adult, I’d say that’s still true. People flock to you, they’re drawn to you. Not because of the way you look, because you’re warm.’

  Lucas feels this way about me? I will cherish these words ’til I die.

  ‘Anyway, then we were put together on that project, and I panicked that I’d make a tool of myself, and idolised-from-afar Georgina Horspool might be a let-down. Like, even your name was like reciting a magic spell to me. How could you live up to that? But not only did you live up to it, you were nicer and wittier and more interesting than I could have dreamed, and most incredibly of all, you seemed to like me. I was … what’s the word …’

  It’s a bittersweet pleasure, hearing you made someone feel like this, but in the past tense, and I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  ‘… I thought you were too good to be true, I couldn’t believe it. That idea ended up being a problem. Paranoia crept in, that I was right, that it couldn’t be true. Do you remember the evening we had to walk home on opposite sides of the street because you thought you’d seen your mate?’

  ‘No …?’ I say, squinting. I had genuinely lost this to mists. Concentrating, I vaguely remember something involving hiding from Jo’s brother. I’d thought it was larks.

  ‘I started to worry after that: I was a guilty secret. That you’d never want to be public. That I couldn’t ever be your boyfriend. You were using me for practice before university. I mean, even being used by you was not something I could turn down but I’d fallen so hard in love, it was no longer enough.’

  ‘You had?’

  ‘Oh man, Georgina, I wanted it all from you. I would’ve switched to Newcastle to study, you only had to say the word. But that was it. YOU had to say the word.’ Lucas smiles, uneasily. ‘I took the page out of the folder where we’d first flirted, in those notes. So that I’d always have some sort of physical proof you’d liked me. Do I sound like a serial killer?’

  I laugh, but I’m heartsore.

  ‘And I knew Richard fancied you. He wasn’t the only one, much to my chagrin. There was a lot of laddish conversation in PE changing rooms. He always boasted he could have you anytime he liked, that you were “into him”. You can imagine that once we were seeing each other, I wanted to decapitate him.’

  Lucas raises his eyes to mine.

  ‘So, Georgina, it’s even worse than you think, because I knew. I knew when he took you by the hand and walked you out of the party what his intentions probably were, and I did nothing. I could’ve spared you that whole ordeal, and I didn’t. For what? So people didn’t laugh at me? So you weren’t embarrassed by me making a scene, maybe even chucked me for it? Because I wanted to test you? Because I was worried in that moment, you’d choose him? Yeah, all of those reasons, and particularly the last one. That’s my character moment. And you paid for that.’

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ I say. ‘And it’s not your character. It’s a shitty thing you were caught up in and I know for a fact, your character is the instinct to stand up for people. Look at how you’ve been since we’ve worked together.’

  ‘Now it’s like I’m pushing you into reassuring me it wasn’t my fault,’ Lucas says, rubbing his forehead. ‘It was, Georgina. It was partly my fault. Let it be.’

  ‘Hah, you sound like my counsellor. I didn’t tell her the whole truth either. I told her I’d gone with another boy and hated myself for it. I think I believed it. It’s taken me so long, Lucas, to say: it wasn’t my fault. When you say it was your fault, I know you mean it, and that means a lot. But I think it’s only one person’s fault, and he’s not here worrying about his blame, whatsoever.’

  ‘I have such an ove
rwhelming urge to pay Hardy a visit in a rusty Bedford van in the middle of the night, with Dev’s friend of a friend, “Dean The Cunt”, you know.’

  I laugh, I actually manage a big hoot.

  ‘You never considered going to the police?’ Lucas says, quietly.

  ‘No. His word and my word. Everyone would’ve backed Richard’s version up. And the hotel, that would’ve come out, and imagine how that would’ve been used against me.’

  We glance away from each other, awkward for the first time.

  ‘I wish I’d gone to you,’ Lucas says, haltingly. ‘Not for that. So I could’ve been there for you, listened. Everything could’ve been different.’

  Could’ve been.

  I shrug. ‘That’s nice to hear. For me, not reporting it means I’ve felt guilty that he might have done it again, and by not speaking up, I dropped those women in it.’

  ‘Once again, that is not your fault. At all.’

  ‘I bet he’s not thought about it once since it happened, you know.’

  ‘I think you’re right. Scumbag. And his band was shit.’

  I smile and Lucas smiles back. I want to hug him but I don’t know my rights.

  ‘Do you mind if I ask you something I always wondered?’ I say. ‘It’s a bit personal so no worries if you don’t want to say.’

  ‘It’s the night for personal, shoot.’

  ‘As I said, it would’ve been my first time, that night of the party. If we’d stayed over together. Would – would it have been for you too?’

  ‘Oh. Yes. Quite pleased that wasn’t already obvious, to be honest.’

  He smiles and I smile and blush and I think honestly, Georgina Horspool – you’re thirty.

  ‘I’m sorry what we had got destroyed. My memories of you are really great memories,’ I say.

  ‘Same here,’ Lucas says.

  ‘Whatever you thought,’ I say these words rapidly, before I can chicken out, ‘I was head over heels in love with you and only you, Lucas.’