Things they don’t tell you when you wake up from a coma: you don’t just spring up out of bed like a grandparent who’s found a Golden Ticket. After all the relief settles that you are alive and semi-kicking, you’re still a physical shell of your once former self. You’ve been lying down for weeks, crapping in a nappy and have multiple tubes coming out your orifices so it takes some time for your body to return to normal. I also ache everywhere because my return to normality is being controlled by Igor the physio man. When I’m done in this place, I am going to make a voodoo doll out of him and ensure that every night I stick pins in his crotch. Blunt pins. Lots of blunt pins.
‘Just a few more steps, Lucy,’ he says in his strong Eastern European accent, which makes him sound like a Soviet gymnastics coach.
‘Piss off.’
‘Igor, I am so sorry,’ Emma intervenes, horrified.
‘I’m not. If I could actually control how I pee and I can’t because I’ve had a tube up my bits for a month then I would pee everywhere and mostly in his general direction.’
Emma shakes her head for the shame. Meg laughs from behind a hand covering her mouth.
‘It’s all right, Emma. I get a lot of abuse. An old lady hit me with a walking stick yesterday.’
‘I like this lady,’ I say. ‘Me and her can be friends. Give her my number.’
I push my walker (yes, my old lady walker) a few more steps and glare at all of them. Are you not entertained? I did the walking. Now let me rest and watch some bad television.
‘Have you been doing the stretches like we discussed?’ Igor asks me.
‘Yeah?’
Meg raises her eyebrows at me and I stick a middle finger up at her.
‘I’m putting down that your middle finger still seems to work,’ Igor says, scribbling in his notes. He’s not just into torture, he’s also into sarcasm. If only my lower leg had the power to kick him in the balls. ‘These exercises are important. You’re leaving here soon. I want you to have some basic mobility back for the everyday. To be able to take a shower, turn on a kettle, write a letter?’
‘To your mother, telling her that she bore a son who is a harbinger of pain?’
‘She loves a letter. Nice quality paper, please. Her name is Magda.’
This would be a worthy exchange if he was in the slightest bit good-looking but he has hair like he belongs on the cover of a romance novel – proper eighties Bon Jovi locks with a bit of a curl.
‘Lucy, I got in Igor because he is the best at what he does. He’s right. We need to get you back into real life and ensure all your muscles don’t seize up. Please listen to him,’ Emma pleads with me.
‘But I quite like the sponge baths in bed and people bringing me hot drinks and sushi. I don’t need to do anything. In any case, I can’t work. I don’t think I can really leave the house because my head is all shaved and stitched like a Frankenmonster so essentially I’d be lounging around anyway, waiting for my memory to come back.’
‘So you basically just want to be a lazy bitch?’ Igor says.
Meg sniggers again, quietly.
Seriously, Emma? She’s paying this man to hurt and insult me?
‘I’m allowed. I got hit by a bus. I’m owed some time off and to be waited on hand and foot.’
‘For a while but you still need to do some things independently that require mobility,’ Igor continues. ‘To get to the toilet? You want someone changing your tampons forever?’
‘Some people might find that kinky,’ I reply.
Emma is on a high blush now. Did she not warn the physio man that I come with a tongue? The knock I got to my head clearly did little to level out my disposition.
‘Well, that’s one lucky man who’ll get to do that for life.’
It won’t be you. Don’t worry, Igor.
‘Well, we are done, Miss Lucy. I will see you again tomorrow. I will leave those hand-grip trainers on the table for you. Please use them.’
I smile. ‘Thank you. I’ll see you tomorrow, Igor.’
‘You will and you will love it,’ he replies.
I hate you. He gathers his belongings and Emma walks with him out of the room as I pull faces at his back.
Meg is still laughing to see me so riled. ‘You do know that in the last ten years, you were a total gym bunny. You did classes and stuff. You ran races. You were the fittest person I know.’
‘Well, naturally. I’m super fit. It’s the giant staples in my head, I reckon.’
Meg rolls her eyes at me. ‘Do the exercises.’
‘But they hurt.’
‘Says the girl with the pierced nipple.’
The family take it in turns to be with me at the moment. Dad brings me photo albums hoping it might jog something, Mum brings crisps and lectures about wearing bike helmets. Beth brings music and Grace brings me medical journal articles on case studies of amnesia, including the story of a man who got amnesia from herpes, which made me check my lady parts with a mirror. Assorted friends drop in; some I know and some I don’t. Farah did a video call and it turns out she’s not my go-to party girl any more. She’s married with a son and living in Amsterdam. She still loves me dearly but liquid eyeliner and drinking until we fall down is not the priority any more. She’s changed. They’ve all changed.
‘Why don’t you do one of those colouring books like he suggested for your fine motor skills?’ Meg suggests.
‘All right, Mummy. Only if you do it with me,’ I say in a whiny kid’s voice.
‘Are you going to draw cocks and balls on everything again?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, we will tell Igor you tried.’
I like Meg for the dryness and the camaraderie. I think the two of us are kindred spirits in how we regularly test Mum and the limits of her patience. Meg snuggles into me and starts colouring in a panda. I give the panda a willy on his head.
‘How is Tess?’ I ask. ‘I have a feeling I scared her on that first day. Is she OK now?’
‘She has a lot of questions but she’s just worried. You and her were quite close to be fair. She came down last month to spend some time with you. She wants to get into theatre so you showed her round your manor.’
‘I did?’
‘I have a feeling you did much more than just show her around various backstages but she adored you after that trip.’
‘She wants to act?’
‘Costume design,’ Meg continues. ‘Turns out the girl can draw. All from her father, those skills.’
‘Or maybe from me, look how well I can speed-draw a penis.’
‘Beautiful colouring, Lucifer.’
I laugh and she allows me to rest my head on her shoulder. She started calling me Lucifer the day I first learnt how to bite. To me, she is Big Meg because she was always taller and bigger and more mature. The day she first kissed a boy, she came back and told us all the detail: how he slipped her some tongue and she nearly bit it off in shock. We all sat there in our matching nighties (that was a thing, it saved our mum time) like the Von Trapps, in giggles and admiration of the biggest one of our lot stepping out into the world and coming back with morsels of gossip. If we could we probably would have sung about it. Boys in Adidas who know how to sing, these are a few of our favourite things.
‘I have a question, Meggsy?’ I ask her.
‘I suspect this will be a running theme for a while.’
‘What’s with the high-waisted baggy jeans? You look like Mum from when we were little.’
She looks at me and shakes her head. ‘I’m not too old and you’re not too unwell that I can’t slap you.’
‘It may bring my memory back.’
‘These are nineties chic. You know fashion, it goes full circle. All the cool girls are in mom jeans. Anyways, they’re high-waisted and tuck in my gut.’
‘Yeah, I noticed the gut.’
This time she does hit me. My memory does not come flooding back. What I do want to say though is that she kinda reminds me of Mum. But if I say that, she’ll kill me. She’ll push me off the bed and say it was an accident.
A knock on the door gets our attention and Meg welcomes the people in. We know them? It’s a man and a woman, a couple?
‘Hi! We’re mates of Lucy’s. I live with her. I’m Cass. Your sister down the way told us to come on in.’
Cass is busty and brunette and her companion has boy-band curtains and holds a bouquet of flowers in his hands. Curtains made a comeback too?
‘I’m Darren. Lucy? Hi, how are you feeling?’
Christ, I have no idea who they are. I study them both. I can’t quite tell if his chinos and Converse with the white socks are a complete fashion fail or if that has also come around again. He has tears in his eyes. Did I break your heart? Or are you in shock at my appearance? It’s a trackies and vest thing with no bra. It’s a look.
‘I bought you mochi. I had no idea what to bring and I thought, Lucy likes mochi,’ Cass spurts out, with a bag in her hands. ‘Like, nice ones from a Japanese bakery. Maybe I should have brought doughnuts but I just didn’t know what to bring.’
‘Thanks,’ I say, turning to Meg.
‘You have no idea who we are, do you?’ Darren says, studying my eyes.
‘I’m really sorry. Did we go to university together or something?’
Cass looks a bit taken aback but Darren smiles. ‘We all worked together, gravitated towards each other as mates. We went on holiday several years ago to Ibiza.’
‘I’ve been to Ibiza?’ I enquire.
‘If anything you are well remembered in Ibiza. We went on a yoga retreat and got kicked out because you laughed through all the sound baths and then got your revenge by stealing one of their goats.’
‘What did I do with the goat?’ I ask.
‘You called him Greg. We sold him to a family in town who I suspect ate him but hey…’
‘That’s awful,’ I reply.
‘It wasn’t one of your best ideas…’
I smile at him, trying to work out if there’s a thing here. Cass clings onto him, almost scared.
‘We’re sorry too. We were there that day. We should have made sure you got to that job safely or done things differently. We were still at the venue, someone told us there was an accident on the bridge. Someone dressed up as Elsa on a bike. And then Darren realised it was you. He ran. He actually ran across that bridge when he realised…’
‘You were the one who called Beth…’ Meg suddenly realises who they are.
Darren nods his head, obviously taken back by the memory of it all, and grabs my hand.
‘I can’t believe you got on a bike, you silly tosser…’ he says.
It’d be nice to say it feels familiar or there is some cosmic connection here but it just feels like a hand, a hand that cares at least.
‘Oh, we’ve also got you a gift from the Dickweasel… He’s our boss, of sorts,’ Cass explains, reaching into her handbag and pulling out a gift and an envelope. ‘And the day of the accident, you did a party for a girl called Ophelia. She wrote you a card and sent it to the agency. I may have had a read and a cry. I’ll leave that here…’
I study both of them again, hoping some recollection of who they are may return to me. Nothing. ‘I’m sorry I can’t…’
‘It’s fine,’ Darren explains. ‘You’re alive. That’s what matters.’
‘Do I live with both of you?’ I ask.
‘Just me,’ Cass says. ‘And six other people. It’s a bit of a commune vibe, truth be told, which is why your sisters weren’t sure if it was the right thing for you to come back straight away.’
I nod. It was agreed yesterday that I would soon be discharged but I couldn’t go back to a house that was unfamiliar. In that sense, I need to return to the only place I know, 25 Elm Road, the house I grew up in.
‘I packed your stuff for you and dropped it off this morning. And Pussy, too. I don’t think your mum was expecting Pussy.’
‘Pussy?’ I ask awkwardly, blushing to hear her talk so frankly.
‘She’s your cat. She’s a cat you adopted…’ Cass shows me a picture on her magic phone. It’s of me in bed, kissing the top of a ginger cat’s head except the cat doesn’t look best pleased by this. She looks quite pissed off by the physical contact. ‘I mean… come back when the time is right. That house isn’t the same without you. And any time you need either of us then you know where we are, yeah?’ She bends down to hug me and I hug back. She really has quite the rack, there’s some cushioning in that hug.
‘What are they? Like, double G?’ I ask.
Darren laughs. Cass gives me a look like her boobs may have triggered a memory. They haven’t.
‘They are. You groped them all the time. You told me to go into porn…’
‘You’re in porn?’
‘No,’ she cackles, looking deeply into my eyes. ‘You’re still in there though, aren’t you?’
I never really left. I just don’t know who half of these people are and that’s starting to upset me because they look like fun and it feels like I’ve missed out.
‘Can we come see you at your mum’s house?’ Darren asks.
‘I’m sure Mum will be fine with it, especially if you bring mochi,’ Meg adds.
There are final hugs, thanks and exchanges of telephone numbers before they take their leave and I’m left staring at a bunch of tulips on my side table.
‘They’re your favourite flower,’ Meg tells me.
‘I have a favourite flower?’ I ask.
‘That’s something that seems to happen when you become older. I’m a fan of hydrangeas. You like the comedy element of tulips.’
I look at her blankly.
‘Two lips. Like a vagina,’ she says in embarrassed tones.
‘I’m glad I still remained mildly hilarious in the last ten years then?’ I mutter.
Meg smiles.
‘Sometimes the joke wears thin. But half the time, it’s actually needed. The funny. Especially in the last two or three years. Sometimes it’s been hard to find anything to smile about.’
This is something that’s also been drip-fed to me. Another thing I’ve erased from memory is that in the last couple of years, there were moments when the world shut down for a while, a time when we wore masks and kept a distance from each other.
‘You kept everything buoyant in that time, Lucy. You’d do family Zooms in fancy dress to entertain the kids. When Mum was crying at how much she missed us, you’d crack an inappropriate joke about flatulence. When I was exhausted and anxious, you told me I was dramatic and that I looked like shit and would distract me with stories about a man you’d met on Tinder who’d catfished you and told you he was Tom Hiddleston.’
‘I didn’t understand half of that last sentence. Tinder? Catfish? Tom who?’
Meg just laughs in reply and cradles my broken head in her hands. ‘We have so much to fill you in on.’
‘Did I sleep with that Darren guy?’
‘Most likely.’
‘Was that my bar? That feels like a semi-low bar.’
‘No comment. Open your gift and your letter.’
My fingers claw at the paper of the gift from the suspiciously named Dickweasel, which reveals itself to be old lady soaps. The envelope, however, is a lot classier. Inside is a thank you note unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. It seems to be personalised and on weighted card like a wedding invitation.
Dear Lucy,
I hope you don’t mind me writing to you. It’s Ophelia and you were at my party a few weeks ago. I wanted to say thank you for helping me when I was upset. I don’t know what you told my mum but we don’t see the Stantons any more so something you did worked. Thank you for showing me how a princess should be and giving me all your good advice and a bit of your lip gloss. I think you’re awesome.
Ophelia xx
‘I wonder what advice I gave her,’ I say, looking down at the message, admiring the penmanship.
‘You probably told her to punch a boy.’
‘I hope I did.’
At that point, Emma enters the room, looking flustered and possibly a little angry.
‘Do you know the waiting list that Igor has? He is one of the best in the business. You could at least try and be amiable in some capacity. I pulled so many strings to ensure you got to work with him.’
I glare back at her. ‘He’s evil. I don’t like him.’
‘His methods work.’
‘But I have to look at his awful mullet hair and I would argue that is impeding my recovery time.’
Meg comes over to put an arm around Emma to calm her down, which I resent immediately. I was the one hit by the bus.
‘Was she always this argumentative?’ Meg says, studying my face.
They stand there already knowing the answer. ‘I’m a delight and you know it.’
‘Igor is coming back tomorrow before we discharge you and I’ve booked him in for home visits for three months. You can grow to love him.’
‘I hate you, too.’
‘I know. It’s going to be a dream living with you again.’
I look over at them as she says that. The one thing I’ve learnt is that Emma has a big old pad now she’s a doctor. I lived there once apparently when she was going through her divorce but I thought the agreement was that I was going to live with Mum and Dad. I mean, I’ll move in with her if she has the better TV packages. Meg reads the confusion on my face.
‘So, we were chatting to your doctors and a few consultants who’ve suggested that we should try and surround you with as much familiarity as possible. It’s why we suggested you don’t go back to your commune, house share place,’ Emma explains. ‘I went there to suss it out. There are no stairs in the place, Lucy. You have to access some floors by ladder. I counted five doors that were batik curtains hammered into the wall. I’m not sure it’s safe.’
I shrug as none of that computes in my head anyway. ‘What are you saying then?’
‘We’re all going to move in with you. Back to Elm Road, all five of us and Mum and Dad, like the old days, and see if that works in jogging your memory. It won’t be for long because kids and work and stuff but we will be one unit together again,’ Emma explains, albeit with not a lot of enthusiasm.
I, however, grin to hear it. It feels like what I need to dig me out of this. My sisters are the four people in the world that I love and trust the most. To have their collective knowledge at my feet feels like I can at least fill in major gaps from the last ten years. ‘Really?’
Meg nods, a small furrow to her brow.
‘It’ll be kinda awesome. Like a giant sleepover,’ I say.
‘It’ll be a group of thirty-something women living at home again, having Mum wash our pants and arguing over hairballs in the bath,’ Meg replies.
‘But you’d do it for me?’ I ask them.
They both nod. It’s a reluctant nod. One I’m familiar with.
Can you stay in tonight, girls, and help us look after Lucy?
Do we have to?
Yes, she’s your sister and it’s what sisters do.
But she’s so annoying and I have a life, you know?
And she’s a part of that life too. You’ll need her too, one day. Trust me.