The Legacy of Lucy Harte: A poignant, life-affirming novel that will make you laugh and cry. Emma Heatherington
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I thought I saw you once on a train to Dublin.
You were about six years old. You were slurping on an ice-cream, your face covered in chocolate sprinkles and you were laughing so hard at the little boy beside you that I thought you were going to choke.
I thought I saw you a few years later, but this time you were a curly-haired toddler in a park throwing a high-pitched tantrum when you couldn’t reach the swing. A handsome man scooped you up in big strong arms and took you to a pram, where you kicked and screamed, your little arms stretched out, your hands opening and closing and reaching back towards the play area.
I thought I saw you as a lanky teenager one sunny afternoon when I was in London as you shopped for clothes with your mother, arguing with her over a pair of ripped jeans versus a pretty floral dress.
I think I see you all the time, even though I have no idea what you look like, who you are or what your story might have been.
You are inside me. You are part of me. You are within my every move.
I feel like I know you, Lucy Harte, I really do.
But you will never, ever know me.
Monday 10th April
I am dying.
I am drowning, or else I am having a heart attack, but either way, whatever it is, I can’t breathe and I’m definitely dying this time. How ironic it would be for me to die today, of all days…
Oh God, please help me.
I sit up on my brand-new bed and automatically fall back again, my squinted eyes unable to open just yet and my shaking body needing much more time to recuperate from my latest ‘party for one’.
This is no ordinary hangover. Hell, no. My head is like a bowling ball, I can’t open my dried-out mouth, the phone is ringing off the hook and I wish whoever it is would just stop already because I don’t want to talk to anyone.
Not Flo, not my parents, not my boss and definitely not my excuse for a husband.
I really can’t listen to lectures or ‘I told you so’, not today, not today of all days, please no. Plus… I can’t remember where I was or what I did last night and I’m afraid. I am so afraid that if I answer the phone I will hear what I did last night and I can’t face up to that truth ever.
Did I do something wrong? Did I leave my apartment? I can’t remember!
No, no I didn’t. I definitely didn’t. Not this time.
With relief I get glimpses of flashbacks of turning off the TV, stumbling into bed in my pyjamas (always a good sign when you wake up wearing pyjamas), so I can’t have done that much damage, can I?
Unless I was texting everyone about how miserable I am or sharing my suffering on Facebook. Please no! Or even worse, I could have been texting him.
Ah Jesus! Oh why do I do the things I do? It wasn’t me, it was the wine. Oh, for God’s sake Maggie get it together!
But I can’t get it together and the phone won’t stop ringing! Why can’t they leave me alone? I don’t want to talk to anyone and I just can’t bring myself to look at it to see who has woken me from my deep, drowning, drunken sleep so I shove the phone from its usual perch on the bedside locker and feel instant relief when it hits the bedroom floor in silence and falls into three pieces – the front, the back and then the battery.
There now. All is quiet at last.
But the constant pounding of my head from dehydration, and the voices of my nearest and dearest echoing, remind me of how, no matter how quiet it is here, I am so not at peace at all these days.
‘Are you sure you’re okay, Maggie? We’re really worried you aren’t able to cope with this stress.’ (My mother/father – delete as appropriate.)
‘Why don’t you come and stay with me for a while? I have a spare room?’ (My best friend, Flo.)
‘Are you on some sort of death wish or what? Get a grip, Maggie!’ (My ever-sympathetic brother, John Joe.)
‘What? Ah Maggie! Why do you need to work from home again?’ (My boss/colleagues.)
‘You are going to have to move on, Mags! Get over it! Get over me and you!’ (My husband, I mean, ex-husband, Jeff.)
‘You really need to stop drinking so much. It’s not helping’ (All of the above.)
I really should stop drinking. I really should stop avoiding them all.
I really should just answer the phone and face up to their concerns, or at least reassure them that, yes, I am certainly having a shit time coping with this whole marriage break- up thing and, yes, I know my job is suffering and, yes, I need to pull myself together and get back on track, but I’m not just ready to. Not just yet.
Ah, sweet Jesus, not the landline now too! Whoever it is they are pretty bloody persistent!
‘Stop! STOP!’ I shout into the emptiness of my new apartment.
Its IKEA shininess and anonymity makes me want to smash it up and crawl out of my skin or at least under the covers, where I don’t have to be constantly reminded