‘You were really kind to me,’ she says, twisting her lips about, slightly embarrassed.
‘I’m glad. Thank you for your note. You have wonderful handwriting. Did you get good birthday presents?’
‘I got a pony.’
‘Oh. A real one?’
‘Yes,’ she says hesitantly. I sense she didn’t ask for the pony.
‘If I had a pony, I’d call it Tony after one of my best mates.’
She giggles. I wish I remembered you, Ophelia. You seem lovely. I hope I did a good job at your party. Cinderella doesn’t really do much except clean and lose her shoes.
‘How did you fall off your trapeze?’ she asks.
‘Well, I have a partner called Igor and he didn’t catch me.’
Ophelia feigns shock. ‘That’s awful. What a terrible trapeze artist. Did they fire him from the circus?’ she asks.
‘They fed him to the lions.’
‘Poor Igor.’
‘What about me? He dropped me. I landed like a sack of potatoes,’ I say dramatically.
I love that she’s still in on the joke but the look on her face changes a little as she catches sight of the scar on my head again.
‘I’m glad you’re OK, Lucy.’
‘So am I. How crazy I get to bump into you, in here of all places as well.’
‘I always thought princesses shower in waterfalls with birds and squirrels.’
I nod. ‘Only at the weekends though. I come here for the free towels. Now lean back, your fringe is still full of bubbles, lovely.’
Tony. Tony. Tony. There’s a strange anxiety in my stomach as I sit in this pub waiting for Tony and I’m not sure if it’s because I have no recollection of him at all or because of what he’s going to tell me about my life. I’m not sure of the politically correct way of saying these things but Tony is a dwarf. He’s smaller than the average guy. I can imagine that didn’t faze me at all, I wouldn’t have had any problem with him being my friend, but there was obviously a time when we also were intimate, which intrigues me. Facebook has been my friend here as I’ve been able to examine all the pictures of us, all the drunken nights out we had, times when we worked together too. The one thing that separates him from Josh perhaps is that we still seem to be friends, we still chat and party together, and any romantic split was amicable at least and didn’t involve my sisters and me forming some sort of prison-girl-gang in a nightclub.
I peel the sticker off my beer bottle and watch with curiosity some of the other people in this place. The beginnings of some lads’ night involving the football on a television, the after-work drinkers and a man who’s sitting on his own, as if he’s pondering the value of his life and whether he should go back home now or later when his wife is in bed and he doesn’t have to talk to her. He gives me a cursory glance, probably wondering why I’m here on my own too.Poor love looks like she’s been dumped or waiting on a date that’s never going to happen.
‘Lucy…’ a voice suddenly says from behind my booth.
I turn around. ‘Tony?’
He laughs at the question mark at the end of that sentence. ‘I seriously did not think it was true.’
He searches my eyes and I don’t quite know where to look. He’s tattooed and he’s wearing a baseball cap but there’s a warmth in his demeanour that makes me trust his smile. I’d remember him. I really think I would. I smile back when I realise we’re just staring each other out. He puts a bottle of beer down to the table and jumps on the seat next to me. I don’t know what I was expecting. The pictures showed me someone who is obviously cooler than most. His Facebook profile is filled with experiences and nights out, holidays and parties, but there’s no perceived awkwardness about his differences. He puts his arms out to hug me and give me a kiss on the cheek and I reciprocate. The man sitting across from me now has a reason to stay and watch. The date has appeared and this is not who he was expecting at all.
‘I feel like you’re slowly taking me in…’ Tony jests, tapping my beer bottle and then taking a swig.
‘I am. Kinda…’
He sits there, pulling different poses so I can examine him from many different angles. Hand to the chin, blue steel, flexing his arms. I laugh.
‘So in your mind, I don’t exist. You’re just a seventeen-year-old Lucy meeting me for the first time…’
I nod.
‘I can’t believe it. I’m so sorry I never came to the hospital to visit. I was in Rome. Darren called me to say what had happened.’
