NATALIE LUCAS
Sixteen, Sixty-One
A memoir
authonomy
by HarperCollinsPublishers
For Trish, who saved my life
Table of Contents
14th May 2007
Dear Matthew
Dear Mr Wright
Dear Albert Sumac
Dear Bastard
Dear Ghost,
My therapist keeps asking what I’d say to you if I had the chance. I wonder this myself: what will I say if we bump into each other when I return home this summer? I see your grey eyes coolly inspecting my appearance, noticing I’ve put on weight and look plainer with my hair this length. I imagine you composing an email after the event, though you no longer have my address, so perhaps it’ll be a letter. It will tell me I’ve turned into my mother or that I was cruel to return or that you’re shocked by how evil I’ve become. The worst thing you could write would be that you’re proud of me.
None of this will have been provoked. I see myself still moving on the same strip of pavement, heading for a collision, and I see the moment of horrified surprise that will wash your tanned face of its careful persona, a flash of reality, followed by your collecting yourself, straightening your spine and telling me how nice it is to see me, how was studying abroad?
But I cannot see my own face in this. I cannot form a response, hysterical or otherwise. All I can picture are fantasies of keying your car and smearing pig’s blood on your door, of scratching the letters P-A-E-D-O on your bonnet and hurling bricks through your French windows. Sometimes I scare myself thinking I actually would post a petrol bomb through your letterbox if I could be sure Annabelle was out. And if I wasn’t a wimpy English Literature student with no idea how to make a petrol bomb.
I imagine you now, reading this and laughing. This means you’ve won, doesn’t it? You are still inside me. At sixteen, you filled me with love and that was bad, but now you fill me with hate and this is worse. I hate that you have this power still. Are you flattered? Maybe this is better for you: most people can be loved, there is nothing extraordinary in that. Even the plebs you scorn have their Valentine’s cards and wedding bands. But how many people are utterly despised? How many people are in someone else’s thoughts every day and in their nightmares every night? You should be proud: you’ve