Page 26 of I Love You, I Love You, I Love You

‘Thanks.’

‘Anyway, you should be haps.’ Not Mum abbreviating. ‘You have just brought a – well, maybe not a house – but something. You’re a homeowner, Ella. And that means you can take back your old shit that’s filling up my spare room.’

The old shit Mum’s referring to are my boxes that I temporarily left at the house with the hollow promise to pick up once we’d moved. Identity cargo – school books, photographs, notebooks – that I don’t have the physical or psychological capacity for in my own home. Stuff I can’t bring myself to throw away but also stuff I’d quite happily never see again. I was hoping the boxes would just disappear in Mum’s walls, with the other junk.

‘Just throw it all in the recycling.’

‘Ella? They’re your memories!’ Mum says.

‘URRRRR. Fine.’

‘I can make you a Bloody Mary if it helps?’ she offers.

‘I’m not drinking.’

‘Since when?’ Mum sounds surprised.

I pull out my phone and show them my app, the timer continuously counting the seconds. ‘Fourteen days as of today, actually.’ Come to think of it, maybe that’s why I’m so cranky. I’m not an alcoholic but doing life raw is a lot.

‘Mia’s wedding tipped her over the edge,’ Violet says. ‘Well done, El.’

‘So can you, please, at LEAST start making food?’

Mum shrugs like we’ll see.

As I climb the stairs towards the spare room, Violet pushes her face into the banister and says, ‘Pssttt. Shall I knock us up some pasta?’

‘It wouldn’t hurt,’ I say.

I slump down before the squirming bag of dust-covered snakes. CDs. A signed school shirt. A Groovy Chick notebook opens with the line My mum doesn’t understand me hardcore. See? Pure poetry. What purpose will I ever have for my first Barbie or this unbrushed Ginger Spice wig? This red wine-stained Beetlejuice costume? Or this embroidered waistcoat I got in Mexico that I can’t even do up? But there are photos of us as kids, birthday cards, my nanna’s white clay sun brooch, the bracelet my parents got me for my thirteenth birthday, the evil eye necklace I got in Greece, Mum’s charm bracelet, a postcard from my sister’s summer camp saying I DON’T WISH YOU WERE HERE, LOVE YOU X that makes me laugh out loud, school certificates. The receipts of life. Photos from my disposable camera of Aoife, Bianca, Ronks and me. One of Mia and me in our production of Little Shop of Horrors. Everyone fought so hard to be Audrey. I just wanted to be Audrey II. She’ll find that funny. I snap photos on my phone to send on to them later. The books of poems I wrote as a kid bursting with notes, photos, pressed flowers.

My scrapbook drums like the Jumanji game – opening it is alarming. It’s like a scary encyclopaedia dedicated to one strand of knowledge: Lowe. Wristbands from his gigs, ticket stubs, cut-outs from press pieces in local magazines, a set list. I really kept train tickets? Something buried shifts inside. His letters pour out, one after the after, at least twenty. I kept them all. I open one and quickly cast my eyes over the words but it’s too much. His handwriting tasers me. And then there are the tapes. More than I thought. We had so much in common. I forget what that’s like, being with Jackson; my references seem to fly over his head. He says things like ‘They were a bit after my time’ about Blink 182. His North Star, Oasis, of whom he takes complete ownership.

I don’t even own a tape player any more, and I won’t have space for them in the new place anyway. Besides, it’s just weird and unfair to keep them in the house with Jackson. Even keeping them at all feels inappropriate. It’s not like Lowe will have kept my tapes, my letters. I collect it all and throw the lump down into the recycling bag, where the tape cases clatter. Already thinking about how they’ll feel, out in the cold, flecked in rain, sharing a bin with the used teabags and apple cores of life.

After a bowl of Vi’s tremendous pasta, I’m feeling more myself and retrieve the soaking wet bag, once again looking for the clues in his letters and song choices.

Wait, did he put bloody Goo Goo Dolls on there? Nirvana’s ‘Heart-Shaped Box’?

Jesus Christ.

And the guy didn’t LOVE me? Please!

Too late for that now.

A photograph rolls out, from my eighteenth birthday, his arm around me, cheek to cheek, pure happiness and cheesy grins. I’d tonged my hair that day. I can’t help but smile at us. I could send a photo of it to him. But would that be weird after ten years? I’d only regret it. Best to not open up that box of us and to keep the lid closed.

Several years ago, just before one of Jackson and my first dates, I was shaken up because some journalist had the audacity to turn up out of the blue asking if I was Lowe Archer’s ex-girlfriend and would I be interested in selling a story. This was when he was everywhere and the press couldn’t get enough. Lowe had mentioned me in the sleeve of his album, something about us being close, and the press had probably worked their way through the names listed, hoping they’d eventually find a loose brick in the wall who would speak and tell it all. Photos were leaked of us together as kids. I didn’t even know he’d thanked me then, although it was a bittersweet surprise, albeit surreal, to find that information out from a greasy journalist. I slammed the door in their face and hid under my duvet.

Flocks of Lowe Archer mega-fans then went through a phase of swarming my tiny book events in bookshops, pretending they liked my poetry but really expecting Lowe to show up to support me. It would be a clever way of cornering him. Easier than loitering at a chance hotel lobby to catch a glimpse. Sometimes they would be so excited and giddy, they’d even convince me that Lowe was about to walk through the door of that tiny bookshop in South East London, that damp basement café in Soho, that empty library in Southend. But obviously he never did. Mum said I should have used it to my advantage: Might help you sell some books for once, then we could do up the kitchen! But I got anxious. How did the journalist get my address? I worried about packs of crazed fans, stalking me, kidnapping me for ransom. Keeping me tied up in a cellar where I’d have to eat Pot Noodle on repeat and I’d have to sweet talk them to make sure they got me the beef and tomato flavour until Lowe paid up. Then I fretted about how much I was worth to him, even though I knew Lowe would never come – he’d be advised by his team not to pay or else the kidnappers would just keep kidnapping. And so I’d be dumped on the street corner because I’d annoy them to the point of surrender.

Dark times. He’s the rich one; he should be paying for my therapy.

I tried to cancel on Jackson that night but he said we could just have one drink and see how it went. Now I think about it, it’s kind of Lowe’s fault I’m even with Jackson. Then again, it wasn’t exactly Lowe’s fault that Jackson and I did all that snogging. Then again and again, why am I saying fault like it’s a bad thing?

Chapter 13

Then

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