Remember Me?

And my boyfriend stood me up last night. And no one’s come to visit me, I suddenly realize. Where’s all my anxious friends and family, sitting around the bed and holding my hand?

Well, I suppose Mum’s been at the funeral with Amy. And Loser Dave can sod off. But Fi and the others-where are they? When I think how we all went to visit Debs when she had her ingrown toenail removed. We all practically camped on the floor, and brought her Starbucks and magazines, and treated her to a pedicure when it was healed. Just for a toenail.

Whereas I’ve been unconscious, with an IV drip and everything. But obviously no one cares.

Great. Just bloody…brilliant.

Another fat tear trickles down my face, just as the door opens and Maureen comes in again. She’s holding a tray, and a plastic bag with Lexi Smart written on it in thick marker.

“Oh dear!” she says as she sees me wiping my eyes. “Is the pain very bad?” She hands me a tablet and a little cup of water. “This should help.”

“Thanks very much.” I gulp down the pill. “But it’s not that. It’s my life.” I spread my arms hopelessly. “It’s total rubbish, from start to finish.”

“Of course it’s not,” Maureen says reassuringly. “Things might look bad-”

“Believe me, they are bad.”

“I’m sure-”

“My so-called career is going nowhere, and my boyfriend stood me up last night, and I haven’t got any money. And my sink keeps leaking rancid brown water into the flat below,” I add, remembering with a shudder. “I’ll probably get sued by my neighbors. And my dad just died.”

There’s silence. Maureen looks flummoxed.

“Well, that does all sound rather…tricky,” she says at last. “But I expect things will soon turn around for the better.”

“That’s what my friend Fi said!” I suddenly have a memory of Fi’s eyes shining in the rain. “And look, I end up in hospital!” I make a despairing gesture at myself. “How is this turning around for the better?”

“I’m…not sure, dear.” Maureen’s eyes are darting helplessly from side to side.

“Every time I think everything’s crap…it just gets even crapper!” I blow my nose and heave a massive sigh. “Wouldn’t it be great if just once, just one time, life fell magically into place?”

“Well, we can all hope, can’t we?” Maureen gives me a sympathetic smile and holds out her hand for the cup.

I pass it back-and as I do so, I suddenly notice my nails. Bloody hell. What on earth-

My nails have always been bitten-down stumps that I try to hide. But these look amazing. All neat and varnished pale pink…and long. I blink at them in astonishment, trying to work out what’s happened. Did we go for a late-night manicure last night or something and I’ve forgotten? Did I get acrylics? They must have some brilliant new technique, because I can’t see the join or anything.

“Your handbag’s in here, by the way,” Maureen adds, putting the plastic bag on my bed. “I’ll just go and get you that juice.”

“Thanks.” I look at the plastic bag in surprise. “And thanks for the bag. I thought it had been nicked.”

That’s something good, anyway, to have got my bag back. With any luck my phone will still be charged up and I can send a few texts… As Maureen opens the door to leave, I reach into the shopping bag-and pull out a smart Louis Vuitton tote with calfskin handles, all glossy and expensive-looking.

Oh, great. I sigh in disappointment. This isn’t my bag. They’ve got me mixed up with someone else. Like I, Lexi Smart, would possess a Louis Vuitton bag.

“Excuse me, this bag isn’t mine,” I call out, but the door has already closed.

I gaze at the Louis Vuitton wistfully for a while, wondering who it belongs to. Some rich girl down the corridor, must be. At last I drop it onto the floor, flop back on my pillows, and close my eyes.

Chapter 2

I wake up to find chinks of morning light edging underneath the drawn curtains. A glass of orange juice is on the nightstand and Maureen is bustling about in the corner of the room. The IV drip has magically disappeared, and I feel a lot more normal.

“Hi, Maureen,” I say, my voice scratchy. “What time is it?” She turns around, her eyebrows raised.

“You remember me?”

“Of course,” I say in surprise. “We met last night. We talked.”

“Excellent! That shows you’ve come out of post-traumatic amnesia. Don’t look alarmed!” she adds, smiling. “It’s a normal stage of confusion after a head injury.”

Instinctively I put my hand up to my head and feel a dressing. Wow. I must really have whacked it on those steps.

“You’re doing well.” She pats my shoulder. “I’ll get you some fresh orange juice.”

There’s a knock at the door. It opens and a tall, slim woman in her fifties comes in. She has blue eyes, high cheekbones, and wavy, graying blond hair in straggly layers. She’s wearing a red quilted waistcoat over a long printed dress and an amber necklace, and she’s holding a paper bag.

It’s Mum. I mean, I’m ninety-nine percent certain it is. I don’t know why I’m even hesitating.

“The heating in this place!” she exclaims in her familiar thin, little-girl voice.

Okay, it’s definitely Mum.

“I feel quite faint!” She fans herself. “And I had such a stressful journey…” She glances toward the bed almost as an afterthought, and says to Maureen, “How is she?”

Maureen smiles. “Lexi’s much better today. Far less confused than she was yesterday.”

“Thank goodness for that!” Mum lowers her voice a fraction. “It was like talking to a lunatic yesterday, or some…retarded person.”

“Lexi isn’t a lunatic,” says Maureen evenly, “and she can understand everything you say.”

The truth is, I’m barely listening. I can’t help staring at Mum. What’s wrong with her? She looks different. Thi

Is she ill?

No. I’d know about it if she was ill. But honestly, she seems to have aged overnight. I’ll buy her some Crème de la Mer for Christmas, I resolve.

“Here you are, darling,” she says in overly loud, clear tones. “It’s me. Your mo-ther.” She hands me the paper bag, which contains a bottle of shampoo, and drops a kiss on my cheek. As I inhale her familiar smell of dogs and tea-rose perfume, it’s ridiculous, but I feel tears rising. I hadn’t realized quite how marooned I felt.

“Hi, Mum.” I reach to hug her-but my arms hit thin air. She’s already turned away and is consulting her tiny gold watch.

“I can’t stay more than a minute, I’m afraid,” she says with a kind of tension, as though if she lingers too long the world will explode. “I’m due to see a specialist about Roly.”

“Roly?”

“From Smoky’s latest litter, darling.” Mum shoots me a glance of reproach. “You remember little Roly.”

I don’t know how Mum expects me to keep track of all her dogs’ names. There’s at least twenty of them and they’re all whippets, and every time I go home there seems to be another one. We were always an animal-free family-until the summer when I was seventeen. While on holiday in Wales, Mum bought a whippet puppy on a whim. And overnight it triggered this total mania.

I do like dogs. Kind of. Except when six of them jump up at you every time you open the front door. And whenever you try to sit down on a sofa or a chair, there’s a dog on it. And all the biggest presents under the Christmas tree are for the dogs.

Mum has taken a bottle of Rescue Remedy out of her bag. She squeezes three drops onto her tongue, then breathes out sharply. “The traffic coming here was terrible,” she says. “People in London are so aggressive. I had a very unpleasant altercation with a man in a van.”

“What happened?” I say, already knowing that Mum will shake her head.

“Let’s not talk about it, darling.” She winces, as though being asked to recall her days of terror in the concentration camp. “Let’s just forget about it.”