“OK.” Abby nodded but it didn’t make her feel any better. “But I don’t see how knowing this is supposed to help me.”
“Well, for one thing we now know that the quality of your memories are dependent on continuity and reinforcement. And you’ve already come up with the means to give it both of those things.”
“I have?”
“Yes.” Hannah said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “With your diaries and photographs and all the mementos you saved over the last few months. Abby, by deciding to make a record of your day to day life and all the major events as they happen, you’ve actually given yourself the means to hold onto all the important memories and experiences–and ensure that they’re never really lost for good. While we all do this to a certain extent, you’ve actually taken it to another level.”
“I’m still not sure…?”
“Take for example photographs, we all tend to take snaps of important events and celebrations so we won’t forget them, when really there is no rational reason for us to do so. But since the beginning of time, people have sought to hold onto their memories by some other means; it’s some inbuilt instinct of ours as a species. Actually, there’s a huge multi-million pound industry based around that very need. Souvenirs,” she clarified, when Abby looked blank.
“So you’re saying that it’s OK if some of my memories fade away because I’ve saved them somewhere else anyway?”
“I’m just saying that’s one way to look at it. While your memory will inevitably end up losing some things, you also have the means to hold onto the more important ones.”
While, thinking about it like that made Abby feel a little bit better, it still raised some other, perhaps more troubling questions. For one, was this the worst it was going to get, in that she’d be able to retain information about an event or experience for about a week, but unless she’d kept an account of it, it could very well fade away forever? And if so, did this mean she’d have to spend the rest of her life living vicariously through her diaries?
***
June 14th, Dublin
It’s hard to believe how close me and Finn have become in the space of just a few weeks.
And while I truly honestly can’t recall meeting him those other times, it now feels as though I’ve known him forever.
Cliched I know, but in this case it’s true.
After a long chat that first (or should I say third!) time we met, he called over a few days later to help me, as he described it ‘fill in the blanks’.
I’m so sad I can’t remember our day in New York – it sounds wonderful, especially the Christmas tree and the lunch in Central Park. It all comes across like such a fairytale that if I didn’t know better, or trust him so completely I don’t think I would have believed it. Still, I think he’s probably embellished a few things here and there – just to make himself sound better.
Not that he has to try too hard.
But one of the times he came over, he gave me the most awful shock. I opened the door to find him and a huge dog at my front door! Naturally I nearly had a heart attack when I saw it, but then, a very weird thing happened.
Catching sight of the dog – which in fairness didn’t move a muscle and instead of barging in and jumping on top of me sat patiently on its hindquarters– I felt an unbelievably strong sense of déjà vu.
“This is Lucy,” Finn said. “You two have met before and I know she’s anxious to make sure you’re OK.”
“We have?” But some instinct deep down told me that there was no need to be afraid of this particular dog, which meant that he must have been telling the truth and that because we’d met before, I knew I could trust this one.
This was weird and more than a little scary. Like everyone I’ve experienced déjà vu many times over the years but this was the first time there might actually be a real explanation behind it. So while I’d certainly never been as near to any other dog without seizing up in fear, in this one’s company I felt almost relaxed.
Finn kept going on about how the dog ‘knew’ that I was scared of her, which was why she seemed extra gentle around me, and also because she was there when I fainted in St Stephens Green and so was a little overprotective of me. I still can’t believe I fainted in public like that …how embarrassing!
But Lucy the dog is kind of cute, especially the way she so obviously dotes on Finn, and I have to admit I was touched by the way she seems to want to help me get over my fear. The second time he brought her for a visit, she kept coming over to where I was sitting and leaning against me.
“She wants you to pet her,” Finn informed me.
While I wasn’t too keen, I kept thinking about that entry on my list – ‘Face my Fears’ and how it had served me well up to now. So sure enough, I moved my hand down to rest on the back of the dog’s head and gave it a little rub. And as I did, I was amazed (and actually quite pleased) to see her huge tail begin moving from side to side.
Yeah, I think Lucy is definitely growing on me.
So how do I feel now that I know my memory is really banjaxed? Terrified mostly, but as Hannah keeps saying, at least I’ve established some plausible way around it. It is a bit surreal having to take time out every day to keep a really thorough record of ordinary day-to-day things like I’m doing now.
When I was doing it for Vegas and London and everything it didn’t seem so … necessary. But if this is what I have to do to lead a normal life then it really isn’t too much to ask, is it?
And despite what Mum thinks, I know I can live a normal life. She, Caroline and the others admitted to me that they had their suspicions over the last few months, but how was I to know that George Michael is an international superstar and that I’d had a crush on him since I was ten? Something I still can’t figure out because when I googled him recently, I thought he looked like some kind of ultra-tanned, Greek waiter!
But who knows? Maybe he sings better than he looks? I’ll find out when I go to the concert later in the year. I have to go now, seeing as Claire and Zach went to so much trouble to get the tickets. Anyway Erin is a big a fan too so no doubt she’ll be happy to go along with me.
So as far as I can figure out, my only blips were not remembering learning how to play the piano, forgetting my crush on an eighties singer, and not remembering to put sugar in my coffee – things that aren’t exactly worthy of major panic, are they?
Chapter 27
“Can I ask you something?”
It was now over a month since Abby discovered the truth about her condition and since then Finn had spent almost every waking moment by her side. Now she was making coffee for them both at her flat when he broached a question. She opened the freezer and took out a bar of Dairy Milk, but Finn didn’t bat an eyelid at this, having grown used to it already.
“Sure, go ahead,” she said, handing him a steaming mug and a piece of frozen chocolate before taking a sip of her own.
“Did you remember to put the sugar in?” Finn asked and with a start, Abby realised that maddeningly, she had in fact forgotten this again. Well done him for noticing!
“So what did you want to ask me?” she prompted, having added the requisite two spoons of sugar, before joining him on the sofa.
“Well, be sure and tell me if I’m being nosy, but remember that time I came to tell you about … everything?”
It was sweet that weeks later he was still embarrassed about having to put her through all that, when the truth was, he’d actually done her a favour. Granted it didn’t feel like that initially, and while she had of course at first been devastated, her subsequent sessions with Hannah, and the psychologist’s continued insistence that she could work around it, had lifted her spirits considerably.
As had Finn’s visits.
“Of course, what about it?”
“Well, beforehand you gave me a list of things to tell you, personal stuff that would help prove that I’d met you before and that I knew what I was talking about.”
Sh
e nodded. “Go on.”
“Well,” he said, and Abby had to smile at his gentle, almost hesitant tone, “one of the things was that you wished some guy had seen you in a dress you tried on in London?”
Abby now squirmed with embarrassment at the mention of this, something so private and personal that she was almost sorry she’d shared it with him, even though at the time, it had been for a very good reason. “That’s right.”
“Do you mind my asking who this Kieran guy is, and what exactly did you want to prove him wrong about?”
Abby bit her lip. She supposed that telling him wouldn’t really matter; after all he didn’t know Kieran or how broken-hearted she’d been after him, and at the same time it might be no harm to finally get this off her chest.
“Kieran is my ex,” she said quietly, and Finn nodded as if he’d guessed as much.
“Things ended pretty badly between us, well bad for me anyway,” she added with a nervous laugh. “We were together for five years, and within a year of our break-up, he ended up marrying someone else.”
Finn sucked air through his teeth. “That’s tough, I’m sorry.”
Abby smiled. “It was, but not as tough as finding out that while I’d always assumed we were heading for happily ever after, he was just filling in time waiting for something better to come along.”
“Oh, come on,” Finn began to protest. “I sincerely doubt that and –”
“I’m not just surmising here,” she interjected firmly, a knot in her stomach as she thought about it. “I know this for a fact because he told me.”
“What?”
She nodded, struggling to hold onto to her composure. Then she took a deep breath. “One day he came home from work and out of the blue told me that he wanted to finish things, that he’d found someone else. But out of respect for me, apparently,” she added rolling her eyes, “he wasn’t going to take up with her until it was over between us. Now, I know what you’re thinking,” she said, when Finn went to say something. “It sounded lame to me too but Kieran has always been straight up like that, too straight sometimes,” she added, almost as an afterthought.
Apparently he’d been biding his time for ages, waiting for the right moment to tell her that he was ending it. And while she couldn’t be sure, Abby since suspected that the so-called ‘surprise’ weekend away in Dromoland Castle that had not been for her birthday was instead to be a celebration of Kieran’s freedom, a new beginning for him and Jessica.
Clearly he’d forgotten that this particular weekend also fell on Abby’s birthday, and had intended on ending things beforehand but was of course soon reminded what with all the heavy hints she’d been dropping. Naturally, being the upstanding guy he was, Kieran then decided to postpone telling her he was leaving under after her birthday, which was why he’d cancelled the reservation.
“It’s funny, but before then a visit to Dromoland Castle would have been the very first thing on a list of things to do,” she explained to Finn sadly, “but now I don’t think I could ever set foot in the place.”
“I’m so sorry,” he said, his tone gentle.
“So anyway after I’d picked myself up off the floor, I tried to find out where all of this had come from, why he found it so easy to cast aside a five year relationship just like that.” Abby looked down and began to study a piece of carpet. “And he said ‘But surely we both knew you were never the kind of woman I’d marry?’” She gave a watery smile and swallowed hard before continuing. “So as you can imagine my next question was exactly what kind of woman did he think he was going to marry?”
Evidently realising how difficult this was for her, Finn said nothing and waited for her to go on.
“‘Well, someone with class and style, I suppose,’ he told me, as if this was the most obvious thing in the world. Kieran could be very brutal sometimes,” she added, almost to herself.
Then she gave a carefree shrug, as if all this was water under the bridge now, but the truth was that this expression had been imprinted in her brain ever since. ‘Someone with class and style’.
Which naturally enough could only mean that she had none.
“And from what I’ve seen of his new wife, yes, she is indeed beautiful and classy, nothing at all like me,” she added wryly.
Finn seemed appalled. “What an arsehole!” he spat.
“Well I suppose I realise that now, but to be honest, it took me a very long time to get to grips with it. I’ve never told anyone that, you know; what he said to me that day. It was too embarrassing and worse, all too easy for someone like me to believe. I’ve never been good at the whole fashion and dressing up thing,” she told him wryly. “So then in London, when I tried on that gown…”
“For God’s sake Abby, he was an idiot,” Finn muttered. “Any fool alive could tell you that you don’t need some posh dress to prove him wrong.” The fact that he was so genuinely annoyed with what Kieran had said was incredibly endearing, and made Abby feel a whole lot better but it was what he said next that really made her smile. “You’d look great in a bloody bin bag!”
She knew he didn’t really mean this, and was really only saying it to make her feel better, but the time that he’d made for her and the kindness he’d displayed over the last few weeks touched Abby to the core.
And then quite spontaneously, she threw her arms around Finn and gave him a huge hug. “Thank you,” she said holding him tightly. “You don’t know how much better that’s made me feel.”
Finn hugged her back at first but then he gently broke away. There was a brief tension-filled moment as their eyes met and then, before Abby knew what was happening, their lips brushed together and they were kissing.
He tasted of fresh coffee and his skin smelt of soap and she felt the prickle of his stubble at the corner of her mouth while her hands ventured away from his shoulders, under his arms and down to the small of his back. Then her tongue, almost of its own accord moved further into his mouth. She didn’t stop to think about whether or not this really was a good idea. All she knew was that she was kissing Finn, someone she’d only known a few weeks at the most, practically a stranger …!
Then, as they continued to explore one another’s mouths, Abby had a sudden flash of the third item on her list. And she very quickly decided that seeing as she had only known Finn a few weeks, then technically he really was a stranger, wasn’t he? So, she persuaded herself smiling inwardly, by doing this she was merely carrying out her obligations and getting through another thing on her list.
And once again, enjoying herself immensely in the process.
***
July 1st, Dublin.
Mum met Finn for the first time today. She invited the two of us and the rest of the family for Sunday dinner. To say it was a tense affair would be an understatement!
In the meantime Caroline’s met him, and tells me she’s mad about him, which wouldn’t be difficult. Notwithstanding the fact that she thinks he’s gorgeous (as does Erin), I also suspect she feels grateful towards him for being the one to finally help me realise there really was something wrong with me.
When we first arrived at Mum’s she and Dermot did their best to make him feel comfortable– Dermot chatted to him about football and Caroline asked him all about work, whereas Mum just flitted around the place looking tense and uncomfortable. Despite Caroline’s approval, she thinks I’m mad for even thinking about a relationship, considering.
“I don’t want to upset you love, but how can something like this possibly work?” she said to me when I first told her that Finn and I were spending a lot of time together.
“What with everything that’s going on…”
As usual, she couldn’t bring herself to mention my ‘condition’, which I find kind of funny in a way.
Honestly though, I think that’s part of the reason I’ve become so close to Finn so quickly; he never tries to pretend that I don’t have this problem, which strangely enough has helped me come to terms with it a lot easier.
He knows how to handle it and more importantly knows how to handle me, and doesn’t treat me like Mum does – tiptoeing around the subject as if a mere mention of it might shatter me into a thousand pieces. Caroline and Erin are much more upbeat, but I can sense that they both worry about my ability to handle it all long-term; as does Claire, judging from the conversations we’ve had on the phone. Dermot too has been great, a bit like Finn in that he tends to crack jokes about it all now, much to Mum’s horror.
But at the same time, Finn doesn’t treat any of this lightly.
He seems to know instinctively when I’m down about it, and just lets me have my little black days, instead of trying to make me feel better. It’s like he knows that these phases I go through now and again of feeling sorry for myself are a perfectly normal part of coming to terms with what’s happening to me, and doesn’t come out with stupid platitudes to try and bring me out of it. I love that. Then there are other times when we have a good laugh about it and poke fun at my absentmindedness, if you can call it that.
To sum it up, it’s like he understands me, and what I’m going through much better than anyone else. I don’t know, maybe it’s because he’s a dog trainer and is used to people coping with all kinds of difficulties.
Either way, having him around is a gift.
And speaking of gifts, I think I’ve fallen in love with Lucy! She’s so calm and gentle and despite her size, follows me around the place like a lost puppy.
Finn still thinks that after my ‘episode’ in the Green she reckons I’m a bit delicate and need looking after, which after all, is what she is trained to do. But strangely, I don’t mind in the slightest and because she’s so gentle and lovely, I’m not in the least bit of afraid of her. I love the way she wags her floppy tail and nuzzles against my legs every time she sees me.
Falling in Love in New York Page 24
