Alter Ego
Too frequently the old question turns up in the journals. I wonder
sometimes if people in our profession read articles other than their
own. 'What do we mean by love,' they ask. I have to be careful what
I say: Lucy would be terribly hurt if she had access to my early
attempts to explain.
Lucy is perfect - or so I thought until recently. We met in a typically
student way: she was doing teacher training practice in the school
where I sat in on the career guidance person. My first impression
(and again, she'd hate this) was of a girl who oozed sex. She looked
younger than she was. She had the firm full breasts of teenage jail-bait
- the first thing (or things) I noticed. She smiled at me to reveal
two creases (not dimples) at each corner of her mouth. She has long
blonde hair and liquid brown eyes. (God, that's corny). I can't
go on: as a psychologist, I'm well aware of the human endocrine
system's embarrassing mechanism. Suffice it to say that it was lust
at first sight. Typical male, aren't I?
Lucy has a good degree in English; Drama is her core subject. I
suppose this should've sounded an alarm. I plan to specialise in
perception dysfunction - being paid a whole lot to tell people they're
schizoid. After three wordless meetings in a corridor - and three
radiant smiles - I asked her out. From then it was conveyor belt
stuff towards my bedsit. Making love to Lucy was wicked.
My previous girlfriend wanted it known that she knew it all: it
was as if she had a checklist of activities for me to tick off as
the long night wore on. True, much of it was aimed at pleasing me
(she reckoned) but I got the impression that one day she'd produce
an itemised invoice.
Lucy, however, was an innocent - or so it seemed on that first shy
encounter.
It was all a lie really: mere acting. After all, how many girls
reach the age of twenty-two without having ... no, sorry, we're
back at the menu and I can't go into detail: it would be make me
appear even more of a pig.
I was fascinated by her ability to play the part of an imaginary
person. She was utterly convincing in any role she chose. Her love
of theatre was responsible, I thought. We went to plays and films
a lot; we even watched TV drama instead of humping sometimes. She
said that I'd become quite good at describing the character she
was playing - and it didn't have to be a female role. She could
change without warning: one moment a frightened virgin, the next
a TV gay. Then, just as things began to blow my mind, she'd snap
into her normal persona. In the dark, I could believe that I was
having a succession of partners but it was always the real Lucy
who ended the performance.
My bedsit was above a shop on the wrong side of Islington; she shared
a flat in a snobby Hampstead avenue. The other two girls there were
so busy at work that they had no social life. Lucy thought them
boring; neither attracted me. Nevertheless they became fantasy figures
in Lucy's repertoire. It was quite possible to believe that the
girl beneath me was the little Asian virgin who temped in the City
or the older one who turned out to be lesbian - fingers and tongue
only, of course. How did Lucy know so much?
I found the answer in our third month together: her mother.
Lucy is an only child whose father is long gone. Her two stepfathers
seem not to resent each other: one's West African and the other
Hungarian. Her mother - Samra or Tzigany depending whether it's
her ex or current husband in favour - gets her clothes from a school
dressing up box. She has a smoke-damaged gravelly voice, a face
lift, fantastic boob job and wonderful legs. She came as a shock.
But it was clear that Lucy had no wish to stay in her mother's presence
for a second longer than necessary. She needed to be her own person
but hadn't made up her mind who that person was.
"Do you smoke, Stevie?" Samra asked as Mojo, her ex, proffered
what seemed to be a Silk Cut pack of home rolled cigarettes.
"It's Steven, not Stevie, Mummy," Lucy frowned after a
quick glance at me.
"Spliffs," her mother smiled in case I hadn't noticed.
"Why not?" I replied, taking one.
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