Cecelia Ahern - The Year I Met You

It is while I’m watching out the window and waiting for Eddie to return that the house phone rings. Nobody has the number apart from Dad and Heather, and it is usually only Heather who calls, so I answer it.

‘Could I speak with Jasmine Butler, please?’

I pause, trying to place the voice. I don’t think it’s Kevin. I’m imagining he would have an Australian accent now, but maybe not. Either way, I don’t think it’s him. Aunt Jennifer would have to be incredibly cruel to give him the number. There’s an accent that I can’t quite place hiding behind a Dublin accent, somewhere outside of Dublin but inside Ireland. A gentle country lilt.

‘Who is speaking?’

‘Am I speaking to Jasmine Butler?’ he asks.

I smile and try to hide my amusement. ‘Could you tell me who’s speaking, please? I’m Ms Butler’s housekeeper.’

‘Ah, I’m sorry,’ he says, perfectly happy and charming. ‘And what is your name?’

Who is this? He called me and now he is trying to take control, but not in a rude way, he is utterly polite and has a lovely tone. I can’t place the accent. Not Dublin. Not Northern. Not Southern either. Midlands? No. Charming, though. Probably a salesman. And now I have to think of a name and get him off the phone. I look at the hall table beside me and see the pen beside the charging base for the phone.

‘Pen,’ I say, and try not to laugh. ‘Pen-ny. Penelope, but people call me Penny.’

‘And sometimes Pen?’ he asks.

‘Yes.’ I smile.

‘Can I get your surname?’

‘Is this for a survey or something?’

‘Oh no, just in case I call you again and Ms Butler isn’t home. On the off chance that that happens.’

I laugh again at his sarcasm. ‘Ah.’ I look down at the table and see the notepad beside the pen. I roll my eyes. ‘Pad.’ I cough to conceal my laugh. ‘Paddington.’

‘Okay, Penelope Paddington,’ he repeats, and I’m sure he knows. If he has any sense, he knows. ‘Do you know when Ms Butler will be home?’

‘I couldn’t say.’ I sit down on the arm of the couch, still looking outside, and I see Dr Jameson at the front door of your house. ‘She comes and goes. With work.’ Dr Jameson is looking in through the broken glass. ‘What’s this about?’

‘It’s a private matter,’ he says politely, warmly. ‘I’d prefer to discuss it with her herself.’

‘Does she know you?’ I ask.

‘Not yet,’ he says, ‘But maybe you could tell her I called.’

‘Of course.’ I pick up the pen and paper to take his details.

‘I’ll try her on her mobile,’ he says.

‘You have her mobile?’

‘And her work number, but I called the office and she’s unavailable.’

That stops me. Somebody who knows me well enough to have all three numbers yet has no idea that I was fired. I am flummoxed.

‘Thanks, Penelope, you’ve been a great help. Have a good day.’ He hangs up and I’m left listening to the dial tone, confused.

‘Jasmine,’ I call to myself in a sing-song tone. ‘An absolute weirdo just called looking for you.’

Dr Jameson is walking across the road to me.

‘Hello, Dr Jameson,’ I greet him, seeing the white envelope in his hand and wondering what on earth the street is planning now and how much I need to contribute.

‘Hello, Jasmine.’

He is dressed perfectly as usual in a shirt and V-neck sweater, trousers with the perfect crease down the middle, polished shoes. He is smaller than me, and at five foot eight I feel like an exotic, unnatural creature beside him. My hair is bright red, fire-engine red, or booster scarlet power as L’Oréal calls it. Naturally I’m brown-haired, but neither me nor the rest of the world has seen that since I was fifteen, the only traces of it now are my eyebrows, as my scalp is increasingly sprouting grey hairs rather than brown. The red, I’m told, makes my eye colour stand out even more than usual; they’re a shade of turquoise that I’m used to most people commenting on. My eyes and my hair are the first things anybody ever sees of me. Whether I’m at work or at a party, I always, absolutely always go out with my ultra-jet-black eyeliner. I’m all eyes and hair. And boobs. They too are rather large, but I do nothing unnatural to accentuate them, they stick out and up all by themselves, clever things.

‘I’m sorry about the noise this morning,’ I say, genuinely meaning it. ‘I should have warned you in advance.’

‘Not at all …’ He waves his hand dismissively, as though in a rush to say something else. ‘I was across the way, looking for our friend, but it seems he’s otherwise detained,’ he says, as if our friend – meaning you – is out in the back garden making animal balloons for a group of kids and not passed out on the bathroom floor in a pool of his own vomit. Just guessing.

‘Amy gave this to me for Mr Marshall – we can call him Matt, can’t we?’ The way he looks at me conspiratorially makes me think that he knows I’ve been watching, a lot. But he can’t know that, unless he’s watching me, and I know that’s not true because I watch him.

‘Who’s Amy?’

‘Matt’s wife.’

‘Ah. Yes. Of course.’ Like I’d known but had forgotten. I had not known.

‘I think it’s rather urgent that he receives this’ – he waves the white envelope – ‘but he’s not responding. I would leave it in the, er … open window, but I couldn’t be sure that he’d get it. Besides there’s a copy which I’d like to give to you.’ He holds out an envelope to me.

‘A copy of what?’

‘The house key. Amy cut two extra keys for the neighbours – she thought it might come in handy,’ he says, in a surprised way, when we both know it is the most obvious and sensible thing we’ve ever heard. ‘I don’t think she’s there, or that she’ll be there for a while,’ he says, his eyes piercing into mine.

Ah. Understood.

I move my hands away from the key and envelope that he’s thrusting at me.

‘I think it’s best if you keep these, Dr Jameson. I’m not the right person to mind them.’

‘Why so?’

‘You know my life, I’m coming and going all the time. I’m so busy. Work and … you know, things . I think it would be better to leave them with somebody who is here more.’

‘Ah. I was under the impression that you … well, that you are home more often these days.’

Stung. ‘Well, yes, but I still think it’s better that you keep them.’ I am standing my ground.

‘I have a key already, but I’m going away for a fortnight. My nephew has asked me to go on holiday with his family. This is the first time,’ his face lights up. ‘Rather polite of them, though I’m sure he had to be convinced of it by Stella. Lovely lady. And I do appreciate it. Spain,’ he says, eyes twinkling. ‘Anyway …’ his face darkens, ‘I’ll have to find a home for these.’ He looks extremely bothered by this.

As guilty as it makes me feel, I can’t do this. I can’t take somebody’s key into my home. A perfect stranger. It’s weird. I don’t want to be involved. I want to keep to myself. I know I watch you, but … I can’t do this. I won’t be moved, despite his worried, befuddled face. If I had a job, I wouldn’t be in this suburban mess right now, having to care about other people’s issues that they ought to be keeping to themselves.

‘Maybe you could give them to Mr and Mrs Malone.’ I have no idea of their names. I’ve lived next door to them for four years and I still don’t know, even though they send me a Christmas card every year with both their names on.

‘Well, that’s an idea,’ he says uncertainly, and I know why he is uncertain. He doesn’t want to bring them trouble. When you are locked out of your house in your angry drunken state it should not fall upon Mr and Mr Malone, who are in their seventies, to deal with your problems. The same can be said of the Murphys and the Lennons. He’s right, I know this, but I just can’t. ‘Are you sure you won’t?’ he asks one more time.