Cecelia Ahern - The Year I Met You

‘Positive,’ I say firmly, shaking my head. I will not get drawn into this.

‘I understand.’ He nods, lips pursed, and takes the envelope back into his two hands. He fixes me with a look and I know that he has witnessed the same nightly scene that I have. ‘I do understand.’

He bids me farewell and I have to break into a run to prevent him stepping into the road as an ambulance comes racing along at full speed. We both automatically look across to your house, thinking something must have happened, but the ambulance stops outside the Malones’ house and the paramedics rush to the door.

‘Oh, goodness,’ he says. I have never known anyone to say as many crikeys, fiddlesticks, goodnesses, goshes, and okey-dokeys as Dr Jameson.

Standing beside him, I watch as Mrs Malone is carried out on a stretcher, an oxygen mask over her face, and loaded into the back of the ambulance. A grey-faced Mr Malone follows behind them. He looks shell-shocked. It breaks my heart right there and then. I hope it wasn’t my fault. I hope it wasn’t the drill in my garden that gave her a heart attack as it had almost given you one.

‘Vincent,’ he says, seeing Dr Jameson. ‘Marjorie.’ I assume this is his wife and feel terrible for never knowing her name. Poor Marjorie. I hope that she is okay.

‘I’ll take care of her, Jimmy,’ Dr Jameson says. ‘Twice a day? Food in the cupboard?’

‘Yes,’ Mr Malone says breathlessly as he is helped into the back of the ambulance.

No. Not the wife.

The doors close and the ambulance speeds off, leaving the street as empty as it was, as if nothing has happened at all, the siren quietening as it drives further away.

‘Dear, dear,’ my neighbour says, seeming shaken too. ‘Goodness gracious.’

‘Are you okay, Dr Jameson?’

‘Vincent, please – I haven’t practised for ten years now,’ he says absent-mindedly. ‘I’d better go feed the cat. Who will feed it while I’m gone? Perhaps I shouldn’t go. First this’ – he looks at the envelope and key in his hand – ‘now the Malones. Yes, perhaps I’m needed here.’

I feel nothing but guilt and dread, and a slight grudge that the universe has conspired against me. It would be rude of me to suggest another neighbour at this point, though it is what I want to do. Two no’s in one day would not make me look good.

‘I’ll feed the cat while you’re away,’ I say. ‘As long as you show me where everything is.’

‘Rightso.’ He nods, still shaken.

‘How do we get in?’ I look at their empty house, perfect with its garden gnomes, its little signs for leprechauns crossing, and fairy doors stuck on to a tree for their grandchildren, slab stones leading all around the garden to explore behind trees and under weeping willows. The blinds are from the eighties, beiges and salmon pinks, all scrunched up like puffballs at the top of the windows, chintzy china on the windowsills and a table near the window filled with photographs. It is like a dollhouse stuck in a time warp, lovingly decorated and cared for.

‘I have their key,’ he says.

Of course he does. It seems everybody has everybody’s keys on this street apart from mine. He looks down at the envelope in his hands, your single key inside it, as though it’s the first time he’s seen it. I notice his hands are shaking.

‘Vincent, I’ll take that,’ I say gently, placing a hand over his as I take it from him.

And so that is how I end up with the letter from your wife to you and a spare key to your house.

Just so you know, I never wanted them from the start.

8

Eddie returns and does another two hours’ work. I know this because I am in the middle of forking cat food into Marjorie’s bowl when she leaps out of her skin with fright at the sound of the drill and she disappears. I think about searching for her but I don’t want to wander around the rooms and intrude, and she’s a cat, she’ll be fine. Eddie is hard at work when Johnny returns to inspect the job and it’s as if he never left at all. He listens to my complaint about Eddie without blinking, or without commenting, inspects the work, declares that they’re on schedule and they leave in a battered red van half an hour early because they have another job. They don’t go far, they reverse directly into your driveway and hop out. I’m aware that I’ve turned into a curtain twitcher but I can’t help it, I’m intrigued. Johnny measures the broken window panel beside the front door, then they take a wooden board from the back of the van, and I can’t see them but I can hear them sawing from behind the open doors. It’s only five thirty and it’s pitch-black outside. They are working in relative darkness, lit only by the porch light, and there is a faint glow coming from the back of the house, the kitchen. You must be awake now.

They spend ten minutes securing the wooden board to your window, then they hop into the red van and drive off. My garden is nowhere close to being complete.

I have your letter in my hand. Dr Jameson has made me promise that I will hand it to you directly. He and I must know that you’ve received it so he can tell Amy. I’ve left the key to your house on my kitchen counter, it looks alien there but I can’t think of where to put it. The key seems to stick out, almost throbbing on the table; wherever I sit or stand my eye is drawn to it. It feels wrong, having something of yours in my home. I look down and turn over the letter. I guess your wife, Amy, has left you, finally, and has entrusted her neighbours to make certain her words, her reasoning – I’m sure she would have taken a long time, painstakingly labouring over the letter – will reach you. I feel that I owe it to her to see that you get this letter. I should enjoy giving it to you, but I don’t and I’m glad about that. I’m not numb to human emotions the way you are.

I put on my coat and pick up the envelope. My mobile rings, a number I don’t recognise. Thinking it is the peculiar salesman, I answer it.

‘Hi, Jasmine, it’s Kevin.’

As my heart sinks into my stomach I watch as you leave the house, get into your car and drive away while I listen to the cousin who tried to kiss me tell me he’s home.

I can’t sleep. Not just because I’ve arranged to meet with my cousin Kevin in a few days – out, not in my home so I can leave him when I want to – but because I’m trying to run through all the possible scenarios that could happen later when you return. Me giving you your key, your letter, me opening your door, you attacking me in your drunken state, throwing a chair at me, shouting at me, who knows. I did not want to take this on, but neighbourly duty made me feel obliged.

I’m wide awake when you drive home. ‘Paradise City’ is blaring again. You brake before you hit the garage door, you take the keys from the ignition, you stumble to the door, trip over your feet a few times while you concentrate on the keys jingling in your hands. It takes you a while, but you get the key in the door. You stumble inside and close the door. The hall light goes on. The landing light goes on. The hall light goes off. Your bedroom light goes on. Five minutes later your bedroom light goes off.

Suddenly my bedroom is eerily quiet and I realise I’ve been holding my breath. I lie down, feeling confused.

I am disappointed.

At the weekend I have my dinner party. There are eight of us. These are close friends of mine. Bianca is not here, she is at home with her newborn son, but Tristan has come out. He is asleep in the armchair by the fire before we even sit down to our starters. We leave him there and begin without him.

Most of the conversation revolves around their new children. I like this, it’s a distraction. I learn a lot about colic and I put on a concerned face when they discuss sleep deprivation; then they move on to weaning, discussing appropriate vegetables and fruits. A daddy has to google whether kiwi fruit is an acceptable first fruit. I get a thirty-minute earful from Caroline about her sex life with her new boyfriend since separating from her dirt-bag husband. I also like this, it’s a distraction. It’s real life, it’s things that I want to hear about. Then attention turns to me and my job, and though they are my friends and I adore them and they are gentle, I can’t bring myself to talk about it honestly. I tell them I am enjoying the break and join in with them about how great it is to be paid to kick around at home. They laugh as I try to make them jealous with exaggerated stories of lie-ins and book-reading and the mere luxury of time that I have to myself to do whatever I please. However it feels unnatural and I’m uncomfortable, like I’m playing a part, because I don’t believe a word of what I’m saying. I am never more grateful to hear the sound of your jeep. I hope that you are more trashed than usual.