Cecelia Ahern - The Year I Met You

I haven’t told my friends about your recent drunken late-night antics. I don’t know why this is. It is perfect fodder. They would love to hear all about it, and what makes it juicier is that you’re famous. But I can’t bring myself to tell anyone. It’s as if it’s my secret. I’ve chosen to protect you and I don’t know why. Perhaps I take your behaviour and your situation too seriously to make a joke about it at a dinner party. You have children, a wife who has just left you. I loathe you, everybody who knows me properly knows that, and nothing about you makes me want to laugh at you. I pull the curtains so that they can’t see you.

I hear you banging, but everybody continues talking, this time a debate about who should get their tubes tied and who should get the snip, and they don’t notice your noise. They think I’m joking when I say that I would like the snip, but I haven’t been concentrating.

Suddenly everything is quiet outside. I can’t concentrate and start to feel agitated, nervous that they will hear you, that the boys will want to go outside and see you, jeer at you or help you, and ruin my private thing that I have with you. I know this is odd. This is all that I have and only I can truly understand what goes on with you at night. I don’t want to have to explain.

I clear away the dessert plates; my friends are talking and laughing, the atmosphere is great and Tristan is still asleep in the armchair, baking by the open fire. Caroline helps me and we spend another few minutes in the kitchen while she fills me in on the things she and her new boyfriend have been doing. I should be shocked by what I hear, she wants me to be shocked, but I can’t concentrate, I keep thinking of you outside. And the key is beside me on the counter, still throbbing. When Caroline nips out to go to the toilet, I make my escape; grabbing the letter and your key, I pull on my coat and slip outside without anybody noticing.

As I cross the road I can see you sitting at the table. It is 11 p.m. Early for you to return home. You are eating from a McDonald’s bag. You watch me cross the road and I feel self-conscious. I wrap my arms around my body, pretending to feel colder than I do with the alcohol keeping me warm. I stop at the table.

‘Hi,’ I say.

You look at me, bleary-eyed. I’ve never seen you sober, up close. I’ve never seen you drunk up close either; you were in between when we met the other morning so I’m not sure exactly what state you’re in, but you’re sitting outside eating a McDonald’s at eleven o’clock at night in three-degree weather, the smell of alcohol heavy in the air, so you can’t be fully compos mentis.

‘Hi,’ you say.

It’s a positive start.

‘Dr Jameson asked me to give this to you.’ I hold out the envelope.

You take it, look at it and put it down on the table.

‘Dr J’s away?’

‘He said his nephew invited him to Spain.’

‘Did he?’ You light up. ‘About time.’

This surprises me. I didn’t know that you and Dr Jameson were close. Not that your response hints at closeness, but it hints at some kind of relationship.

‘You know Dr J’s wife died fifteen years ago, they had no kids, his brother and his wife both passed away, the only family he has is that nephew and he never visits or invites Dr J to anything,’ you say, clearly annoyed about this. Then you burp. ‘Excuse me.’

‘Oh,’ is all I know to say.

You look at me.

‘You live across the road?’

I’m confused. I can’t tell whether you are pretending we have never met or if you genuinely don’t remember. I try to figure you out.

‘You do. In number three, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ I finally say.

‘I’m Matt.’ You hold out your hand.

I’m not sure if it’s a new beginning; it could be staged, in which case you will pull your hand away and stick out your tongue as soon as I reach out to you. Whatever your motive, if you’ve forgotten my rudeness from a few days ago, this is a fresh chance for me to do what I should have done.

‘Jasmine,’ I say, and reach out to take your hand.

It’s not so much like shaking hands with the devil as I thought. Your hand is ice-cold, your skin rough like it’s chapped from the winter chill.

‘He also gave me a copy of the key to your house. Your wife made copies for him and me.’ I hold it out to you.

You look at it warily.

‘I don’t have to keep the key if you don’t want me to.’

‘Why wouldn’t I want you to?’

‘I don’t know. You don’t know me. Anyway, here. You can let yourself in and keep the key if you want.’

You look at the key. ‘It’s probably better if you keep it.’

You carry on looking at me and I start to feel uncomfortable. I’m not sure what to do; you clearly have no intention of moving, so I go to your front door and open it.

‘Are you having a party?’ you ask, looking across at the parked cars.

‘Just dinner.’

I feel bad then. You’re eating from a McDonald’s bag; am I supposed to invite you in? No, we’re strangers, and you have been the enemy since I was a teenager, I can’t invite you in.

‘What are you doing to your garden?’

‘Putting down grass.’

‘Why?’

I laugh lightly. ‘Good question.’

You pick up the envelope. ‘Will you read this to me?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Why don’t you read it?’

‘I can barely see straight.’

But you don’t seem that drunk and your speech is fine.

‘And I’ve left my glasses inside,’ you add.

‘No.’ I fold my arms and back away. ‘It’s private.’

‘How do you know it’s private?’

‘It’s for you.’

‘It could be a neighbourhood thing. Dr J’s always organising something. A barbecue.’

‘In January?’

‘A drinks reception about recycling then.’ You like that and you chuckle. I can hear the cigarettes in your chest, a wheezy, dirty laugh.

‘He said it’s from your wife.’

Silence.

At certain angles I see your handsomeness. It’s the way you tilt your head when you’re thinking, or maybe it’s the moonlight, but whatever it is you have moments when you transform. Blue eyes, strawberry-blond hair, button nose. Or maybe that’s how you always look and my dislike for you taints you.

You put the envelope down on the table and push it with one finger towards me. ‘Read it.’

I pick it up and look at it. Turn it over a few times.

‘I can’t. I’m sorry.’ I place it down on the table. You stare at the envelope and say nothing. ‘Goodnight.’

I walk back to the house, straight into the sound of the raucous laughter of my friends. I take my coat off. Tristan is still asleep on the chair. I don’t think anyone has noticed I’d even left. I rejoin the table with another bottle of wine and sit down for a moment, before getting up to open the curtains a little. You’re still at the table. You look up and see me and then you stand and go into the house, close the door behind you. I can still see the white envelope on the table, glowing under the moonlight.

A light rain starts.

I watch the envelope as the rain gets heavier. I can’t concentrate. Rachel is talking about something now, everybody is listening, her eyes are filled, I know that it’s important, it’s about her dad who’s sick, they’ve just learned he has cancer, but I can’t concentrate. I keep looking out the window at the envelope as the rain gets heavier. Rachel’s husband reaches for her hand to help her continue. I mumble something about getting her a tissue, then go outside without my coat, run across the road and retrieve the envelope.

I don’t know you, and I don’t owe you, but I do know that we all have a self-destruct button and I can’t let you do that. Not on my watch.