Cecelia Ahern - The Year I Met You

‘Pardon?’

‘He’ll go with you. To pay his respects. Won’t you? Do you some good,’ she says, and not in a nice way. ‘Anyway, sorry to disturb you, I only wanted to say thank you, for taking care of Fionn.’

She backs away. You remain at the door, looking to me for your next instruction, doing as you’ve been told by the wife who just left you, as if hoping that obeying her will put you in her good books. Or maybe I’m wrong. Then it occurs to me that you’re trying to tell me something. You’re messaging something to me. I look deeper into your eyes. Try to figure it out. You want me to defend you. To tell her what I saw. I call out to her.

‘Amy – about last night. The knock was an accident. Matt didn’t mean to—’

I stop because I can tell from the way she glares at you, the way her face looks at you with such hate and disgust, that I’ve put my foot in it. She had no idea that you’d hit him.

Amy starts bundling the children into the car and you run over to say your goodbyes. The engine has started up, she is ready to go, seat belts are on, doors are closed. You have to pull at the handle, forcing her to unlock the door so you can open it and stick your head in the car to kiss the two children in the back. You give Fionn an awkward pat on the shoulder but he doesn’t look at you. You close the door, give the roof two taps and you wave them off. Nobody is waving back at you; in fact nobody even turns to see you. I feel for you and I don’t know why I do because I witnessed everything that your wife experienced, from the outside at least: the late nights, the drunken behaviour … I don’t understand why she didn’t leave you sooner, and yet I watch you standing alone outside your house, hands shoved into your jeans pockets, watching your family driving away, leaving you alone in the big house that surely they should be staying in and not you, and my heart goes out to you.

‘Come on,’ I call.

You look up.

‘Let’s go to Steven’s house.’

I suspect it’s the last thing you want to do, but you need distraction. I know it’s the last thing I want to do, but I could use some distraction too.

You grab your coat, I grab mine, and we meet in the middle.

‘Sorry about what I said there,’ I say. ‘I shouldn’t have. I was only trying to—’

‘It’s fine, she would have found out anyway. Better it came from me first.’

In fact it didn’t, but I think what you mean is that it came from your side and I’m unsure as to how I’ve found myself on your side when every night I watched you banging on the doors, locked out, I was willing her not to let you in.

‘Where are Amy and the kids staying?’ I ask, as we walk down the road.

‘Her parents’ place.’

‘Is she coming back?’

‘I don’t know. She won’t talk to me. Those sentences you heard were the most she’s said in days.’

‘She wrote you the letter.’

‘I know.’

‘You should read it.’

‘That’s what she says.’

‘Why don’t you read it?’

You don’t answer.

‘Here.’ I hand you the letter. You look at it in surprise for a moment, then take it and stuff it in your pocket. I don’t believe you will read it, but at least I have given it to you. My part is done. I feel a little relief, but I’m not content my job is done. You haven’t even opened it.

‘Are you going to read it?’

‘Jesus, what is it with you and this letter?’

‘If I was given a letter by my wife who’d just left me, I’d want to know what it says.’

‘Are you a lesbian?’

I roll my eyes. ‘No.’

You chuckle.

‘I’ve noticed you’re not working,’ you say. ‘Time off or—’

‘I’m on gardening leave,’ I cut you off, before I hear whatever offensive term you’re about to use.

‘Right.’ You smile. ‘You know that doesn’t actually mean you have to do your garden.’

‘Of course I know that. What about you? I read that you lost your job.’ I say it bluntly, harshly, and you look at me and study me in that confused, intrigued, insulted way that you do when I snap at you, which is often when I remember that I don’t like you.

‘I didn’t lose my job,’ you say. ‘I’m on leave – gardening leave, too, as a matter of fact. Only, unlike you, I’ve decide to sit in mine.’

‘Moonbathing,’ I say.

You laugh. ‘Yeah.’

Heather and I always called it that when we were younger: lying out under the moon. The thought of Heather reminds me of my views on you and I clam up. I know you notice the change in me, the way I go from hot to cold with you within seconds.

‘It’s only temporary though, the leave. Pending an investigation into my conduct,’ you put on the formal voice.

I read between the lines. ‘You’re suspended.’

‘They’re calling it gardening leave.’

‘For how long?’

‘One month. You?’

‘A year.’

You suck in air. ‘What did you do to get that?’

‘It’s not a prison sentence. I didn’t do anything. It’s so I don’t work for the competition.’

You study me in the long silence it takes me to gather my composure. ‘So what are you going to do?’

‘I have a few ideas.’ I say. ‘It’s good to have the year to think about them.’ I do not believe one word of what I have just said. ‘What about you?’

‘I’ll go back to it when I get the all-clear. I have a radio show.’

I look at you to see if you’re joking, but you’re not. I’d have thought you would assume everyone knows who you are, that you wear your name on your chest like a badge of honour – though I’m unsure as to where the honour would lie – but you’re not joking. You have not assumed that I know who you are. I like this about you, and it makes me dislike you more. You can’t win.

‘I’m aware of your show.’ I say this in such a disapproving voice that you chuckle in that chesty, wheezy cigarette laugh.

‘I knew it!’

‘You knew what?’

‘That’s the reason you are the way you are with me. Uptight. Edgy. Always on the defensive.’

If my friends were to describe me, these are not the words they would use. I am taken aback to hear myself described as such. I don’t like it that someone would think that of me, and for some reason I don’t want you to think that of me, though that is exactly how I have portrayed myself. I had forgotten that you wouldn’t know this isn’t how I always am; you wouldn’t understand the effort I have to make, deviating from the real me in order to be positively rude to you. My friends would say I’m a free spirit; I always do my own thing, never dance to the beat of anybody else’s drum, never have. They might say I’m headstrong, stubborn, at the worst, but they would only know the free-and-easy side of me, whereas you bring out the worst in me.

‘You’re not a fan.’

‘You better believe I’m not a fan,’ I say, hot-headed again.

‘Which one insulted you?’ You pop a nicotine gum into your mouth.

‘What do you mean?’ My heart pounds. After all these years, we are actually here, at the point where I can explain. Here we are. My mind works overtime to find the words to explain how you have hurt me.

‘Which show? Which issue? What did I say that you didn’t agree with? You know, I have an instinct for listeners who hate the show. As soon as I walk into a room, I can tell whether someone’s a fan or not. My sixth sense. It’s the way they look at me.’

Your arrogance disturbs me. Trust you to take a negative – people hating you – and turn it into a positive. ‘Maybe it’s you and not the show,’ I say.

‘You see, that’s the kind of thing I’m talking about.’ You smile and click your fingers. ‘ That kind of underhand comment. It’s not me, Jasmine. It’s the show. I lead the discussion. It doesn’t represent my personal views. I invite guests on air for the debate.’