Cecelia Ahern - The Year I Met You

‘Thanks,’ he grunts, before shuffling off again, head down as he passes his family and pushes past you, in through the front door. From across the road I hear a door slam upstairs in the house.

It makes me think I should call my dad.

I should. But I don’t. A few months into this gardening leave I realised I’d slammed my door closed a long time ago, I don’t know when it happened – when I slammed the door and when exactly I realised it – but it is obvious to me now, and I’m not quite ready to come out of my room yet.

16

I awake in the middle of the night to the same low voices being carried in the gentle wind over to my house, as though the breeze is a messenger, carrying the words especially to me. As soon as I wake, I know that I am wide awake and will be for the long haul. This despite the fact I’m exhausted, completely and absolutely spent; the gardening yesterday was so backbreaking and intense that I feel the effects of it each time I move, but it is a satisfying ache. Not the headache I used to get from spending too long talking on my mobile phone, the hot-eared, hot-cheeked pain and ache in my eyes from staring at a computer screen all day or the lower back problems and the right shoulder strain from bad posture at a desk, hunched over a computer. It does not equal any of these, nor does it equal the pain I experience after working out after a break from exercise. This feeling is so completely different and satisfying I am almost buzzing. Even though I’m exhausted, my mind is alive. It is invigorating, I am pumped and some of that is due to the fact my soul feels fed by the earth, but mostly it’s down to the fact I can’t figure out why Dr Jameson has once again joined you at your garden table, sitting out in the cold night air until one o’clock in the morning. What is so important that it can’t be discussed during daylight? Even more confusing, what on earth could you and he possibly have in common? You two are the least likely candidates on the street for an alliance, perhaps less likely than you and I – and that’s saying something. I eventually reason that you are a fuck-up and Dr Jameson is someone who needs to clean everything up, fix things. You must be part of his neighbourhood watch effort; perhaps he considers you a potential menace to the people on this street with your streetlight, window and garage smashing.

I throw off the bedcovers and admit defeat. You have suckered me.

I cross the road in Ugg boots and a Puffa coat carrying a flask of tea and some mugs.

‘Ah, there’s the woman herself,’ Dr Jameson announces, as though the pair of you have been talking about me.

You look at me, bleary-eyed, drunk as usual. ‘See, I told you: she can’t get enough of me,’ you say drily, but it is half-hearted.

‘Hello, Dr Jameson. Tea?’

‘Please.’ His tired eyes sparkle in the moonlight, his second night on the trot up past midnight.

I don’t even bother to offer you one. You are nursing a glass of whisky and the bottle is half-empty on the table. I don’t know how many you’ve had. Two or three perhaps, of this bottle anyway. There is a strong smell of whisky in the air, but that could be drifting from the open bottle and not your breath. You have a different energy about you tonight; you seem defeated, the fight all gone out of you. Though it doesn’t stop you from nipping at my heels, it is done with less vigour than usual.

‘Nice jim-jams,’ you say.

‘They’re not jim-jams.’ I take care to check the chair for broken pieces of stone, which are still scattered all around the place despite Fionn sweeping up after himself yesterday evening, obviously against his will from the angry sound of the bristles hitting the concrete. ‘They’re lounging pants,’ I reply and you snort.

I sit opposite you at the other head of the table and wrap my hands around the mug of tea to keep me warm.

‘Now the mad hatter’s tea party is complete,’ you say. ‘Is it cry o’clock yet?’

That stings but I don’t rise to the bait.

‘I’m afraid our friend is a wind-up merchant,’ Dr Jameson says, conspiratorially, jovially. ‘I wouldn’t take much notice.’

‘That’s what I get paid for,’ you say.

‘Not any more.’ I peek at you over my mug. Perhaps I’m looking for a fight, I’m not sure. I was aiming to match your tone, but it doesn’t work when I do it. You give me a stony look that surprises me and I know that I’ve hit a nerve. And I like it.

I smile. Payback. ‘What’s happened, Matt? Bob not going to fix you up? Thought you were like that –’ I cross my fingers the way you had done.

‘Bob had a heart attack,’ you say darkly. ‘He’s in hospital on a life-support machine. We don’t think he’s going to make it.’

I feel horrendous. My smile quickly fades. ‘Oh. God. Matt. I’m so sorry.’ I stutter my way through an apology, feeling just awful.

‘Bob was fired,’ Dr Jameson says. ‘Matt, please.’

You chuckle, but it doesn’t sound happy and I’m raging that you reduced me to feeling like that, for making me apologise to you.

‘Dr J, this woman is up and down more than a stripper on a pole.’

‘Now now,’ Dr Jameson cautions.

I can’t debate this fact – the up-and-down bit, not the stripper bit. It’s true of me with him.

‘So your buddy got fired,’ I say, slugging back my tea, feeling back on top again. ‘That doesn’t look so good for the routine investigation into your conduct, does it?’

‘No, it doesn’t, does it.’ You stare at me.

‘Unless they’re going to hire a new friend of yours to take his place. Someone else who’s willing to overlook your extreme error in judgement. Again.’

You give me a dangerous look and knock back your whisky. I should read the signs but I don’t, or I do but carry on regardless. I thought you were a man on the verge before but you were perfectly solid in comparison to this. I want to reach out my finger and push you. It feels like therapy for me.

‘Uh-oh,’ I say sarcastically, reading his look. ‘They’ve hired someone who doesn’t like you. Shocking. Wonder where they found him.’

‘Her, actually,’ Dr Jameson says. ‘Olivia Fry. An English woman. From a very successful radio station in the UK I believe.’

‘An awful radio station,’ you say, rubbing your face, the stress obvious.

‘Not a fan?’ I say.

‘No.’ You look at me darkly again.

I take another sip.

‘Try not to look so sad about it, Jasmine.’

I throw my hands up. ‘You know what, Matt, I can understand in a weird way, how you think that what you do is for the greater good—’

You try to interrupt.

‘Wait, wait,’ I raise my voice.

‘Sshh,’ Dr Jameson says. ‘The Murphys.’

I lower my voice to a hush but keep the power. ‘But New Year’s Eve? The woman in your studio? What the hell?’

There’s a long silence. Dr Jameson looks from me to you and back again. I can tell he’s curious to see if you’ll give the honest answer.

‘I was wasted,’ you finally say, but it is not a defence, it’s acknowledgement. I look at Dr Jameson in surprise. ‘I mistakenly took my anxiety pills with some alcohol before the show.’

‘And you shouldn’t do that.’ Dr Jameson shakes his head violently, already knowing this story. ‘Those pills are strong, Matt. You shouldn’t have been drinking at all. You can’t mix them. Frankly, you shouldn’t be on those pills.’

‘I’ve mixed them before and it would have been fine, except I still had sleeping pills in my system from that morning,’ you explain. Dr Jameson holds his hands to his head in horror.

‘So you admit that your show on New Year’s Eve was wrong,’ I say, more surprised by the admission of wrongdoing than the concoction of drugs you’d taken.