Cecelia Ahern - The Year I Met You

‘But you promised my sister you’d bring her on a tour.’

You study me to see if I’m serious, then when I don’t smile or laugh or respond you bang your glass down on the table, which makes both Dr Jameson and I jump.

‘You honestly think I give a fuck about your sister right now?’

The anger explodes inside me, runs around my veins like a poison. Everywhere. Hate. Anger. Repulsion. Rage.

‘No, I don’t actually.’

I feel Dr Jameson look at me, sensing something in my voice that I feel but that you don’t hear.

‘I’ve got three kids in there. And a wife that I’d very much like to come home to me. They are what I’m concerned about right now.’

‘Are you? Interesting. Because it’s now two-fifteen in the morning and you’re drinking whisky in your garden when you should be inside with them. But responsibility isn’t something that sits that well with you, is it?’

I should probably stop, but I can’t. All I’ve heard all week is Heather’s excitement about visiting the radio station. Every single day. Non-stop. She’s been researching it. She can reel off the station’s entire schedule, who works on what show and at what time, she’s been looking into the producers’ and researchers’ names. Every day she’s called me to tell me. The last phone call she made was to tell me she might stop working in the solicitor’s office that she has always loved so much to try to work in the radio station, if Mr Marshall would help her. It was as if she could sense my disapproval of the entire thing. But it wasn’t that I disapproved; I was reticent, hesitant to fully go with the flow because I was afraid that something like this would happen. That just made her try to sell it to me even more, trying to make me see how much she cared, showing her excitement so that I couldn’t step in and cancel it. My rage is bubbling very close to my skin, I can feel it about to erupt.

‘Your wife has left you, you’ve lost your job, your kids can’t stand you—’

‘Shut up,’ you mutter, shaking your head and looking down at the table.

I decide to keep going because I want to hurt you. I want to hurt you like you hurt me all those years ago. ‘Your kids can’t bear to be around you—’

‘SHUT UP!’ you shout suddenly. You pick up the glass and hurl it at me. I can see the hatred in your eyes, but your aim is atrocious and I don’t even need to dodge the missile. It flies past me and lands on the ground somewhere behind me. I don’t know what you’re going to do next. Take aim with something larger, like the chair you smashed through the window, or maybe your fist, like you did with your son – only this time it wouldn’t be accidental.

‘Now now,’ Dr Jameson says, in a loud whisper. He is standing up, as we all are now, and holding his arms out to keep us apart, like a boxing ref, only the length of the table keeps a distance between us anyway.

‘You crazy bitch – how dare you say those things,’ you hiss.

‘And you’re a drunk,’ I say, swallowing the last word as the courage leaves me and the sadness and terror creeps in. ‘Sorry, Dr J, but he promised my sister. He should keep his promise.’

I turn then and leave them, my body shaking from head to toe with rage and fright. I don’t bother to collect the flask of tea and mugs, wondering as I walk away from him if at any moment a flask or mug will fly through the air and smash against the back of my head.

17

As an assignment for school whilst studying Greek mythology, we were asked to write our own versions of the Achilles story. We were then asked to read them out loud, and as one by one my classmates read their stories, actual stories of people through history, leaders brought down by their weaknesses, I realised I’d misinterpreted the brief – but not misunderstood it. I wrote about a witch who hated children because of their cruel hearts, for the hurtful things they would say about her favourite cat. She plotted to catch them, kill them and eat them, but the problem was she was afraid of lollipops and it seemed that every time she came near a child, they would have a lollipop in their mouth which served as a sweet protective forcefield around them. Word of her fear spread and soon all children carried lollipops with them, holding them out at her, sticky and sweet, waving them in her face so that she was so repulsed she had to run away and hide from children for ever.

I got a C+, which was annoying, but more embarrassing was the way the children laughed as I was reading it, some thinking it was a deliberate joke to annoy the teacher, most just thinking it was stupid. The reason the teacher gave me a C+ was not because I had misinterpreted the assignment but because he thought I’d failed to grasp the meaning of the story. Lollipops could not be the witch’s Achilles Heel, he told me, they were something she feared but did not bring about her downfall. He never gave me the opportunity to respond – this didn’t happen in school, you were either understood or not – but it was he who was wrong, not me, because it wasn’t the lollipop that was the witch’s weakness, it was her cat. In her effort to protect her cat she ended up being cast off from the community and alone for ever.

I wrote that story when I was ten years old. I knew then what I only face up to now, in this moment, which is that Heather is my weakness. Any row, misunderstanding, failed relationship, or possible relationship that was never given a chance can without exception be traced back to a reaction, a comment, remark, or something relating to Heather. I couldn’t associate myself with a person who betrayed arrogance or ignorance, whether innocent or not, toward my sister. One sideways look at Heather and they were immediately ruled out. I never engaged in a discussion of their thought processes or core beliefs, I didn’t have the patience or the time for that. Boyfriends. Dad. Friends. I cut them all out. I don’t know if it’s how I’ve always been or if it’s because Mum is gone and I’m behaving in a way that I think she would want me to. I have a memory, a feeling that she was as protective of Heather as I am, yet I have no actual memories or examples to corroborate that. For the first time, it occurs to me that my actions have been dictated by something that has absolutely no substance, it’s totally unjustified. This rocks me.

Feeling horrendous after the spiteful things I have said to you tonight, I nevertheless force myself to block it all out. Sleep comes easily, because my mind does not like the alternative of facing up to what I said. My last thought as I fall asleep is to wonder if the witch’s cat would feel happier if the witch was less protective of her. After all, what use is the witch’s discontent to her?

I park around the corner from my aunt Jennifer’s house. My plan is to drive here, park and then my plan is all out of ideas. I debate whether to go inside or not. Do I know what I’m doing with Heather, with everything , or do I not? Big question, when I’d once felt so sure. From inside the car I stare at the house, my mind racing and empty at the same time. My plan is to get out of the car and then my plan is all out of ideas.

There is never any need to ring Aunt Jennifer in advance of a visit. Her house is one of those homes that’s always busy with her four children coming and going, plus their spouses and children, all equally unannounced, and now that she fosters children there are often people there that I don’t necessarily know. It has always been that kind of a house, and I had always felt welcome there – just as well, because I had nowhere else to go when Mum was sick. It was always the deal that if and when Mum died I would move in, but then the Kevin incident occurred, which tainted my view of the house, tainted my relationship with Kevin and over time tainted my relationship with Jennifer.