Cecelia Ahern - The Year I Met You

I can see how it was a great stress for her at the time, losing her son and the niece she was promising her sister would be safe with her. She hadn’t exactly lost us, we were right there, but when Kevin moved away I still couldn’t bring myself to settle in the house and I decided to live on campus in Limerick University, a fresh break from everyone, a fresh start for me. I saw Heather every second weekend. I settled in with friends and we created a family of our own, and I allowed myself to be mollycoddled by friends’ families for festive weeks. Heather was happy in the accommodation Mum had set up for her before she passed away, and on family occasions she would stay at Jennifer’s and Dad would come over to eat and catch up with Heather like it was the base for their relationship. It all worked fine for everybody, including me, and while it was all happening I created a mother for Heather in my mind that I don’t know necessarily existed by giving her ideals that I don’t know she actually held.

I slowly walk towards the door. My plan is to walk to the door and then my plan is all out of ideas.

‘Jasmine,’ Jennifer says, surprised to open the door and find me there.

She has red hair, dyed, and it’s been in a pixie cut for as long as I can remember. She wears earthy tones, wishy-washy greens and tans in crushed velvets, long hippy dresses with leggings underneath, shoes that always have thick soles like hovercrafts, big chunky necklaces. Her lips are always the same colour as her hair, though hers is more mahogany than my fire-engine red.

‘Isn’t this a lovely surprise? Come in, come in. Oh, I wish I’d known you were coming, I would have told Fiona to stay. She’s gone to Mass with Enda. I know, don’t look at me like that, nobody in this house has been to Mass since Michael’s wedding, but Enda is making his communion this year and they’re encouraged to go so that he doesn’t walk in looking like a tourist. Apparently the kids can play at ten a.m. Mass. If they keep thinking like that, the Catholic Church won’t have a free pew.’

She ushers me in to the kitchen, which should feel the same as before, should make me feel some sort of connection to the past, but it has been completely altered.

‘My sixtieth birthday present,’ she says, noticing as I take in the new extension. ‘They wanted to send me on a cruise. I wanted a new kitchen. What has my life come to?’ she says jovially.

I like that it is different; it immediately puts me in a new place, away from the memories of years gone by. Or at least it helps me see them in a different light, from a different angle, less of an active participant in it and more of an observer as I try to figure out was it over there, or over there, and is this where the bean bags would have been.

‘I can’t stay long,’ I say as she settles down, a pot of herbal tea between us. ‘I’m meeting Heather in an hour. We’re going to build a water fountain in my garden.’

‘How wonderful!’ Her face lights up and I can see the surprise.

My plan is to tell her what’s on my mind and then my plan is all out of ideas.

‘I’ve come to see you because … I’ve been doing a lot of thinking recently. I’ve had a lot of time on my hands, as you know.’

‘Good thing for you.’ No sympathy. I like that.

‘I’ve been thinking about Mum. Well, I’ve been thinking about a lot of things,’ I realise out loud. ‘But I’ve specifically been thinking about how she was with Heather.’

I register her surprise, but she keeps it in check. I’m sure she was expecting me to talk about Kevin.

‘There are some blanks.’

‘I’ll help you if I can,’ she says.

‘Well, it’s vague. How was she with Heather? I mean, I know she was protective, of course, she was. I know she wanted Heather to be independent, set up a good life for herself, but I don’t know how she felt. What was she afraid of? Did she ever talk to you about Heather? Did she confide in you? Like what did she want to keep Heather away from? Heather is really spreading her wings now – she always has,’ I acknowledge. ‘She has a boyfriend.’

‘Jonathan.’ She smiles. ‘We hear about him a lot. Had him over for tea.’

‘You did?’

‘Then afterwards he did a Taekwondo display. Had Billy up, doing some moves. Billy kicked over my china Russian dolls.’

I laugh and then cover my mouth. The Russian dolls made of china always made us laugh.

‘It’s okay,’ she laughs. ‘It was worth it to see Billy raise his leg that high.’

We hold an amused silence and then it alters.

‘You know, Jasmine, you’re doing a great job. Heather is happy. She’s safe. She is incredibly busy – my goodness, she needs a PA to help her manage her diary! I can’t keep track of her.’

‘Yes, I know. But … sometimes I would love Mum’s guidance.’

She thinks hard. ‘A woman once said something about Heather. Something awful. Not deliberately, just naïve.’

‘They’re the worst ones,’ I say, but my ears have pricked up. This is what I need to hear.

‘Well, your mum thought about it long and hard, and invited her to our Tuesday-night bridge.’

‘She did?’

‘Absolutely. Invited her at seven p.m., even though it didn’t start until eight. Pretended she’d made a mistake and made her sit in the living room while she got the two of you ready for bed.’

I frown. ‘That was her comeback? Making a woman give up an hour of her evening unnecessarily?’

Jennifer smiles and I know I’ve missed the point. ‘She wanted her to see Heather at home, the way she was all the time, her natural self, with the three of you going about your evening routine just like any other family at that time of the day. She made sure that woman saw and heard absolutely everything – the normality of it all, I suppose. And do you know who that woman was?’

I shake my head.

‘Carol Murphy.’

‘But Carol and Mum were best friends.’

‘Exactly. They became friends after that.’

I struggle to digest that information. Carol was Mum’s firmest friend. They were thick as thieves for as long as I can remember. I can’t process this information, that Carol had once held those sort of views about Heather. I know it’s possible, but I struggle with it and my fondness for Carol is suddenly tarnished. In an instant. In the way my feelings about a person always shift when I become aware that they don’t know better, know enough, know exactly the right thing to say or do regarding Heather.

As if sensing this turmoil, Jennifer goes on: ‘Your mother never wrote anyone off, Jasmine – because that was the very thing she was afraid of people doing to Heather.’

And that’s what I was looking for. My plan is to take this information and put it into practice in my life in some way. And then my plan is all out of ideas.

I downloaded instructions on how to make a water fountain. I’d watched the video a few times on YouTube, an aristocratic sort of man in a padded vest and bottle-green wellington boots with a large bulbous nose explaining the process to me outside his manor as though I were a child. When it comes to gardening I like to be spoken to like that, because my knowledge of it is on a par with a child’s. He says it will be finished in eight hours and he proves it by completing the task in this time – edited down to eight minutes, naturally. I reckon it will take me a week, despite Heather coming over to help. Or probably because Heather is coming over to help. I certainly hope it will take that amount of time, as I have made no other plans.

‘Ooh, Jasmine,’ Heather says as soon as she sees what I’ve done with the garden. ‘I can’t believe it’s the same garden.’

‘I know. Do you like it?’