Cecelia Ahern - The Year I Met You

My first thought when I was fired was I can’t tell Heather . I thought it would upset her, that I had to protect her from knowing about the bad things in the world, that she would become scared about being fired herself. What was I thinking? What kind of education is that? Heather knows more than I the cruelty of the world. She hears abusive comments thrown at her, degrading things said about her by ordinary decent people who don’t know any better, both to her face and behind her back on a daily basis. I merely accompany her on that. As I hear you and your kids sanding and laughing on the fresh, bright, sunny spring day with Pharrell’s ‘Happy’ blaring from your iPhone, I have an epiphany. Everything in my life does not have to be altered in order to please me and Heather. I can’t continue sheltering her from everything, but maybe I can simply be there to help her if and when she gets hurt.

‘Okay,’ I finally say, hearing my voice shake. What am I doing? I am sending her over there to have her heart broken by you. I am doing this. I am letting it happen. I am so shaky, I can’t catch my breath and I sit on the garden bench and watch her cross the road.

The two blonde children stop sanding to watch her, warily.

‘Hello,’ Heather says happily.

You and Heather are talking. I can’t hear what you’re saying and it is killing me. I want to know. I need to know so that I can help control the conversation so that I can steer it away from hurting her. I feel helpless, but I feel like an executioner too. I have sent her over there to kill her faith in people, perhaps in me.

I watch you explaining something to her, your soft expression, your hands gesturing gently to shape the points. Then you stop talking and watch her. You wait to hear her reaction, but she is not saying anything. Your hands go to your hips. You watch her, uncertainly. You’re not sure whether to reach out to her; you do and then you don’t make contact, know better not to. Then you look over at me. You are concerned. You don’t know what to do with this young woman who is staring at you and not saying anything. You don’t know what to say. You need my help.

It kills me to do this to Heather but I’m not going to give it to you.

You start to say something else but Heather turns away from you and comes back across the road. Heather looks like she has been slapped. A stung look to her face, glassy eyes, a pink nose. I stay where I am, watching her, as she comes towards me and then passes me by.

This is what happens, Matt Marshall, when you let people down. You will learn it all and you will remember it by simply seeing it on the face of my sister.

Heather stays in the house and listens to her music on her record player, silently dealing with her heartbreak at not being able to visit the radio station. She doesn’t really want to talk about it and that’s okay, because neither do I. I carry on digging the garden, and the deeper I dig into the ground, the deeper I dig into myself. When I have gone deep enough, and I am raw and exposed, it is time to close the wound. I lay two inches of gravel in the hole I’ve climbed out of and place the basin on top of the gravel. I measure the distance from the hole to the nearest electrical outlet, then I cut a piece of PVC conduit to the same length. I thread a string through a conduit and duct tape one end to the plug of the water pump that I’ll add later. I pull the plug of the water pump through the PVC conduit and tape the plug to the end of it. This part takes me some time. I lay the PVC conduit in the trench and cover it with soil. I centre the water pump in the basin and lay a screen on top of the basin. Using my new utility scissors I cut a hole at the centre of the screen.

Next, I’m supposed to connect the water pump to the piping, but I can’t. It is too complicated and frustrating and I’m mumbling and grumbling and cursing to myself when I hear a voice behind me.

‘Hi, Garden Girl.’

It is not you. I know that straight away. I jump and drop the scissors into the basin.

‘Shit. Monday. Hi. Sorry. You gave me a fright. I’m just. Feck. My scissors. I’ll just … there. This thing,’ I sigh, and wipe my sweaty face. ‘I’m trying to build a water fountain.’

I’m on the ground, in a hole, and from down here Monday is even more majestic than usual. He is in a navy-blue suit and instead of wearing his tie, he is wearing an amused expression on his face, one which is fixed and directed solely at me. I steal a quick glance over at you. I catch you looking away quickly, as if I haven’t caught you, and return to concentrating on varnishing the table with the kids in that cheery scout leader voice that you’ve managed to keep up for almost an hour now.

‘I called you a few times but you were in your own world,’ he says, smiling. He lowers himself to his haunches. ‘What have you got here?’

‘A great big mess.’ I show him what I’m supposed to be doing.

‘May I?’

‘Please.’

He reaches out his hand and I take it, and allow him to pull me up out of the hole I dug. Not a sign. Not even a symbol. An actual thing that’s happening. As soon as my skin touches his I don’t know if it’s just me but I feel it all over my body. He doesn’t step back from the edge of the hole and I’m pulled up close to his body, my nose touching the fabric of his shirt, able to see the flesh beneath the open buttons of his shirt. I would like to stay there for ever, feeling his hard body next to mine, but instead I clumsily move away, unable to look at him in case he sees how he’s flustered me. He takes off his jacket, and I bring it inside for him, taking the opportunity to clean myself up, fix my hair, my eyeliner, defluster myself. When I return, he has rolled up his shirtsleeves and he’s on his knees on the grass, brow furrowed in concentration as he works on connecting the water pump to the piping. I try to make small talk but he’s busy concentrating and I feel like a pest, so I watch him for a while, then feel wrong for admiring him in all the wrong ways, then sneakily steal looks at you and your children varnishing the table. Apart from Fionn, who has deserted the task and is sitting in one of the chairs playing on an iPad, the other two are having fun. You are animated, engaged, communicative, funny. You are a good father, and I’m sorry for saying that you weren’t. The cynical side of me wonders if this is all a show for me after what I said last night, but then I see the genuine looks and sounds of happiness and am ashamed of myself for thinking that once again it is all about me. I then have an argument with myself about feeling ashamed considering all that you have done in the past, how you have let Heather down and the fact you threw a glass at my head. The winner of that argument is me; you deserve me to mistrust you so.

Monday is looking at me and I snap out of my trance. He has obviously said something and is waiting for an answer. I wait for him to repeat it but instead I’m embarrassed to see him shift his gaze to follow mine. His eyes settle on you.

‘His voice is familiar. Is that Matt Marshall?’

‘Yes.’

Monday is neither impressed nor unimpressed, and I’m surprised by how I feel about that. I don’t want him jumping up and down declaring that he is a fan and running across the road for an autograph, but I ready myself in a nervous kind of way for his dislike of you, as if I’m ready to defend you. It’s a peculiar response, considering I’m supposed to despise you so much, particularly after the way you hurt Heather. If we were in a relationship I would have to leave you and move far far away. Which is what your wife did, come to think of it. Perhaps you have that effect on people.

‘This is going to take me a few minutes longer,’ Monday says, fixing me with a look that makes me smile.