Cecelia Ahern - The Year I Met You

‘Yikes,’ you say at the sight of me, sounding too much like Dr Jameson. ‘Good morning.’ You are overly cheerful and loud, sprightly. Annoyingly so. If I didn’t know better, I would think you must have watched me drink myself into a drunken stupor, then deliberately got up early, the earliest I have known you to have risen, so you could make a racket outside my window. What’s more you have forced yourself to be cheerful, the most cheerful I have ever known you to be.

My intention is to say ‘hi’, but it comes out as a deep croak.

‘Wow,’ you say. ‘Rough night? All rock’n’roll over here at number three on a Sunday night.’

I grunt in response.

You walk around and start opening the curtains, and the window, which makes me shudder and reach for the cashmere blanket on the couch where I have collapsed. I wrap it around me and look on warily as you make your way to the kitchen, which is all open-plan – my entire downstairs is completely open-plan – and then you start rooting around in the cupboards.

‘The lemon bowl,’ I say weakly.

You stop. ‘What’s that?’

‘Your keys. In the lemon bowl.’

‘I’m not looking for my keys, I’m not locked out.’

‘Hallelujah.’

‘Why the lemon bowl?’

‘Glad you asked.’ I smile. ‘Because I think of you as a lemon.’

‘Isn’t it you that’s the bitter twisted one?’ you say, and my smile fades.

You continue to move around the kitchen. I hear cups, I hear paper rustle, I smell toast, I hear the kettle. I close my eyes and nod off.

When I wake you are holding a mug of tea and buttered toast towards me. My stomach heaves but I’m hungry.

‘Have that, it’ll help.’

‘From the expert,’ I say groggily, sitting up.

You sit in the armchair across from me, beside the window that is so bright I have to squint. You look almost angelic with the light cast on you, your right side seeming to blur at the edges as though you’re a hologram. You give a weary sigh, nothing saintly about that. The sigh, I realise, is not because you’re tired. You look rejuvenated somehow, flushed from the fresh early morning air, your clothes smelling of cut grass. You’re weary because of me.

‘Thanks,’ I say, remembering my manners.

‘About the other night …’ you begin.

I grunt and wave my hand dismissively at you, and sip my tea. It is sweet, sweeter than how I usually take it, but I like it. It is good for now. It is not vodka and for that my body says thank you. I don’t want to talk about the other night, about what happened between me and you.

‘I’m sorry I threw the glass at you.’

For this you are deadly serious. Perhaps emotional even, and I can’t take that.

I chew my toast slowly and swallow. ‘We were both wrong,’ I say, finally. I want to move on.

This isn’t what you want to hear. You are hoping for an apology from me.

‘Well, Jasmine, I was reacting to what you said.’

‘Yes, and I accept your apology,’ I say. Why is it I can’t bring myself to apologise to you, when I know that I should?

‘You said some shitty things,’ you say.

‘Have you come here looking for an apology?’

‘No. To apologise.’

I think about it again. ‘Like I said, we were both wrong.’

You stare at me intently while your mind works overtime. You make a decision not to fire yourself at me, for which I’m thankful even though I know I deserve it. I am being horrible. I offer you a little bit more.

‘I was disappointed you let my sister down.’

‘I’m sorry about that. I didn’t think she would be so upset.’

‘She doesn’t break promises. She trusts people easily.’ Unlike me; I don’t trust people at all.

You nod, digest that. ‘You know I didn’t say it could never happen, just not in the immediate future.’

‘What are the chances?’

‘Right now it’s looking slim,’ you say, grimly.

I should be thinking of the repercussions of you losing your job, what it will mean for you and your family, not of Heather and her lack of a trip to the station. I have been described as sensitive because of my feelings about Heather, but when it comes to others it seems I am utterly desensitised.

‘Because of what you said, I’m off the drink,’ you say.

I stare at you in surprise. I am surprised more by the fact that I could have said something to influence you, but I’m not at all surprised by the admission you’ve given up drink. Because I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you mean it or that it will happen. It is as though you are a cheating husband and I am numb to your declarations of how you can change. We are, oddly, that comfortable with one another.

‘I really am,’ you say, reading my look perfectly. ‘You were right – what you said about the kids.’

‘Oh please, Matt,’ I say, exasperated. I give up. ‘I wasn’t right about anything. I don’t know you. I don’t know your life.’

‘Actually,’ you stall, as if trying to decide whether to say it or not, ‘you do. You see it every day. You see more than anyone.’

Silence.

‘And you do know me.’ You look at me thoughtfully. ‘I think you think you know me more than you do, and you’re wrong about some things, but that’s just one more thing to prove to someone.’

‘You don’t have to prove anything to me,’ I lie. I wish that I could mean what I say, but I don’t. Every single word that comes out of your mouth I analyse for confirmation that you’re the bad egg I’m convinced you are.

‘Anyway, I want you to take this –’ You hand me the crumpled envelope containing your wife’s letter.

‘You still haven’t read it? Matt!’

‘I can’t,’ you say simply. ‘I don’t want to know what’s in it. I can’t.’

‘Is she speaking to you yet?’

You shake your head.

‘Because she’s said everything she wants to right there, and you’re ignoring it! I don’t understand you.’

‘Read it to me, then.’

‘No! Read it your bloody self.’ I throw it on the coffee table.

‘What if it says she’s never coming back?’

‘Then at least you’ll know. Instead of this … waiting around.’

‘I’m not waiting around. Not any more. I’m going to prove it to her.’

‘Prove what?’

‘Prove myself.’

‘I think you have already. That’s why she left,’ I say this half-joking, thinking you’ll smile, but you don’t.

You sigh. You look at the letter and I think I’ve finally gotten through to you. You pick it up and stand. ‘I’m putting it with the lemons.’

I smile and am glad you can’t see me.

A car pulls up outside your house.

‘Visitor,’ I say, relieved that this conversation has ended and that you will go. My head is spinning and the toast is sitting on top of vodka and cranberry juice, surfing an indigestion wave.

You examine the car from the window, hands on hips, face in a scowl. You are handsome, still. Not that you’re old – you’re in your early forties – but despite your lifestyle, the late nights, alcohol and concoctions of anxiety pills, sleeping pills and whatever else you do, it hasn’t affected you on the outside as much as it should have.

‘I don’t think it’s for me,’ you say, still examining the car. ‘He’s just sitting in the car.’

‘Why didn’t you ever work in TV?’ I ask suddenly. Usually, successful DJs with an audience like yours and a fan base such as yours make the transition, and it occurs to me right now that you are quite handsome, to some people, and TV being TV, handsomeness is as high up on the list as intelligence – often higher.

‘I did,’ you say, turning around, surprised as I am that I’ve asked you a question about yourself, about your life, about your job. ‘About five years ago I had a late-night talk show, a discussion show like on the radio. Wednesday nights, eleven thirty.’