Cecelia Ahern - The Year I Met You

Monday looks at me again, concerned, and gives my hand a squeeze and my desire for him is increased even more. He hasn’t officially moved in with me, but he may as well, he stays with me most nights, even has his own section of the wardrobe and his toothbrush and shaving tools sitting beside mine. On the nights he doesn’t stay with me – when we tell each other we should slow down, see our friends, spend nights apart – it’s torture, I look at these things and wish he was with me. He has a dog, Madra, a blond Labrador who acts like he owns the place, who has taken over my favourite armchair, which is fine with me now that I lie with Monday on the couch, and he even stays with me the nights Monday doesn’t, which kind of defeats the purpose of the exercise. Sometimes you still need me at night, but nothing like before. Some nights I look out the window and hope to hear the sound of your jeep racing down the street with Guns N’ Roses blaring, but nothing like before.

I asked Dr Jameson to join me for Christmas Day, though if he could take my place while I stay home he would be most welcome, as Christmas Day is to be spent with Monday’s eccentric mother in Connemara and Stephen’s Day in Dublin with my family. We had a meeting this week to discuss how Heather would like to cook the Christmas dinner as it will be the first time Jonathan will join us. We are both going to attend a cooking course together to learn how to make the perfect Christmas dinner. Neither Monday nor I are particularly looking forward to any part of Christmas. If I could have Heather all to myself, that of course would be a dream, but I can’t. Dr Jameson has reminded us that family hassle is better than being alone. Seeing what he is going through just for a bit of company on a day so many people claim to want to be alone, I tend to agree.

‘Okay,’ you clap your hands once, loudly, while she is mid-sentence, unable to take any more of her chatter. Monday and I jump, we were so much in our own worlds. ‘I think that’s enough of that,’ you say, and Monday laughs.

The lady looks at you, horrified and insulted, and I soften the blow by being polite as I show her to the door.

‘Well, what do you think?’ I ask, when I return.

Dr Jameson looks at me. ‘I think … she smelled of moss.’

Monday laughs again. He does that a lot and doesn’t think we notice, like we’re a bunch of weirdos on TV and he’s observing us and comes along for the ride. He forgets that we can actually see him.

‘Well, there’s one more to go,’ I say, trying to perk everyone up. Dr Jameson seems more down today than ever.

‘No. That’s enough,’ he says softly, to himself. ‘That’s enough.’ He stands and makes his way to the phone in the kitchen. The house isn’t open-plan like yours or mine, it is in its original seventies state, with the original tiles and what looks like the original wallpaper.

‘Don’t cancel,’ I say, as he picks up the receiver and searches a little notepad for the number.

‘What’s her name?’ he asks, searching through the names and numbers. ‘Rita? No, Renagh. Or is it Elaine? I can’t remember.’ He flicks through the pages. ‘There’s been so many.’

‘It’s almost three, Dr J, she’ll be here soon. She’ll have already left, you can’t cancel.’

‘Car’s here,’ Monday says from the other room.

Dr Jameson sighs wearily and closes the notepad. I can tell he’s given up and it breaks my heart. He takes his glasses off and lets them hang on the chain around his neck. We all go to the living-room window as we have done for all of his visitors and we watch. A small yellow Mini Cooper is parked outside. An elderly lady in a pale lilac cashmere hat and cardigan stares ahead. She’s big and cuddly and looks like a teddy bear.

‘Olive,’ he says suddenly, the weariness gone from his voice and a lightness in its place. ‘That’s her name.’

I look at him, trying to hide my smile.

Olive looks at the house, then she starts up the engine.

‘She’s leaving,’ Monday says.

‘No she’s not,’ you say after a few seconds when she hasn’t moved.

‘She’s just sitting there,’ I say.

‘Looks like she’s getting cold feet. If we leave her for a moment, she’ll probably get scared and drive away,’ you say. ‘That will sort it for you.’

Dr Jameson watches her for a moment, then without a word he leaves us. We watch him walk down his garden path and approach the car.

‘He’s going to tell her to fuck off,’ you say. ‘Watch.’

I sigh. Your humour is deliberately inappropriate and though I am used to you and your nuances, I still find you tiring.

Dr Jameson goes round to Olive’s window and raps on it lightly. He gives her a sweet welcoming, encouraging smile, a soft look I’ve never seen him give anyone before. She looks at him, her hands wrapped around the steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles are white. I watch her grip loosen as she studies him, then the engine is killed.

‘I think we should leave these two alone,’ I say, and you and Monday look at me, confused. ‘Come on.’ As I drag the pair of you down the driveway, Dr Jameson offers no objection to us leaving. He waves us off cheerfully as he guides her into the house. It makes me smile to see that you’re a little hurt by this.

Later that day I slide into a chair beside my dad in our local community hall to watch Heather receive her orange belt in Taekwondo. The orange belt signifies that the sun is beginning to rise and, as with the morning’s dawn, only the beauty of the sunrise is seen rather than the immense power. This means the beginner student sees the beauty of the art of Taekwondo but has not yet experienced the power of the technique. I feel like I deserve a belt too.

Zara is sitting on Leilah’s knee on the other side of Dad, so for once we don’t have her acting as the bridge between us.

Heather sees me, lights up with excitement and waves. She never seems nervous about life’s challenges, she sees them as an adventure, most of the time she creates them herself, which couldn’t be more inspiring.

‘Dad,’ I say. ‘About the job …’

‘It’s fine.’

‘Well, I wanted to thank you.’

‘I didn’t do anything. It’s gone. Someone else got it.’

‘I heard. But thanks. For thinking that I’d be able to do it.’

He looks at me like I’m daft. ‘Of course you’d be able to do it. And you’d probably do a better job than the fella they hired. But you didn’t bloody bother going to the interview. Sound familiar?’

I smile to myself. That’s the biggest compliment he’s ever given me.

Heather starts her display.

‘Come to think of it, I found this—’ he reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a photo, slightly creased at the corners from where it’s been shoved into his pocket and moulded into shape by his arse. ‘I was looking at some old photos of Zara and came across this. Thought you’d like it.’

It’s a photograph of me and Granddad Adalbert Mary. I’m planting seeds, concentrating hard, neither of us looking at the camera, in his back garden. I must be four years old. On the back in my mum’s handwriting it says, Dad and Jasmine, planting sunflowers 4 June 1984 .

‘Thank you,’ I whisper, a lump in my throat, and Dad looks away, uncomfortable with my sudden emotion. Leilah tosses a tissue across to me, looking pleased, and I watch as Heather begins her display.

When I go home I frame the photo and add it to my kitchen wall of memories. A captured time when Mum was alive, when Granddad Adalbert Mary hadn’t been planted in the ground and when I hadn’t known I was going to die.

28

My garden in November is not necessarily dull. There isn’t an abundance of flowers but I have a variety of herbaceous shrubs with colourful bark to make it more interesting. My winter jasmine, winter-flowering heather, evergreen shrubs and an elegant feathery grass that billows in the slightest breeze adds movement, bright-red berries bring colour and Mr Malone’s honeysuckle is fragrant and colourful. The autumn gales have started to blow and there is high rainfall, so I spend most days raking up fallen leaves which I then use to make leaf mould. I clean my garden equipment and I store it all away for the winter, feeling my chest tighten as I do so, and I tie in my climbers to protect them from the winds. My November project is to plant bare-rooted roses and my research into how to go about this has amused Monday no end. It is a serious subject.