Cecelia Ahern - The Time of My Life

‘Okay my turn.’ Louise practically lifted Twitch from the chair to jump into it herself.

Flustered, Twitch stood up and fixed his glasses.

‘Well done, Twitch,’ I said.

‘Thank you.’ He pulled up his trousers, so that his belly showed above and below his belt-line, and looked proud.

‘What is your specialised subject?’ Mouse asked Louise.

‘“Shakespeare’s Plays”,’ Louise said very seriously.

Graham was midway into taking a bite of his baguette. He froze. We all looked at her.

‘Only joking. “The Life and Times of Kim Kardashian”.’

We laughed.

‘You have two minutes, let’s begin. For whom was Kim Kardashian’s father, Robert Kardashian, attorney during a controversial case in the nineties?’

‘O. J. Simpson,’ she said, so fast the words were barely audible.

Twitch sat beside me and we watched.

‘What are you eating?’ he asked.

‘Three-bean salad but look, I can only find two beans in it.’

Twitch leaned over to study it. ‘Kidney beans, chick peas … did you eat the other one?’

‘No, definitely not, I’d have noticed.’

‘I’d bring that back if I were you.’

‘But it’s half gone, they’ll think I’ve eaten them.’

‘It’s worth a try. How much did that cost you?’

‘Three-fifty.’

He shook his head in disbelief and sucked in air. ‘Yeah, I’d take that back.’

I stopped eating and we returned our gaze to the Mastermind game.

‘In which spin-off show did Kim Kardashian move city to set up a new clothing store with her sister?’

‘ Kourtney and Kim Take New York ,’ she yelped. ‘The clothing store is Dash.’

‘You don’t get extra points for extra information,’ Graham complained.

‘Ssh,’ she silenced him, keeping an eye on the clock.

I heard Michael O’Connor’s voice in the corridor: loud, confident and informative as he pointed out the mediocre facts of the floor I lived on every day. Edna must have heard them too because she opened the door to her office and gave me the nod. I stood up and smoothed my dress down, hoping that crease-free humming-bird-patterned material would help my ability to speak Spanish. Michael O’Connor greeted Edna at the door and it was up to me to bring Augusto into the office.

I cleared my throat, held out my hand as I walked towards him.

‘ Sr Fernández, bienvenido. ’

We shook hands. He was extremely handsome and I became even more flustered. We looked at one another in a long silence.

‘Em. Em.’ My mind went completely blank. All the phrases I’d learned quickly flew out of my head in an obvious act of sabotage.

‘¿ Hablas español? ’ he asked.

‘Uh-huh.’

He smiled.

Finally I remembered something. ‘¿ Cómo está usted? ’ How are you?

‘¿ Bien, gracias, y usted? ’ The words were fast and didn’t quite sound like the voice on the tape but I recognised some of them so just went with it, trying to speak faster like him.

‘Uhhh. Me llamo … Lucy Silchester. Mucho gusto encantado .’ It’s a great pleasure to meet you.

He said something long and fast and detailed. Smiling sometimes, then looking serious, using his hands in a presidential way. I nodded in turn, smiling when he did and looking serious when he did. Then he went silent and waited for a response.

‘Okay. ¿Quisiera bailar conmigo? ’ Would you like to dance with me?

His forehead wrinkled. Behind Mr Fernández’s head I could see Graham trying to stuff his baguette into a drawer in a panic as if eating at his desk at lunchtime would rob him of his job. Gherkins were flying everywhere so I went to Twitch’s desk instead. This knocked me off course; in my head I had planned to begin my spiel with Graham and now I had to move down to the second paragraph of the piece I’d learned in my head. Twitch stood up, fixed his glasses, proud as a peacock.

‘I’m Quentin Wright, pleasure to meet you.’ Twitch, twitch, blink, blink.

Quentin looked at me. I looked at Augusto. My mind went blank.

‘Quentin Wright,’ I said in a kind of Spanish accent, and they shook hands.

Augusto said something. I looked at Twitch and I swallowed hard. ‘He’d like to know what you do here.’

Twitch frowned. ‘Are you sure that’s what he said?’

‘Eh, yes.’

He looked confused but then went on a rant, talking about his past experience and what an honour it was for him to work for the company. It would have been touching if I hadn’t wanted to stop him after every single sentence. I looked at Augusto. Smiled. ‘Um, he said, un momento por favor .’ One moment please. ‘ España es un país maravilloso. ’ Spain is a marvellous country. ‘ Me gusta el español .’ I like Spanish.

Augusto looked at Twitch, Twitch looked at me.

‘Lucy,’ Twitch said accusingly.

I was sweating; I could feel a hot rush flow through my body. I don’t ever remember feeling so very … embarrassed. ‘Em …’ I looked around the room trying to think of an excuse to leave and then Gene Kelly rescued me again and it came to me: Don Lockwood’s text. ‘ Estoy buscando a Tom .’ I’m looking for Tom.

They both frowned.

‘Lucy,’ Quentin asked rather nervously, twitching far more times than I’d ever seen before, ‘who’s Tom?’

‘You know Tom,’ I smiled at him. ‘I have to go find him, it’s very important that I introduce Mr Fernández to him.’ Then I looked at Augusto and repeated, ‘ Estoy buscando a Tom .’

The room was spinning as I started to walk away. Some shouting from the corridor stopped me in my tracks. It was such a relief to hear a distraction that I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it. Then the others in the office reacted and I knew I wasn’t. Michael O’Connor and Edna stopped talking, he popped his head out the door to take a look. Then there were more voices shouting, loud male angry voices. Then there was scuffling, then breathing and panting as if people were getting physical. And then a couple of things happened all at the same time. Edna said something to Michael O’Connor and he quickly closed the door to protect us all from whatever it was; Mouse and Nosy instantly huddled together; Cock quickly moved closer to them to protect them. Edna looked as if she had seen a ghost, and seeing her face made me think it was the end. Michael O’Connor very smoothly made his way to Augusto, took him firmly by the elbow and led him into Edna’s office where he closed the door behind them, leaving us sitting ducks for whatever it was that was going on outside our door.

‘Edna, what’s going on?’

Her face was white and she was confused and clearly didn’t know what to do. The shouts got louder outside as they made their way closer, there was a bang as it sounded like a body hurtled at the wall beside us, followed by a shout of pain, and we jumped. Suddenly Edna kicked into boss mode and her voice was firm.

‘Everybody, I want you all to get down under your desks. Now.’

‘Edna what’s—’

‘Now, Lucy,’ she shouted and everybody got down on the ground and crawled under their desks.

From under mine I could see Mary huddled up under hers, rocking back and forth and crying. Graham, who was close by, was trying to reach out to her from under his desk to comfort her and also silence her. I couldn’t see Louise, she was on the far side of the room and Twitch was as still as could be, sitting on the floor staring at a photograph of his wife and children, the one of them all having a picnic, with his son on his shoulders and his wife carrying their daughter, the photo where he had most hair and I wondered if he was happier then, and because of it. I peeked outside to see where Edna was and I saw her standing up, taking deep breaths, pulling down the end of her suit jacket, then taking more deep breaths, then pulling down the end of her suit jacket some more. Every few moments she would look up at the door and have a determined look in her eye, as if she could take on anything, and then it would waver and she would take her deep breaths and pull down on her jacket again. And what did I do? All I could do was stare at the three-bean salad that I had knocked on the floor in the craziness, and piece by piece go through the beans looking for a third type. Kidney bean, tomato, sweetcorn, pepper, chickpea, kidney bean, red onion, lettuce, chickpea, tomato. It was all I could manage to stop myself from doing what my body and mind wanted to do, which was freak out.