Cecelia Ahern - The Time of My Life

‘Your chariot awaits,’ he said as soon as I’d answered the door.

‘Riley, I’m fine,’ I said but it didn’t sound credible and I knew it.

‘You’re not fine,’ he said. ‘You look like crap.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Just get your things and come with me. We’re going to my place. Mum’s meeting us there.’

I groaned. ‘Please, I’ve had a rough day as it is.’

‘Don’t speak about her like that,’ he said, serious for a change, which made me feel bad. ‘She’s worried about you. It’s been on the news all day.’

‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Wait here.’

I closed the door and tried to gather my things but I couldn’t think, my mind was numb, it wouldn’t work. In the end I gathered myself and grabbed my coat. When I stepped out into the corridor my neighbour whose name I’d forgotten was talking with Riley. He was leaning in towards her, oblivious to my presence, so I cleared my throat, a long loud, phlegmy sound that echoed in the corridor. That got his attention. He looked at me, annoyed by my interruption.

‘Hi, Lucy,’ she said.

‘How’s your mother?’

‘Not good,’ she said, deep frown lines appearing between her eyebrows.

‘Have you been in to see her?’

‘No.’

‘Oh. Well, if you decide to, remember I’m here to … you know.’

She nodded her thanks.

‘Your neighbour seems nice,’ Riley said once we were in his car.

‘She’s not your type.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean? I don’t have a type.’

‘Yes, you do. The blonde vacuous type.’

‘That’s not true,’ he said. ‘I go for brunettes too.’

We laughed.

‘Did she mention her baby to you?’

‘No.’

‘That’s interesting.’

‘Are you trying to put me off her? Because if you are, telling me that she has a baby won’t work. I once dated a woman with two kids.’

‘Ha. So you are interested in her.’

‘Maybe a little.’

I found that weird. We sat in silence and I started thinking about Steve pointing a gun at my face. I didn’t want to know what Riley was thinking about.

‘Where’s her mother?’

‘In hospital. I don’t know which one and I don’t know what’s wrong with her. But it’s serious.’

‘Why hasn’t she seen her?’

‘Because she says she won’t leave her baby behind.’

‘Have you offered to babysit?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s nice of you.’

‘I’m not all bad.’

‘I don’t think any part of you is bad,’ he said, looking at me. I wouldn’t meet his eye so he looked back at the road. ‘Why doesn’t she bring the baby to the hospital with her? I don’t understand.’

I shrugged.

‘You do know, come on, tell me.’

‘I don’t.’ I looked out the window.

‘How old is the baby?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Come on, Lucy.’

‘I honestly don’t know. She puts it in a buggy.’

He looked at me. ‘It.’

‘Little boys and girls look the same to me. Until they’re ten I haven’t a clue what sex they are.’

Riley laughed. ‘Does her mother not approve of her being a single mother? Is that what it is?’

‘Something like that,’ I said and concentrated on the world passing by and not on the gun I kept seeing in my face.

Riley lived two kilometres from the city centre in Ringsend, an inner suburb in Dublin, where he occupied a penthouse that overlooked Boland’s Mills on Grand Canal Dock.

‘Lucy,’ my mum said, with eyes big and worried, as soon as I walked in the door. I kept my arms behind my back as she squeezed me tight.

‘Don’t worry, Mum, I wasn’t even in the office,’ I said out of nowhere. ‘I had to run an errand and missed all the fun.’

‘Really?’ she asked, her face filling with relief.

Riley was staring at me, which was making me uncomfortable; he’d been acting very strangely the past few days, less like the brother I knew and loved and more like a person who knew I was lying.

‘Anyway, I brought you this.’ I removed my hands from behind my back and gave her a doormat that I’d swiped from outside the door of Riley’s neighbour. It said Hi, I’m Mat and looked good as new.

Mum laughed. ‘Oh Lucy, you’re so funny, thank you so much.’

‘Lucy,’ Riley said angrily.

‘Oh, don’t be silly, Riley, it was no trouble at all. It wasn’t expensive.’ I patted him on the back and moved into the rest of the apartment. ‘Is Ray here?’ Ray was Riley’s flatmate and was a doctor; they were never at home at the same time as they both worked opposite hours. Whenever he was home Mum flirted unashamedly with him, though she did ask me once before if Ray was Riley’s boyfriend. It was wishful thinking on her part for a trendy homosexual son who would never replace her with another woman.

‘He’s working,’ Riley explained.

‘Honestly, do you two never get to spend any quality time together?’ I asked, trying not to laugh, and Riley actually looked like he wanted to do a double-leg takedown and send me to the ground just like he did when we were younger. I quickly changed the subject, ‘What’s the smell?’

‘Pakistani food,’ mum said giddily. ‘We didn’t know what you wanted so we ordered half the menu.’ Mum got excited about being in her handsome bachelor son’s apartment where she got to do exotic things like eat Pakistani food, watch Top Gear and operate a remote-control fire that changed colour. It was a long way to a Pakistani restaurant from their house and Father wouldn’t be remotely interested in making the journey with her or watching anything other than CNN. We opened a bottle of wine and sat down at a glass table, by floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the river. Everything was reflective and shiny, shimmering in the moonlight.

‘So,’ Mum said and I could tell from her tone that she meant a serious probing conversation was about to begin.

‘How are the wedding-vow renewal plans going?’ I asked first.

‘Oh …’ She forgot what she was going to ask me and perked up. ‘There’s so much I have to talk to you about. I’m trying to choose a venue.’ And I listened to her for the next twenty minutes talking about things that I never knew a person ever needed to consider when it came to four walls and a ceiling because the alternatives of no ceiling and/or three walls or less were apparently too overwhelmingly enticing.

‘How many people are going?’ I asked when I heard some of the venues she was thinking of.

‘So far there’s four hundred and twenty.’

‘What?’ I almost choked on my wine.

‘Oh, it’s mostly your father’s colleagues,’ she said. ‘Given his position it’s difficult to invite some and not others. People get very offended.’ And feeling as if she’d spoken out of turn, she corrected herself. ‘And rightly so.’

‘So don’t invite any of them,’ I said.

‘Oh, Lucy,’ she smiled at me, ‘I can’t do that.’

My phone started ringing, and Don Lockwood’s name flashed on the screen. Before I had a chance to control my facial muscles, I took on the characteristics of a giddy child.

Mum raised her eyebrows at Riley.

‘Excuse me, I’ll just take this outside.’

I stepped out onto the balcony. It was a wraparound so I moved away from their eyeline and earshot.

‘Hello?’

‘So, did you get fired today?’

‘Not quite. Not yet anyway. But it turned out the guy didn’t know who Tom was. Thanks for the tip all the same.’

He laughed lightly. ‘Same thing happened in Spain. Tom’s a mystery. Don’t worry. It could have been worse. You could have been in the office where that poor guy went ballistic.’

I paused. I immediately thought it was a trap but then my better judgement overrode it – how on earth could he have known, he didn’t even know my real name, couldn’t possibly have known that I even worked there.