Cecelia Ahern - The Time of My Life

‘He’s not handsome at all, he’s ugly actually.’ I pictured him with his clammy skin, bad breath and snivelling in his creased suit. ‘But anyway it’s fine, we’re fine. I don’t think he wants to meet again.’

Mum frowned again. ‘Are you sure?’ Then she left me for a moment and came back with a bag filled with envelopes with the life spirals imprinted on the front, all in my name and addressed to her home. ‘We received one in the post every day last week. And again yesterday morning.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘He must have forgotten my address. No wonder I didn’t receive them.’ I shook my head and laughed. ‘Maybe Life’s one big problem is disorganisation.’

Mum smiled at me, rather sadly.

Riley came out of his bedroom, car keys at the ready, and saw the envelope in my hand. ‘Oh, are we doing that now?’ He reached into a drawer in the hall table and came over to the dining table with a pile of envelopes in his hand. He threw them down on the table, grabbed a poppadom and crushed it in his mouth. ‘Do me a favour, will you, sis? Stop ignoring your life. These were blocking my postbox up.’

At first I had been indifferent towards my life, now, after the day I’d had, I was angry at it, but then these letters being sent to my family made me even angrier. I was due to meet him the following day in Starbucks. I had insisted he didn’t visit my apartment. Edna had called to tell me we’d been given the day off work and I was glad of it this time, not just for the break from the job but because I was genuinely embarrassed about the spectacular style in which my lack of Spanish was discovered. To deliberately put me in a situation just to get me to meet him was beyond despicable. He hadn’t just jeopardised my safety but the safety of everybody in that room. Because of this anger, I was looking forward to my second appointment with Life.

The following day as I worked through intelligent nasty things to say to my life, my mobile rang. It was a number I didn’t recognise so I ignored it. But it rang again. And again. Then there was banging on the door. I rushed to open it. It was my neighbour, whose name I couldn’t remember, in a panicked state.

‘I’m so sorry to disturb you. It’s my mother. My brother called me. They told me to go to the hospital immediately.’

‘No problem.’ I grabbed my keys and closed my door behind me. She was trembling.

‘It’s okay, you need to go to her,’ I said gently.

She nodded. ‘It’s just that I’ve never left him before …’

‘It’s okay. Trust me, it’ll be fine.’

She led me into the apartment and in a jittery state brought me around it, shooting orders at me. ‘I’ve made his bottle; warm it up before you feed him. He’ll only drink it if it’s warm. He feeds at seven thirty, he likes to watch In the Night Garden before going to bed. Just press play on the DVD. Then he goes straight down. He won’t sleep without Ben. Ben is the pirate teddy over there. If he wakes up and is distressed, singing “Twinkle Twinkle” will calm him down.’ She brought me around showing me everything, teething rings, cuddly toys, the steriliser in case I dropped the bottle and needed to make a fresh one. She looked at her watch. ‘I’d really better go.’ She stalled. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t, maybe I should stay.’

‘Go. Everything is fine here.’

‘Yes, you’re right.’ She threw on her coat and opened the door. ‘Okay. I’m not expecting anybody to call around, and you won’t have friends over or anything, will you?’

‘Of course not.’

‘And you’ve got my mobile number, haven’t you?

‘In here,’ I waved my phone in the air.

‘Okay. Thank you.’ She bent over the playpen. ‘Bye, baby. Mummy will be home soon,’ she said, tears in her eyes. And she was gone.

Which left me in trouble. I called Life’s office but there was no answer, and his secretary didn’t answer either which meant she had finished for the day and he was already en route to Starbucks. I waited until it was time for us to meet before calling Starbucks.

‘Hello,’ a stressed-out guy sounding under pressure answered.

‘Hi, I’m supposed to be meeting someone there right now and I need to tell them—’

‘What’s their name?’ he interrupted.

‘Oh, em, actually I don’t know his name but he’s wearing a suit, probably looks a little stressed and tired and—’

‘Hey, someone on the phone for you,’ he shouted down my ear and he was gone. I heard the phone being passed over.

‘Hello?’

‘Hi,’ I said in my friendliest voice. ‘You’ll never believe what just happened.’

‘You’d better not be calling to cancel,’ he said immediately. ‘I seriously hope you’re just running late, which is insulting enough to be perfectly honest, but anything but cancelling.’

‘I am, but not for the reason you think.’

‘What reason do you think I think?’

‘That I’m not interested in you and that’s not true, well it kind of is true and I’m learning I have to change that, but it’s not the reason I’m cancelling. A neighbour of mine asked me to babysit. Her mother is really sick and she had to rush to the hospital.’

He was silent as he considered it. ‘That’s right up there with “my dog ate my homework”.’

‘No, it’s not, it’s not even close.’

‘What’s your neighbour’s name?’

‘I can’t remember.’

‘That’s the worst lie you’ve ever come up with.’

‘Because it’s not a lie. If I was lying I would have made up a name like … Claire. Actually, I think that is her name. Claire,’ I said. ‘Her name’s Claire.’

‘Are you drunk?’

‘No. I’m babysitting.’

‘Where?’

‘In her apartment. Across the hall from mine. But you can’t come here in case that’s what you’re thinking. She specifically said no strangers allowed in.’

‘I wouldn’t be a stranger if you’d keep our appointments.’

‘Well, let’s not punish her for my mistakes, shall we.’

He ended the call in less of a rage than he began it and, I hoped, believing every word I’d said. However, I was settled on the rocking chair watching Makka Pakka on the Pinky Ponk drinking pinky ponk juice in In the Night Garden but really thinking about the events of the day before when I heard knocking on my door for the second time that night. I opened the door and saw him, standing at the door to my apartment, his back turned to me.

‘Are you checking up on me?’ I asked.

He turned.

‘You shaved,’ I said, surprised. ‘You don’t look nearly as miserable as you were.’

He look past me in into the apartment. ‘So, where’s the baby?’

‘You can’t come in. This is not my home, I can’t just let you in.’

‘Fine, but at least you can show me the baby. For all I know you could have just broken into this apartment in order to get away from me. And don’t look at me like that, that’s exactly the kind of thing you’d do.’

I sighed. ‘I can’t show you the baby.’

‘Just bring it to the door. I won’t touch it or anything.’

‘I can’t show you the baby.’

‘Show me the baby,’ he repeated in turn. ‘Show me the baby, show me the baby.’

‘Shut up,’ I hissed. ‘There is no baby.’

‘I knew it.’

‘No, you don’t know anything.’ Then I whispered, ‘She thinks there’s a baby, but there is no baby. There was a baby but he died, and she thinks or she pretends, or I don’t know what she does, but she acts like there’s a baby. There is no baby.’

He looked uncertain, looked past me in the hall. ‘I see a lot of baby things lying around.’

‘There are. She takes the buggy out for a walk but it’s always empty, she thinks he’s teething and crying all night but I don’t hear anything. There’s no baby here. I’ve been looking at the photos and he’s the oldest in this. I think he was at least one when he died. Here.’