Cecelia Ahern - The Time of My Life

She took the paperwork and as she read, I saw the realisation pass over her face. ‘Okay Mr Brown, please have a seat.’

‘Please, call me Cosmo,’ he smiled and I knew it was a dig at me.

She looked at him when she spoke. ‘This meeting is about the events which took place on Tuesday. I’m sure you’re aware of the incident regarding Steven Roberts.’

Life nodded.

‘Excuse me, do you have to address him when you speak about me?’ I looked at Life. ‘Does she have to address you?’

‘She can look at whoever she likes, Lucy.’

‘But it doesn’t have to be you.’

‘No, it doesn’t have to be me.’

‘Okay.’ I looked back at Edna. ‘You don’t have to address him.’

‘Thank you, Lucy. Now, where was I?’ She returned her gaze to Life. ‘So what we are going to discuss is not what happened to Steve, though if there are any personal worries that Lucy has about what happened and frankly I wouldn’t be surprised if there were, then as her immediate superior I am the person she can speak to about any issue that arises from what happened—’

‘Eh, excuse me, but I’m here. You don’t have to speak as though I’m not here.’

She looked at me then, fixed me with a steely stare and I wished she’d continued looking at Life. ‘This meeting is to do with the revelation that surfaced from those events in which we discovered that you can’t actually speak any Spanish.’

‘I can speak Spanish. I was just under so much pressure. There was a gun in my face and I couldn’t think.’

Edna looked relieved and she finally softened. ‘Lucy, that is what I assumed, I mean, my goodness, I could barely remember my own name under the circumstances and I was just hoping to hear confirmation of that. As you can understand I have to officially go about—’

‘Excuse me, can I interrupt here?’ Life said.

I looked at him with wide eyes. ‘I don’t think you’re allowed to.’ I looked at Edna. ‘Is he allowed to? I think he’s just supposed to witness my life and not actually partake in any—’

‘No, no, I’m allowed to partake,’ he said to me. Then he looked at Edna. ‘I’d like to confirm that Lucy cannot speak Spanish.’

My mouth dropped. Edna’s eyes widened even more than her fish eyes.

‘I’m sorry, did you say “can” or “cannot”?’

‘I will verify that I said “cannot”.’ He said the word slowly and accentuated the t. ‘She,’ he pointed at me to make sure we were all totally clear it was not the fake rose on the table that we were talking about, ‘is unable to speak Spanish. I think there is a danger here of you being deceived again and it’s only appropriate that I jump in and keep you wise to the situation.’ He looked at me as if to say, That okay? Did I handle that well?

I was speechless. My life had stabbed me in the back. Edna was momentarily speechless too but then she found her voice again. She continued to talk to him instead of me.

‘Cosmo, I’m sure you understand that this is a very serious situation.’

I felt beads of sweat break out on my forehead.

‘Of course,’ he agreed.

‘And so as Lucy is employed as our language specialist for the manual and has been for the past two and a half years, I am concerned that her lack of knowledge of Spanish has put the customers who buy the products in grave danger and the company in jeopardy. I mean, who on earth was writing the Spanish translations? Were they even accurate? Were they from a dictionary?’

‘They were from a very reputable national Spanish speaker whose translations of the appliance directions have been second to none,’ I said quickly.

‘Well, you don’t actually know that,’ Life said.

‘There have never been any complaints,’ I said, tired of being stabbed in the back.

‘That we know of,’ Edna said and Life agreed.

‘Who is this person who was translating the work for you?’ Edna asked, unable to hide the shock from her voice.

‘From a reputable—’

‘You said that,’ he interrupted.

‘—Spanish business person,’ I continued anyway. ‘It was actually more of a sub-contract than cheating though I know nobody has brought up that word but that is what I’ve been made to feel like I’m doing.’ I took the high ground. ‘Look, I speak every other language perfectly, that is definitely not a lie, tell her.’

I looked at Life to back me up but he put up his hands. ‘I don’t think that’s my role here.’

I gulped and lowered my voice. ‘Look, if you could just allow me to keep my job, please, then maybe let Quentin do the Spanish translations and it’s all kept in-house and it’s all perfectly legal and there’s nothing to worry about. I apologise profusely for not telling the complete truth—’

‘For lying,’ Life said.

‘For not telling the complete truth,’ I continued.

‘For lying.’ He looked at me. ‘You lied.’

‘Look, who doesn’t lie on their resumé?’ I finally snapped. ‘Everybody does. Ask any of those guys out there if they’ve ever lied and they’ll all tell you they exaggerated the truth a little. I bet you have too.’ I looked at Edna. ‘You’ve said you worked at Global Maximum for four years and everyone knows it was only two years, and half of that was in junior management and not senior like you said you were.’

Edna’s eyes widened. Then realising what I’d said, mine did too.

‘But that’s not to say you lied , I just mean we all exaggerate the truth, that’s not to take away from any accomplishments that you or I may or may not have—’

‘Okay, I think I may have heard enough here,’ Edna said, massaging her temples. ‘I’m going to have to bring this up on a higher level.’

‘No, please don’t do that.’ I reached across and held her arm. ‘Please don’t. Look, there’s nothing to worry about. You know legal wouldn’t have cleared any manual we did if it all wasn’t one hundred per cent accurate. Things get checked all the time, I’m not the person with the last say here. So nothing can backfire on you and if it ever ever did, then you’ve nothing to worry about because you didn’t know. Nobody knew.’

‘Did Quentin know?’ she asked, her eyes narrowed.

‘Why do you ask?’ I frowned.

‘Just tell me the truth, Lucy. Quentin knew, didn’t he?’

I was taken aback. ‘Nobody knew.’

‘But he knew on Tuesday, when Steve was asking you to translate. He knew then, he was straight up from under the table.’

‘I think everyone knew then, it was obvious I hadn’t a word in my head.’

‘I think you’re lying again,’ she said.

‘No, I’m not. Okay, I’m not exactly lying, I think Quentin found out a little earlier when—’

Edna shook her head. ‘How much else do I have to pull out of you, Lucy? I mean—’

‘No no, listen,’ I interrupted. ‘He only knew a couple of minutes earlier when I was trying to speak to Augusto Fernández.’

She wasn’t really listening to me. She had given up. ‘I don’t know.’ She was tidying her paperwork away and she stood. ‘I don’t know what to believe any more. Frankly, I’m surprised at you, Lucy, I really thought that you of all people had it all together, out of everyone in this …’ She looked out at the desks outside. ‘Well anyway, I’m surprised at you. But then,’ she looked at Life, ‘I thought the same about my sister and she found herself in the same,’ she searched for a word to describe my current situation, ‘ predicament as this.’

Life nodded as if they’d shared a secret.

She sighed. ‘Quentin did know, he didn’t know, you don’t seem to be very clear or convincing on that fact.’