Cecelia Ahern - The Time of My Life

‘What are you here to fix?’

‘I don’t know, it’s exploratory surgery. I examine all areas, see what the problem is.’

‘So you are the endoscope to my anus.’

He winced. ‘Again we’re having metaphor issues.’

We smiled.

‘I recall you saying that your father was a pretentious little man who needed to get off his high horse. That implies there’s something to talk about.’

‘I didn’t say that, I called him a pretentious little shit .’

‘I was paraphrasing.’

‘We’ve just never gotten along. We used to, to a certain extent, when we were polite enough to tolerate one another but there’s no room for politeness any more.’ I looked at him. ‘Are you here to sort out daddy issues? Because if so, we might as well call the whole thing off now because if I really had daddy issues I would spend my days trying to endlessly please him which would result in my becoming a high achiever, and right now I’m not even close to that. He can’t even piss me off enough to make me successful. Our issues are just a waste of time.’

‘You’re right. You’re a failure, you don’t have daddy issues.’

We laughed.

‘He doesn’t like me,’ I said simply. ‘There’s nothing deeper to it than that, nothing to fix, nothing to explore. He’s just never liked me.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘He told me.’

‘He didn’t tell you that.’

‘You know that he did. When I got fired from my last job it was the final straw for him, which was ridiculous because up to that point I had actually been doing well so it should technically have been the first straw. Actually, it shouldn’t have been a straw at all because I didn’t tell him I was fired, I told them I left the job because I didn’t agree with the company’s take on their environmental responsibility. We had an argument and I told him I knew he hated me and he said quote, “Lucy, I don’t hate you, I just don’t like you very much.” Unquote.’ I looked at him. ‘So there, it’s not just my paranoia. Take out your little computer and see for yourself.’

‘I’m sure he just meant in that moment.’

‘Yes, he absolutely meant in that moment, thing is, the moment hasn’t ended, we’re still stuck right in it.’

‘Why did you get fired?’

We had finally arrived at it.

I sighed. ‘Do you know what CSR is?’

He frowned and shook his head.

‘CSR, or Corporate Social Responsibility to you, is a form of corporate self-regulation integrated into a business modal. CSR policy honours the triple bottom line: people, planet, profit. It’s like a corporate conscience, integrating the public interest in corporate decision-making by encouraging community growth and development and voluntarily eliminating practices that harm the public, regardless of legality. The idea is that the company makes more profit by operating with perspective though some argue that it distracts from the economic role of business.’ I took a sip of coffee. ‘I agree with the former, by the way. I worked in a large multinational who should have taken their policy more seriously, and I didn’t agree with the decisions they were making.’

‘So what happened? You found paper in the plastic bin?’

‘No.’ I rolled my eyes. ‘I won’t get into the exact ins and outs but I basically shared my opinions with the CEO and I was swiftly fired.’

Life nodded his head to himself and pondered what I’d said. Then he threw his head back and laughed, laughed so loudly the old lady beside him jumped with fright, laughed on behalf of the entire country. He was breathless by the time he’d finished.

‘Man, that was a good one,’ he said. ‘Thanks.’

‘You’re welcome.’ I took a slug of my coffee, gearing myself up for the payback.

‘I think you’ll find it was worth it though.’ He turned to the old lady, ‘Sometimes she doesn’t wash her bras for weeks at a time.’

I gasped. The lady finally stood up and left.

‘So where did you get that lie from?’ he asked.

‘Wikipedia. Couldn’t sleep one night and so I surfed around for a good story.’

‘Nice. Is that what you told everybody?’

‘Yep. No one ever asked what exactly the company practices were that I didn’t agree with. I was going to go with something like illegal dumping but it seemed too obvious and too eighties.’

He laughed again. Then stopped. ‘You didn’t tell your dad that, did you?’

‘Yes, I did.’ I cringed, recalling the moment. ‘It turned out he already knew the truth but he still let me say my little spiel first before revealing it. He’s the only one who knows the truth behind that particular lie. Hence the argument.’

‘How did he know?’

‘He’s a judge, and I have learned the judging world is a small one.’

‘Ah. Care to kindly share the truth with me?’

I drained my cup and fired it into the nearest basket. It missed and hit the ground. I sighed wearily, the world heavy on my shoulders just because of that one incident, then got up and put it back in the bin and returned to the bench.

‘I was drunk while collecting a client from the airport. I got lost, so we drove around for an hour, he missed a meeting and then I dropped him at the wrong hotel and left him there.’ I looked at him. ‘They fired me and I lost my driver’s licence for a year, so I sold the car and rented a flat in the city where I could cycle everywhere.’

‘Which tied in with the environmentally responsible thing.’

I nodded.

‘Clever.’

‘Thanks.’

‘So technically you lied to your father and he caught you out and you’re angry with him for being angry with you?’

I thought about that; wanted to protest, justify myself, and explain the years I’d endured his patronising comments and his pushiness, which had played a large part in our relationship breakdown because of course it was so much more complicated than just one argument, but it was too much to explain and I didn’t know where to start, hadn’t the time, energy or inclination to delve into its infinitesimal detail so eventually I took the lazy way out and nodded.

‘Problem is, your lies are built on top of other lies, aren’t they? You tell one, you have to tell another, you reveal a tiny truth and the whole thing falls apart, so you keep building on them, like the lying at work about speaking Spanish being linked to Melanie and her ex-girlfriend.’

I nodded.

He continued. ‘You tell people you got fired at work, they’ll ask why – because you were drunk – because why – because that was the day Blake left you and you were upset and you had a day off and you weren’t thinking straight so you opened a bottle of wine and drank it, and then the company called you even though you were on a day off and told you there was a problem, you needed to collect Robert Smyth from the airport for an important meeting; and there was a lot at stake, you’d already lost your boyfriend, you didn’t want to lose your job too, so you hopped in your car, drunk but not as drunk as you eventually became because it hadn’t hit you yet, and you got worse as the hour wore on, you had a disastrous day and as a result lost your job, your licence and your car.’

It sounded so sad, my whole life tangled up in a string of ridiculous lies that went from bad to worse.

‘If you already know all of this stuff, then why do you ask?’

‘I want to hear something the computer files aren’t telling me.’

‘And do you?’

‘Yes.’

I looked at him for more.

‘That you’re not reckless. You’re just sad.’

Silchesters didn’t cry but it didn’t mean Silchesters didn’t ever want to cry. I wanted to then but I didn’t do it. We sat together in a long but not uncomfortable silence; at least five minutes passed when we didn’t utter a word. It was a beautiful day, the park was full, there wasn’t a breeze in the air, everything was still, everyone was lazy, lying on the freshly cut grass, reading or eating or gossiping or doing what we were doing, which was taking it all in. Finally he broke the silence.