Cecelia Ahern - The Time of My Life

‘That’s not a real dream,’ he said.

‘Why not? It happens to people. That woman in Limerick? She won thirty million and now lives on a desert island, or something.’

‘So your dream is to live on a desert island.’

‘No.’ I waved my hand dismissively. ‘That’d be boring and I hate coconut. I’d take the money though.’

‘That’s a lazy dream, Lucy. If you have a dream, you want to at least be able to try to achieve it in some way. Something that is seemingly beyond your grasp but that you know that with a bit of hard work you could possibly achieve. Walking to your local newsagent to buy a lottery ticket is not inspiring. Dreams should make you think, If I had the guts to do it and I didn’t care what anybody thought, this is what I’d really do .’ He looked at me hopefully, expectantly.

‘I’m a normal person, what do you want me to say? I really want to see the Sistine Chapel? I don’t give a crap about a painting that I have to dislocate my neck to see. That is not a dream to me, that is a requirement whilst on holiday in Rome, which by the way I already carried out when Blake brought me there on our very first weekend away.’ I was aware that I was standing up and raising my voice but I couldn’t help it, I felt strongly that this was a ridiculous issue he had raised. ‘Or what else do people dream about? Jumping out of airplanes? I’ve done it, even did an instructor’s course so I could pull you out of an airplane any day of the week if I wanted. See the Great Pyramids? Done it. On my twenty-fifth birthday with Blake. It was hot and they are as big and majestic as you think they are but would I ever go again? No, a weird man tried to get me in his car when Blake went to the toilet in the nearby McDonald’s. Swim with dolphins? Did it. Would I do it again? No. Nobody tells you they stink up close. Bungee jump? Did it, when Blake and I were in Sydney. I even did shark-cage diving in Capetown, not to mention a hot-air balloon trip with Blake for Valentine’s Day one year. I’ve done most things that people dream about and they weren’t even my dreams. They were just things that I did. What were they talking about in the paper today?’ I picked up one of the pages I’d been reading and stabbed an article. ‘A seventy-year-old wants to go up in one of those space aeroplanes so that he can see the earth from space. Well, I’m living on earth right now and it’s pretty shitty from here, why would I want to see it from another angle? What could that possibly do for me? Those dreams are a waste of time, and that was the most ridiculous question you’ve ever asked me. I used to do stuff all the time, so how dare you make me feel like I’m nothing without a dream. Is it not enough that my life is insufficient enough for you that my dreams have to be too?’

I took a deep breath after my rant.

‘Okay.’ He stood up and grabbed his coat. ‘It was a stupid question.’

I narrowed my eyes. ‘Then why did you ask it?’

‘Lucy, if you’re not interested in this conversation then we won’t have it.’

‘I’m not interested, but I want to know why you asked it,’ I said defensively.

‘You’re right, you’ve clearly lived your life to the fullest and there’s nothing left to do and now it’s time for you to stop. You might as well die.’

I gasped.

‘I’m not saying you’re going to die, Lucy,’ he said, frustrated with me. ‘Not now, anyway. You will eventually.’

I gasped again.

‘We all are.’

‘Oh. Yes.’

He opened the door and looked back at me. ‘The reason I asked you, is because regardless of what you say, or how much you lie, you are not happy with where you are right now, and when I ask you about what you want, anything in the whole entire world, no holds barred, you say winning money and buying stuff .’ He spoke sharply and I was embarrassed.

‘I still think most people would say the lottery.’

He threw me a look and made for the door again.

‘You’re angry with me. I don’t understand why you’re angry with me, just because you don’t like my dream. I mean, this is ridiculous.’

He spoke gently which unnerved me more. ‘I’m angry because not only are you not happy where you are, but you can’t even think of where you’d rather be. Which I think is …’ He searched for the word. ‘Sad. No wonder you’re stuck in a rut.’

I thought about it some more, thought about my dreams, my wishes, my ambitions, where I wanted to be that would make me feel better than being here. I couldn’t come up with anything.

‘Thought so,’ he finally said. ‘See you tomorrow.’ He took his coat and rucksack and left the apartment, which was the worst possible end to the most beautiful beginning of a day.

His comments niggled at me. They always did, it was as though he spoke in a certain tone that only managed to speak to the brain like a whistle for a dog inaudible to the human ear. I tried to think about my dreams, where I wanted to be, what I really wanted but I think to know what you want, you have to know what you don’t want and all I could figure out was that I really wished Life hadn’t contacted me so I could have continued on the path I was going on. Life had complicated things, Life had tried to make things move on when I was perfectly content. He called it a rut, but he’d moved me from that place already, by merely pointing out that I was there, and I would never be able to go back. I liked my rut, I missed my rut, I would mourn my rut forever.

By midday, I had a headache but a tidy flat, and unsurprisingly, the cleaning company hadn’t arrived. Nor had they by twelve fifteen. By twelve thirty I was beginning to celebrate the fact that they’d forgotten and was making arrangements in my head on how best to spend my freedom, but I wasn’t successful with coming to any conclusions. Melanie was away but even still, we hadn’t had any contact since our last meeting and I know I wasn’t top of her list of people to talk to right now. After dinner the night before, my friends who thought I was a cheat weren’t on my own list of people to talk to. And though the demise of Blake and me was swiftly followed by my personality transplant – which at the time I thought nobody noticed but now, with the benefit of Life’s teaching, I could now see that everybody had noticed – I understood their thinking but it still hurt.

A knock at the door disturbed my thoughts. It was Claire, with a wet and wrinkly face, crying again.

‘Lucy,’ she sniffed. ‘I’m so sorry to disturb you on a Sunday, I heard the television on and … well, I was wondering if you could mind Conor again. I wouldn’t ask, only the hospital have called me again and said it’s an emergency and …’ She broke down.

‘Of course. Do you mind if I keep him in here with me? I have people coming to clean the carpet and I need to be here.’

She thought about it; she didn’t look too certain but then she didn’t have much choice. She went back into her apartment and closed the door. I wondered if she sat down and slowly counted to ten before returning to me or if she actually went through the motions of picking him up and strapping him in. I felt a deep sadness for her. The door opened and the empty buggy was pushed out and into my apartment, the straps tied.

‘He’s been asleep for five minutes,’ she whispered. ‘He usually sleeps for two hours in the day so I should be home by the time he wakes. He hasn’t been well lately, I don’t know what’s wrong with him.’ She frowned and examined the empty buggy. ‘So he may sleep a little longer than usual.’

‘Okay.’

‘Thank you.’ She took one last look at the pushchair and turned to go. When she looked out into the hallway there was a man standing outside her apartment.