Cecelia Ahern - The Time of My Life

‘Pardon?’

‘They’re not rich, they’re wealthy.’

‘Who told you to say that?’

‘Mum. I went to a summer camp when I was eight and the other kids kept saying I was rich because they’d seen me roll up in a BMW or whatever we had at the time. I’d never even thought about it before, money was never an issue, never a thought.’

‘Because you had it.’

‘Maybe. But I ended up using the word myself at our annual winter solstice breakfast with the Maguires. I said that we were rich and my parents looked at me in such a way I knew never to use the word again. It’s as if I swore or something. It’s a dirty word, to be rich.’

‘What other rules did they put in your head?’

‘Lots.’

‘Like …’

‘No elbows on the table, no shrugging or nodding … no drinking poitín with nine men in a barn.’ He looked at me. ‘Long story. No crying. No emotion whatsoever, no expression of oneself. You know, the usual.’

‘Do you follow them all?’

‘No.’

‘Do you break them all?’

I thought about the crying rule, which was never technically a rule, just a learned habit. I just never saw them cry, not even when their parents died; they were as stoic and as still, and appropriate as always.

‘Only the important ones,’ I said. ‘I will never give up my God-given right to drink with nine men in a barn.’

Life’s phone beeped.

He read it, smiled and texted back immediately.

‘I’m nervous about tomorrow,’ I revealed.

His phone chirped again and he went straight to it, ignoring my big revelation. He smiled again, texted back immediately.

‘Who’s that?’ I asked, feeling oddly jealous that I didn’t have his full attention for once.

‘Don,’ he said, concentrating on texting.

‘Don? My Don?’

‘If you want to be psychotically possessive about another human being, then yes. Your Don.’

‘That’s not psychotic, I met him first,’ I huffed. ‘Anyway, what is he saying?’ I tried to look at his phone, but he moved it away from me.

‘None of your business.’

‘Why are you texting him?’

‘Because we get along and I’ve a lot of time for him. We’re going for a drink tomorrow night.’

‘Tomorrow night? You can’t, we’ll still be away and anyway, what are you thinking? Isn’t that a conflict of interest?’

‘If you’re referring to Blake, I have no interest in him, so no, there’s no conflict.’

I studied him. His body language had changed; he’d stiffened his spine and turned himself away from me.

‘You really don’t like him, do you?’

He shrugged.

‘What happens if me and him, you know, get back together?’ The very thought made my stomach churn and sent butterflies flying everywhere. I thought of his perfect lips kissing me all over. ‘How would you feel about it?’

He screwed his mouth up and thought about it. ‘If you were happy, it wouldn’t bother me, I suppose.’

‘You would have to be happy then, wouldn’t you? Because when I’m happy, you’re happy? But if I was with him and you weren’t happy, well then, that would mean I don’t really love him, wouldn’t it?’

‘It wouldn’t mean you don’t love him. It would mean that in some way, it’s not right and not meant to be.’

‘I’m nervous. First I was nervous about seeing him again. I mean, it’s been so long and apart from the TV shows I haven’t been anywhere near him. I’ve never passed him in the street, never bumped into him in a bar. I’ve never heard his voice or, oh my God, what if he doesn’t want me here? What if he takes one look at me and is happy he walked away? What if he really loves this girl and wants to spend the rest of his life with her?’ I looked at Life, appalled and terrified by all the new thoughts. ‘What if after all this time, I’m still not good enough?’ My eyes filled up and I quickly blinked them away again.

‘Lucy,’ Life said gently, ‘if it doesn’t work out it’s not because you’re not good enough.’

I had a hard time believing that.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I didn’t sleep very much that night. Life wasn’t snoring but it kept me awake all the same, haunting me with questions and fears and wholly unhelpful thoughts. By the time I woke up I had come to the conclusion that if all did not go well today, then all of my father’s accusations would indeed be validated. Getting back together with Blake somehow became my sole aim to fixing everything. It was losing him that had caused me to go off track in my life, so if I could get him back I would find my way again. Despite the fact that Blake didn’t have a formal job, my father had always liked him, and as alien as the thought seemed now, he actually attended some of the dinner parties in our converted bread-factory loft. Father liked Blake’s can-do attitude, his drive, his ambition; he knew that Blake would always have an interest in something and would do everything to succeed. He liked that he had goals, that he climbed mountains, ran marathons, that he achieved personal physical feats. And even though he didn’t like that I wasn’t a doctor or a lawyer or a nuclear physicist, he at least used to like my attitude too. But then I’d changed and the things he’d loved about me were gone and then so was his love.

Despite being awake most of the night I was last to get up and showered, and I wandered down the hall, following the voices. At the back of the house, in a bright and airy conservatory which served as the breakfast room, Life sat at a table shared by four others, with a plate before him piled high with food.

‘Morning,’ he said, looking up at me before shovelling baked beans into his mouth.

‘Whoa,’ I said, and stopped dead in my tracks at the sight of him.

He looked to the others self-consciously before he continued eating the rest of his fry-up. There was two of everything on the plate.

I pulled a chair out beside him and sat down, saying good morning to everyone. The three boys and girl were the college-student type, no older than twenty, no younger than seventeen, and the surfing kind, the boys with long hair, the girl with short. The chat was moving at a hundred miles an hour as they teased each other and passed insulting remarks across the table at one another. There was no more than ten years between us and I felt like we were living on different planets.

I leaned in close to Life so that the others couldn’t hear me. ‘What the hell happened to your face?’

He looked at me with annoyed eyes, and finished eating. ‘Not just my face, my whole entire body.’ He pulled the neckline of his new T-shirt down and the red blotches continued. ‘It’s a rash,’ he said.

‘No shit.’

‘Stress. From you tossing and turning all night, convincing yourself everything in your world will be further defined from this moment.’

‘Wow.’ I studied his face. In addition to the rash, he still had the massive boil on his chin from when Don didn’t call. ‘Some of the red bits have purple bits.’

‘Don’t you think I don’t know that?’ he hissed. His entire face went momentarily even redder as if he was about to choke.

‘All this is because of Blake?’

‘Blake, your job, your father, your family …’

‘Don?’

‘Don is the only person who cheers me up and because you’ve dumped him it makes me feel worse.’

‘I haven’t dumped him.’ I meant we had nothing to dump, but Life misunderstood.

‘No, you’ve just put him on hold while you check out another line like you’re some kind of 1950s switchboard operator.’