Cecelia Ahern - The Time of My Life

‘Well, look at this,’ Chantelle boomed, ‘just like old times. Apart from him,’ she referred to Andrew. ‘I was dating Derek back then.’ She pretended to retch. Andrew went puce again.

‘So what did I miss?’ Blake asked the table but looked at me.

‘Nothing yet,’ David said, bored.

‘Lucy was just about to share something important with everyone,’ Life said, looking pointedly at Blake. ‘Something that means a lot to her .’

‘No, it’s okay,’ I said quietly, drained. ‘Forget about it.’

‘Okay,’ Blake jumped in, ‘because I’ve a bit of important news myself.’ All heads swiftly turned to him as if it was a tennis match. ‘I just heard that my deal came through for my new cookbook and TV show.’

There was a collective cheer, mostly from our friends; my family and my life weren’t overly enthused but they were polite – apart from Life who booed but only so that I could hear. It wasn’t an entirely overenthusiastic cheer from the rest of the gang either, but I’m not sure if Blake noticed, and if he did he was ignoring the signs to shut up and had begun talking about a fish course he’d designed from sardines he’d eaten in Spain which were cooked on a hot stone under a scorching summer sun. Adam was looking a little concerned by Blake’s interruption, as it appeared to everyone to have been an obvious one. Jenna was the only person who seemed rapt; everybody else listened politely apart from Lisa who looked fit to burst. I don’t know if that was due to her personal discomfort or because Blake was talking incessantly about himself. Jamie had given up listening and instead was ogling Lisa’s watermelon breasts.

‘My word,’ Mum turned to me and said quietly. ‘He hasn’t changed a bit, has he?’ From the way that she said it I knew she didn’t mean it in a good way and I was surprised, because I’d always thought she’d been fascinated by him and his stories. Perhaps she had just been appropriately polite and attentive. Pockets of conversation had begun to form around the table as people tuned out of Blake’s stories – each seemed to lead seamlessly into another – until eventually it was just Blake telling Lisa, and Lisa was not to be messed with.

Finally she yawned. ‘Blake,’ she held her hand up. ‘I’m sorry, can you please stop?’ All other conversations died down to listen to her. ‘I don’t mean to be rude but I don’t care any more. I’m uncomfortable and I’m disgusting and I have no patience and I’m just going to say what I think. Before you arrived, Lucy was about to tell us something, something important and we all care because Lucy never tells us anything important. Not any more. No offence, Lucy, but you don’t. You didn’t even tell us about the weirdo in your office who held a gun to your head, I had to hear it from Belinda Bitchface who lives around the corner from me, do you remember her? She’s a single mother with three kids with three different fathers and has the face of a scrunched-up nipple and it serves her right. Don’t look at me like that, Mrs Silchester, she deserves it, honestly – if you heard the things she used to do to us when we were at school. Anyway, she told me he had a gun to your head and I was mortified because I didn’t even know, and it wasn’t just that.’ Lisa looked at Blake again. ‘She doesn’t tell us anything. Nothing. ’

‘It was a water pistol,’ I said, trying to calm them all down as they gave out to me for not telling them anything, rattling off everything in my life that they’d heard from other people which I’d never told them about. Blake listened to them all, fascinated.

‘Silence!’ Lisa finally shouted and again the restaurant became hushed and stared at her. ‘Not you, just them,’ she gestured at us. ‘Let Lucy speak.’

The waiter returned to fill my glass with water and gave me a smug smile. He took his time and moved on to another glass. I stared him down and finally he left the jug on the table and walked away.

‘Okay fine. Blake, can I, please?’

‘You don’t need to ask his permission,’ Chantelle snapped. ‘We’ve heard enough about sardines for one night.’

Jamie smirked.

Blake crossed his arms, looked nervous beneath the tough exterior.

‘I just want to say that this is for me, it is not to make anybody into the bad guy. Blake had a part in it but I take full responsibility for the rest of it. It’s my doing – not his.’

Blake seemed satisfied by that.

‘So do not attack Blake,’ I urged. Then I paused. ‘I did not,’ I began slowly, ‘break up with Blake. He left me.’

Mouths fell open. They stared at me silently, in shock, then shocked faces turned to scowls, and then those faces turned away from me and towards Blake.

‘Hey, hey, hey, not his fault, remember?’

With gritted teeth they all looked back at me. Except for Adam; he looked at Blake questioningly and when Blake wouldn’t meet his eye he saw it as an admission and his look turned to anger.

‘I was very happy in our relationship. I was completely in love. I didn’t feel that we had any problems but obviously I wasn’t paying enough attention because Blake wasn’t happy. He ended the relationship, for his own reasons, which he is perfectly entitled to,’ I said forcefully, trying to quash the uprising.

‘Why did you say she left you?’ Melanie asked Blake.

‘ We decided to say that because I was embarrassed,’ I answered. ‘Because I was confused and I was worried what people would think and because I didn’t have any answers and I thought that if I said I just wasn’t happy and I decided to leave him then it would all be much easier. Blake was helping me. He was trying to make it easier for me.’

Blake had the decency to look embarrassed.

‘And whose idea was this?’ Jamie asked.

‘I don’t know,’ I said dismissively, ‘It’s not important. The point is that it set off a chain of events in my life that—’

‘But who suggested the idea first?’ Mary interrupted.

‘It doesn’t matter. This is about me now,’ I said selfishly. ‘I felt it would be easier to deal with, only it wasn’t because you all held it against me, and thought that I cheated.’ I looked at Adam. ‘I assure you, I absolutely did not.’

‘Did you ?’ Melanie asked Blake angrily.

‘Hey, I told you not to attack him, it’s about me .’ But no one was listening to me.

‘Can you remember who thought of it first?’ Jamie asked Blake.

‘Look,’ Blake sighed and leaned forward, elbows on the table, hands clasped. ‘It might have been my idea but it wasn’t to back away from any blame, it was genuinely to make it easier for Lucy—’

‘And you,’ Mum said.

‘Mum, please,’ I said quietly, embarrassed it was all turning out as Blake had feared.

‘So it was your idea?’ Riley confirmed.

Blake sighed. ‘I guess.’

‘Lucy, continue,’ Riley said, and that was that.

‘Well, that day that he, that we broke up we told you all that I’d left him and I was very confused. I was very sad and very confused. I had a day off work, I’d taken it off because, Blake, remember we were supposed to go strawberry picking with your niece in …’ I looked at Blake and he looked genuinely sad. ‘Anyway,’ I changed the subject, ‘I had a bit to drink at home. Quite a bit.’

‘As you should,’ Lisa said, looking at Blake angrily.

‘And work phoned me and told me to collect a client from the airport. And I did.’

Mum looked shocked.

‘Dad knows this, by the way. That’s why we had the argument. And Riley, whatever you heard about that day from Gavin is correct. And for the record, he isn’t cheating on his wife with a man. I lost my job and I lost my driving licence but I couldn’t tell anyone that.’