Cecelia Ahern - The Time of My Life

‘She’ll get a cold,’ my grandmother said.

‘But she didn’t get one last night.’

‘But do you want to run the risk of her having one?’

‘We could get nice handkerchiefs made up in the same fabric as her dress, just in case.’

‘Not if it’s anything like the fabric of your first wedding dress.’

And there it was, the end of my life as I knew it.

I looked at my watch.

‘It’s such a pity you have to go soon, we have so much to plan. Do you think you could come back tomorrow and we could go through everything?’ Mum asked, excited and desperate both at the same time.

And here came the dilemma. Life or my family. Both were as bad as each other.

‘I can’t,’ I said, which was greeted by a long silence. Silchesters didn’t say no to invitations, it was considered rude. You moved around appointments and went to hell and back in order to attend every single thing that you were invited to, you hired lookalikes and embarked on time travel to uphold every single promise that had been made by you and even by somebody else without your knowledge.

‘Why not, dear?’ Mum’s eyes tried to look concerned, but screeched, You have betrayed me.

‘Well, perhaps I can come over, but I have an appointment at noon and I don’t know how long it will go on for.’

‘An appointment with whom?’ Mum asked.

Well, I was going to have to tell them sooner or later.

‘I have an appointment with my life.’ I said it matter-of-factly, expecting them not to have a clue what I was talking about. I waited for them to question and judge, and planned how to explain it was just a random thing that happened to people like jury duty, and that they didn’t have to worry, that my life was fine, absolutely fine.

‘Oh,’ Mum said in a high-pitched yelp. ‘Oh my goodness, well I cannot believe that.’ She looked around the rest at the table. ‘Well, it’s such a surprise, isn’t it? We are all so surprised . My goodness. What a surprise. ’

I looked at Riley first. He was looking awkward, eyes down on the table, while he ran his finger over the prongs of a fork and softly spiked it with each one in a meditative state. Then I looked at Philip; his cheeks had slightly pinked. My grandmother was looking away as though there was a bad smell in the air and it was my mother’s fault but there was nothing new about that. I couldn’t look at my father.

‘You already know.’

Mum’s face went red. ‘Do I?’

‘You all know.’

Mum slouched in her chair, devastated.

‘How do you all know?’ My voice was raised. Silchesters didn’t raise their voices.

Nobody would answer.

‘Riley?’

Riley finally looked up and gave a small smile. ‘We had to sign off on it, Lucy, that’s all, just to give our personal approval to it going ahead.’

‘You what?! You knew about this?’

‘It’s not his fault, sweetheart, he had nothing to do with it, I asked him to get involved. There had to be a minimum of two signatures.’

‘Who else signed?’ I asked looking around at them. ‘Did you all sign?’

‘Don’t raise your voice, young lady,’ my grandmother said.

I wanted to throw Mum’s bread at her head or mush lobster cocktail down her throat and perhaps that was obvious because Philip appealed to everybody for calm. I didn’t hear how the conversation ended because I was racing up the garden – walking fast, not running, Silchesters didn’t run away – and getting as far away from them as possible. Of course I hadn’t left without excusing myself from the table, I can’t remember exactly what I’d said, I’d mumbled something about being late for an appointment and politely abandoned them. It was only when I closed the front door behind me, raced down the steps, and landed on the gravel that I realised I had left my shoes on the back lawn. I hobbled over the stones, biting the inside of my mouth to stop my need to scream, and drove Sebastian at his top speed down the driveway and to the gate. Sebastian backfired along the way as a kind of good riddance , however that’s when my great escape ended because I reached the electric gates and was trapped. I lowered my window and pressed the intercom.

‘Lucy,’ Riley said, ‘come on, don’t be angry.’

‘Let me out,’ I said, refusing to look the intercom in the eye.

‘She did it for you.’

‘Don’t pretend you had nothing to do with this.’

‘Okay fine. We. We did it for you.’

‘Why? I’m fine. Everything is fine.’

‘That’s what you keep saying.’

‘Because that’s what I keep meaning,’ I snapped back. ‘Now open the gate.’

CHAPTER FIVE

Sunday. It had loomed over me all weekend like that giant gorilla over that building in that film and finally it had plucked me into its evil clutches. I’d had a night full of various ‘me meeting life’ scenarios. Some had gone well, others not so well, one was entirely in song and dance. I had every conversation imaginable with life – in that weird dream way that made absolutely no sense when you woke – and now that I was awake, I was exhausted. I pressed my eyelids together again, squeezed them tight and forced myself to have a dirty dream about the cute guy on the train. It didn’t happen, Life kept bursting in on us like a judgemental parent catching a naughty teen. Sleep wouldn’t come, my head had already woken up and was planning things; smart things to say, quick retorts, witty comebacks, intelligent insights, ways to cancel the meeting without seeming insulting, but mostly it was planning my wardrobe. On that note, I opened my eyes and sat up. Mr Pan stirred in his bed and watched me.

‘Morning, Hilary,’ I said and he purred.

What did I want to say to my life about myself? That I was an intelligent, witty, charming, desirable, smart woman with a great sense of style. I wanted my life to know that I had it all together, that everything was under control. I surveyed my dresses on the curtain pole. I had pulled them all across to block out the sunlight. I looked at my shoes below them on the windowsill. Then I looked out the window to check the weather, back to the shoes, back to the dresses. I wasn’t feeling any of it; this was a job for the wardrobe. I leaned over and opened the wardrobe door and before it had fully opened, it hit the edge of the bed. It didn’t matter, I could see in just enough. The bulb inside the wardrobe had blown about a year ago and so I reached for the torch beside my bed and shone it inside. I was thinking, trouser suit, skinny fit, black tuxedo jacket, a touch of eighties revival shoulder pad; black vest; heels, 85mm. It said to me, Jennifer Aniston recent Grazia cover but it would hopefully say to Life, easygoing, relaxed but that I took my life seriously, suit-wearing-serious. It also said, someone has died and I’m going to their funeral, but I was hoping Life wouldn’t be thinking about death. I left Mr Pan sitting in a peep-toe double platform watching Gene Kelly in a sailor suit in On the Town with promises I’d take him outside in a few days. From the elevator I heard my next-door neighbour’s front door close. I pounded on the button to close the door, but I was caught. A trainer appeared through the crack in the closing doors and there she was.

‘Almost got away,’ she smiled. The doors slid open and the buggy was revealed. She manoeuvred it into the confined space and I was almost knocked back out into the corridor by the overloaded baby bag over her shoulder. ‘I swear it just takes me longer and longer to get out of the apartment every day,’ she said, wiping her shiny forehead.