Cecelia Ahern - The Time of My Life

I hopped off the bus with a spring in my step but quickly it went flat. Momentarily lost, I finally found my bearings when I spotted Don’s beacon, a bright red magic carpet atop the Magic Carpet Cleaner van. It made me smile; the superhero’s car. I took out my pocket mirror and got to work, then I buzzed the intercom.

‘Yes?’ Don answered, out of breath.

‘Hello,’ I said, disguising my accent. ‘I’m here for the interview.’

‘What interview?’

‘The flatmate interview.’

‘Uh. Hold on … I don’t … who is this?’

‘We spoke on the phone.’

‘When was this?’

I could hear paper rustling.

‘Last week.’

‘Maybe that was Tom. Did you speak to someone called Tom?’ I tried not to laugh as I heard him mentally cursing Tom.

‘Is he the fella moving in with his girlfriend?’

‘Yes,’ he said, annoyed. ‘What did you say your name is?’

I smiled. ‘Gertrude.’

There was a long pause.

‘Gertrude what?’

‘Guinness.’

‘Gertrude Guinness,’ he replied. ‘I can’t quite see you on the screen.’

‘Can’t you? I’m looking right in it,’ I said, holding the palm of my hand flat over the camera at the intercom.

He paused again. ‘Okay take the lift to the third floor.’ There was a buzz and the main door unlatched.

In the elevator mirror I fixed my eye patch and made sure all my teeth apart from the front ones on the top and bottom were blacked out. Then I took a deep breath, thinking, here goes everything. The elevator doors slid open and there he was standing at the open door, leaning against the doorframe, arms folded. When he saw me I knew that he wanted to be mad but he couldn’t help it, and he smiled, then he threw his head back and laughed.

‘Hello, Gertrude,’ he said.

‘Hello, Don.’

‘You must be the hideous toothless woman with an eye patch with ten kids that I spoke with on the phone.’

‘Your wrong number. That’s me.’

‘You’re crazy,’ he said softly.

‘About you,’ I said cheesily, and he smiled again, but then it faded.

‘I was led to believe you and Blake were back together. Is that true?’

I shook my head. ‘Didn’t you get my message about dinner last week? I wanted to talk to you.’

‘I did. But …’ He swallowed. ‘I told you I don’t want to be second choice, Lucy. If he didn’t want you back then—’

‘He did want me back,’ I interrupted. ‘But I realised it’s not what I wanted. He wasn’t what I wanted.’

‘Is that true?’

‘I don’t lie. Not any more. To quote one of the most beautiful sentences that was ever said to me, “I don’t love you.”’ He smiled, and feeling encouraged, I continued. ‘But I think that I easily could and that I probably very quickly will. Though I can’t promise anything. It could all very possibly end in tears.’

‘That’s so romantic.’

We laughed.

‘I’m sorry I messed you around, Don. It will be the first and probably the last time I ever do that.’

‘Probably?’

‘Life is messy,’ I shrugged, and he laughed.

‘So are you really here for a flatmate interview?’ He looked uncomfortable.

‘Yes,’ I said sombrely. ‘We’ve met three times now and slept together once, I think it’s time we both took the plunge and moved in together.’

He paled slightly.

‘Hell no, Don, I love my little hovel and I’m staying put and I’m nowhere near being emotionally secure enough to live with another human being.’

He looked relieved.

‘I am here for you .’

He pretended to think about it, at least I hoped he pretended.

‘Come here, you.’ He reached for my hands and pulled me close. He gave me a lingering kiss, which left his mouth covered in the eyeliner I’d used to blacken my teeth. I decided not to tell him, it was more fun that way. ‘You know, we’ve actually slept together twice ,’ he corrected me. ‘Which is a horrible number,’ he rolled up his nose with disdain. ‘ Two .’

‘Yuck,’ I played along.

‘But three,’ he brightened. ‘Three, is a number I like. And four? Four is a great number.’

I laughed as he tried to pull off my eye patch.

‘No, I like this, I’m keeping it on.’

‘You’re nuts,’ he said warmly, kissing me again. ‘Fine. On one condition.’

‘Which is?’

‘Everything comes off except for the eye patch.’

‘Agreed.’

We kissed again. Then he pulled me inside and kicked the door closed.

EPILOGUE

Saturday 6 August in Glendalough was a stunning day as meteorologists had predicted, and one hundred members of our parents’ family and close friends milled around the grass with champagne in their hands, enjoying the sun on their skin as they happily chatted and waited for it all to begin. The back lawn of my parents’ home had been transformed for their vow-renewal ceremony with one hundred seats separated by a white aisle leading to a white hydrangea-adorned trellised archway. Nearby was a marquee filled with ten tables of ten, for which the dozens of shades of green mountainside provided the backdrop. A single white rose sat in a tall vase in the centre of each table and at the top of the room was an enlarged photograph of the day the vows had first been said, thirty-five years ago, before Riley and Philip and I had come along.

As I walked around the side of the marquee I spied Father dressed appropriately for the summer setting in a white linen suit, and talking with Philip. I hid behind a blue and pink hydrangea bush to eavesdrop, momentarily thinking father and son might be having a moving moment, but then I remembered this was real life, not the film about the girl with the cupcake shop who had reunited with her father. At the same time as I had the realisation, Philip turned away from Father, red faced and angry, and stormed off in my direction. Father didn’t even bother to watch him leave; instead he sipped on his glass of white wine which he held by the stem, firmly between his finger and thumb, and watched the view in the distance. As Philip passed the bush I grabbed his arm and pulled him into the shrubbery.

‘Ow, Jesus, Lucy, what the hell are you doing?’ he asked angrily, then once he’d calmed, started laughing. ‘Why are you hiding in a bush?’

‘I was trying to witness father-and-son bonding time.’

Philip snorted. ‘I’ve just been informed I’ve brought embarrassment on the family.’

‘What, you too?’

He shook his head disbelievingly, then had the sense to finally laugh about it.

‘Is it about the boobs?’

He laughed. ‘Yes, it’s about the boobs.’

‘I’m afraid Majella in that dress gave it away for you.’

Philip laughed and reached out to my hair to remove a leaf. ‘Yeah, but it was worth it.’

‘“The gift that keeps on giving”,’ I said and he laughed loudly. I punched his arm and he clamped his hand over his mouth. I felt like we were kids again, hiding from a pending family day out to a museum or our parents’ friends’ house where we would be ignored and would have to sit politely alongside the adults being seen and not heard. We both looked at Father looking out to the distance, away from the crowd of people who’d gathered there for him.

‘He doesn’t mean it, you know,’ I said, trying to make Philip feel better.

‘Yes, he does. He means every single word and you know it. It’s just in him to be miserable and judgemental to everybody in his life apart from himself.’