Cecelia Ahern - The Time of My Life

I looked at him in surprise. ‘I thought that role was just especially for me.’

‘Don’t think so much of yourself, Lucy. I was born before you, I’ve given him at least a few more years worth of disappointment than you have.’

I tried to think back to a time when I’d witnessed Father bearing down on Philip but couldn’t.

‘He’s fine when you’re doing what he wants but if you divert in any way at all …’ he sighed and it was filled with resignation. ‘He wants the best for us, he just has no idea that the best for us in his eyes and the best for us in reality are not one and the same.’

‘So Riley is still the golden child,’ I said, bored. ‘We’ll have to take him out.’

‘Done. I just told Father he was gay.’

‘What is it with you and Mum? Riley isn’t gay!’

‘I know that,’ he laughed. ‘But it’ll be fun listening to Riley get himself out of that one.’

‘I’ve already got a bet on with him that he can’t say “transcendent elephant” in his speech. He’s not having a good day.’

We laughed.

‘He’ll pull it off, he always does,’ Philip said good-naturedly, then pushed himself out of the hedge and back on the path. ‘Shouldn’t you go up to Mum now?’ He glanced at his watch.

I looked at Father again. ‘I will in a minute.’

‘Good luck,’ he said, dubiously.

I deliberately made my presence known so as Father wouldn’t get a fright when I appeared.

‘I already saw you in the bush,’ he said, not turning around.

‘Oh.’

‘Though I won’t enquire as to what you were doing. God knows, you won’t find a profession in there.’

‘Yeah, about that …’ I started, feeling the adrenaline of anger surge through my body again. I tried to control it. I got straight to the point. ‘I’m sorry I lied to you about how I left my job.’

‘You mean about how you were fired?’ He looked down at me, through the spectacles at the end of his nose.

‘Yes.’ I gritted my teeth. ‘I was embarrassed.’

‘So you should have been. Your behaviour was despicable. You could have found yourself behind bars. And they would have been right to do it, you know.’ He left a long pause after every sentence as if each was a new thought and nothing at all to do with the previous one. ‘And there would have been nothing I could have done about it.’

I nodded and counted to five, keeping my anger at bay.

‘It’s not really about the drink-driving, though, is it?’ I finally said. ‘It’s me. You have a problem with me.’

‘Problem, what problem?’ he mumbled, already irritated that I’d pointed out a weakness in him. ‘I have no problem , Lucy, I merely want you to rise to the challenge, show responsibility and make something of yourself, instead of this … idleness … this nothing that you so much want to be.’

‘I don’t want to be nothing.’

‘Well, you’re doing a ruddy good job of it, regardless.’

‘Father, don’t you realise that no matter what it is that I do, you won’t be happy, because you want me to be what you want me to be, and not necessarily what I need to be, for me?’ I swallowed.

‘What on earth are you talking about? I want you to be a decent human being,’ he snapped.

‘I am one,’ I said quietly.

‘One who offers something to society,’ he continued as if he hadn’t heard me, and set off on a rant about responsibility and duty, each sentence beginning with, ‘One who …’

I counted to ten silently in my head and it worked; my anger and hurt had subsided and on the day that it was, after the conversation I’d had with Philip, I didn’t feel as uptight about his lack of approval as I usually did. Though I believed in self-development and evolution for all of the human race, I knew I would never be able to change him or his opinions of me, and as I would never want to try to please him, an eternity of locking horns was in our future. However, deliberate attempts to displease him would no longer be on my to-do list, at least not intentionally, but one can never predict how the subconscious works. I suddenly felt light, the very last lie to myself undone; Father and I would not ever be friends.

I tuned back into his rant ‘… so if you’ve nothing further to add we should end this conversation immediately.’

‘I’ve nothing further to add,’ I grinned.

He wandered off to Uncle Harold whom he despised and who could not take his eyes off Majella’s chest.

Mum was in her bedroom preparing when I knocked on the door and entered. She turned around from the full-length mirror.

‘Wow, Mum, you look amazing.’

‘Oh,’ she wafted her eyes. ‘I’m being so silly, Lucy, I’m nervous,’ and she laughed as her eyes filled. ‘I mean, what have I got to worry about? It’s not as if he’s not going to show!’

We both laughed.

‘You look beautiful,’ she said.

‘Thank you,’ I smiled. ‘I love the dress. It’s perfect.’

‘Oh, you’re probably just saying that to please the fussy old bride.’ She sat down at her dressing table.

I pulled out a tissue and gently dabbed at the corners of her eyes where her tears had smudged her make-up. ‘Believe me, Mum, I don’t lie any more.’

‘Is Don here?’

‘He’s outside talking to Uncle Marvin who asked me in front of Father if he’d just seen me in an infomercial for Magic Carpet Cleaners. Father almost dropped dead.’

‘It was your finest work,’ Mum said with mock pride.

‘It’s been my only work,’ I said, worried.

‘You’ll find something.’

I paused. ‘Don asked me to work with him.’

‘Cleaning carpets?’

‘His dad is having back problems. Don has had to do all the work himself for the past two weeks and he needs help.’

Mum looked concerned at first, the old Silchester adage of respectability the first thought in her mind, but then her new thoughts kicked in and she smiled supportively. ‘Well, that will be handy, won’t it? Having a daughter who can clean up after herself for a change. Are you going to take the job?’

‘Father won’t be happy about it.’

‘When have you ever done anything to please him?’ Mum looked out of the window. ‘Look at him. I’d better put him out of his misery and get down there.’

‘Nah, leave it another ten minutes, let him sweat it out.’

Mum shook her head. ‘You two…’ Then she stood up and took a deep breath.

‘Before you go down there, I just want to give you a present; a proper present this time. Remember you said that you never felt you were good at anything, that you never knew what it was you were supposed to do?’

Mum looked embarrassed, then resigned herself to the fact. ‘Yes. I remember.’

‘Well, it got me thinking. Apart from being the best mother in the world, and the best bread maker, I remembered how you used to draw pictures for us to colour in. Do you remember that?’

Mum’s face lit up. ‘ You remember that?’

‘Of course I do! We had colouring books wherever we went because of you. You were so good at that. So, anyway.’ I ran out to the landing and returned with an easel and its accessories all wrapped up in a red bow. ‘I got you this. You’re lots of things to lots of people, Mum, and when I was a child, I always thought that you were an artist. So, paint.’

Mum’s eyes filled again.

‘Don’t, you’ll ruin your make-up. I preferred it when you didn’t cry.’ I grabbed another tissue and dabbed at her eyes.

‘Thank you, Lucy,’ she sniffed.

Riley knocked on the door. ‘Are you ladies ready?’

‘For now and for the next thirty-five years,’ she smiled. ‘Let’s go.’

Walking down the aisle behind my mother who was arm in arm with Riley was the most positive emotionally charged day of my life. The two of them walked before me towards a dapper Philip and the proudest-looking Father I’d ever seen, and I could see the young awkward apprentice who had promised Mum she would never be lonely again in the older man who had never broken that promise.