The Time of My Life

by Cecelia Ahern

  ‘Problem is, your lies are built on top of other lies, aren’t they? You tell one, you have to tell another, you reveal a tiny truth and the whole thing falls apart, so you keep building on them, like the lying at work about speaking Spanish being linked to Melanie and her ex-girlfriend.’

  I nodded.

  He continued. ‘You tell people you got fired at work, they’ll ask why – because you were drunk – because why – because that was the day Blake left you and you were upset and you had a day off and you weren’t thinking straight so you opened a bottle of wine and drank it, and then the company called you even though you were on a day off and told you there was a problem, you needed to collect Robert Smyth from the airport for an important meeting; and there was a lot at stake, you’d already lost your boyfriend, you didn’t want to lose your job too, so you hopped in your car, drunk but not as drunk as you eventually became because it hadn’t hit you yet, and you got worse as the hour wore on, you had a disastrous day and as a result lost your job, your licence and your car.’

  It sounded so sad, my whole life tangled up in a string of ridiculous lies that went from bad to worse.

  ‘If you already know all of this stuff, then why do you ask?’

  ‘I want to hear something the computer files aren’t telling me.’

  ‘And do you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I looked at him for more.

  ‘That you’re not reckless. You’re just sad.’

  Silchesters didn’t cry but it didn’t mean Silchesters didn’t ever want to cry. I wanted to then but I didn’t do it. We sat together in a long but not uncomfortable silence; at least five minutes passed when we didn’t utter a word. It was a beautiful day, the park was full, there wasn’t a breeze in the air, everything was still, everyone was lazy, lying on the freshly cut grass, reading or eating or gossiping or doing what we were doing, which was taking it all in. Finally he broke the silence.

  ‘But I do think you spend your days trying to endlessly displease him. Which is something,’ he said.

  It came out of nowhere, a random comment and I pretended not to know what he was talking about. But I did.

  That night was Chantelle’s birthday, which meant we were all summoned to the Wine Bistro. We never bought each other presents, instead agreeing on covering the birthday girl or boy’s share of the meal. We used to meet weekly in Blake’s and my apartment but when we split up we all moved to this restaurant where the food was cheap but good. Life met me down the block and to my absolute surprise and delight was wearing jeans, and beneath the crusty crumpled suit jacket was a fresh white linen shirt. Good teeth and better clothes, surely it meant I was on the up. I couldn’t stop yawning – he still hadn’t bothered to get any nose plugs, but the yawning wasn’t just down to being tired, I was incredibly anxious, which he picked up on.

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s going to be okay.’

  ‘Of course I’m worried, I’ve absolutely no idea what you’re going to say to them.’

  ‘I’m not going to say anything, I’ll just observe. But if you lie, I’ll tell a truth.’

  Which made me anxious; my friendships were built on lies. I yawned again. ‘Just watch out for Adam. He’s Blake’s best friend and he hates me.’

  ‘I’m sure he doesn’t hate you.’

  ‘Just watch out.’

  ‘Okay.’

  I started power-walking up the street which was difficult in double platforms; I felt like I was trying to run in a dream but wasn’t getting anywhere. Breathlessly, I started giving him the rundown. ‘Lisa is pregnant, she’s got about a month to go and she’s got all this fluid stuff in her face and hands so don’t stare too much, and please bear with her. David is her husband, he’s the guy bearing with her. Lisa used to go out with Jamie years ago and David and Jamie are friends and sometimes it gets a bit weird but generally it’s fine. They didn’t cheat or anything, they got together years later so don’t worry about that.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll try not to worry about Jamie and David. If at any stage you think I’m getting too interested in their exciting lives you just jump right in there and stop me.’

  ‘You know, sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.’

  ‘And yet it is still extremely funny.’

  ‘Chantelle will probably try to come on to you – she gets very flirty after drink – so if you feel a hand under the table, it’s her. Adam’s girlfriend Mary is a photographer and wears black all the time and I don’t trust her.’

  ‘Because she wears black?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, because she’s a photographer.’

  ‘Well, I’m so glad it was just me being ridiculous.’

  ‘She’s always trying to see things in different angles. Everything. Even simple things like me saying, “I went to the shop today.” She’ll be like,’ I took on a deep and slow voice, ‘“Why? Which shop? Are you afraid of shops? Is it because of your childhood? How was the light there?”’ Life laughed at me and I returned to normal, panting and striding, striding and panting. ‘She complicates things. Which leaves …’ I went through them all in my head. ‘Me. And I’m in so much trouble right now.’ I stopped walking outside the restaurant and faced him, ‘Please don’t make my friends hate me.’

  ‘Lucy, give me your hand.’ I wouldn’t, so his hand chased mine in the air.

  ‘No, they’re clammy.’ I looked into the restaurant, saw them all sitting there. I was last, as usual. ‘Great, we’re late.’

  ‘If it’s any consolation you’ll be the first out of there.’

  ‘Are you psychic too?’

  ‘No, but you never stay till the end. And my hands are not clammy,’ he said, more to himself than to me, feeling them. He grabbed my hands. ‘See?’

  They were actually dry; I was most definitely on the up, only I didn’t feel like that right then.

  ‘Lucy, look at me. Calm down. I won’t make your friends hate you any more than they already do. That’s a joke, don’t look so scared. Seriously, I won’t make your friends hate you. I promise. Now breathe.’ We resumed walking and he was still holding my hand. I momentarily calmed and then I saw Adam watching us from inside the restaurant and I quickly let go of Life and then I panicked again. As soon as we entered, the waiter with the fake French accent saw me, and he didn’t even attempt to hide the dread in his eyes.

  ‘Bonjour,’ I said to him as I took off my jacket. ‘D’accord, tu peux rester près de moi tant que tu ne parles pas de la chaleur qu’il fait ici.’ Okay, you can stand beside me as long as you don’t talk about how hot it is here.

  He gave me a big smile that showed he had just about had enough of me, and picked up the menus. ‘Zis way,’ he mumbled.

  ‘What was that about?’ Life asked.

  I didn’t answer, I was too busy following the fake French waiter and pasting on a big fake smile to my friends who weren’t looking at me but who had all eyes on Life. Everyone was sitting in their favourite places apart from Melanie; her seat was empty because she had flown to Ibiza that morning to work at a P Diddy party. I sat at the head of the table and stared down to where Blake should be. It was always a reminder. Life sat beside me in Melanie’s place. They were all staring at us.

  ‘Everybody, this is—’ I stalled slightly but not long enough for anybody to notice, I hoped.

  ‘Cosmo Brown,’ he finished for me. ‘I’m a friend of Lucy’s, I’m in town for a few weeks.’

  I looked at him in surprise, then at everybody else to see if they’d swallowed it. Why wouldn’t they? They were nodding, making friendly happy sounds, and one by one they introduced themselves, the men shaking hands across the table. Adam eyed him warily, Mary no doubt checked the lighting on his face for signs of childhood trauma.

  ‘Cosmo,’ Lisa said, looking at her husband David. ‘I like that name.’ She rubbed her swollen belly.

  ‘Yeah,’ David said, trying to be polite to both Lisa and my life but clearly hating the name.

  ‘So it’s a boy,
’ Chantelle said, catching them out.

  ‘No,’ Lisa said.

  The others jeered while Lisa tried to speak over them.

  ‘I told you that we don’t know, but if it was a boy, Cosmo would be nice. My God, I’ve to be so specific with you.’ She buried her head in the menu.

  ‘So how long do you two know each other?’ Adam asked.

  Interesting first question. I translated it as, So how long have you been sleeping with Lucy behind Blake’s back?

  I looked at Life feeling nervous that he would blurt it all out, but he kept his promise.

  ‘Oh …’ Life looked at me and laughed. ‘Forever.’

  ‘Forever?’ Adam asked, eyebrows raised. ‘How long are you in Dublin for?’

  ‘I’m not sure yet,’ Life said, taking off his awful suit jacket and turning up his new linen shirt sleeves. ‘I’m going to see how things go.’

  ‘Are you here working?’

  ‘Generally? Or now?’

  ‘Here, in Dublin,’ Adam said.

  ‘It’s business and pleasure,’ Life said with a big smile so that the lack of information didn’t seem at all rude. I needed to learn from him. Little pieces of information were better than lies. Though it didn’t seem to be working with Adam as he wanted to know everything about my life.

  ‘What line of work are you in?’ he asked.

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s nothing to be threatened by.’ Life held his hands up defensively, making a point of Adam’s interrogation. Everyone laughed, apart from Adam who seemed annoyed. Mary put her hand in his lap and gave his hand a little squeeze. It said, Calm down. She hated me too. When Blake and I broke up I hadn’t heard from her again – a clear sign that we were only friends because our boyfriends were – and while it was insulting I was quite happy about never having to go to bizarre photograph exhibitions again such as ‘Moments in Thyme: a unique and distinct look at nature’.

  ‘I’m joking with you,’ Life said directly to Adam. ‘I’m an auditor.’

  I pursed my lips and tried not to smile; I knew it was a direct reference to the first time we’d met and I’d told him I felt my life was being audited. I think it was a subconscious move but Life put his arm around the back of my chair in a protective way – but it could have been read differently, which is how I think Adam took it, because he was looking at me as if I was the most disgusting piece of shit he’d ever seen.

  ‘That’s what we needed to do,’ Lisa said suddenly, hand on belly again. ‘Paperwork. Did you sign those forms?’ She looked at David.

  ‘No, I forgot.’

  ‘I left them on the kitchen counter beside the phone so that you wouldn’t miss them.’

  ‘And I didn’t miss them, I saw them, I just forgot to sign them.’

  Lisa’s face reddened.

  ‘We’ll do it when we get home,’ David said calmly. ‘It’s Saturday anyway, not much we can do.’

  ‘It was fucking Friday yesterday when I told you to sign them,’ she snapped.

  David looked at Jamie wearily.

  ‘So Blake is home,’ Jamie said, lifting the mood.

  My ears perked up but as usual I was self-conscious about my reactions to anything that concerned him so I put my head into my menu and pretended to read. I read Soup of the day thirteen times again.

  ‘Cosmo, do you know Blake?’ he asked.

  ‘Blake.’ Life looked at me and my heart was thudding.

  ‘Yes, Blake, the poor innocent man she cruelly dumped like the femme fatale she is,’ Chantelle joked. ‘And we’ll never let her forget about it.’

  I shrugged, nonchalantly.

  ‘Honestly, I think all women should deal with break-ups like you, Lucy,’ Lisa said. ‘My God, remember what I was like?’

  Everybody groaned as they collectively remembered the drama of Lisa’s late-night tearful phone calls, the never wanting to be alone, the endless battles to convince her that she was not having a heart attack – that while painful, it was just her heart hurting. Jamie smiled fondly, presumably at the memory of them being together and not the bitter break up which ensued. He and Lisa shared a look. David shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

  ‘Well, you have to be positive about it, don’t you,’ I said, trying to give them a confident smile but feeling like my lips were trembling inside. ‘At least we split before the property market collapsed and made a good profit.’ Which I’d spent. ‘We’d never sell that apartment now.’

  They looked at me.

  ‘I loved that apartment,’ Chantelle said sadly.

  I did too. ‘It was always too hot,’ I said dismissively. I thought of Blake walking around the rooms with no clothes on after I’d pumped up all the heat deliberately. He was always too hot, and like a furnace in bed. I looked at the menu. Hot soup of the day. Hot, hot, hot.

  ‘I’ve never met him,’ Life said to Adam, who was still waiting for a response.

  ‘He’s a cool guy,’ Adam said.

  ‘Of course he is. You’re his best friend.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘May I take your orders, please?’ The waiter arrived in the nick of time. It sounded like ‘ordairs plez’, as though all his training had been taken from an episode of Allo, Allo.

  I learned a lot about Blake during that dinner, such as that his last show was going to be airing this week and he was home for the remainder of the summer; he had opened an outdoor sports activity and adventure centre in, wait for it, Bastardstown, Co. Wexford, something we’d talked about doing together. He was doing everything we’d talked about doing together, only without me. I looked into the menu again and blinked a dozen times. Soup of the day, soup of the day, soup of the day.

  ‘You guys talked about opening that together, didn’t you,’ Adam said.

  ‘Eh, yeah,’ I said, blasé, eyes scanning the menu. ‘Maybe I should sue him for stealing my idea.’ The others smiled, apart from Adam of course, and then Lisa started ordering, in her new bossy tone, changing all the dishes to suit her dietary needs. The waiter, slightly nervously, had to excuse himself from the table to see if the chef would do as she wished. Moments later the chef himself came out to join us at the table. He really was French and very politely informed her that he couldn’t do the goat’s cheese pastry without the goat’s cheese because then it would just be pastry and he already had the goat’s cheese wrapped in it.

  ‘Fine,’ Lisa snapped, her face heating up again. ‘I’ll have bread.’ She clapped the menu shut. ‘Just a plate of bread, please, because that’s all I can eat here, only I can’t because there are nuts in it and I can’t eat nuts.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ David said, red-faced, ‘She’s very tired.’

  ‘Don’t apologise on my behalf, thank you very much.’ She moved awkwardly in her seat. ‘It has less to do with being tired and more to do with these fucking chairs which are so uncomfortable.’ Then she started crying. ‘Shit,’ she squeaked. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve something in my eye.’ Her voice finished at an octave higher than a chipmunk.

  ‘Lees,’ Jamie said softly, pointing at the menu, ‘look, they’ve got roasted peppers on the side. You love them. Why don’t you order them?’

  David looked at Jamie, a little bit annoyed.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Lisa smiled at Jamie, ‘remember them?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Jamie laughed, ‘that’s why I mentioned them.’

  I’m sure David was picturing them having sex on a bed of roasted red peppers when the reality was probably that they had both gone to a restaurant and eaten a lot of peppers one day like the naughty divils they were.

  ‘Okay,’ Lisa sighed and opened the menu again.

  We all turned away from the conversation while the chef lowered himself to his knees and patiently went through the menu with Lisa to see what he could and couldn’t do for her.

  ‘So where are you staying?’ Chantelle asked Life. She hadn’t started coming on to him yet, partly because she was only on her second glass of red wine and partly becau
se she wasn’t yet sure if we were together.

  ‘I’m staying with Lucy,’ he replied and I tried really hard not to look at Adam’s face.

  ‘Wow,’ she said. ‘We’re never allowed in Lucy’s place, it’s like a big secret or something. You’ve seen the inside, tell us, what are we missing?’

  I laughed. ‘Ah, come on, I’m not hiding anything.’

  ‘Porn?’ Jamie asked once the chef had left, ‘It’s porn, isn’t it? Because I’m thinking she has a penchant for magazines and she leaves them lying around.’

  ‘No, it has to be more exciting than that.’ Chantelle moved in closer. ‘Tell me there’s someone chained up inside because that’s what I’ve been imagining for the past three years.’

  I laughed at them. Jamie winked.

  ‘She was hiding someone anyway,’ Adam said, reaching for a piece of bread. Again nobody noticed his comment. I know that they all heard it, I just didn’t understand why they didn’t hear it the same way as I did. But maybe Life did.

  ‘What was that?’ he asked, and then I wished he hadn’t noticed because I didn’t like his tone. It was the same tone Blake would use before we ended up getting into a ridiculous fight with some guy at a bar who was looking at me the wrong way. And Adam was rising to it because Adam had been looking for me to take that tone ever since Blake and I split up.

  ‘Ah, come on, how long have you guys known each other? Forever? I’m guessing that’s a couple of years at least, isn’t it? And as far as I can remember Lucy was with Blake a couple of years back.’ He was keeping his tone light, a small smile on his face, but you could see the anger beneath, steaming from his flared nostrils.

  ‘Adam,’ Lisa said, shocked.

  ‘Come on, I’m sick of this, always skirting around the subject like she’s high almighty.’

  ‘Because it’s none of our business,’ Chantelle said, eyes wide and warning at Adam.