The Year I Met You (13 page)

‘So what’s your toast about?’

‘The toast would like to thank,’ Lily says in a deep, posh voice, ‘the butter and the jam.’

Her mother rolls over on the couch, laughing.

‘And the egg, for making it into soldiers.’

Lily sees me listening and stops, embarrassed.

‘Don’t let me stop you,’ I call. ‘You’re doing a great job.’

‘Oh,’ her mother sits up and wipes her eyes, trying to catch her breath. ‘You crack me up, Lily.’

Lily makes a few more speeches, which have me laughing to myself. I sit still as can be while they are busy together, but I will not be still and alone for long. My headhunter returns. This man has hunted me, it feels animalistic. I feel myself blush and I try to put a stop to the ridiculous antics in my head. I fix all my attention on Monday, all thoughts of the little girl gone from my mind.

‘I ordered you a green tea,’ he says, checking.

‘Perfect. Thanks. So, your name is Monday. I’ve never heard that before.’

He leans over, placing his elbows on his knees. This brings him quite close, but to sit back would be rude so I get lost in his face and then try to remember that I shouldn’t be, that I should be concentrating on the words coming through his chipped white tooth and out of his sumptuous mouth and why I am here. Because he has found me, sought me out, and thinks I’m a highly qualified, wonderful person. Or something like that.

I can tell he is completely at ease with my question, and has no doubt been asked it a thousand times.

‘My mother is nuts,’ he says with an air of finality, and I laugh.

‘I was hoping for more than that.’

‘Me too,’ he replies, and we smile. ‘She used to be a cellist with the National Symphony Orchestra. Now she gives lessons in a caravan in Connemara, in the garden of a house that she refuses to live in because she’s convinced she saw the ghost of her dad. She named me Monday because I was born on a Monday. My middle name is Leo because I was born in late July. O’Hara is her surname, not my father’s.’ He smiles and his eyes move from mine to my hair. ‘Her hair is as red as yours, though I didn’t inherit that. Just her freckles.’

It’s true, he has a beautiful smattering of freckles across his nose and the tips of his cheeks. I picture a red-haired woman with freckles and pale skin in a field in Galway with a cello between her thighs. It’s a bit racy.

My turn. ‘My granddad brought my mum a bunch of winter jasmine from his garden when she was in hospital after I was born. So she named me Jasmine.’

He seems surprised. ‘People rarely reciprocate my name story.’

‘If you have a name story, you have to tell it,’ I say.

‘I don’t usually have a choice,’ he says. ‘A mere introduction requires explanation. It’s the same for my sister, Thursday.’

‘You do not have a sister called Thursday!’

‘No.’ He laughs, enjoying my reaction.

‘Well, I
do
have a sister. My granddad brought a bunch of heather to my mum after she was born. So she called her Heather.’

‘That’s a bit predictable,’ he teases, curling his lip.

‘I suppose. My brother Weed lucked out.’

He narrows his eyes suspiciously, then laughs.

‘Where’s your dad from?’

‘Spanish sailor.’

‘You don’t look Spanish.’

‘I’m joking.
The Snapper
? Anyway. No, it’s my mother’s equivalent – a travelling salesman, apparently. Never met him, no idea who he is, she’s never told anyone. Though my friends and I used to guess it was every black man that we saw when I was growing up, which there obviously weren’t many of in Galway. It used to be a game. Guess who Monday’s dad is. There was a busker on Quay Street who played the saxophone; my friends used to joke that it was him. When I was twelve I asked him.’ He laughs. ‘It wasn’t him, but he said he’d meet my mum if I wanted.’

It’s sad but we both laugh, and then he suddenly snaps out of it and into business mode. ‘So. The job.’ He lifts a leather folder on the table and unzips it. ‘I have been hired by DavidGordonWhite – are you familiar with them? If not, here you go.’

He places a business folder down before me. Very corporate, very serious, very expensive-looking: a photo of a man and a woman in pinstripe suits in front of a glass building, both of them looking into the sky over the camera as if a meteor is headed at them but they are not in the least bothered. My heart sings. They want me. They need me. They think that I am highly qualified and wonderful. They think that I am necessary, that I am an asset. They want to pay me to distract me from the world and real worldly issues. I am beaming and I can’t help it.

‘They’re a tax advisory company,’ I say.

‘Top ten in the world. Correct. You are aware that corporations such as these have corporate social responsibility programmes?’

‘PR exercises,’ I say.

‘You might not want to mention that in the interview.’ He grins, then the professional face is back. ‘If it were just a PR exercise then it wouldn’t qualify as a charity, which is what they have in mind: the DavidGordonWhite Foundation, a charity campaigning for climate justice – human rights and climate change. They want you to work for them …’ He pauses, obviously waiting to see whether I will ask a question or if he should continue. I am so disappointed I don’t know what to say. It’s not a proper job; they want me to work for a
charity
. ‘I’ll keep talking about everything, you stop me if you have any questions, okay?’

I nod. I am annoyed. At DavidGordonWhite. At him, for fooling me with his handsomeness and flattery, making me think I was being offered a proper job. I feel my cheeks flush. He talks and talks and talks about the job. Nothing in what he says piques my interest.

Eventually he stops and looks at me. ‘Shall I continue?’

I want to say no. I want to say more than that, I’m feeling hot-headed, but I mustn’t take out my personal frustrations on this man, handsome as he is.

‘I’m confused as to why I’m in the running for this,’ I tell him. ‘I have never worked with or for a charity. I create start-ups, I make them into brilliant successes, and then I sell them on for as much money as possible.’

Even I know that that is an awful way to describe what I do. In fact it sounds like something Larry has barked at me in the past, when in reality I am incredibly passionate about what I do. There is more involved than what I have said, but I want to make it sound as far away from a charity as possible. He has got it wrong. How did my name pop up in the system when he typed in ‘charity’, apart from the fact I’m starting to feel like a charity case.

He seems a little surprised by my outburst but takes a mature moment to choose his next words, fixing me with his caring, green-eyed, I-understand-where-you’re-coming-from look. ‘You would be responsible for the general control and management of the charity. It is a business like any other and it’s starting from scratch.’ He can see the uncertainty on my face and he is trying to sell it to me.

He goes on to talk about what I’ve done in all of my businesses, as though I don’t know myself, but it is clever, it is an ego boost and he has researched me well. He openly admires me, praises my decisions and good work, and I am feeling mightily flattered and as though there is no one cleverer than me. I am being reeled in. He tells me that while he was asking around for the best candidate my name came up on a few different occasions. His handsomeness helps, because I want to please him, because I want him to think that I am talented and clever and all of those things; he is the perfect hire for a headhunter, able to fill people with self-belief, convince them that there is something out there greater for them than what they are currently doing. He almost has me. I mean,
he
has me, but the job … not so much. My gut isn’t jumping up and down the way it usually does when I have an idea for a new project, or come across someone else’s idea that I can improve on.

He looks at me, hopefully.

My green tea arrives. As the waiter places it before me I have time to think. This job is not for me, but there is nothing else on offer. I’m torn between expressing interest and being honest. And I like him, which should be an aside, and it really is, but at the same time it’s inescapable. Being fired has knocked the confidence out of me, has made me question the how, what and why of every decision I make. Do I wait for the right thing, or do I grab the first thing, just in case?

He studies me, intensely, those hazel green eyes gazing deep into mine, and I feel as if I’m falling into them, being sucked in. Then I feel like an idiot because all he is doing is looking at me and I’m the one reacting. I break our stare, though he continues to watch me. I’m convinced he knows, that he is seeing deep into my soul. I can’t do it, I can’t lie to him, this one person who is offering sunshine in the middle of the longest of my winters.

‘Actually, Monday, I’m sorry …’ I rub my face, ashamed. ‘There seems to be a misunderstanding. I no longer work at the Idea Factory. I lost my job over two months ago. A disagreement between me and the co-founder.’ I feel my eyes spark as I talk. ‘So, I don’t have a job at the moment.’ I don’t know what else to say. Feeling my cheeks flush, I take a sip of the green tea just to give me something to do. It burns my tongue and all the way down my throat and it’s all I can do not to react, but at least it’s headed off the tears that were about to come.

‘Okay,’ he says, quietly, his posture relaxing and changing to a different mode. ‘Well, that’s good, right? They don’t have to steal you away from another job. You are actively looking, I assume?’

I try to look bright-eyed and wonder whether to explain the gardening leave. I can’t do it. I can’t watch the only opportunity I’ve had for a new job fall by the wayside by admitting my dirty little secret: that I’m on Larry’s payroll for another ten months, preventing me from working. Nor can I
not
tell him, a headhunter. He makes my mind up for me by filling in the silence.

‘I’m going to leave this with you …’ He slides the folder across the coffee table. ‘It’s information about the position. You can read up on it then give me a call. We can meet again, discuss any questions you might have.’

I look at the folder, suddenly desolate, forlorn. What had begun as an ego boost, the highest of all highs, has left me feeling flat. It is not a job that I want, but I know that I need one. I take the folder and hug it to my chest. He downs his espresso and I try to drink up my scalding tea so that we can go.

‘We can meet again before the interview,’ he says, showing me to the door and holding it open for me.

I smile. ‘Who says there’ll be an interview?’

‘I’m sure there’ll be one,’ he says confidently, pleasantly. ‘It’s my job to know that you’d be right for the position, and I happen to be very good at my job.’ He gives me a big smile to ease the sales pitch, make it seem less phoney. It should have come across as a cheesy sales pitch, but it doesn’t. Something tells me he is great at his job. His voice takes on a gentle note as he adds, ‘And it would be good for you, Jasmine.’

We’re outside. The day has turned, the wind has picked up again; in the space of an hour the trees have started to whip from one side to the other, violently, as if we’re on some tropical island – only we’re not, it’s Ireland and it’s February. Everything is skeletal and grey, people walk by with screwed-up faces, purple-lipped, tight blue hands glowing in the dull light or thrust into their pockets.

I watch him walk to his car.

It didn’t bother me when he pretended he knew me and flattered me, but it bothers me when he pretends he knows me and speaks the truth. Because although we’ve only known each other one hour, he’s probably right. As things stand, a job – any job – would be good for me. It might be the only thing that can stop me slipping into whatever it is I’ve been slipping into.

12

The storm that swept in that evening reached hurricane level, with winds in some parts of the country touching 170 kilometres per hour. According to the news there are two hundred and sixty thousand people without electricity. There are reports of accidents on the motorway, trucks blowing over, falling trees crushing cars, images of destruction on people’s houses, roofs being lifted off buildings, windows shattered from flying debris. The east coast was relatively unaffected. I see branches littering the road, leaves, wheelie bins lying down and surrendering, and children’s toys where they shouldn’t be, but compared to those whose homes are flooded we are incredibly lucky. However it has been a wild night for our street, and for so many reasons.

While trying to read my folder and discover how human rights and climate change are related, I am interrupted by you. It is different to the usual interruptions. You don’t drive home with your music blaring: you are already at home, in fact you are completely sober. This isn’t entirely unheard of, you are not all guns blazing every night, and it is not always on the same level. Since your wife left you, you have been quieter; there has been no one to scream at, and even though some nights you have forgotten this and shouted as if she was there, you have quickly remembered that there is no one to hear you and settled down to sleep in your car or at the garden table. While all the other garden furniture in the neighbourhood has been flying around in the terrible storms – the Malones lost a favourite gnome when it fell over and smashed its face in – yours has remained entrenched in your bog marsh of a front garden. It lists to one side, the right-hand legs having sunk deeper into the grass than those on the left, and I have watched you at night doing the thing that seems to help you focus on whatever it is your mind is pondering: again and again you place your lighter on the higher end of the sloped table and then watch it roll down into your open palm at the lower end. I don’t know if you even realise you are doing it; the expression on your face suggests your mind is somewhere else entirely.

Most nights you’ve either remembered your own key or driven off elsewhere when you couldn’t find it, but I have had to let you into your house with the spare key three times in total. Each time you stumbled into the house and closed the door in my face, and I knew that you would not remember it the following day. It is ironic, to me at least, that the very thing that I hate you for is something that you probably have no recollection of, and the very things that feed that hatred you forget every single time you wake up.