The Year I Met You (30 page)

It’s you. You’re looking at me and for the first time you’re not smiling. You’re not laughing any more. Your words sound very far away.

I mumble something.

‘You’re pale,’ you say, and you’re about to stand but instead I get to my feet. But I do it too quickly. I’m dehydrated from the night before and emotionally drained from this spectacle and Monday reaches out to stop me from keeling over. I steady myself on the back of his chair and keep my eye on the front door. This time I’m not asking for permission.

‘Excuse me,’ I whisper.

The floor moves beneath me as I make my way to the one target that stays in place while the walls move around me, getting narrower, coming towards me. I need to get out before they squash me completely. I make it to the door, to sunlight, fresh air, the smell of grass and my flowers and hear the trickle of my fountain. I sit on the bench and tuck my legs close to my body and I breathe deeply in and out.

I don’t know how long I’m outside but they get the point eventually. The door opens and Caroline walks out, straight past me to her car and, without a word, drives away. She’s followed by Dad, Leilah and Zara. I put my head down. I smell Monday’s aftershave and he hovers near me but eventually walks away. Then you step outside. I know it’s you; I don’t know how, but the atmosphere has the feel of you in it, and then the kids join you and I know for sure.

‘Well, that was a tough one,’ you say.

I don’t respond, just put my head back down. I feel your hand on my shoulder. It’s a gentle but firm squeeze and I appreciate it. You walk away and halfway down the drive you say, ‘Oh, and thanks for dropping Amy’s letter in to me last night. You’re right. Maybe it’s time I read it now. It’s been six months and she’s still not talking to me. Can’t do any more harm, I suppose. I hope.’

As you walk away I hear Jamie calming Heather in the house. I hurry inside to her. Kevin is hovering around, unsure what to do.

‘You go, Kevin, I’ll give you a call.’

He still doesn’t move.

‘Kevin,’ I sigh. ‘Thank you for today. I appreciate you trying to help. I’d forgotten … all of that stuff, but clearly you haven’t. You were always there for me.’

He nods, gives me a sad smile.

I put my hand to his cheek and kiss him gently on the other.

‘Stop fighting everyone,’ I whisper.

He swallows hard and thinks about that. He nods simply and leaves.

I bring Heather to the couch and wrap my arms around her, plaster a smile on my face.

‘What are these tears for?’ I laugh. ‘Silly billy, there’s no need to be sad,’ I wipe her cheeks.

‘I wanted to help, Jasmine.’

‘And you did.’ I hold her head to my chest and rock her back and forth.

In order to fly one must first clear the shit off one’s wings. First step is to identify the shit. Done.

When I was a child, maybe eight years old, I used to love messing with waiters’ heads. Since learning about the silent language in restaurants, I wanted to speak it. I liked that there was a code that I could communicate to someone, to an adult, that put us on an even playing field. In our regular haunt there was a particular waiter I tormented. I would put my knife and fork together, then when I saw him coming over to collect the plates, I would quickly separate them again. I loved to watch him suddenly dart away, a few feet from our table, like an aborted missile. I’d do this several times in one sitting, not so much that he’d realise I was doing it deliberately. I did this too with the menu. Closed meant order decision had been made, open meant it hadn’t. I would close mine, along with my family’s, and then as soon as he was heading over with pen and pad in hand I would open it again, screw my face up and pretend to be still deciding.

I don’t know what it means that I’ve thought of this now. I don’t know what insight into me it gives, other than the fact that I liked, from an early age, sending mixed signals.

23

It was as I was walking back home after seeing Heather to the bus stop, at her insistence that I didn’t drive because I was, in her opinion, ‘upset’, that what you had said registered with me. Finally, with a moment to think to myself, I hear you thanking me for dropping the letter by last night. Alarm bells start ringing and I stop midstride. There is indeed something terrifying about being told you’ve done something that you haven’t done. First I think you are mistaken, I know you are mistaken. I have tried to give you your wife’s letter on many occasions and you have given it back or asked me to read it. It is in the lemon bowl, because you are a lemon, we both agreed on this fact. But.
But
. You said
last night.
You thanked me for giving you the letter
last night.

So then I think it still wasn’t me because I was in a heap last night, drinking to find the genie in the bottom of my vodka bottle. Perhaps your wife has delivered another letter to you and you think that I gave it to you, but you didn’t mention that to me when we met last night at the table in your garden, which leaves me to believe it was delivered to you
after
our meeting. And I would know if your wife was responsible because I was awake until six a.m., drinking, and I would have heard her, I would have seen her – hell, I would have run across the road and invited her in to bake cookies.

‘Good day, Jasmine,’ Dr Jameson says, all jolly-like. ‘Say, I was thinking of having a little soiree on Midsummer’s Day. A barbecue at my place to celebrate this fine summer we’re having. What do you say? I’ve had no response from the chap in number six, I’m about to try him again.’

He looks at me and there’s a long pause.

My mind is racing, ticking, going through events.

‘Are you okay, Jasmine?’

Suddenly I dart, break out into a run which becomes a sprint, leap across Mr Malone’s sprinklers and into my house. Once inside, chest panting, I stand still and look around for clues. The living room is still a crime scene from the earlier circle of disaster, the kitchen is a kiddy version of a crime scene with crayon marks from their colouring session and dry Play-Doh stuck to the table and on the chairs and floor. The lemon bowl. The lemon bowl is empty. Not of lemons and your house keys, but of the letter. Clue number one.

I race upstairs and take in my bedroom properly for the first time. My bed has been hastily made but appears normal. My bedside locker holds the empty bottle of vodka and … the open letter Amy wrote for you. I dive across the bed and grab it. I’d read it sometime between two a.m. and six a.m. Probably closer to six a.m. The hours that I don’t remember. I had been searching for guidance, for myself. I had been hoping for inspiration, some words of encouragement and love. Even someone else’s, and when I’d opened Amy’s penned letter for you I found:

Matt,

Get your act together.

Amy

It had enraged me. I remember that. I had cried with disappointment at Amy, at the world. And? I can’t remember what I’d done next. I thought I’d fallen asleep, but why was the letter which you say you are now in possession of here and not in your house?

I narrow my eyes, look around the room. There must be some clues. Under my dressing table I see a balled-up piece of paper. I see an entire bin of overflowing balled-up pieces of paper. And suddenly I’m afraid to look any closer. But I have to.

I get down on my hands and knees, and groaning, I uncurl the ball of paper.

Dear Matt,

I can’t talk to you face to face about leaving you. I didn’t think you would listen …

‘Oh no,’ I groan. ‘Jasmine, you idiot.’ I search through every single piece of paper, reading various versions of the same opening line, some completely different, all horrifically inappropriate drunkenly scrawled versions of what I think Amy should have said to you, what I think would motivate you, and cringingly my feelings of hatred towards you. I have absolutely no idea which version has made it across the road, but I’m glad at least that none of the ones I have frantically speed-read have made it out of this bedroom. What I want to do is throw myself down on my bed dramatically and howl. What I should do is run across the road, admit everything that I’ve done in my drunken stupidity. You will understand. But I can’t and I don’t. I thought my day could not sink any lower; it turns out it could and it has. I need to get the letter back from you, undo this silliness, get a job, stop acting like a crazy person.

The doorbell rings and it gives me such a fright I hear its shrill ring in my head and pounding in my heart long afterwards. I feel like I’ve been caught red-handed. Frozen like a deer in headlights, I stand still in my bedroom, rigid, unsure of what to do. You have read the letter. I am caught.

I look out the window and see the top of your head. I brace myself and go downstairs. I will admit everything. I will do the right thing. I pull the door open and give you a nervous smile. You have your hands on your hips with a screwed-up frown on your face. It drops for a moment.

‘Are you drunk again?’ you ask.

‘No.’

Silence.

‘Are you?’

‘No.’

Convinced, you resume your screwed-up face. ‘Have you seen the people going into Dr J’s house?’

I’m confused. What has this got to do with the letter? I’m trying to find the link.

‘If you’re drunk, just say so,’ you say.

‘I’m not.’

‘I won’t care. It will only make it easier for me to communicate with you. I can phrase things differently. Talk slower.’

‘I’m not fucking drunk,’ I snap.

‘Fine. Well? Have you seen people going in and out?’

‘Why, is he having a party and you’re not invited?’ I say, feeling more relaxed now that I’m not caught – yet.

‘He’s having something, all right. Half-hourly. Since noon.’

‘Jesus, you really need to get a job,’ I say, realising you sound like me now.

‘A woman arrived at three. Stayed for thirty minutes. Then she left and a man arrived at three thirty, then he left just before four, and a couple arrived at four thirty. Then—’

‘Yes, I believe I get the half-hourly thing.’

We both fold our arms and watch Dr Jameson’s house. Next door, Mr Malone is reading
The Field
by John B. Keane to Mrs Malone, who is sitting in a deckchair with a blanket across her knees. He is doing a good job of acting it out. Every day he reads for fifteen minutes, goes back to the gardening, and then returns, picks up where he left off. He has a good reading voice. Mrs Malone always stares into the distance with a faraway look, but Mr Malone carries on, talking in his good-natured tone, commenting on the weather and the garden and his own musings, as though they’re both having an animated conversation. It was Jackie Collins last week; he likes to mix it up a bit. It’s beautiful how he’s coping, but it makes me sad.

A car rounds the corner into the cul de sac and my heart hammers and my stomach flutters before I even see him. But I know that it’s him. Or I sense that it’s him. Or I hope that it is him. Every time someone comes near me or the house, I hope that it is him. Monday steps out of the car.

‘Well, if this morning didn’t put him off you, nothing will,’ you say and I smile.

Monday gets out of the car, and taking long strides with his long legs, spins the car keys around on his finger.

I hope that you get the hint as I glare at you to leave, but you don’t. Or you do, but you don’t leave. You have a point to prove.

‘Hi,’ Monday says, approaching us.

‘Forget something?’ you say smartly, but without venom, it’s playful.

Monday smiles and looks me directly in the eyes, the softness back in him, tenderness, and my stomach does somersaults. ‘Actually, yes.’

‘We’re watching Dr J’s house,’ you say and explain the half-hourly situation that has you so worried. Monday stands beside me and watches too, bare arm against mine, and I forget why on earth we’re staring at the house and instead concentrate on the electricity that is rushing through my body at this very slight touch. Monday watches the house and I fight the urge to take every part of him in but lose, stealing glances when I can, those green-flecked hazel eyes watching Dr Jameson’s house. Then, just when I think I’m safe to stare a little longer, suddenly he turns and those eyes are on mine. He gives me a cheeky look as though he knows he’s caught me, then makes a face at you, teasing your intensity in this house-watch.

‘Over there. There!’ you say, coming to life suddenly, breaking our moment, and you move away from the wall. ‘See?’

‘Hmm,’ Monday says, moving down the driveway to take a closer look at the suspicious-looking woman making her way down the road. ‘That’s not good.’

‘Told you,’ you say, relieved someone’s on your side. ‘They’ve been all different kinds of people,’ you say. ‘Odd-looking, most of them.’

‘Maybe he’s interviewing housekeepers,’ I say.

‘Would you want her to clean your house?’ you ask.

‘She’d clean out your house,’ Monday says, and I have to smile as you both team up and become the Turner and Hooch of the neighbourhood. You are Hooch, by the way.

‘She might not be here for Dr J,’ I say, watching her. She’s wearing an Adidas tracksuit, fresh-looking trainers. She’s either drunk or on drugs. I’m guessing drugs; she has a heroin look about her. ‘Could be a fan of yours,’ I say.

She studies the houses, looking at the numbers, then turns in Dr Jameson’s house. Monday takes off down the driveway, getting a closer look. You follow. I tag along because what else am I going to do? We cross the road and decide to sit at your table where we can have a better view of Dr Jameson’s house and listen out for trouble inside. At least, that’s what you both decide after a quick discussion of whether to break in or not. You both plan a story of what you’ll say if you have to call in. An extraction plan, which you both get rather excited about.

‘Have you read that letter yet?’ I ask you, casually.

‘What letter?’