Time of My Life (35 page)

Everyone laughed.

‘No, seriously, Lucy, we would have been your friends no matter what dumb job you had or no matter where you were living. You know us better than to think we care about any of that crap.’ He genuinely seemed insulted.

‘I suppose I did know that, but the lie got too big and then I was afraid I’d lose you all when you found out I was a psychotic lying freak.’

‘And that’s a very valid point,’ Jamie said sombrely. ‘But it’s not going to happen.’

‘I second that,’ Melanie added and everybody else joined in, apart from Andrew, Jenna and Blake, of course, who was too busy feeling the most uncomfortable he’d ever felt. Life was silent as he observed it all, making mental notes for the next file for his new office. I caught his eye and he winked, so for the first time in two years eleven months and twenty-three days, I finally relaxed.

‘Now down to the important stuff,’ Riley said. ‘Did nobody else hear what I heard? Lucy, you said you have a neighbour who has an
invisible
baby? Is that by any chance—’

‘Never mind that,’ Lisa butted in. ‘She hates bloody goat’s cheese!’

And willing to face whatever punishments were coming their way, they all started to laugh. After what felt like a very long time, Lisa joined in.

Riley dropped Mum home to Glendalough; she’d drunk too much at dinner and had come over all emotional and drunk-dialled Father. He wanted her home immediately, partly because he missed her but mostly because he was embarrassed she was out in public in that state and especially with me. The others had insisted on bringing me to Melanie’s club to celebrate my birthday and the truth; but I was exhausted, drained from the revelations, and I just wanted to go home and spend time with my life and my cat. When I’d announced this Melanie had blurted out, ‘Ah, you can’t even stay until the end of your own birthday party!’ which told me she still definitely had issues with my Cinderella timekeeping. Blake had sloped off before dessert, taking a relieved Jenna with him, so it was in Life’s hands to walk the birthday girl home.

I thought we would stay up half the night analysing everything about the big reveal. It had been years in the lead-up and now that it was over, dealt with, I almost didn’t know what to do with the big hole in my mind where the stress of it had once been. When I snapped out of my thinking, I realised I was walking alone and Life had stopped suddenly under the streetlight outside my apartment block. I turned to him, feeling that hole in my head quickly being replaced by a new worry. He shoved his hands in his pockets. His demeanour had all the ingredients of a goodbye and suddenly my heart both drummed and ached. I hadn’t thought about not being with him after I had fixed everything, partly because I never thought I was going to fix anything but mostly because I couldn’t bear to think about a day going by without spending time with him.

‘Aren’t you going to come in?’ I asked, trying to keep the shrill tone out of my voice.

‘Nah,’ he smiled, ‘I’ll give you a break.’

‘I don’t need a break, honestly, come in. I’ve about twenty cakes I need help eating.’

He smiled. ‘You don’t need me, Lucy.’

‘Of course I need you, you don’t expect me to eat them on my own,’ I said, deliberately misinterpreting him.

‘That’s not what I meant,’ he said gently and gave me that look.
That
look. That
goodbye my best friend, I’m sad but let’s pretend to be happy about it
look.

I felt the lump in my throat swell to astronomical sizes but I had to keep my tears in check. Even if my mum had broken the Silchester rules, I wasn’t about to start or we’d all fall like dominoes, and the world needed emotionally retentive people, it was imperative to our life cycle. ‘Of all people, I need you.’

Life sensed my desperation and did the honourable thing and looked away to give me a moment to compose myself. He looked up to the sky and breathed in slowly and then out. ‘It’s a beautiful night, isn’t it?’

I hadn’t noticed; if he’d told me it was day I would have believed him. I studied him and it struck me then how beautiful he was, how handsome and strong, how confident and secure he always made me feel, always there for me no matter what. I had an overwhelming urge to kiss him. I lifted my chin up and leaned in to him.

‘Don’t,’ he said suddenly, turning to me and placing a finger on my lips.

‘I wasn’t going to do anything.’ I backed away, embarrassed.

We were silent.

‘I mean, okay, I was, but – it’s just that you look so handsome and you’ve been so good to me and …’ I took a deep breath. ‘I really love you.’

He smiled, dimples forming in both cheeks. ‘Remember the day we first met?’

I scrunched up my face and nodded.

‘You really hated me then, didn’t you?’

‘More than anyone I’d ever met. You were disgusting.’

‘So I’ve won you over, it’s mission accomplished. You couldn’t stand to be alone and in the same room as your own life and now you actually
like
me.’

‘I said I love you.’

‘And I love you,’ he said and my heart surged. ‘So we should celebrate.’

‘But I’m losing you.’

‘You just found me.’

I knew he was right, I knew that as much as I was feeling he was my everything right there and then, it wasn’t romantic, it wasn’t physical and it just wasn’t possible; that would make for an entirely different magazine interview. ‘Will I ever see you again?’

‘Yeah, sure, the next time you mess up. Which, knowing you, won’t be too long away.’

‘Hey!’

‘Just joking. I’ll check in on you now and then, if you don’t mind.’

I shook my head, not able to speak.

‘And you know where my office is, don’t you? So you can visit me whenever you like.’

I nodded again. Pursed my lips, felt the tears almost come,
almost
come.

‘I came here to help, and I helped. Now if I stay, I’ll only get in the way.’

‘You wouldn’t be in the way,’ I croaked.

‘I would,’ he said gently. ‘There’s only enough room for you and the couch in that flat.’

I tried to laugh but couldn’t.

‘Thanks, Lucy. You helped fix me too, you know.’

I nodded, couldn’t look at him. Looking at him would mean tears and tears were bad. I concentrated on his shoes instead. His new, polished shoes that didn’t match the man I’d first met.

‘OK, so it’s not goodbye. It’s never goodbye.’

He kissed me on the top of my head, the only part of me I’d let him see. It was a long kiss and then I rested my head on his chest, feeling his heartbeat racing as fast as mine.

‘I’m not leaving until you’re safely inside. Go on.’

I turned around and walked away, every footstep loud in the silent night. I couldn’t turn around at the door, I had to keep looking forward, the tears were going to come, they were going to come.

Mr Pan looked groggily up at me from his bed, acknowledged me and then went back to sleep; it occurred to me that this was the end of the life that I had lived with him here in our bubble. Either he had to go or we both did. That made me sad too but he was a cat and I wasn’t going to cry over a cat so I toughened up and felt good that I had beaten the tears, I was stronger than them, all they meant was that you felt sorry for yourself and I wasn’t sorry for myself. All I wanted to do was bury myself under my duvet and not think about anything that had happened that night but I couldn’t, because I couldn’t reach the zip on the back of my dress. I hadn’t been able to close it earlier; Life had done it for me. I just simply couldn’t get my arms around to reach it, any angle I tried. I contorted my body in different directions trying to reach the zip but it wouldn’t work, I couldn’t reach. I was sweating and panting, angry beyond belief that I couldn’t get the stupid dress off. I looked around the apartment for something to help. Nothing. No one. It was then I realised I was well and truly alone.

I climbed into bed with my dress still on. And I cried.

CHAPTER THIRTY

I lay in bed for a week – at least it felt like a week but it was probably no more than four days, which was still good going. The morning after my birthday I had eventually waited until I’d heard sounds in Claire’s apartment to knock on her door for help with my dress. It was answered by her husband in his boxers and with tousled hair, which told me enough; that she’d had to finally let go of something too and now Conor’s memory was free to be celebrated.

There were no disruptions from Life arriving unannounced at inappropriate times, no envelopes landing on my newly cleaned carpet. I had plenty of messages from my friends asking me to go out, arranging to meet, apologising, trying to make up for lost time, trying to take advantage of my new-found truthfulness, and I didn’t ignore them but I didn’t go out to meet them either and I certainly didn’t lie. I told them that I wanted and needed to be alone, I wanted to enjoy living in my little bubble for a little longer, and for the first time in my life it wasn’t a lie. Mum had taken Mr Pan to Glendalough and while I missed him I knew he was in a far better place; it wasn’t fair to him to be cooped up in here and it was either live with Mum or live with me in a cardboard box under a bridge, and I doubted I’d fit the brown suede couch in a shopping trolley with the rest of our possessions. The choice wasn’t that difficult in the end. I likened it to a spring clean; as soon as I’d started decluttering, the rest of the baggage was falling away easily.

Sometime in the four-day hibernation retreat I’d actually gone shopping for real food that had to be prepared and cooked. As out of practice as I was, I had to remember that real food took organisation and had to be prepared before hunger hit. On top of cleaning the three-year-old muck from my summer festival Wellington boots, if I collected enough stamps at the supermarket I would get a free rug; it would take me a year of real food shopping but it was an incentive to keep going back. I’d bought lemons and limes and filled a small vase in a nod to my friend in the magazine. I’d rather I never had to work again, I still hadn’t found a
passion
for anything, that nauseating word I kept hearing people say to me, and even though I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life – an unrealistic cupcake shop dream aside – I was starting to get on the right way of thinking. I would try and find something that marginally interested me and which paid the bills. Progress. However, my birthday money wouldn’t last for ever, in fact it was paying next month’s rent so I needed a job quickly. I showered and dressed and made sure I was perfectly prepared with a fresh cup of coffee as I sat at the breakfast counter to read the newspaper Life had flung at me on my birthday. I hadn’t actually looked at it when or since he’d thrown it down on the counter – I was too distracted by the blob of cream the corner page had lifted from my sponge cake – but as soon as I began to read, I was lost. Circled in red in what I assumed must be a suggested responsible job in the middle of the jobs page was in fact an advertisement for a flatmate in the property section. I was annoyed that Life was suggesting I leave the flat that he knew I loved more than most things in my life and I was about to crumple up the page and throw it away when a thought occurred to me. He wouldn’t ask me to leave the apartment. I read it again. And again. And then when I realised what it was, a smile formed on my lips and I wanted to give Life a big kiss. I ripped out the page and jumped off the stool.

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.