The Year I Met You

  We catch each other’s eyes when he says that. He doesn’t speak slowly, as if she’s incapable of understanding, or loudly as though she is deaf, though she does wear a hearing aid. His sentences are short and simple, to the point.

  Heather then starts to tell him about me, about my jobs – a simplified version, the version I’ve told her over the years. I’m confused as to what she’s doing, thinking she surely has misunderstood his job, but then I realise that she’s trying to sell me to him, which touches me so much I stop moving and can’t quite figure out what I’m doing. I’m completely transfixed, overwhelmed that Heather would do this for me, that she would know to do this for me. He is a person who gets people jobs and she is trying to get me a job. She lists my attributes and comes up with anecdotes to illustrate those attributes. It is something she has learned to do herself when attending a job interview and she has applied it to me.

  She begins each sentence with ‘Jasmine is …’ The first sentence she completes with ‘kind’ and then gives an example of my kindness. She tells him I paid for her apartment.

  ‘Jasmine is smart,’ she says. ‘One day we were in the supermarket car park and Jasmine found twenty euro by the ticket machine. Beside it was an appointment card for somebody’s doctor appointment. So Jasmine posted the money and the appointment card to the doctor and told him that the person you have on this date at this time dropped their money in the car park on this date.’ She beams. ‘Isn’t that smart?’

  ‘That’s definitely very smart.’ He smiles.

  I hope she’s finished now; it’s lovely but difficult to listen to praise. Instead she continues, ‘Jasmine is generous,’ and I shake my head and go back to what I was doing.

  One peek at Monday shows me he’s touched. He is looking at her intently, fixated on her. He must sense that I’m watching because he looks over at me, smiles gently, then I have to start moving again. He doesn’t always understand her, he asks her to repeat some things; despite years of therapy, her speech isn’t so clear, but though I have understood everything, I stop myself from interrupting. She is not a child. She doesn’t need a translator.

  ‘Jasmine sounds like a great person,’ he says, eyes on me again. ‘And I agree. I think lots of people would be lucky to have her.’ I’m not looking at him but I can see him from the corner of my eye, the angle of his face on mine, and every single move I make is sloppy, while my heart bangs and my stomach flutters. I fumble with the milk carton, spill milk on the counter when trying to pour it into the jug.

  ‘She is,’ Heather agrees.

  ‘And you’re a great sister to say that about her.’

  The next thing she says sends me into an emotional spin and catapults me out of the room so fast that even Monday has the brains to leave, and text me later – from his personal mobile – that he would like me to call him when I have the time.

  ‘I’m her big sister. When our mum died, she told me I’m the big sister and I have to look after Jasmine. I do all of these other things, but protecting Jasmine is my main job.’

  18

  First thing on Monday morning I’m woken by the sound of a lawnmower right outside my window. This hurts me on many levels. Firstly because it is just after eight a.m. and is generally an intrusive sound, and secondly because I had a bottle of red wine before going to bed. Perhaps I’m lying about the amount, it could have been more and it also could have been an entirely different spirit, but I’m feeling it today, the thud, thud, thud that penetrates my skull right to my brain cells, killing them as it does, and then drills back through to the back of my head where I feel it pulsating on the pillow. The thoughtless lawnmower user could be any of the four retired couples around us who work to their own schedule, avoiding any thought of others’, particularly as they know that I no longer have a job. It could be anyone, but already I know it is you. I know that it is before even lifting my head up from the pillow, because it goes on far too long. Nobody in the world has that much grass; only an inexperienced gardener would take that long. When I look outside it is as though you have been waiting for me to appear. You glance up immediately and give me a big fine wave. I see the sarcasm dripping from every pore. Then you turn the lawnmower off, as if you have succeeded in doing what you set out to do, and make your way across the road to my house.

  I can’t move. I am too dizzy, I really need to lie down again, but you are at the door, pressing the bell, too loud, for too long, as though you have a finger on a bruise on my skin and are pushing it in short bursts of Morse code torture. I collapse on the bed, hoping that if I ignore you, you will go away, but apparently like every other problem, you do not, you only get worse. In the end it is not you that moves me, it is the sight of the bottle of vodka beside my bed that catapults me – at the pace of a snail – out the door.

  I pull the front door open and daylight burns holes in my eyes. I grimace, and cower, retreat back into the safety of the darkened, curtain-closed room. You follow me in.

  ‘Yikes,’ you say at the sight of me, sounding too much like Dr Jameson. ‘Good morning.’ You are overly cheerful and loud, sprightly. Annoyingly so. If I didn’t know better, I would think you must have watched me drink myself into a drunken stupor, then deliberately got up early, the earliest I have known you to have risen, so you could make a racket outside my window. What’s more you have forced yourself to be cheerful, the most cheerful I have ever known you to be.

  My intention is to say ‘hi’, but it comes out as a deep croak.

  ‘Wow,’ you say. ‘Rough night? All rock’n’roll over here at number three on a Sunday night.’

  I grunt in response.

  You walk around and start opening the curtains, and the window, which makes me shudder and reach for the cashmere blanket on the couch where I have collapsed. I wrap it around me and look on warily as you make your way to the kitchen, which is all open-plan – my entire downstairs is completely open-plan – and then you start rooting around in the cupboards.

  ‘The lemon bowl,’ I say weakly.

  You stop. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Your keys. In the lemon bowl.’

  ‘I’m not looking for my keys, I’m not locked out.’

  ‘Hallelujah.’

  ‘Why the lemon bowl?’

  ‘Glad you asked.’ I smile. ‘Because I think of you as a lemon.’

  ‘Isn’t it you that’s the bitter twisted one?’ you say, and my smile fades.

  You continue to move around the kitchen. I hear cups, I hear paper rustle, I smell toast, I hear the kettle. I close my eyes and nod off.

  When I wake you are holding a mug of tea and buttered toast towards me. My stomach heaves but I’m hungry.

  ‘Have that, it’ll help.’

  ‘From the expert,’ I say groggily, sitting up.

  You sit in the armchair across from me, beside the window that is so bright I have to squint. You look almost angelic with the light cast on you, your right side seeming to blur at the edges as though you’re a hologram. You give a weary sigh, nothing saintly about that. The sigh, I realise, is not because you’re tired. You look rejuvenated somehow, flushed from the fresh early morning air, your clothes smelling of cut grass. You’re weary because of me.

  ‘Thanks,’ I say, remembering my manners.

  ‘About the other night …’ you begin.

  I grunt and wave my hand dismissively at you, and sip my tea. It is sweet, sweeter than how I usually take it, but I like it. It is good for now. It is not vodka and for that my body says thank you. I don’t want to talk about the other night, about what happened between me and you.

  ‘I’m sorry I threw the glass at you.’

  For this you are deadly serious. Perhaps emotional even, and I can’t take that.

  I chew my toast slowly and swallow. ‘We were both wrong,’ I say, finally. I want to move on.

  This isn’t what you want to hear. You are hoping for an apology from me.

  ‘Well, Jasmine, I was reacting to what you said
.’

  ‘Yes, and I accept your apology,’ I say. Why is it I can’t bring myself to apologise to you, when I know that I should?

  ‘You said some shitty things,’ you say.

  ‘Have you come here looking for an apology?’

  ‘No. To apologise.’

  I think about it again. ‘Like I said, we were both wrong.’

  You stare at me intently while your mind works overtime. You make a decision not to fire yourself at me, for which I’m thankful even though I know I deserve it. I am being horrible. I offer you a little bit more.

  ‘I was disappointed you let my sister down.’

  ‘I’m sorry about that. I didn’t think she would be so upset.’

  ‘She doesn’t break promises. She trusts people easily.’ Unlike me; I don’t trust people at all.

  You nod, digest that. ‘You know I didn’t say it could never happen, just not in the immediate future.’

  ‘What are the chances?’

  ‘Right now it’s looking slim,’ you say, grimly.

  I should be thinking of the repercussions of you losing your job, what it will mean for you and your family, not of Heather and her lack of a trip to the station. I have been described as sensitive because of my feelings about Heather, but when it comes to others it seems I am utterly desensitised.

  ‘Because of what you said, I’m off the drink,’ you say.

  I stare at you in surprise. I am surprised more by the fact that I could have said something to influence you, but I’m not at all surprised by the admission you’ve given up drink. Because I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you mean it or that it will happen. It is as though you are a cheating husband and I am numb to your declarations of how you can change. We are, oddly, that comfortable with one another.

  ‘I really am,’ you say, reading my look perfectly. ‘You were right – what you said about the kids.’

  ‘Oh please, Matt,’ I say, exasperated. I give up. ‘I wasn’t right about anything. I don’t know you. I don’t know your life.’

  ‘Actually,’ you stall, as if trying to decide whether to say it or not, ‘you do. You see it every day. You see more than anyone.’

  Silence.

  ‘And you do know me.’ You look at me thoughtfully. ‘I think you think you know me more than you do, and you’re wrong about some things, but that’s just one more thing to prove to someone.’

  ‘You don’t have to prove anything to me,’ I lie. I wish that I could mean what I say, but I don’t. Every single word that comes out of your mouth I analyse for confirmation that you’re the bad egg I’m convinced you are.

  ‘Anyway, I want you to take this –’ You hand me the crumpled envelope containing your wife’s letter.

  ‘You still haven’t read it? Matt!’

  ‘I can’t,’ you say simply. ‘I don’t want to know what’s in it. I can’t.’

  ‘Is she speaking to you yet?’

  You shake your head.

  ‘Because she’s said everything she wants to right there, and you’re ignoring it! I don’t understand you.’

  ‘Read it to me, then.’

  ‘No! Read it your bloody self.’ I throw it on the coffee table.

  ‘What if it says she’s never coming back?’

  ‘Then at least you’ll know. Instead of this … waiting around.’

  ‘I’m not waiting around. Not any more. I’m going to prove it to her.’

  ‘Prove what?’

  ‘Prove myself.’

  ‘I think you have already. That’s why she left,’ I say this half-joking, thinking you’ll smile, but you don’t.

  You sigh. You look at the letter and I think I’ve finally gotten through to you. You pick it up and stand. ‘I’m putting it with the lemons.’

  I smile and am glad you can’t see me.

  A car pulls up outside your house.

  ‘Visitor,’ I say, relieved that this conversation has ended and that you will go. My head is spinning and the toast is sitting on top of vodka and cranberry juice, surfing an indigestion wave.

  You examine the car from the window, hands on hips, face in a scowl. You are handsome, still. Not that you’re old – you’re in your early forties – but despite your lifestyle, the late nights, alcohol and concoctions of anxiety pills, sleeping pills and whatever else you do, it hasn’t affected you on the outside as much as it should have.

  ‘I don’t think it’s for me,’ you say, still examining the car. ‘He’s just sitting in the car.’

  ‘Why didn’t you ever work in TV?’ I ask suddenly. Usually, successful DJs with an audience like yours and a fan base such as yours make the transition, and it occurs to me right now that you are quite handsome, to some people, and TV being TV, handsomeness is as high up on the list as intelligence – often higher.

  ‘I did,’ you say, turning around, surprised as I am that I’ve asked you a question about yourself, about your life, about your job. ‘About five years ago I had a late-night talk show, a discussion show like on the radio. Wednesday nights, eleven thirty.’

  You are looking at me as if I should know this, but I shake my head.

  ‘We sat around a table with a bunch of people someone else booked, talking about things I wanted to talk about, but not talking about them properly. I packed it in. You can’t say anything on TV. Far more freedom on radio.’

  ‘Like orgasms to ring in the New Year.’

  You sigh and sit down. ‘Women aren’t the only people to talk about things, you know that.’

  I’m confused.

  ‘I have a friend. Let’s call him Joey.’

  ‘Or we can call him you?’

  ‘No. Not me.’ And I believe you. ‘One day Joey tells me that he and his wife are having fertility problems. They’ve been married seven years and never had kids. Over a pint one night he tells me that he’s been faking it when they’re in bed. First I ever heard of it. Of a guy doing it, anyway. No harm comes of it when a woman fakes, obviously, but it’s different when it’s a guy and his wife wants kids – then it becomes a problem. He can’t tell her he’s been faking. He’s really got himself backed into a corner, you know? She’s had herself checked out and everything seems okay from her end …’

  Really, the way you phrase it is inspiring.

  ‘So she wanted him to get his thing checked. For fertility. But he didn’t want to because he knows he’s fine. Or presumes he is. So instead of admitting that he’s been faking it most of the time, and that he’d rather do things in bed maybe a different way that would help him, you know, he tells her he doesn’t want kids. Which he does, but he panicked and didn’t know what else to say. Anyway, they broke up. All because he couldn’t tell her.’ You shake your head. ‘Thought that was worth talking about on air.’

  ‘Well, it is,’ I say. Personally I wouldn’t particularly want to hear five people shouting and arguing over each other on bad phone connections at midnight talking about it, but I can see his point.

  ‘So Tony has this idea to ring in the New Year with the woman. I said, okay, whatever. I didn’t really care. Thought it was funny. It tied in with the discussion. No big deal.’

  ‘Who’s Tony?’

  ‘Producer. He arranged it. Brings this woman into the studio. She starts making sounds down the mic. No, it wasn’t real,’ you say to me. ‘Contrary to tabloid reports. But she was a prostitute. That’s the problem. Tony paid her.’ You shake your head. ‘Jesus. Tony’s fucked as well. He’d been having girlfriend problems for a while. She took off, he’s … well, he’s not doing as well as me.’

  ‘Sounds to me like a lot of this is Tony’s fault.’

  ‘No. It’s my show. I should have known what I was doing. To be honest, I was so fucked that night, that whole week, I didn’t know what was going on. I’ve done that plenty of times and gotten away with it, but this time …’ You stand up and look out the window again. ‘What’s this guy doing? He’s just gawking at my house.’

  I finally stand up f
rom the couch and look out the window. The car is directly outside your house, the man is peering in. ‘You get many fans?’

  ‘Yeah, this one girl was so mad about me she moved into the house across the road from me. Redhead. Big tits. Couldn’t get enough of me.’

  I actually smile. ‘Maybe he’s waiting for you because he knows you’re not at home.’

  ‘And how would he know that? Unless he’s been watching me. I’m going over to him.’

  I can hear the anger in your voice and I know that this won’t go well.

  ‘Wait, Matt, he’s getting out of the car.’

  You come back to the window and we watch him. He has something in his hand, something black. A camera. He lifts it up and starts taking photos of your house.

  ‘The little …’

  It’s a delayed reaction. The photographer has taken quite a few shots before you realise what’s going on. We watch as he examines them on the camera’s LCD screen, then he moves along the road to get another angle.

  ‘Don’t do anything stupid, Matt,’ I warn. ‘You’ll only get yourself in more trouble,’ I shout after you, but my advice goes not on deaf ears but on absent ears as you fire yourself out of my house. It’s as though my words have given you an idea, because you do exactly what I cautioned against: you charge at the photographer. He turns and sees you, sees the aggression on your face and smiles with delight at the photo opportunity. But you don’t stop charging. You reach for the camera, grab it, throw it down the road, then you manhandle the photographer into the car. I don’t see it all exactly as it happens, because I’m watching from behind my hands. Besides, something tells me it’s better that there are no witnesses.

  As a result of your behaviour, one hour later I am still in my dressing gown and there are three more photographers camped outside your house, facing my house, while you pace up and down my living room, blocking my view of Diagnosis Murder and shouting down the phone to your agent. The news that you’ve been fired has been leaked to the press before the station informed you, and they’ve put you on six months’ gardening leave so that you don’t immediately sign up with a rival station – which is what you are ranting about doing.