Cecelia Ahern – The Time of My Life (страница 8)

‘Who else signed?’ I asked looking around at them. ‘Did you all sign?’

‘Don’t raise your voice, young lady,’ my grandmother said.

I wanted to throw Mum’s bread at her head or mush lobster cocktail down her throat and perhaps that was obvious because Philip appealed to everybody for calm. I didn’t hear how the conversation ended because I was racing up the garden – walking fast, not running, Silchesters didn’t run away – and getting as far away from them as possible. Of course I hadn’t left without excusing myself from the table, I can’t remember exactly what I’d said, I’d mumbled something about being late for an appointment and politely abandoned them. It was only when I closed the front door behind me, raced down the steps, and landed on the gravel that I realised I had left my shoes on the back lawn. I hobbled over the stones, biting the inside of my mouth to stop my need to scream, and drove Sebastian at his top speed down the driveway and to the gate. Sebastian backfired along the way as a kind of good riddance, however that’s when my great escape ended because I reached the electric gates and was trapped. I lowered my window and pressed the intercom.

‘Lucy,’ Riley said, ‘come on, don’t be angry.’

‘Let me out,’ I said, refusing to look the intercom in the eye.

‘She did it for you.’

‘Don’t pretend you had nothing to do with this.’

‘Okay fine. We. We did it for you.’

‘Why? I’m fine. Everything is fine.’

‘That’s what you keep saying.’

‘Because that’s what I keep meaning,’ I snapped back. ‘Now open the gate.’

CHAPTER FIVE

Sunday. It had loomed over me all weekend like that giant gorilla over that building in that film and finally it had plucked me into its evil clutches. I’d had a night full of various ‘me meeting life’ scenarios. Some had gone well, others not so well, one was entirely in song and dance. I had every conversation imaginable with life – in that weird dream way that made absolutely no sense when you woke – and now that I was awake, I was exhausted. I pressed my eyelids together again, squeezed them tight and forced myself to have a dirty dream about the cute guy on the train. It didn’t happen, Life kept bursting in on us like a judgemental parent catching a naughty teen. Sleep wouldn’t come, my head had already woken up and was planning things; smart things to say, quick retorts, witty comebacks, intelligent insights, ways to cancel the meeting without seeming insulting, but mostly it was planning my wardrobe. On that note, I opened my eyes and sat up. Mr Pan stirred in his bed and watched me.

‘Morning, Hilary,’ I said and he purred.

What did I want to say to my life about myself? That I was an intelligent, witty, charming, desirable, smart woman with a great sense of style. I wanted my life to know that I had it all together, that everything was under control. I surveyed my dresses on the curtain pole. I had pulled them all across to block out the sunlight. I looked at my shoes below them on the windowsill. Then I looked out the window to check the weather, back to the shoes, back to the dresses. I wasn’t feeling any of it; this was a job for the wardrobe. I leaned over and opened the wardrobe door and before it had fully opened, it hit the edge of the bed. It didn’t matter, I could see in just enough. The bulb inside the wardrobe had blown about a year ago and so I reached for the torch beside my bed and shone it inside. I was thinking, trouser suit, skinny fit, black tuxedo jacket, a touch of eighties revival shoulder pad; black vest; heels, 85mm. It said to me, Jennifer Aniston recent Grazia cover but it would hopefully say to Life, easy-going, relaxed but that I took my life seriously, suit-wearing-serious. It also said, someone has died and I’m going to their funeral, but I was hoping Life wouldn’t be thinking about death. I left Mr Pan sitting in a peep-toe double platform watching Gene Kelly in a sailor suit in On the Town with promises I’d take him outside in a few days. From the elevator I heard my next-door neighbour’s front door close. I pounded on the button to close the door, but I was caught. A trainer appeared through the crack in the closing doors and there she was.

‘Almost got away,’ she smiled. The doors slid open and the buggy was revealed. She manoeuvred it into the confined space and I was almost knocked back out into the corridor by the overloaded baby bag over her shoulder. ‘I swear it just takes me longer and longer to get out of the apartment every day,’ she said, wiping her shiny forehead.

I smiled at her, confused as to why she was talking to me – we never talked – then looked above her to watch the numbers light up as we moved down.

‘Did he disturb you last night?’

I looked into her buggy. ‘No.’

She looked shocked. ‘I was up half the night with him screaming the place down. I was sure I’d have the building banging on my door. He’s teething, the poor thing, his cheeks are flaming red.’

I looked down again. Didn’t say anything.

She yawned. ‘Still, at least the weather is nice this summer, nothing worse than being cooped up inside with a baby.’

‘Yeah,’ I said when the doors finally opened. ‘Have a good day,’ and I ran out ahead of her before she took the conversation outside.

I probably could have walked to the offices where I was due to meet Life but I got a taxi because the cute guy wouldn’t be on the train at this hour and I couldn’t rely on Sebastian to get me anywhere after yesterday’s trip up the mountains. Apart from that I wasn’t too sure where I was going and there was nothing worse than meeting your life with blistered feet and sweaty armpits. The building was visible from a mile away, it was a horrendous construction, a brown oppressive square high-rise block on stilts with steel windows, a giveaway to the age of the building when Lego architecture in the sixties was acceptable. As it was Sunday the building was deserted and the car park beneath the block was empty apart from one lonely car with a punctured wheel. The one that couldn’t get away. The security booth was unoccupied, the barrier was up. No one cared if the entire thing was airlifted and brought to another planet, it was so ugly and desolate. Once inside, the building smelled of damp and vanilla air freshener. A reception desk dominated the small lobby with a desk so high I could just make out the tip of a back-combed bouffant hair-sprayed head. As I neared I discovered that what I’d thought was air freshener was actually perfume. She sat painting thick nails with blood-red varnish, layering it so thickly it was gloopy. She was watching Columbo on a small TV monitor on the desk.

‘Just one more thing,’ I could hear Columbo say.

‘Here we go,’ she chuckled, not looking at me but acknowledging me. ‘He knows he did it already, you can tell.’ It was the American-pie woman I’d spoken to on the phone. While Columbo asked the murderer for his autograph for his wife she finally turned to me. ‘So what can I do you for?’

‘We spoke on the phone this week, my name is Lucy Silchester and I have an appointment with Life.’ I gave a high-pitched laugh.

‘Oh yes, I remember now. Lucy Silchester. Did you call that carpet-cleaning company yet?’

‘Oh … no, not yet.’

‘Well, here you go, I can’t recommend it no more than I already did.’ She placed the business card on the desk and slid it toward me. I wasn’t sure if she had brought it especially for me or if she was so enthusiastic about the company that she carried a suitcase of cards around with her to hand out to passers-by. ‘You promise me you’ll call now, won’t you?’

Amused by her persistence, I agreed.

‘I’ll just let him know you’re here.’ She picked up the phone. ‘Lucy’s here to see you.’ I strained my ear to hear his voice but I couldn’t make anything out. ‘Yes indeedy, I’ll send her on up.’ Then to me, ‘Take the elevator and go up to the tenth floor. Take a right, then a left, you’ll see him then.’

I made to leave then paused. ‘What’s he like?’

‘Oh, don’t you worry – you’re not scared, are you?’

‘No,’ I waved my hand dismissively. ‘Why would I be scared?’ Then I gave that same laugh that told everyone within a five-mile radius that I was scared, and made my way to the elevator.

I had ten floors to prepare myself for my grand entrance. I fixed my hair, my posture, my lips all pursed in a sexy but I-didn’t-know-it way; my stance was perfect, a few fingers of one hand tucked into my pocket. It all said exactly what I wanted to say about me but then the doors parted and I was faced with a ripped leather chair with a tattered women’s magazine missing its cover and a wooden door in a wall of glass with uneven Roman blinds. When I went through the door I was faced with a room the size of a football pitch filled with a maze of cubicles separated by grey partition walls. Tiny desks, old computers, tattered chairs, photos of people’s kids, dogs and cats pinned around the desks, personalised mouse pads, pens with pink furry things stuck on top, holiday photos as screen savers, birthday cards, random cuddly toys and multicoloured mugs that said things that weren’t funny. All those things people do to make their squalid little square foot feel like home. It looked exactly like my own office and it immediately made me want to pretend to photocopy something to waste some time.