The Year I Met You (16 page)

The meeting used to be weekly in the days when she was making plans for school, secondary school and what she wanted to study in college – which ended up being a residential college to learn how to live independently, how to get about on public transport, how to shop for food and essentials, cooking skills and preparation for the workplace. It was important to keep the meetings regular while she planned the direction she wanted her life to go in, but when the time came it was Heather herself who decided to switch to monthly meetings.

People who have attended in the past have included teachers, her support assistant – who Heather interviewed herself – someone from her college, the careers officer, her employers, and always me. Dad has come along a handful of times, but he isn’t good in these situations. He misunderstands the purpose. It is about planning, yes, and it is about doing. But it is also about listening to Heather and hearing how she feels about her place in the world and where she wants to be. Dad doesn’t have the patience to listen to these things. If it’s a job she wants, he’ll get it for her; if it’s an activity she wants to do, he’ll sort it out for her. But what I’ve learned from this process is that it helps me get inside Heather’s head. I want to hear the explanations for how and why and when. Like the time she announced that she wanted to leave her job packing bags at the local supermarket, even though it was a job she had spent a long time planning for. Dad was present at the meeting and wanted to rush through it all, gung-ho about getting her out of there because he hated her doing that job anyway. He completely missed the fact that the reason she wanted to leave the job was because somebody at the supermarket was being mean to her. The lady at the till was moving too fast, constantly snapping at her heels, making her feel like she wasn’t doing a good job, taking over the packing to hurry up the process when she felt Heather wasn’t moving fast enough. These are exactly the sort of things we need to hear from Heather at the meetings.

The meeting was planned for two p.m., yet here she is at one o’clock, making her way over to me and you, face to face with the man who embodies everything I have tried so hard to protect her from since I was a child. Words cannot describe how I feel in this moment, but I’ll try. I have gone from feeling warm and consoled by your words once again, consolation I was deliberately seeking from you – and that in itself makes me feel conflicted – to wanting to protect my sister from you. No wonder you can’t figure me out.

I fix all my attention on Heather, step towards her so she doesn’t come any closer to you, positioning myself so we’re two against one, with my arm wrapped around her shoulders protectively. I can’t look at your face; I don’t want to see how you might sneer or judge or analyse, or try to calculate another part of me through seeing her. I only look at her, beam at her with pride, oozing love for her from every pore, hoping you’ll pick up on it, remember your show, feel awful about it, reassess yourself, your job and your whole life. I give it that much energy. I’m sure Heather will sense how disgusting you are, how deplorable and unfair and nasty and judgemental you are. Regardless of what you say about it being purely to get the debate flowing, those words still pass through your lips, you are the source, the root, the creator. Heather possesses this talent to read people and there is never a better moment than now to see this skill in action. I want you to hold out your hand to her, I want her to deny you as she did with Ted Clifford. I want to see you wriggle and squirm with that surprised face you give me when I snap at you, when I turn from hot to cold.

‘Hello,’ I hear you say.

‘Hello,’ Heather responds.

She looks at me, then nudges me, wanting to be introduced.

‘This is my sister Heather,’ I say. ‘The most amazing person in the world.’

She giggles.

‘Heather, this is Matt. A neighbour,’ I say flatly.

You give me that intrigued, curious, studious look again. You know my hot and cold, my in between.

You wave at her. This bothers me, because it is correct behaviour for somebody in the Orange Wave Circle. Then Heather reaches out her hand. I turn to her in surprise, but she is looking at you with a polite smile on her face. I want to stop this exchange, this handshake with the devil, but I’m not sure that I can explain why I’m doing that to Heather, especially after the ruckus at Dad’s house – who I still haven’t heard from.

‘A pleasure to meet you, Heather,’ you say, shaking her hand. ‘That’s a cool bag you have.’

She is wearing the shoulder bag that I got her for her birthday five years ago. She wears it every day and keeps it looking brand new, making sure she cleans it, snips it of any tears. It’s a retro-style DJ bag, which is for storing vinyl records, along with the portable record player. Seeing as she prefers to listen to her vinyl records, I thought it would be a nice gift for her to be able to bring it from place to place. And she does, almost everywhere. The picture on the outside is of a vinyl record, so even on days when she’s not transporting her collection, she uses it to carry her purse, lunch and umbrella to and from work. Always those three things; I plead in vain with her to carry her mobile.

‘Thank you. Jasmine got it for me. It fits fifty records and my portable record player.’

‘You have a portable record player?’

‘A black Audio Technica AT-LP60 fully automatic belt-driven record player,’ she says, unzipping her bag to show him.

‘Hey, that’s very cool,’ you say, stepping forward to look in but not stepping too close. ‘And I see you’ve got some vinyl records there too.’

You are genuinely surprised, genuinely interested in her, genuinely want to see what she has in her DJ bag.

‘Yep. Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson …’ she flips through her collection and I watch your face.

‘Grandmaster Flash!’ you laugh. ‘Can I …?’ You reach towards her bag and I prepare for her to deny you.

‘Yes,’ she says happily.

You slide it out of its compartment and study it. ‘I can’t believe you have Grandmaster Flash.’

‘And the Furious Five,’ she corrects you. ‘The Message featuring Melle Mel and Duke Bootee, recorded at Sweet Mountain Studios, produced by Sylvia Robinson, Jiggs Chase and Ed Fletcher. Seven minutes eleven seconds in length,’ she continues.

You look at me, astonished, then back at her. I can’t help but glow with pride.

‘That’s amazing, Heather! You know everything about these records?’

And Heather goes on to tell you about her Stevie Wonder record: when it was recorded, each song on the album – she even names the session singers, the musicians. You are mightily impressed, amused, entertained, and you tell her so. Then you tell her that you’re a DJ. That you work on radio. Heather is interested at first, until she hears that mostly what you do is talk. She tells you that she doesn’t like listening to talking, she likes music. You ask her if she has ever been to a recording studio to see how musicians record their songs and she says no, then you tell her that you could bring her if she likes. Heather is unbelievably excited, but I can’t speak, I am too stunned by the exchange. This is not how I thought this would go. Never. I start to back away, lead Heather to the house, say goodbye in some kind of vague way, while you two, already firm buddies, promise to keep in touch through me.
Through me.
Once we get inside, Heather is all talk about what you have promised her and I start to feel angry, trying to figure out ways to hurt you if you do not do what you have promised. And when that gets too violent in my head, I try to come up with ways to make Heather forget what you have said, preparing for the very strong probability that it will not happen, owing to the very strong probability that I will not let it happen.

Present at the meeting that day, aside from me and Heather, are her support assistant Jamie, whose only concession to winter wardrobe is to wear thick sport socks with her sandals; Julie, her employer from the restaurant; and Leilah, who is present for the first time. What I like about Leilah is that she doesn’t even try to apologise on Dad’s behalf; in fact she doesn’t even mention him, and I respect that. The good thing about Leilah is that she has never gotten involved. This is largely because there has never been anything to get involved in, but her presence is a lovely gesture and I’m guessing that in order to understand what happened at her home last week, she needs to understand Heather more.

While the others are waiting in the living area, I make a pot of tea and mugs of coffee. Heather is beside me.

‘Heather …’ I begin, trying to keep the lightness in my voice. ‘Why did you shake that man’s hand outside?’

‘Matt?’ she asks.

‘Yes. There’s nothing wrong, don’t look so worried, but you don’t know him and I’m just wondering … share with me.’

She thinks about it. ‘Because I saw you talking to him. And you looked very happy. And I thought, he is a nice man to make my sister happy.’

Heather never fails to surprise me.

I concentrate on organising the tray while trying to come to terms with the exchange between you and Heather. What I need to do right now is to shake you off. These meetings are important to Heather and they are equally important to me.

‘So, take it away, Ms Butler,’ I say like a cheesy TV host. Heather giggles.

‘Jasmine,’ she says, embarrassed, then composes herself. ‘I would like to do a new activity.’ She looks at me in a certain way and I know that this will concern Jonathan, the name I keep hearing. My heart starts to beat manically. Jonathan has been her friend for some time. He too has Down syndrome, and I know that she has a crush on him, which scares me because I know that he feels the same way about her. I can see it when he looks at her. I can feel it when they’re in the same room as each other. It’s beautiful and it terrifies me.

‘Jonathan has a job as a teaching assistant in a Taekwondo class,’ she explains to the others. I know this already because I went with her one week to watch him teaching under sevens and I wasn’t allowed to utter one word to her for fear she would miss one of his moves. ‘I would like to learn Taekwondo.’

Jamie and Leilah are wonderful at being genuinely interested in this and they ask her plenty of questions. While they do that, I worry. Heather is thirty-four years old and certainly not agile, just as I am no longer as agile as I once was, and so this class concerns me. However I appear to be the only one with misgivings, and so I find myself agreeing that she will try a class next Saturday morning instead of her pottery and painting class, which she has grown tired of after two years.

‘I have an idea,’ Leilah offers. ‘In case you don’t like the Taekwondo, or if it doesn’t work out for any reason, you could take part in one of my yoga classes. Maybe I could teach you and Jonathan together?’

Heather beams at this suggestion and so do I. I like this idea: time alone with Jonathan in Leilah’s company makes me comfortable, and Heather starts to plan yoga and Taekwondo into her already busy week. I make notes in my diary, noticing how her activities fill my blank pages.

‘Next,’ I call, and she laughs again.

‘Jonathan and I would like to go on a holiday together,’ she says, and there is a stunned silence that even Jamie doesn’t quite know how to fill. They all look at me. I want to say no. No, no, no – but I can’t.

‘Wow. Well. That’s. I see. Well.’ I take a sip of tea. ‘Where would you like to go?’

‘Daddy’s apartment in Spain.’

Leilah widens her eyes at me.

‘Did Dad say you could?’

‘I didn’t ask him. He couldn’t come here today,’ Heather says.

‘Well, I mean, I’m not sure if it’s free. Is it, Leilah? Is it free?’

‘I don’t know,’ Leilah says slowly, not liking that I’ve put her on the spot for such an important issue, and not realising I want her to say no, or else realising it and not wanting to lie.

‘She hasn’t even told you the date,’ Jamie says, not hiding her unhappiness with how this is going.

‘Springtime,’ Heather says. ‘Jonathan says summer is too hot.’

‘Jonathan is absolutely right,’ I say, my mind racing. I know now how Dad felt when I told him I was going on my first holiday with my boyfriend. Then I remember how I felt even broaching the subject with him, and I look at Heather and I finally relax. ‘Heather. You and Jonathan have never been away together before, and Spain is quite far
for a first trip
.’ I emphasise these words so she won’t think I’m shutting her down straight away. ‘Why don’t you go away for a night or two first, somewhere lovely in Ireland that you’ve never been before? You can get a train or a bus and be close to home but not too close?’

She looks uncertain. She and Jonathan have already saved their fare and set their hearts on Spain. Talking her back from such a big move takes a lot of gentle persuasion, but Heather listens, she listens to us all, she always does, she’s a clever woman, taking in everybody’s opinion.

Over the past few weeks I had come up with a plan to take Heather to Fota Island which lies in Cork harbour and is home to Ireland’s only wildlife park. I suggest this venue now, because I can’t think of anything else on the spot. She is immediately convinced. Spain is forgotten. Jonathan loves animals, he loves trains, this is perfect. I can’t help but feel sad, that the place I was excited to take her to will be an experience she shares with someone else.

‘So,’ I take a deep breath. ‘The bedrooms.’

I can tell Heather is embarrassed about this part so I take control.

‘Options are: two bedrooms
or
one bedroom with two single beds. Or …’ I can’t bring myself to say it. Jonathan and Heather are two people with desires and passions just like everyone else, but I feel like an overprotective parent whose child has announced she likes boys. I take a breath and force myself to say it: ‘Or one double bed in one room – but Jonathan might be a diagonal man, who knows?’ I add playfully. ‘He might take up the entire bed and you might roll out on to the floor in the middle of the night.’

Heather laughs.

‘Or maybe he snores,’ Jamie says. ‘Like this—’ She makes a loud piggy sound and we all laugh.