The Year I Met You (25 page)

Despite my fears that I would never hear from him again, I did hear from Monday, in fact we met on a few occasions to talk, though invariably we ended up talking about everything else but the job. I feel so comfortable with him, so at ease; there’s no need for pretence about my not working, the way there is around other people. Though I am enjoying my gardening, it does not take away from the moments when I still feel lonely and worthless; it doesn’t for a moment make me feel more secure about my future, it merely stops me dwelling on it. Monday, on the other hand, takes away my loneliness. His eagerness to meet and talk for any amount of time takes away my worthlessness. Truth be told – and I know this sounds the complete opposite to what I’ve been expressing – I wish there was no job, I wish that Monday and I could continue to meet like this, talking about the ways of the world, the things we want or don’t want, instead of the reality.

It is just an interview, it is not yet a job, so I’m not ready to make a decision about Caroline’s proposal. We have met on a few occasions about Gúna Nua, and I have helped her idea along without fully committing to a long-term involvement. This will make it possible for me to slip away if I must, but businesswise it is not the ideal situation for either of us. I know that it is not enough for us to be friends. I thought the same thing about Larry, who subsequently fired me and landed me with a one-year ‘prison’ sentence. A prison sentence that feels, on glorious days in my garden, like a gift – though he wouldn’t want to hear that. And so my present ticks along, sometimes nicely, other times with frustration, but my future is as uncertain as ever.

It has been over two months since the incident with Heather in Dad’s home. Heather has gone about her usual wonderful way of forgiving or forgetting or being seemingly unaffected, and her relationship with Dad has carried on the same as ever. Mine has not. Not speaking to him has been somewhat helpful, but in other ways it’s made things worse. It has meant I do not have to deal with him, and it has meant that I have become increasingly maddened by him as I continue the arguments in my head. But it also means that, in not seeing him, I have not seen my little sister Zara, and that is unacceptable. It is for her mostly that I pick up the phone. I arrange to meet them at the playground beside Howth pier. It is a bright day, though we need to wrap up against the chill of the sea wind. Our winter wardrobes have made way for lighter wear, spring coats are being aired or given their first outing, people lie out on the grass eating Beshoff’s fish and chips, the vinegar mixing with the salty air and making my mouth water.

‘Jasmine!’ I hear Zara before I see her and she comes running towards me for an embrace. I pick her up and spin her around, immediately feeling bad about not seeing her. There is no excuse, my behaviour towards her has been unforgivable. Her growth since I’ve seen her is a sign of our silence. Ten weeks is a long time in her short life.

It should be awkward between Dad and me, but it’s not because we immediately speak to each other through Zara. Dad begins it.

‘Tell Jasmine about how we fed the seals some fish.’

She does.

‘Tell Jasmine about how the fishermen let you hold the rod.’

She does.

Zara is the kind of child who seems to attract attention, always asked to be the magician’s assistant, allowed into the cockpit to meet the pilot, shown around professional kitchens by chefs. She is one of those children who exudes interest in life, engages with people, and in return people want to please her, reward her, impress her. Finally, when Dad and I can’t speak to each other through her any more, we have no choice but to stand side by side outside the playground and watch her fire herself around with her new best friends that she met two seconds ago.

He won’t bring anything up, I know that. He would rather we stand like this, in awkwardness, than risk talking, in awkwardness. Even when forced into a discussion on something, on the rare times he can’t escape it, his feelings on the issue would be limited. This is frustrating on the rare times I want to communicate about something important. I get this trait from him. When you have two people who don’t talk about things, the situation can be more explosive than with those who do. Or rather, implosive, because the war is within.

‘That incident with Ted Clifford wasn’t right,’ I say suddenly, unable to properly broach or phrase the subject.

‘He has a position for account director going. Forty K a year. He wanted to talk to you directly,’ he says, the anger in his voice. He didn’t need to build up to it, it was there ready, for whenever I brought it up. ‘You could have talked about it between yourselves. Not for everyone to hear at the table. A perfect opportunity. Do you know how many people would want that job?’

It’s not at all what I meant. I was referring to his treatment of Heather, his reaction to Heather, not about the job, which was another issue – a less important one, but one that was bothering me enough that I was planning to tackle it next.

‘I meant, with Heather.’ I look at him for the first time and the expression on his face reveals it’s a struggle for him to work out what I could be referring to. Eventually it comes to him.

‘I spoke to Heather about that the very next day. All over, Jasmine.’

‘And?’

‘And now I know the Circles concept.’

‘
Now
you know.’

‘Yes. Now,’ he says, glaring at me.

‘She’s thirty-four years old, we’ve been doing the Circles concept for quite some time.’

I should have said it louder, but I mumble it. I don’t even know if he hears. I hope he does, but I’m not able for this: to discuss, to confront. Or maybe I’m okay with confrontation but then all I want to do is back away like it never happened and I don’t exist. The child in me quivers a bit at having my dad angry with me, however much the teenager in me rebels. ‘You treat her like she’s different. Like she’s
special
.’

‘I do not. I treat her the same as everyone else and that’s what gets you mad. It’s you that treats her differently,’ he says. ‘And you should think about that. And if you don’t mind me saying so, you don’t exactly practise what you preach. It’s always been one rule for you and another for everyone else. This Circles concept – seems to be different for you than for everybody else, because everyone and anyone who comes near you is orange. No, Zara love, don’t climb on that.’ He cuts the conversation short and runs to her aid.

‘Is that your granddad?’ a child asks, and Zara laughs as though she’s never heard such a ridiculous thing. ‘This is my daddy!’

They end up on a see-saw together, Dad’s gut barely able to squeeze behind the handles. As he goes down I see the bald patch in the back of his thinning hair. He does look like her granddad.

I’m quite stunned by what he has said to me. He said it so easily, without anger, which should make it easy to ignore, yet it isn’t. It’s the very calmness with which he said it that makes me listen, that makes me hear him loud and clear.

The Orange Wave Circle is the furthest circle away from the Purple Private Circle that represents the person concerned, in this case, me. It’s the circle for distant acquaintances, for those you have no physical or emotional contact with at all.

Everyone and anyone who comes near you is orange.

That’s not true, I want to shout at him. But I don’t know if that’s correct. Heather is the only person I have ever really kept close to me. Orange is certainly the circle I seem to have firmly planted him in. I came here to confront him about his own actions – no, I came to see Zara, but secondary to that was to make him see that his behaviour must change, I didn’t expect the tide to change, for me to be staring down the barrel of my own finger.

Though perhaps my red circle is the largest of all.
Some people remain strangers forever.

Confused, I drive back to my garden with my tail between my legs. I go back to thinking. I must snap the dead heads off and prepare for summer.

Summer

The seasons between spring and autumn, comprising in the Northern Hemisphere the warmest months of the year: June, July and August.

The period of finest development, perfection, or beauty previous to any decline: the summer of life.

20

I love June, and June in a garden showered with love is the greatest reward a gardener could receive for their hard work. Every month and season has its beauty, but summer is when it is at its most vigorous, its brightest, its proudest, its most dramatic. If spring is hopeful, summer is proud, autumn is humble and winter is resilient. When I think of spring I see big and youthful bambi-like eyes looking up at me through long lashes, when I think of summer I see shoulders back, a chest heaved up and puffed out. When I think of autumn I think of a dipped head with a small smile lost in nostalgia, and for winter I imagine bruised knobbly knees and fists, growling, ready for the fight.

June brings constant watering, mulch renewal, weekly mowing, a half-dozen hanging baskets, pink peonies, cream roses, perennials of all different colours and an ample herb garden, which I have growing in a pot outside my kitchen. June brings frequent visits of you and your children to your garden where you have also begun to take a keen interest by beginning a kitchen garden at the side of your house to rival my garden, sowing runner beans and French beans, carrots, Brussels sprouts and courgettes. We race to see who can get outside the earliest each morning to tend to our gardens and when it is us first we smugly give the morning wave to the late arrivals. Now it is a competition to see whose bedroom curtains open first. There we both work, you in your garden, me in mine, while the Malones sit outside their front door, Mrs Malone in her chair, the stroke rendering her immobile and unable to speak and read, while Mr Malone reads to her, Patrick Kavanagh’s poems in Mr Malone’s soft Donegal lilt, drifting over the honeysuckle to me. You and I can go hours without speaking, without calling random thoughts or gardening questions across the road, but it feels as if we are working together. Maybe that is just me. And there is something nice about that. When I see you take a sip of refrigerated bottled water, it reminds me to take mine. When I straighten my back and announce I’m going to eat lunch, you agree that you will too. We don’t eat together, but we stick to the same schedule. Sometimes I’ll sit on my garden bench and eat my salad, and you’ll sit at your table that you still haven’t moved from the front lawn, and we’ll be in each other’s company but not really. We both wave good morning and good evening to the corporate man who is renting number six, who drives past us in his BMW but who has failed to notice us so far and drives on unaware of our neighbourly salutes. At first his nonchalance annoyed me. Now it both annoys me and makes me pity him, because I know exactly what is on his mind. He has no time for us, for our mundane neighbourly intrusion in his life. He is too busy. He has
things
on his mind. Real things. Distractions.

And I am coming closer to possibly becoming that person again as June brings my job interview. As soon as Monday informed me of the date I started willing it to come quickly, but now it’s almost here and I want the week to slow down. June ninth, June ninth, I’m so nervous about it, I try not to think about it, though Monday won’t let me off the hook, calling over to run through questions with me over a dinner I’ve cooked. I’m not nervous about it because I don’t feel competent, I’m nervous because I feel I am competent and as the weeks have gone by I have grown to realise I want this job more than ever and I worry I won’t get it. If I don’t get this job, it’s the beginning of unemployment becoming an issue, because it is out of my control while I’m on gardening leave. I don’t want to
officially
feel bored, worthless, uncertain and panicking about my future. In a way, this is the calm before the storm, and if
this
is calm …

‘Okay, so tell me again from the start, Ms Butler.’

‘Monday,’ I groan, as we sit at the kitchen table and he goes through the interview for the tenth time. ‘Do you do this with all your headhuntees?’

‘No.’ He looks away, feathers ruffled.

‘So why am I getting special treatment?’

Say it, say it
, I will him to say the something I want to hear so badly.

‘I want you to get the job.’

‘Why?’ I leave a long silence.

‘All the other candidates have jobs,’ he finally says. ‘You deserve it.’

I sigh. Not the answer I was hoping for. ‘Thanks. Who are they, anyway? Are they better than me?’

‘You know I can’t tell you that,’ he says, smiling. ‘Besides, you knowing wouldn’t make a difference.’

‘It might. I could sabotage their chances on the day of the interview. Slash their tyres, put pink hair dye in their shampoo, that kind of thing.’

He laughs, looks at me in the way that makes my insides melt, as though I both interest and baffle him at the same time.

‘By the way,’ he says, while I clear away the dishes. ‘There’s been a change of plan. The interview has been moved to the tenth.’

I stop scraping leftover food into the bin and look at him. My throat tightens, my stomach clenches. He notices the silence, looks up at me. ‘And you just thought you’d mention that now.’

‘It’s only a day later, Jasmine – don’t look so scared,’ he says, smiling, rubbing his hand along his jaw as he studies me.

‘I’m not scared, I’m …’ I debate whether to tell him or not. I don’t know why I wouldn’t tell him, but not telling him reveals to me that I’m not – in this moment – fully committing to this interview and that scares me. I need this interview. I need this job. I need to get back on track.

June tenth is the day Heather goes on her four-day holiday to Fota Island with Jonathan. All that I intend doing while she’s gone is to sit around at home waiting, waiting for the phone to ring, waiting for a neighbour to bang on my door and tell me something has happened, the way they do it in the movies, waiting for a guard to take his hat off and dip his head respectfully. If I go to the job interview that day I won’t be able to fully concentrate on wondering what Heather is doing. Some would say the distraction would be good for me, but no, it will mean switching my phone off for at least an hour, it will mean not being able to listen to my senses, the possible sudden strike of fear that could alert me to the fact that something is wrong, leaving me unable to jump in my car and drive to Cork at a moment’s notice. I want to get a job, but Heather should be my main priority. This debacle won’t do.