The Year I Met You Read Online Free PDF Page B

dad that we made cupcakes together last week?’ I ask Zara.
    She nods again and I realise that I’m doing exactly what Dad does. It must be frustrating for her, but I can’t seem to stop.
    Dad and I talk to each other through Zara. We say things to her that we should be saying to one another, so I tell her that my electricity went off on New Year’s Eve, that I met Billy Gallagher in the supermarket and he has retired, and various other things that she doesn’t need to know. Zara pays attention for a while, but then we confuse her, and she runs off.
    ‘Your friend is in trouble again,’ Dad says when we’re sitting at the table with a cup of tea and biscuits left over from my enormous drawer of Christmas goodies that I’m consistently working my way through, and we watch Zara tip over the box of toys that I keep for her. The noise of Lego hitting floorboards takes away his next sentence.
    ‘What friend?’ I ask, worried.
    Dad nods in the direction of the front window that faces your house. ‘Your man – what’s his name?’
    ‘Matt Marshall? He’s not a friend of mine,’ I say, disgusted. All talk always turns to you.
    ‘Well, your neighbour then,’ Dad says, and we both watch Zara again.
    It’s only the silence dragging on for too long that causes me to ask, because I don’t know what else to say: ‘Why, what did he do?’
    ‘Who?’ Dad says, snapping out of his trance.
    ‘Matt Marshall,’ I say through gritted teeth, hating having to ask about you once, never mind twice.
    ‘Oh, him.’ As if it was an hour ago that he first raised it. ‘His New Year’s Eve show got complaints.’
    ‘He always gets complaints.’
    ‘Well, more than usual, I suppose. It’s all over the papers.’
    We are silent again as I think about your show. I hate your show, I never listen. Or rather, I never used to listen but lately I’ve been listening to see if what you talk about has any direct link to the state you return home in, because you’re not trashed every single night of the week. About three or four nights a week. Anyway, so far there seems to be no direct correlation.
    ‘Well, he tried to ring in the New Year by getting a woman to—’
    ‘I know, I know,’ I say, interrupting him, not wanting to hear my dad say the word orgasm.
    ‘Well, I thought you said you hadn’t heard it,’ he says, all defensive.
    ‘I heard about it,’ I mumble, and I climb down on all fours to help Zara with her Lego. I pretend our tower is a dinosaur. I use it to eat her fingers, her toes, then I crash it into the second tower with a great big roar. She’s happy with that for a moment and goes back to playing by herself.
    To recap on your New Year’s Eve show, you and your team felt it would be hilarious to ring in the New Year with the sound of a woman’s orgasm. A charming treat for your listeners, a thank you in fact, for their support. Then you had a quiz to guess the sound of a fake orgasm from a real orgasm, and then a full discussion about men who fake orgasms during sex. It wasn’t offensive, not to me, not in comparison to the filth you’ve spoken about in other shows, and I hadn’t been aware of men who faked orgasms so it was slightly informative, if not disturbing, maybe even personally enlightening – with regard to the man I didn’t regret in the office, who regretted me, possibly – though the douche-bags you had on the show to tell their side of their story did little to educate. I sound as if I’m defending you. I’m not. It just wasn’t the worst show. For once the issue is not you and your lack of charm but the right to hear the sound of a woman climax without it being considered offensive.
    ‘How is he in trouble?’ I ask moments later.
    ‘Who’s that?’ Dad asks and I count to three in my head.
    ‘Matt Marshall.’
    ‘Oh. They’ve fired him. Or suspended him. I’m not sure which. I’d say he’s out of there. Been there long enough anyway. Let somebody younger have a