If You Could See Me Now

by Cecelia Ahern

  ‘Olives, Granddad.’

  Pause.

  ‘No, I don’t think you can grow them on the farm.’

  Pause.

  ‘O-L-I-V-E-S.’ He spelled it out slowly.

  Pause.

  ‘Hold on, Granddad, my friend Ivan is telling me something.’ Luke held the phone to his chest and looked into thin air, concentrating hard. Finally he lifted the phone back to his ear. ‘Ivan said that the olive is a small, oily fruit that contains a pit. It’s grown for its fruit and oil in subtropical zones.’ He looked away and appeared to be listening. ‘There are lots of types of olives.’ He stopped talking, looked into the distance and then back to the phone. ‘Underripe olives are always green but ripe olives are either green or black.’ He looked away and listened to the silence again. ‘Most tree- ripened olives are used for oil, the rest are brine- or salt-cured and are packed in olive oil or a brine or vinegar solution.’ He looked into the distance. ‘Ivan, what’s brine?’ There was silence then he nodded. ‘Oh.’

  Elizabeth raised her eyebrows and laughed nervously to herself. Since when had Luke become an expert on olives? He must have learned about them at school; he had a good memory for things like that. Luke paused and listened to the other end. ‘Well, Ivan can’t wait to meet you too.’

  Elizabeth rolled her eyes and dashed towards Luke for the phone in case he said any more. Her father was confused enough as it was, at times, without having to explain the existence, or lack thereof, of an invisible boy.

  ‘Hello,’ Elizabeth said, grabbing the phone. Luke dragged his feet back to the kitchen. Irritation at the noise reared itself within Elizabeth again.

  ‘Elizabeth,’ said the stern formal voice, thick with a Kerry lilt, ‘I just returned to find your sister lying on my kitchen floor. I gave her a boot but I can’t figure out whether she’s dead or not.’

  Elizabeth sighed. ‘That’s not funny, and my sister is your daughter, you know.’

  ‘Oh, don’t give me that,’ he said dismissively. ‘I want to know what you’re going to do about her. She can’t stay here. The last time she did, she released the chickens from the coop and I spent all day getting them back in. And with my back and my hip, I can’t be doing that any more.’

  ‘I know, but she can’t stay here either. She upsets Luke.’

  ‘That child doesn’t know enough about her to be upset. Half the time she forgets she’s given birth to him. You can’t have him all to yourself, you know.’

  Elizabeth bit her tongue in rage. ‘Half the time’ was being overly generous. ‘She can’t come here,’ she said more patiently than she felt. ‘She was around earlier and took the car again. Colm just brought it back a few minutes ago. It’s really serious this time.’ She took a deep breath. ‘They arrested her.’

  Her father was silent for a moment and then he tutted. ‘And rightly so. The experience will do her the world of good.’ He quickly changed subject. ‘Why weren’t you at work today? Our Lord only intended us to rest on a Sunday.’

  ‘That’s the whole point. Today was a really important day for me at wor—’

  ‘Well, your sister’s come back to the land of the living and is outside trying to push the cows over again. Tell young Luke to come around with this new friend on Monday. We’ll show him the farm.’

  There was a click and the line went dead. Hello and goodbye were not her father’s speciality; he still thought that mobile phones were some sort of futuristic alien-like technology designed to confuse the human race.

  Elizabeth hung up the phone and made her way back to the kitchen. Luke sat alone at the table, holding his stomach and laughing hysterically. She took her seat and continued eating her salad. She wasn’t one of those people who was interested in eating food; she only did it because she had to. Evenings spent over long dinners bored her and she never had much of an appetite – she was always too busy worrying about something or too hyper to be able to sit still and eat. She glanced at the plate directly ahead of her and to her surprise saw that it was empty.

  ‘Luke?’

  Luke stopped talking to himself and faced her. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yes,’ she corrected him. ‘What happened to the slice of pizza that was on that plate?’

  Luke looked at the empty plate, looked back at Elizabeth like she was crazy and took a bite of his own pizza. ‘Ivan ate it.’

  ‘Don’t speak with your mouth full,’ she admonished him.

  He spat the food out onto the plate. ‘Ivan ate it.’ He began laughing hysterically again at the mush on his plate that had been in his mouth.

  Elizabeth’s head began to ache. What had gotten into him? ‘What about the olives?’

  Sensing her anger, he waited until he swallowed the rest of his food before speaking. ‘He ate them too. I told you olives were his favourite. Granddad wanted to know if he could grow olives on the farm,’ Luke smiled and revealed his gums.

  Elizabeth smiled back. Her father wouldn’t even know what an olive was if it walked up to him and introduced itself. He wasn’t into any of those ‘fancy’ foods; rice was about as exotic as he would get and even then he complained that the pieces were too small and that he’d be better off eating ‘a crumblin’ spud’.

  Elizabeth sighed as she scraped the remainder of her food from her plate into the bin but not before checking through the rubbish to see if Luke had thrown the pizza and olives in. No sign. Luke usually had such a small appetite and would struggle to finish one large slice of pizza, never mind two. She presumed she would find it weeks later, mouldy and hiding at the back of a cabinet somewhere. But if he had eaten the entire thing, he would be sick all night and Elizabeth would have to clean up the mess. Again.

  ‘Thank you, Elizabeth.’

  ‘You’re very welcome, Luke.’

  ‘Huh?’ Luke said, poking his head around the corner of the kitchen.

  ‘Luke, I told you before, it’s pardon, not huh.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘I said you’re very welcome.’

  ‘But I haven’t said thank you yet.’

  Elizabeth slid the dishes into the dishwasher and stretched her back. She rubbed the base of her aching spine. ‘Yes you did. You said, “Thank you, Elizabeth.”’

  ‘No I didn’t,’ Luke frowned.

  Elizabeth felt her temper rising. ‘Luke, stop playing games now, OK? We’ve had our fun at lunchtime, now you can stop pretending. OK?’

  ‘No. That was Ivan who said thank you,’ he said angrily.

  A shiver ran through her body. She didn’t think this was funny. She banged the dishwasher door shut, too fed up even to reply to her nephew. Why couldn’t he, just this once, not give her a hard time?

  Elizabeth rushed by Ivan with a cup of espresso in her hand, and the smell of perfume and coffee beans filled his nostrils. She sat down at the kitchen table, her shoulders sagged and she held her head in her hands.‘Ivan, come on!’ Luke called impatiently from the playroom. ‘I’ll let you be The Rock this time!’

  Elizabeth groaned quietly to herself.

  But Ivan couldn’t move. His blue Converse runners were rooted to the marble kitchen floor.

  Elizabeth had heard him say thank you. He knew it.

  He circled her slowly for a few minutes, studying her for signs of a reaction to his presence. He snapped his fingers next to her eardrums, jumped back and watched her. Nothing. He clapped his hands and stamped his feet. The sound echoed loudly in the large kitchen but Elizabeth remained at the table with her head in her hands. No reaction at all.

  But she had said, ‘You’re very welcome.’ After all his efforts of making noise around her, he was confused to discover his deep disappointment that she couldn’t sense him. After all, she was a parent and who cared what parents thought? He stood behind her and stared down at the top of her head, wondering what noise he could make next. He sighed loudly, exhaling a deep breath.

  Suddenly Elizabeth sat up straight, shuddered and pulled the zip on her tracksuit top higher. />
  And then he knew she had felt his breath.

  Chapter 4

  Elizabeth pulled her dressing gown tighter around her body and secured it at the waist. She tucked her long legs up underneath her body and snuggled down into the oversized armchair in the living room. Her wet hair sat tower-like on the top of her head, twisted in a towel; her skin smelled fruity from her passion fruit bubble bath. She cradled a fresh cup of coffee, complete with dollop of cream, in her hands and stared at the television. She was literally watching paint dry. Her favourite house makeover show was on and she loved to see how they could transform the most run-down rooms into sophisticated, elegant homes.

  Ever since she was a child she had loved giving everything she touched a makeover. She had passed the time, spent waiting for her mother to return, by decorating the kitchen table with scattered daisies, sprinkling glitter on the welcome mat by the door, causing a trail of glitter to garnish the dull stone floors of the bungalow, decorating the photo frames with fresh flowers and sprinkling the bed linen with petals. She supposed it was her fix-it nature, always wanting something better than she had, never settling, never satisfied.

  She also supposed it was her own childish way of trying to convince her mother to stay. She remembered thinking that perhaps the prettier the house, the longer her mother would remain home. But the daisies on the table were celebrated for no more than five minutes, the glitter on the doormat quickly trampled on, the flowers by the photo frames could not survive without water and the petals on the bed would be tossed and float to the floor during her mother’s fitful night’s sleep. As soon as these were tired of, Elizabeth would immediately start thinking of something that would really grab and take hold of her mother’s attention, something that she would be drawn to for longer than five minutes, something that she would love so much she would be unable to leave it. Elizabeth never considered that as her mother’s daughter, she should have been that something.

  As she got older she grew to love bringing the beauty out in things. She had had much practice with that at her father’s old farmhouse. Now she loved the days at work when she could restore old fireplaces and rip up ancient carpets to reveal beautiful original floors. Even in her own home she was always changing things, rearranging and trying to improve. She strived for perfection. She loved setting herself tasks, sometimes impossible ones, to prove to her heart that underneath every seemingly ugly thing there was something beautiful inside.

  She loved her job, loved the satisfaction it brought, and with all the new housing developments in Baile na gCroíthe and the surrounding nearby towns, she had made a very good living out of it. If anything new was happening, Elizabeth’s company was the one the developers all called. She was a firm believer that good design enhanced life. Beautiful, comfortable and functional spaces were what she endorsed.

  Her own living room was about soft colours and textures. Suede cushions and fluffy carpets; she loved to touch and feel everything. There were light colours of coffees and creams and just like the mug in her hand they helped clear her mind. In a world where most things were a clutter, having a peaceful home was vital to her sanity. It was her hideaway, her nest, where she could hide from the problems outside her door. At least in her home she was in control. Unlike the rest of her life, she could allow whoever she wanted in, she could decide how long they should stay and where in her home they could be. Not like a heart that invites people in without permission, holds them in a special place she never had any say in and then yearns for them to remain there longer than they plan. No, the guests in Elizabeth’s home could come and go on her command. And she chose for them to stay away.

  Friday’s meeting had been vital. She had spent weeks planning for it, updating her portfolio, creating a slide show, gathering magazine cuttings and newspaper write-ups of the places she had designed. Her whole life’s work had been condensed into a folder book in order to convince these people to hire her. An old tower standing high on the mountainside overlooking Baile na gCroíthe was to be knocked down to make space for a hotel. It had once protected the small town from approaching attackers during the Viking times, but Elizabeth couldn’t see the point of it remaining there today as it was neither pretty nor of any historical interest. When the tour buses, packed full with eager eyes from all over the world, passed through Baile na gCroíthe, the tower wasn’t even mentioned. No one was proud of it nor interested in it. It was an ugly pile of stones that had been allowed to crumble and decay, that by day housed the village teenagers and by night housed the village drunks, Saoirse having been among both groups.

  But many of the townspeople had put up a fight to prevent the hotel from being built, claiming the tower had some sort of mythical and romantic story behind it. A story began to circulate that if the building was knocked down, all love would be lost. It grabbed the attention of the tabloids and soft news programmes, and eventually the developers saw the opportunity for an even bigger goldmine than expected. They decided to restore the tower to a version of its former glory and build around it, leaving the tower as a historical piece for their courtyard, that way keeping the love alive in the Town of Hearts. There was suddenly a huge rush of interest from believers all around the country wanting to stay in the hotel to be near the tower blessed by love.

  Elizabeth would have driven the JCB through it herself. She thought it was a ridiculous story, one created by a town afraid of change and intent on keeping the tower on the mountain. It was a story kept alive for tourists and dreamers, but she couldn’t deny that the job of designing the hotel’s interiors would be perfect for her. It would be a small place, but one that would provide employment for the people of Hartstown. Better yet, it was only a few minutes from her home and she wouldn’t have to worry about being away from Luke for long periods of time while working on the project.

  Before Luke was born Elizabeth used to travel all the time. She would never spend more than a few weeks in Baile na gCroíthe and loved having the freedom to move around and work in different counties on various projects. Her last big project took her to New York, but as soon as Luke was born that had all ended. When Luke was younger, Elizabeth couldn’t continue with her work around the country, never mind around the world. It had been a very difficult time, trying to set up her business in Baile na gCroíthe and trying to get used to raising a child again. She had no other choice but to hire Edith, as her father wouldn’t help out and Saoirse certainly hadn’t any interest. Now Luke was older and settled at school, Elizabeth was discovering that finding work within commuting distance was becoming increasingly difficult. The development boom in Baile na gCroíthe would eventually settle and she constantly worried whether the work would then dry up completely.

  Her walking out of the meeting on Friday should not have happened. Nobody in her office could sell her abilities as an interior decorator better than she could. Her employees consisted of receptionist Becca, and Poppy. Becca was a timid and extremely shy seventeen-year-old, who had joined Elizabeth in her transition year while on work experience and decided not to go back to school. She was a hard worker who kept to herself, and was quiet around the office, which Elizabeth liked. Elizabeth had hired her quickly after Saoirse, who had been hired by Elizabeth to work there part time, had let her down. She had more than let her down and Elizabeth had been desperate to get someone in quickly. To tidy up the mess. Again. Keeping Saoirse near her during the day as an attempt to help her on her feet had only succeeded in driving her further away and knocking her right back down.

  Then there was twenty-five-year-old Poppy, a recent graduate from art college, full of lots of wonderfully impossible creative ideas and ready to paint the world a colour she had yet to invent. There were just the three of them in the office but Elizabeth often called on the services of Mrs Bracken, a sixty-eight-year-old genius with a needle and thread, who ran her own upholstery shop in the town. She was also an incredible grump and insisted on being called Mrs Bracken and not Gwen, out of respect for her dearly d
eparted Mr Bracken, whom Elizabeth didn’t think had been born with a first name. And finally there was Harry, fifty-two years old and an all-round handyman, who could do anything from hanging paintings to rewiring buildings but who couldn’t understand the concept of an unmarried woman with a career, not to say an unmarried woman with a career and a child not her own. Depending on people’s budgets, Elizabeth would do anything from instructing painters and decorators to doing it all herself, but mostly she liked to be hands-on. She liked to see the transformation before her very eyes and it was part of her nature to want to fix everything herself.

  It wasn’t unusual for Saoirse to have shown up at Elizabeth’s house that morning. She would often arrive drunk and abusive, and willing to take anything that she could get her hands on – anything worth selling, of course, which automatically excluded Luke. Elizabeth didn’t even know if it was just the drink she was addicted to any more; it was a long time since she’d had a conversation with her sister. She had been trying to help her since she was fourteen. It was as if a switch had been flicked in her head and they had lost her to another world. She tried sending her to counselling, rehab, doctors, she gave her money, found her jobs, hired her herself, allowed her to move in with her, rented her flats. She had tried being her friend, had tried being her enemy, had laughed with her and shouted at her, but nothing would work. Saoirse was lost to her, lost in a world where nobody else mattered.

  Elizabeth couldn’t help thinking of the irony of her name. Saoirse wasn’t free. She may have felt that she was, coming and going as she pleased, not being tied down to anyone, anything, any place, but she was a slave to her addictions. She couldn’t see it, though, and Elizabeth couldn’t help her see it. She couldn’t turn her back completely on her sister but she had run out of energy, ideas and faith in ever believing Saoirse could be changed, and had lost lovers and friends with her persistence. Their frustration would grow as they stood by and watched Elizabeth being taken advantage of time and time again till they could no longer be in her life. But contrary to their beliefs, Elizabeth didn’t feel like the victim. She was always in control. She knew what and why she was doing what she was doing, and she refused to desert a family member. She would not be like her mother. She had worked too hard all her life at trying not to be.