A Place Called Here

by Cecelia Ahern

  Judith was quiet. “You went through her bag?” She shook her head, confused. “But how did you get these from the car? Maybe she was just taking a walk, Jack. What if she returns to her car and all her stuff is missing? Are you crazy taking all this?”

  “Then I’ll have some apologizing to do, but it’s been two whole days. That’s a long walk.”

  Silence while they both remembered how their mother had been desperately worried after two days of Donal’s silence.

  “I rang Graham Turner.”

  “What did he say?” she asked, hands holding her face. The same scenario all over again.

  “He said that as it had only been over twenty-four hours and because it was in keeping with her usual behavior that he didn’t think there was any cause to worry.”

  “Why, what’s her usual behavior?”

  “That she comes and goes as she pleases, keeps to herself and doesn’t tell anyone where she’s going,” Jack rattled off tiredly.

  “Oh.” Judith looked relieved.

  “But that doesn’t mean you park your car in the middle of trees by the estuary and desert it for two days. That’s slightly different from coming and going as she pleases.”

  “So let me get this straight,” Judith said slowly. “The missing-persons person is missing?”

  Silence.

  Judith allowed that thought to roll around in her head, shifting it until it found a place it was comfortable to settle in. She looked contemplative as she moved her jaw from side to side.

  Then she snorted and burst out laughing.

  Jack sat back in his chair and folded his arms, feeling offended as Judith shook uncontrollably before him. Rachel stopped suckling and watched her bouncing mother, who was now wiping tears from her eyes. Nathan stopped playing with his blocks, stood to watch his mother. His face broke into a gummy smile and he began laughing, clapping his pudgy hands and bouncing his body with delight from the knees up. Eventually, Jack felt the corners of his lips tickle and he joined in, laughing deliriously at the ridiculousness of the situation and feeling such relief to let go after so long, even if only momentarily. Once they’d settled down, Judith began rubbing Rachel gently on her back, so soothingly it made Jack’s eyes feel heavy.

  “Look, Judith, maybe Graham is right. Maybe she did just walk away. Maybe she just thought to hell with all this and left her car, left her phone, her diary, her life, and gave up. Maybe she’s this mad, loony woman who does it all the time with the intention of coming back after a while. Maybe she walked away completely but I’m going to find her, she’s going to find Donal, and then she can quit. Then I’ll let her walk away.”

  “You really think this woman could find Donal?” Judith was contemplative.

  “She believed she could.”

  “What do you think?”

  He nodded.

  “So if you find her, you’ll be helping to find Donal.” She was deep in thought. “You know, Willie and I were going through the photo album last night with the kids and Katie pointed to Donal and asked who he was.” Her eyes filled. “Neither Katie or Nathan remember him, they’ll never have a memory of him and Rachel”—she looked down at her baby in her arms—“she doesn’t even know he existed. Life is going on without him and he’s missing all this.” She shook her head.

  Jack couldn’t think of anything to say, didn’t think there was anything to say. The same thoughts ran through his head every second of every day.

  “What makes you so sure that a woman you’ve never even met, a woman you don’t know anything about, has the ability to find Donal?”

  “Blind faith.” He smiled.

  “Since when did you ever have that?”

  “Since I spoke to Sandy on the phone,” he replied earnestly.

  “There was nothing…” She paused and decided to ask it anyway. “There was nothing between you two, was there?”

  “There was something but it was nothing.”

  “When is something ever nothing?”

  He sighed and decided to avoid the question. “Gloria doesn’t know about Sandy, not that there’s anything to know, but I don’t want her or the rest of the family knowing about the agency.”

  Judith didn’t look happy.

  “Please, Jude.” He grabbed her hand. “I don’t want to bring everyone through all this again, I just want to try by myself. I need to.”

  “OK, OK.” She let go, holding her hand up in defense. “So what are you going to do now?”

  “Simple.” He put the file, diary, and phone back into his bag. “I’m going to start looking for her.”

  25

  I was sixteen years old, in Mr. Burton’s office. I was sitting on one of the burst velvet chairs, the same since the day I’d arrived over two years ago, but for the extra foam on display. I was staring at the same posters on the walls of the cramped room. The bricked walls had been clumsily painted white, some holes still black and naked of paint, others holding clumps of white. It was all or nothing in this room, never even. Blu-Tack clung to parts of the walls, corners of old posters still hung on to the Blu-Tack. Somewhere in the school I imagined a room fully stocked with cornerless posters.

  “What are you thinking about?” Mr. Burton finally spoke.

  “Cornerless posters,” I replied.

  “Ah, that old chestnut.” He nodded. “How was your week?”

  “Crap.”

  “Why crap?”

  “Nothing very exciting happened.”

  “What did you do?”

  “School, ate, slept, school, ate, slept, multiplied by five more times and to be multiplied by a million more weeks in my life. My future looks bleak.”

  “Did you go out at the weekend? You were saying last week that you’d been asked out by a group of people.”

  He always wanted me to make friends. “Yeah, I went out.”

  “And?”

  “And it was OK. There was a house party. Johnny Nugent’s parents were away, so we all went there.”

  “Johnny Nugent?” He raised his eyebrows.

  I didn’t answer but my cheeks pinked.

  “Were you able to forget about Mr. Pobbs and enjoy yourself?”

  He asked it so seriously, I studied the Blu-Tack again, feeling slightly embarrassed. I’d had Mr. Pobbs since I was a baby. He was a gray, fluffy, one-eyed teddy bear in blue-striped pajamas, who slept in my bed, and any other bed I stayed in, every night. My parents and I had been away for the week a short time before and as soon as we’d returned I had repacked to go stay with my grandparents for the weekend. Somewhere in changing over my clothes, I’d misplaced Mr. Pobbs. It had upset me deeply all the time I was at my grandparents’ and I’d taken to a two-week-long search of the house on my return, much to my parents’ dismay. Last week we had discussed my not wanting to go out with Johnny Nugent at the weekend because I’d have preferred to find Mr. Pobbs, my trusted friend, no matter how ridiculous it sounded. It had been difficult leaving the house to go out for the night knowing that somewhere in there, Mr. Pobbs lay hidden.

  “So you went out with Johnny Nugent?” Mr. Burton went back to the question.

  “Yes, I did.”

  He smiled awkwardly. He’d obviously heard the rumors too. “Is everything…are you…” He stopped talking and instead made trumpeting noises with his lips while he thought how to rephrase his question. It was rare to see him awkward, as he always seemed to be in control. He was in this room, anyway; other than the small hints of personal information he revealed mistakenly during our at times candid talks, I knew nothing of his life outside of these four walls. I also knew not to ask any questions, because he wouldn’t answer and because I didn’t want to know. Not knowing, asking and him not answering, reminded me that we were strangers in a way. Only inside this room were we familiar. We had created our own world, had rules to follow, and had a line between us that, although it couldn’t be passed, could be danced upon on playful days.

  I jumped in and stopped his trumpeting li
ps from launching into an orchestra of brass instruments. “Mr. Burton, if you’re wondering if I’m OK, then please, don’t worry. For once in my life I’ve lost something and I’ve no intention of searching for it or expect it to come back. I think I’m cured.”

  We laughed. And laughed. And when there was an uncomfortable silence while I fantasized about him curing me, too, we laughed again.

  “Will you see him again? And by that I mean did you enjoy the company of others? Did you enjoy going out, did you relax, could you forget about all the things that are missing?” He started laughing again. “Did they manage to reach Scathach’s island?”

  While my head was banging against the headboard in Johnny Nugent’s parents’ bed, I’d had an epiphany. I’d remembered where I thought I’d put Mr. Pobbs aside in my grandmother’s house, before packing my clothes. I had called her the next day and expected Mr. Pobbs to be found, lying under the bed staring with his one eye at the broken springs beneath. But he wasn’t and we had arranged for my search of my grandparents’ house the following weekend. Even though Johnny Nugent had asked me out. I was going to explain all this when I frowned and asked, “Wait a minute what’s Scathach’s island?”

  Mr. Burton laughed. “Sorry, that just slipped out. It’s a bad analogy.”

  “Explain!” I smiled, watching his face redden.

  “I didn’t mean to say it. It just popped out. Never mind, let’s move on.”

  “Hold on a minute, you don’t let me get away with that! I have to repeat everything I mumble.” I laughed, watching him squirm for the first time in my life.

  He composed himself. “It’s an old Celtic story, and it was a stupid comparison.”

  I motioned for more.

  He rubbed his face. “Oh, I can’t believe I’m telling you this. Scathach was a great warrior woman who trained many heroes of the time. Legend tells us that it was almost impossible to reach her island, so that anyone who did was considered worthy to be trained in martial arts.”

  My mouth dropped. “You’ve named me after a warrior woman who trains martial arts?”

  He laughed again. “The point is that she was a woman who was hard to reach.” He stopped laughing when he saw my face. He leaned forward and grabbed my hand. “I think you’ve taken that the wrong way.”

  “I hope so,” I said, slowly shaking my head.

  He groaned and thought fast. “It’s just that only the strongest, bravest, and most worthy people could reach her.”

  I relaxed a little, liking the sound of this. “How would they reach her?”

  He relaxed a little too. “First they would have to cross the Plain of Ill Luck, where they would be pierced by razor-sharp grass blades.” He paused while he studied my face to see whether he should go on or not. Happy that I wasn’t about to punch him, he continued. “Then they would face the Perilous Glens with devouring beasts. Their final task was the Bridge of the Cliff, which was a bridge that tilted upward whenever anyone tried to cross.”

  I pictured the people in my life who tried to approach me, who tried to befriend me, who tried to connect with me. I pictured me knocking them back.

  “Only real heroes would get across,” he finished.

  Goose bumps formed on my skin. My hairs stood up and I hoped he didn’t notice.

  He ran his hands through his hair and shook his head. “That wasn’t part of the…” job, he almost said. “I shouldn’t have said that. Sorry, Sandy.”

  “It’s OK,” I decided and he looked relieved. “Just tell me one thing. Where are you on this journey?”

  Those gorgeous blue eyes bore into mine. He didn’t even need to think about it, didn’t even look away. “I’d say I’ve just passed over the Plain of Ill Luck right this minute.”

  I pondered that. “I’ll go easy with my devouring beasts if you promise to just let me know when you’ve passed the bridge.”

  “You’ll know.” He smiled, reaching for my hand and squeezing it. “You’ll know.”

  Jack pulled up beside Alan’s flat and flicked through Sandy’s datebook. She had also made an appointment yesterday for one o’clock at a place with a Dublin number, and he needed to know if she had kept it. He was hoping that whoever she was to meet would be able to help him. Though Sandy had made this appointment for yesterday in Dublin, she had planned to visit Alan in Limerick today. It must have been an important appointment in Dublin in order for her to make the journey over and back.

  With shaking hands he dialed the Dublin number Sandy had written. A woman answered quickly, sounding distracted as other phones rang in the background.

  “Hello, Scathach House.”

  “Hi, I am wondering if you can help me,” Jack said politely. “I have your phone number written down in my datebook and I can’t remember why I’ve made a note to call you.”

  “Of course,” she said politely. “Scathach House is the office of Dr. Gregory Burton. Maybe you wanted to make an appointment?”

  I woke up in my Dublin bedsit to the shrill sound of a telephone ringing in my ear. I put the pillow over my head and prayed for the noise to stop, I had a terrible hangover. I peeked over the side of my bed and caught a glimpse of my crumpled garda uniform lying in a ball on the ground. I’d worked a late shift and then gone for a few drinks. A few had clearly turned into a few too many and I had absolutely no memory of coming home. The ringing finally stopped and I breathed a sigh of relief, although it echoed in my head for a few seconds longer. And then it started again. I grabbed the phone from the side of the bed and brought it back under the pillow to my ear.

  “Hello,” I croaked.

  “Happy birthday to yoooou, happy birthday to yoooou, happy birthday dear Sandeeeee, happy birthday to yooou.” It was my mother singing so sweetly as though she was in a church choir.

  “Hip, hip…”

  “Hooray!” That was Dad.

  “Hip hip…”

  “Hooray!” He blew a party blower down the receiver, which I instantly held far away from my ear, allowing my arm to hang off the bed. I could still hear them celebrating from under the pillow as I drifted off again.

  “Happy twenty-first, honey,” Mum said proudly. “Honey? Are you there?”

  I put the phone back to my ear. “Thanks, Mum,” I mumbled.

  “I wish you’d have let us throw you a party,” she said wistfully. “It’s not every day my baby girl is twenty-one.”

  “It is, actually,” I said tiredly. “I have three hundred and sixty-four more days of being twenty-one, so we’ve lots of time to celebrate.”

  “Oh, you know it’s not the same.”

  “You know what I’m like at those things,” I said, referring to the party idea.

  “I know, I know. Well, I want you to enjoy your day. Would you think about coming home for dinner at all? At the weekend, maybe? We could just do a small thing, just me, you and your dad. We won’t even mention the birthday word.”

  I paused and decided to lie. “No, I can’t this weekend, sorry. Things are really busy at work.”

  “Oh, OK, well, what about if I come to Dublin for a few hours? I won’t even stay over; we can have a coffee or something. A quick chat and I’ll be gone, I promise.” She gave a nervous laugh. “I just want to mark the day with you in some way. I’d love to see you.”

  “I can’t, Mum, sorry.”

  There was a silence. For far too long.

  Dad came on the phone cheerily. “Happy birthday, love. We understand you’re busy so we’ll let you get back to doing what you were doing.”

  “Where’s Mum?”

  “Oh, she, eh, had to answer the door.” He was as bad at lying as I was.

  She was crying, I knew it.

  “OK, well, have a great day, honey. Try to enjoy yourself, OK?” he added softly.

  “OK,” I said quietly, and the phone clicked and went dead.

  I groaned, hung the phone back up on my bedside locker, and threw the pillow off my head. I allowed my eyes to adjust to the bright ligh
t my cheap curtains were incapable of keeping out. It was ten A.M. on a Monday morning and I finally had a day off. What I was going to do with it, I had no idea. I would have preferred to work on my birthday, although I would busy myself with working on a missing case that had recently run into a dead end. A little girl named Robin Geraghty had disappeared while playing in her front garden. All the signs were implicating her middle-aged neighbor next door. However, no matter how hard we’d dug into this case, we weren’t hitting the treasure chest at the bottom. Recently I had started following up on such cases by myself, unable to switch off the file that was locked away in a cabinet.

  I turned to lie on my back and noticed from the corner of my eye a lump beside me in the bed. The lump was on its side, a tousle of dark brown hair lying on the pillow. I jumped, gathering my bedclothes and wrapping them around me tighter. The lump began to move to face me, his eyes opened. Bloodshot, tired eyes.

  “I thought you were never going to answer that phone,” he said croakily.

  “Who are you?” I asked in disgust, clambering out of bed and taking the covers with me, leaving him lying on the bed spread-eagled and naked. He smiled, rested his hands behind his head sleepily, and winked.

  I groaned. It was meant to be a silent, inward groan but it forced its way out of my mouth. “I’m going to the bathroom and when I get back you will be gone.” I picked up what I assumed were his clothes and threw them onto the bed. I picked up my own stray clothes that were resting on a chair, hugged them close to me and banged the door shut. Almost immediately I returned and grabbed my wallet, much to his disgust. I wasn’t about to leave that there.

  Not after the last time.

  I stayed in the bathroom down the hall for as long as I could until Mr. Rankin from next door began pounding on the door and telling me and everyone else in the building how he was going to burst an area of his body that I didn’t care to think much about. I opened the door immediately and went back to my bedsit hoping the hairy stranger had vanished. No such luck. He was closing the door behind him.