Cecelia Ahern 2-book Bundle

by Cecelia Ahern

  Ruth quickly let go of him, rushed away from him and into the bathroom, where he heard the toilet seat go up and the contents of her insides empty into the bowl. Hating anyone being with her during moments like this, Ruth, a multi-tasker as always, mid-vomit, managed to lift her leg to kick the bathroom door closed.

  Lou sighed and collapsed to the floor in the pile of teddies. He picked up the phone that had begun to vibrate for the fifth time.

  ‘What now?’ he said in a dull voice, expecting to hear his own drunken voice on the other end. But he didn’t.

  20.

  The Turkey Boy 4

  ‘Bullshit,’ the Turkey Boy said as Raphie paused for breath.

  Raphie didn’t say anything, instead he chose to wait for something more constructive to come out of the Turkey Boy’s mouth.

  ‘Total bullshit,’ he said again.

  ‘Okay, that’s enough,’ Raphie said, standing up from the table and gathering the mug, Styrofoam cup and sweet-wrappers of the chocolates that he’d managed to munch through while he told his story. ‘I’ll leave you alone in peace now to wait for your mother.’

  ‘No, wait!’ Turkey Boy spoke up.

  Raphie continued walking to the door.

  ‘You can’t just end the story there,’ he said incredulously. ‘You can’t leave me hanging.’

  ‘Ah, well, that’s what you get for being unappreciative,’ Raphie shrugged, ‘and for throwing turkeys through windows.’ He left the interrogation room.

  Jessica was in the station’s tiny kitchen, having another coffee. Her eyes were red raw and the bags under them had blackened.

  ‘Coffee break already?’ He pretended not to notice her withering appearance.

  ‘You’ve been in there for ages.’ She blew and sipped, not moving the mug from her lips as she spoke, eyes on the notice-board in front of her.

  ‘Your face okay?’

  She gave a single nod, the closest she’d ever get to commenting on the cuts and scrapes across her face. She changed the subject. ‘How far did you get in the story?’

  ‘Lou Suffern’s first doubling up.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘I do believe “Bullshit” was the expression he used, which was then closely followed by “Total bullshit”.’

  Jessica smiled lightly, blowing on her coffee and sipping again. ‘You got further than I thought. You should show him the tapes of that night.’

  ‘We got video surveillance of the pub he was in already?’ Raphie asked, flicking the switch on the kettle again. ‘Who the hell was working there on Christmas Day? Santa?’

  ‘No, we haven’t got that yet. But the recorded audio-visual conference call shows a guy who looks exactly like Lou walking out of his office. Certain people at Patterson Developments don’t seem to know how to take a day off.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Christmas Day, honestly.’

  ‘It could be the Gabe guy in the conference call. They look alike.’

  ‘Could be.’

  ‘Where is he anyway? He was supposed to be here an hour ago.’

  Jessica shrugged.

  ‘Well, he’d better get his ass in here soon, and bring his driver’s licence like I told him to,’ Raphie fumed, ‘or I’ll …’

  ‘Or you’ll what?’

  ‘Or I’ll bring him in myself.’ She lowered the mug slowly from her lips and those intense, secretive eyes stared deep into his. ‘Bring him in for what, Raphie?’

  Raphie ignored her and instead poured himself another coffee, adding two sugars, which Jessica – sensing his mood – did not protest to. He filled a Styrofoam cup with water and shuffled off down the corridor again.

  ‘Where are you going?’ she called after him.

  ‘To finish the story,’ he grumbled.

  The Remainder of the Story

  21.

  Man of the Moment

  ‘Wakey wakey,’ a sing-song voice penetrated Lou’s drunken dreams, where everything was being rerun a hundred times over: mopping Lucy’s brow, plugging Pud’s soother back into his mouth, holding back Lucy’s hair over the toilet, hugging his wife close, Ruth’s body relaxing against his, then back to Lucy’s heated brow again, Pud spitting out his soother, Ruth’s smile when he’d told her he loved her.

  He smelled fresh coffee under his nose. He finally opened his eyes and jumped back with fright at the sight that greeted him, bumping his already throbbing head against the concrete wall.

  Lou took a moment to adjust to his surroundings. Sometimes the visions that greeted his newly opened eyes of a morning were more comforting than others. As opposed to the mug of coffee that at that moment was thrust mere inches from his nose, he was more accustomed to the sound of a toilet flush acting as his wake-up call. Often, the wait for the mystery toilet-flusher to exit the bathroom and show her face in the bedroom was a long and unnerving one, and on some occasions, though rare, Lou had taken it upon himself to disappear from the bed, and the building – at exactly the same time – before the mystery woman had the opportunity to show her face.

  On this particular morning after Lou Suffern had been doubled up for the very first time, he was faced with a new scenario: a man of similar age was before him thrusting a mug of coffee at him with a satisfied look on his face. This was certainly a new one for the books. Thankfully, the young man was Gabe, and Lou found, with much relief, that they were both fully dressed and that there was no toilet-flushing involved. With a throbbing head and the foul stench of rotting dead rats working his mouth, like a presidential candidate working a room on a campaign trail, he took in his surroundings.

  He was on the ground. That he could tell by his proximity to the concrete and the longer distance to the open panelled ceiling with wires dripping down. The floor was hard despite the sleeping bag beneath him. He had a crick in his neck from the position his head had been rather unfortunately lodged in against the concrete wall. Above him, metal shelves towered to the ceiling: hard, grey, cold and depressing, they stood like the cranes that littered Dublin’s skyline, metal invaders umpiring a developing city. To the left, a shadeless lamp was the guilty party behind the unforgiving bright white light that wasn’t so much thrown around the room as it was aimed at Lou’s head, like a pistol in a steady hand. What was glaringly obvious was that he was in Gabe’s storage room, in the basement. Gabe stood over him, his hand thrust towards him, and in it a mug of steaming coffee. The sight was familiar, a mirror-image of only a week ago, when Lou had stopped on the street to offer Gabe a coffee. Only this time the image was as distorted and disturbing as a funfair mirror, because when Lou assessed the situation, it was him that was down here, and Gabe that was up there.

  ‘Thanks.’ He took the mug from Gabe, wrapping his cold hands around the porcelain. He shivered. ‘It’s freezing in here.’ His first words were a croak, and as he sat up he felt the weight of the world crashing down on his head as a hangover for the second morning running reminded him that although age had brought him much to celebrate – for example, the nose that as a boy had always been too big for his face, was finally, in his thirties, in proportion – this hangover was not one of them.

  ‘Yeah, someone promised to bring me an electric heater but I’m still waiting.’ Gabe grinned. ‘Don’t worry, I hear blue lips are in this season.’

  ‘Oh, sorry, I’ll get Alison on to that,’ Lou mumbled, and sipped on the black coffee. He had taken his initial wakening moment to figure out where he was, and once the confusion of his whereabouts had been cleared up and his position established, he relaxed and started drinking. But the one sip of caffeine that followed alerted him to another problem.

  ‘What the hell am I doing here?’ He sat up properly, attentive now, and studied himself for clues. He was dressed in yesterday’s suit, a crumpled, rumpled mess with some questionable, though mostly self-explanatory, stains on his shirt, tie and jacket. In fact there was dirt just about everywhere he looked. ‘What the hell is that smell?’

  ‘I think it’s you,’ Gabe smi
led. ‘I found you around the back of the building last night throwing up into a skip.’

  ‘Oh God,’ Lou whispered, covering his face with his hands. Then he looked up, confused. ‘But last night I was home. Ruth and Lucy; they were sick. And as soon as they fell asleep, Pud woke up.’ He rubbed his face tiredly. ‘Did I just dream that?’

  ‘Nope,’ Gabe replied chirpily, pouring hot water into his instant coffee. ‘You did that too. You were very busy last night, don’t you remember?’

  It took a moment for last night’s events to register with Lou, but the onslaught of memories of the previous night – the pill, doubling up – came to his mind and suddenly pennies were dropping all over the place like a malfunctioning coin dispenser.

  ‘That girl I met.’ He aborted the sentence, both wanting to know the answer and not wanting to know at exactly the same time. A part of him was sure of his innocence, while the other part of him wanted to take himself outside and beat himself up for possibly jeopardising his marriage again. His body broke out into a cold sweat, which added a new scent to the mix.

  Gabe let him stew for a while, as he blew on his coffee and took tiny sips like a mouse nibbling on a hot piece of cheese.

  ‘You met a girl?’ he asked, wide-eyed and innocent.

  ‘I, erm, I met a – never mind – was I alone when you found me last night?’ Same question, different words. Both at the same time.

  ‘Indeed you were, very alone. Though not lonely, you were quite content to keep yourself company, mumbling about a girl,’ Gabe teased him. ‘Seemed as though you’d lost her and couldn’t remember where you’d put her. You didn’t find her at the bottom of the skip, anyway, though perhaps if we clear away the layer of vomit you deposited in the recycle bin, your cardboard cut-out woman may be revealed.’

  ‘What did I say? I mean, don’t tell me exactly, just tell me if I said anything about – you know – shit, if I’ve done something, Ruth will kill me.’ Tears sprang into his eyes. ‘I’m the biggest fucking asshole.’ He kicked away the crate that was at the end of the sleeping bag, with frustration.

  Gabe’s smile faded, respecting this side of Lou. ‘You didn’t do anything with her.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I know.’

  Lou studied him then, warily, curiously, distrustingly and then trusting all at the same time. Gabe seemed to be his everything right then: his one parent, the kidnapper he was growing to like, the only person who understood his situation, yet the one who had put him in that situation. A dangerous relationship.

  ‘Gabe, we really have to talk about these pills. I don’t want them any more.’ He took them out of his pocket. ‘I mean, last night was a revelation, it really was, in so many ways.’ He rubbed his eyes tiredly, remembering the sound of his drunken voice at the end of the phone. ‘I mean, are there two of me now?’

  ‘No, you’re back to one again,’ Gabe explained. ‘Fig roll?’

  ‘But Ruth,’ Lou ignored him. ‘She’ll wake up and I’ll be gone. She’ll be worried. Did I just vanish?’

  ‘She’ll wake up and you’ll be gone to work, just like always.’

  He absorbed that information and calmed a little. ‘But it’s not right, it doesn’t make sense. We really need to discuss where you got them from.’

  ‘You’re right, we do,’ Gabe said seriously, taking the container from Lou and stuffing it into his pocket. ‘But not yet. It’s not time yet.’

  ‘What do you mean, it’s not time? What are you waiting for?’

  ‘I mean it’s almost eight thirty and you’ve got a meeting to get to before Alfred sweeps in and steals the limelight.’

  At that, Lou’s coffee was placed carelessly on a shelf, between an extension lead and a pile of mouse traps, and he jumped to his feet, instantly forgetting about his serious concerns about the peculiar pills, and also forgetting to wonder how on earth Gabe knew about his eight-thirty meeting.

  ‘You’re right, I’d better go, but we’ll talk later.’

  ‘You can’t go looking like that,’ Gabe laughed, looking Lou’s filthy rumpled suit up and down. ‘And you smell of vomit. And cat urine. Believe me, I know, I’ve a fine nose for it by now.’

  ‘I’ll be okay.’ Lou looked at his watch while taking off his suit jacket at the same time. ‘I’ll grab a quick shower in my office and change into my spare suit.’

  ‘You can’t. I’m wearing it, remember?’

  Lou looked over at Gabe then, and remembered how he’d provided him with his spare clothes the first day he had employed him. He’d bet Alison hadn’t replaced the clothes yet, she was too new to know to do that.

  ‘Shit! Shit, shit, shit!’ He paced the small room, biting his manicured fingernails, pulling and spitting, pulling and spitting.

  ‘Don’t worry, my cleaner will see to them,’ Gabe said with amusement, watching as the chewed nails fell to the cemented floor.

  Lou ignored him, pacing some more. ‘Shops don’t open till nine, where the hell can I get a suit?’

  ‘Never fear, I think I have something here in my walk-in wardrobe,’ Gabe said, disappearing down the first aisle and reappearing with the new suit draped in plastic. ‘Like I said, you never know when a new suit will come in handy. It’s your size and all, fancy that. It’s almost like it was made for you.’ He winked at Lou. ‘May your outer dignity mirror an inner dignity of your soul,’ Gabe said, handing the suit over to him.

  ‘Eh yeah, sure. Thanks,’ Lou said uncertainly, quickly lifting it from Gabe’s outstretched hands.

  In the empty staff elevator, Lou looked at his reflection in the mirror. He was unrecognisable from the man who’d woken up on the floor half an hour earlier. The suit that Gabe had given him, despite being an unknown designer – something he wasn’t used to – was surprisingly the best-fitting suit he had ever owned. With the blue of the shirt and tie against the navy jacket and trousers, Lou’s eyes were popping out, innocent and cherub-like.

  Things were very good for Lou Suffern that day. He was back to his groomed, handsome best, his shoes polished to perfection by Gabe and back to how they used to dance along the pavements. The swing was back in his step, his left hand casually placed in his pocket, his right arm swinging loosely by his side in rhythm with his step and available to answer the phone and/or shake a hand at every possible moment. He was the man of the moment. After a phone call with his wife and Lucy, he was father of the year according to Lucy, and the odds of him being in with the chance to be husband of the year in the next decade or two were improving. He was happy, so happy, in fact, that he whistled and didn’t stop even when Alison delivered the news that his sister was on the line. He happily reached for the phone and propped his behind on the corner of Alison’s desk.

  ‘Marcia, good morning,’ he said cheerily.

  ‘Well, you’re in a good mood today. I know you’re busy, Lou, I won’t keep you long. I just wanted to let you know that we all got Dad’s birthday invitations, they were … very nice … very sophisticated … not what I would have chosen but … anyway, I’ve had a few people on the phone to say they haven’t received theirs yet.’

  ‘Oh, they must have got lost in the post,’ Lou said, ‘we’ll send them out some more.’

  ‘But it’s tomorrow, Lou.’

  ‘What?’ He frowned and squinted his eyes to concentrate on the calendar on the wall.

  ‘Yes, his birthday’s tomorrow,’ she said, sounding slightly panicked. ‘They won’t get the invites if you send them out now. I just wanted to make sure that it would be okay for everyone just to turn up without an invite, it’s only a family party.’

  ‘Don’t worry, just email us through the list again and we’ll have a guest list on the door. It’s all under control.’

  ‘I might just bring a few things to –’

  ‘It’s all under control,’ he said more firmly.

  He watched his colleagues walk down the hall and into the boardroom, Alfred lagging behind in his slacks and blazer with
big gold buttons as though he was about to captain a cruise-liner.

  ‘What’s happening at the party, Lou?’ Marcia asked nervously.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Lou laughed. ‘Oh well, come on, Marcia, we want it to be a surprise for everyone.’

  ‘Do you know what’s happening?’

  ‘Do I know what’s happening? Are you worried about my organisational skills?’

  ‘I’m worried that you’ve repeated every single one of my questions just to give yourself more thinking time,’ she said easily.

  ‘Of course I know what’s going on, you think I’d just leave it up to Alison to do alone?’ He laughed. ‘She’s never even met Dad,’ he said, echoing what he’d heard a few family members mumble.

  ‘Well, it’s important for someone in the family to be involved, Lou – this Alison seems like a nice girl but she doesn’t really know Dad, does she? I’ve been calling her to help out but she hasn’t been very forthcoming. I want Dad to have the time of his life.’

  ‘He will, Marcia, he will.’ Lou’s stomach turned uneasily. ‘We’ll all have fun, I promise. Now, you know I won’t be there at the very beginning because I’ve got this office party. I have to be here for a little while but I’ll come straight over.’

  ‘I know, that’s perfectly understandable. Oh God, Lou, I just want Dad to be happy. He’s always busy making sure the rest of us are. I want him to finally relax and enjoy himself.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Lou swallowed, with the first hint of trepidation. ‘Me too. Okay, I’d better hurry, I’ve got to go to a meeting. I’ll see you all tomorrow, okay?’

  He handed the phone back to Alison, his smile gone. ‘It’s all under control, isn’t it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The party,’ he said firmly. ‘My dad’s party.’

  ‘Lou, I’ve been trying to ask you questions about it all we—’

  ‘Is it all under control? Because if it’s not, you’d tell me, wouldn’t you?’