Gabe merely smiled. ‘Hey, it’s funny how life works, isn’t it?’ He nudged Lou.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, the way one minute you can be up here, and then the next minute all the way down there?’ On Lou’s aggressive look, he continued, ‘I just meant that when we met last week, I was down there, looking up and dreaming about being here. And now look at me. It’s funny how it all switches around. I’m up in the penthouse; Mr Patterson gave me a new job –’
‘He what?’
‘Yeah, he gave me a job.’ Gabe grinned and winked. ‘A promotion.’
Before Lou had the opportunity to respond, a female staff member approached them with a tray.
‘Would anybody like some food?’ she smiled.
‘Oh, no, thank you, I’ll wait for the shepherd’s pie,’ Lou’s mother smiled at her.
‘This is the shepherd’s pie.’ The lady pointed to a small mini blob of potato sitting in a minuscule cupcake holder.
There was a moment’s silence and Lou’s heart almost ripped through his skin from its hectic beating.
‘Is there more food coming later?’ Marcia asked.
‘Apart from the cake? No,’ she shook her head, ‘this is it for the evening. Trays of hors d’oeuvre.’ She smiled again as though not picking up on the hostility that was currently doing the rounds.
‘Oh,’ Lou’s father said, trying to sound upbeat. ‘You can leave the tray here so.’
‘The whole tray?’ She looked uncertainly around and then behind her to the manager for back-up.
‘Yes, we’ve a hungry family here,’ Fred said, taking it from her hands and placing it on the tall table so that
everybody had to stand up from their chairs in order to reach.
‘Oh, okay.’ She watched it being placed down and slowly backed away, trayless.
‘You mentioned a cake?’ Marcia asked, her voice high-pitched and screechy, possessed and distressed by the lack of control, by everything going wrong.
‘Yes.’
‘Let me see it please,’ she said, casting a look of terror at Lou. ‘What colour is it? What’s on it? Does it have raisins? Daddy hates raisins,’ they could hear her saying as she wandered off to the kitchen with the waitress, her cardboard box of damage-limitation items in her hand.
‘So, who invited you, Gabe?’ Lou felt tetchy, not wanting to discuss the promotion for fear he’d throw Gabe across the other side of the room.
‘Ruth did,’ Gabe said, reaching for a mini shepherd’s pie.
‘Oh, she did, did she? I don’t think so,’ Lou laughed.
‘Why wouldn’t you think so?’ Gabe shrugged. ‘She invited me the night I had dinner and stayed over at your house.’
‘Why do you say it like that? Don’t say it like that,’ Lou said childishly, squaring up to him. ‘You weren’t invited to dinner in my house. You dropped me home and ate leftovers.’
Gabe looked at him curiously. ‘Okay.’
‘Where is Ruth anyway? I haven’t seen her all night.’
‘Oh, we’ve been talking all evening on the balcony. I really like her,’ Gabe responded, mashed potato dribbling down his chin and landing on his borrowed tie. Lou’s tie.
At that, Lou’s jaw clenched. ‘You really like her? You really like my wife? Well, that’s funny, Gabe, because I really like my wife too. You and I have so fucking much in common, don’t we?’
‘Lou,’ Gabe smiled nervously, ‘you might want to keep your voice down just a little.’
Lou looked around and smiled at the attention they’d attracted and playfully wrapped his arm around Gabe’s shoulder to show all was good. When eyes looked away, he turned to face Gabe and dropped the smile.
‘You really want my life, don’t you, Gabe?’
Gabe seemed taken aback, but hadn’t the opportunity to respond as the elevator doors opened and out fell Alfred, Alison and a crowd from the office party, who – despite the noise of Lou’s father’s favourite songs blaring out through the speakers – managed to announce themselves to the room, loud and clear, while dressed in their Santa suits and their party hats, blowing their party blowers at anyone who so much as looked their way.
Lou darted from his family and ran up the steps to the elevator, blocking Alfred’s path. ‘What are you all doing here?’
‘We’re here to partaaay, my friend,’ Alfred announced, swaying and blowing a party horn in his face.
‘Alfred, you weren’t invited,’ Lou said loudly.
‘Alison invited me,’ Alfred laughed. ‘And I think you know better than anyone how hard it is to turn down an invitation from Alison,’ he smiled. ‘But I don’t mind being sloppy seconds,’ he laughed, wavering drunkenly on the spot. Suddenly his eyeline moved to above Lou’s shoulder and his face changed. ‘Ruth! How are you?’
Lou’s heart almost failed as he turned around and saw Ruth behind them.
‘Alfred.’ Ruth folded her arms and stared at her husband.
There was a tense silence.
‘Well, this is awkward,’ Alfred said uncertainly. ‘I think I’m going to go and join the party. I’ll leave you two to bludgeon each other in private.’
Alfred disappeared, leaving Lou alone with Ruth, and the hurt on her face was like a dagger through his heart. He’d gladly have anger anytime.
‘Ruth,’ he said, ‘I’ve been looking for you all evening.’
‘I see the party planner, Alison, joined us too,’ she said, her voice shaking as she tried to remain strong.
Lou looked over his shoulder and saw Alison, little dress and long legs, dancing in the middle of the floor seductively with Santa.
Ruth looked at him questioningly.
‘I didn’t,’ he said, the fight going out of him, not wanting to be that man any more. ‘Hand on heart, I didn’t. She tried tonight, and I didn’t.’
Ruth laughed bitterly. ‘Oh, I bet she did.’
‘I swear I didn’t.’
‘Anything? Ever?’ She studied his face intently, clearly hating herself; embarrassed, angry at having to ask.
He swallowed. He didn’t want to lose her, but he didn’t want to lie. ‘A kiss. Once, is all. Nothing else,’ he spoke faster now, panicking. ‘But I’m different now, Ruth, I’m –’
She didn’t listen to the rest of it, she turned away from him, trying to hide her face and her tears from him. She opened the door to the balcony and cold air rushed in at Lou. The balcony was empty, the smokers inside eating as many mini shepherd’s pies as it took to fill a hole.
‘Ruth –’ He tried to grab her arm and pull her back inside.
‘Lou, let go of me, I swear to God, I’m not in the mood to talk to you now,’ she said angrily.
He followed her out to the balcony and they moved away from the window so that they couldn’t be seen by anyone inside. Ruth leaned on the edge and looked out at the city. Lou moved close behind her, wrapped his arms tightly around her body and refused to let go, despite her body going rigid as soon as he touched her.
‘Help me fix this,’ he whispered, close to tears. ‘Please, Ruth, help me fix this.’
She sighed, but her anger was still raw. ‘Lou, what the hell were you thinking? How many times did we all tell you how important this night was?’
‘I know, I know,’ he stuttered, thinking fast. ‘I was trying to prove to you all that I could –’
‘Don’t you dare lie to me again.’ She stopped him short. ‘Don’t you dare lie when you’ve just asked for my help. You weren’t trying to prove anything. You were fed up with Marcia ringing you, fed up with her trying to get it right for your father, you were too busy –’
‘Please, I don’t need to hear this right now,’ he winced, as though every word brought on a migraine.
‘This is exactly what you need to hear. You were too busy at work to care about your father, or about Marcia’s plans. You got a stranger who knew nothing of your father’s seventy years on this earth to plan the whole thing for you. Her?’ S
he pointed inside at Alison, who was doing the limbo underneath the chocolate fondue stand, revealing the red lace underwear to all that were looking. ‘A little tramp that you probably screwed while dictating the party guest list,’ she spat.
Lou thought better of informing Ruth that Alison was actually a well-qualified business graduate and, apart from party planning, a competent employee. It didn’t seem appropriate to defend her honour; Alison’s behaviour at the office and then at his father’s party was doing little to defend her own honour.
‘That didn’t happen, I swear. I know I messed everything up. I’m sorry.’ He was so used to saying that word now.
‘And what was it all for? For a promotion? A pay rise that you don’t even need? More work hours in a day that just aren’t humanly possible to achieve? When will you stop? When will it all be enough for you? How high do you want to climb, Lou? You know what, last week you said that only a job can fire you, but a family can’t. But I think you’re about to realise that the latter is possible after all.’
‘Ruth,’ he closed his eyes, ready to jump off the balcony then and there if she was going to leave him, ‘please don’t leave me.’
‘Not me, Lou,’ she said. ‘I’m talking about them.’
He turned around and watched his family join a convoy, as the room danced around in a train, kicking their legs every few steps. ‘I’m racing with Quentin tomorrow. On the boat.’ He looked at her for praise.
‘I thought Gabe was doing that?’ Ruth asked in confusion. ‘Gabe offered his time to Quentin right here in front of me. Quentin said yes.’
Anger rose as Lou’s blood boiled. ‘No, I’m definitely going to do it.’ He would see to it.
‘Oh, really? Is that before or after you’re coming ice-skating with me and the kids?’ she asked, before walking off and leaving him alone on the balcony, cursing himself for forgetting his promise to Lucy.
As Ruth opened the door to the balcony, music rushed out and cold air rushed in. Then the door closed again, but he felt a presence behind him. She hadn’t gone inside. She hadn’t left him.
‘I’m sorry about everything I’ve ever done. I want to fix it all,’ he said with exhaustion. ‘I’m tired now. I want to fix it. I want everyone to know that I’m sorry. I’d do anything for them to know that and to believe me. Please help me fix it,’ he repeated.
Had Lou turned around then he would have seen that his wife had indeed left him; that she’d rushed off to a quiet place to once again cry her tears of frustration for a man who had convinced her only hours previously in their bedroom that he had changed. No, it was Gabe that had stepped in when Ruth had rushed off, and it was Gabe who heard Lou’s confessions on the balcony.
Gabe knew that Lou Suffern was exhausted. Lou had spent so many years moving so quickly through the minutes, hours and days, through the moments, that he’d stopped noticing life. The looks, gestures and emotions of other people had long since stopped being important or visible to him. Passion had driven him at first, and then, while on his way to the somewhere he wanted to be, he’d left it behind. He’d moved so fast, he’d taken no pause for breath; his rhythm was too quick, his heart could barely keep up.
As Lou breathed in the cold December air and lifted his face up to the sky, to feel – and appreciate – the icy droplets of rain that fell onto his skin, he knew that his soul was coming to get him.
He could feel it.
25.
The Best Day
At nine a.m. on Saturday morning, the day after his father’s seventieth birthday party, Lou Suffern sat out in his back garden and lifted his face and closed his eyes to the morning sun. He’d clambered over the fence that separated their two-acre landscaped garden – where pathways and pebbles, garden beds and giant pots signposted the way to walk – from the rugged and wild terrain that lay beyond human meddling. Splashes of yellow gorse were everywhere, as though somebody in Dalkey had taken a paintball gun and fired carelessly in the direction of the northside headland. Lou and Ruth’s house sat at the very top of the summit, their back garden looking out to the north with vast views of Howth village below, the harbour, and out further again to Ireland’s Eye. Often, Snowdon in Snowdonia National Park in Wales, 138 kilometres away, could be seen from the headland; though on this clear day it was forever that Lou Suffern had his eye on.
Lou sat on a rock and breathed in the fresh air. His numb nose dribbled, his cheeks were frozen stiff, and his ears ached from the nip in the wind. His fingers had turned a purplish blue, as though they were being strangled at the knuckles; not good weather for vital parts, but ideal weather for sailing. Unlike the carefully maintained gardens of his and his neighbours’ houses, the wild and rugged gorse had been even more lovingly left to grow as it wanted, like a second child who was given more space and less rules. It had roamed the mountainside and stamped its authority firmly around the headland. The land was hilly and uneven, it rose and fell without warning, apologised for nothing and offered no assistance to trekkers. It was the student in the back row in class, quiet but suggestive, sitting back to view the traps it had laid. Despite Howth’s wild streak in the mountains and the hustle and bustle of a fishing village, the town itself always had a sense of calm. It had a patient, grandparental feel about it: lighthouses that guided inhabitants of the waters safely to shore; cliffs that stood like a line of impenetrable Spartans with heaving chests and muscles that rippled through abdomens, fierce against the elements. There was the pier that acted as a mediator between land and sea and dutifully ferried people out as far as humanly possible; the Martello tower that stood like a lone ageing soldier who refused to leave his zone long after the trouble had ended. Despite the constant gusts that attacked the headland, the town was steady and stubborn.
Lou wasn’t alone as he pondered his life. Beside him sat himself. They were dressed differently: one ready for sailing with his brother, the other for ice-skating with the family. They stared out to sea, both watching the shimmer of the sun on the horizon, looking like a giant silver dime had been dropped in for luck and now glimmered under the waves. They’d been sitting there for a while, not saying anything, merely comfortable with their own company.
Lou on the mossy grass looked at Lou on the rock and smiled. ‘You know how happy I am right now? I’m beside myself,’ he chuckled.
Lou, sitting on the rock, fought his smile. ‘The more I hear myself joke, the more I realise I’m not funny.’
‘Yeah, me too.’ Lou pulled a long strand of wild grass from the ground and rolled it around his purple fingers. ‘But I also notice what a handsome bastard I am.’
They both laughed.
‘You talk over people a lot, though,’ Lou on the rock said, recalling witnessing his other self commanding conversations unnecessarily.
‘I noticed that. I really should –’
‘And you don’t really listen,’ he added, deep in thought. ‘And your stories are always too long. People don’t seem to be as interested as you think,’ he admitted. ‘You don’t ask people about what they’re doing. You should start doing that.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ Lou on the grass said, unimpressed.
‘I am.’
They sat in silence again because Lou Suffern had recently learned that much ascended from silence and from being still. A gull swooped, squawked, eyed them suspiciously and then flew off.
‘He’s off to tell his mates about us,’ Lou on the rock said.
‘Let’s not take whatever they say to heart; they all look the same to me,’ the other Lou said.
They both laughed again.
‘I can’t believe I’m laughing at my own jokes.’ Lou on the grass rubbed his eyes. ‘Embarrassing.’
‘What’s going on here, do you think?’ Lou asked seriously, perched on his rock.
‘If you don’t know, I don’t know.’
‘Yes, but if I have theories, well then, so do you.’
They looked at one another, knowing exactly what the other was t
hinking.
Lou chose his words wisely, letting them roll around his mouth before saying, ‘I’m not superstitious, but I think we should keep those theories to ourselves, don’t you? It is what it is. Let’s keep it at that.’
‘I don’t want anybody to get hurt,’ Lou on the grass spoke up.
‘Did you just hear what I said?’ he said angrily. ‘I said don’t talk about it.’
‘Lou!’ Ruth was calling them from the garden and it broke the spell between them.
‘Coming!’ he yelled, peeping his head above the fence. He saw Pud, new to his feet, escaping to freedom through the kitchen door, racing around the grass unevenly like an egg that had prematurely hatched where legs alone had broken free. He shuffled along after the ball, trying to catch it but mistakenly kicking it with his running feet each time he got near. Finally learning, he stopped running before reaching the ball, and instead slowly sneaked up behind it as though it was going to take off again by itself. He lifted a foot. Not used to having to balance on one leg, he fell backwards onto the grass, landing safely on his padded behind. Lucy ran outside in her hat and scarf and helped to pull him up.
‘She’s so like Ruth.’ He heard a voice near his ear and realised Lou had joined him.
‘I know. See the way she makes that face.’ They watched Lucy giving out to Pud for being careless. They both laughed at exactly the same time she made the face.
Pud screeched at Lucy’s attempt to take him by the hand and lead him back into the house. He pulled away and threw his hand up in the air in a mini tantrum, then chose to waddle to the house by himself.
‘Who does he remind you of?’ Lou said.
‘Okay, we’d better get moving. You walk down to the harbour, I’ll drive Ruth and the kids into town. Make sure you’re there on time, won’t you? I practically had to bribe Quentin into saying yes about helping him today.’
‘Of course I’ll be there. Don’t you break a leg.’
‘Don’t you drown.’
‘We’ll enjoy the day.’ Lou reached out and shook hands with himself. Their handshake turned into an embrace, and Lou stood on the mountainside giving himself the biggest and warmest hug he’d received in a very long time.
Cecelia Ahern 2-book Bundle Page 20
