Cecelia Ahern 2-book Bundle

by Cecelia Ahern

  ‘No, thanks.’ I put the pillow back over my head. He uses so many words.

  ‘Well, I’m having one. I have to eat with my pills. Supposed to take it at lunch but I forgot.’

  ‘You took a pill at lunch, remember?’

  ‘That was for my heart. This is for my memory. Short-term memory pills.’

  I take the pillow off my face to see if he’s being serious. ‘And you forgot to take it?’

  He nods.

  ‘Oh, Dad.’ I start to laugh while he looks on as though I’m having an episode. ‘You are medicine enough for me. Well, you need to get stronger pills. They’re not working, are they?’

  He turns his back and makes his way down the hall, grumbling, ‘They’d bloody well work if I remembered to take them.’

  ‘Dad,’ I call to him and he stops at the top of the stairs. ‘Thanks for not asking any questions about Conor.’

  ‘Sure, I don’t need to. I know you’ll be back together in no time.’

  ‘No we won’t,’ I say softly.

  He walks a little closer to my room. ‘Is he stepping out with someone else?’

  ‘No he’s not. And I’m not. We don’t love each other. We haven’t for a long time.’

  ‘But you married him, Joyce. Didn’t I bring you down the aisle myself?’ He looks confused.

  ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘You both promised each other in the house of our Lord, I heard you myself with my own ears. What is it with you young people these days, breaking up and remarrying all the time? What happened to keeping promises?’

  I sigh. How can I answer that? He begins to walk away again.

  ‘Dad.’

  He stops but doesn’t turn round.

  ‘I don’t think you’re thinking of the alternative. Would you rather I kept my promise to spend the rest of my life with Conor, but not love him and be unhappy?’

  ‘If you think your mother and I had a perfect marriage then you’re wrong because there’s no such thing. No one’s happy all the time, love.’

  ‘I understand that, but what if you’re never happy. Ever.’

  He thinks about that for what looks like the first time and I hold my breath until he finally speaks. ‘I’m going to have a HobNob.’

  Halfway down the stairs he shouts back rebelliously, ‘A chocolate one.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ‘I’m on a vacation, bro, why are you dragging me to a gym?’ Al half-walks half-skips alongside Justin in an effort to keep up with his lean brother’s long strides.

  ‘I have a date with Sarah next week,’ Justin power-walks from the tube station, ‘and I need to get back into shape.’

  ‘I didn’t realise you were out of shape,’ Al pants, and wipes trickles of sweat from his brow.

  ‘The divorce cloud was preventing me from working out.’

  ‘The divorce cloud?’

  ‘Never heard of it?’

  Al, unable to speak, shakes his head and wobbles his chins like a turkey.

  ‘The cloud moves to take the shape of your body, wraps itself nice and tight around you so that you can barely move. Or breathe. Or exercise. Or even date, let alone sleep with other women.’

  ‘Your divorce cloud sounds like my marriage cloud.’

  ‘Yeah, well, that cloud has moved on now.’ Justin looks up at the grey London sky, closes his eyes for a brief moment and breathes in deeply. ‘It’s time for me to get back into action.’ He opens his eyes and walks straight into a lamppost. ‘Jesus, Al!’ He doubles over, head in his hands. ‘Thanks for the warning.’

  Al’s beetroot face wheezes back at him, words not coming easily. Or at all.

  ‘Never mind my having to work out, look at yourself. Your doctor’s already told you to drop a few hundred pounds.’

  ‘Fifty pounds …’ gasp, ‘aren’t exactly …’ gasp, ‘a few hundred, and don’t start on me too.’ Gasp. ‘Doris is bad enough.’ Wheeze. Cough. ‘What she knows about dieting is beyond me. The woman doesn’t eat. She’s afraid to bite a nail in case they’ve too many calories.’

  ‘Doris’s nails are real?’

  ‘Them and her hair is about all. I gotta hold on to something.’ Al looks around, flustered.

  ‘Too much information,’ Justin says, misunderstanding. ‘I can’t believe Doris’s hair is real too.’

  ‘All but the colour. She’s a brunette. Italian, of course. Dizzy.’

  ‘Yeah, she is a bit dizzy. All that past-life talk about the woman at the hair salon,’ Justin laughs. So how do you explain it?

  ‘I meant I’m dizzy.’ Al glares at him and reaches out to hold on to the nearby railing.

  ‘Oh … I knew that, I was kidding. It looks like we’re almost here. Think you can make it another hundred yards or so?’

  ‘Depends on the “or so”,’ Al snaps.

  ‘It’s about the same as the week or so vacation that you and Doris were planning on taking. Looks like that’s turning into a month.’

  ‘Well, we wanted to surprise you, and Doug is well able to take care of the shop while I’m gone. The doc advised me to take it easy, Justin. With heart conditions being in the family history, I really need to rest up.’

  ‘You told the doctor there’s a history of heart conditions in the family?’ Justin asks.

  ‘Yeah, Dad died of a heart attack. Who else would I be talkin’ about?’

  Justin is silent.

  ‘Besides, you won’t be sorry, Doris will have your apartment done up so nice that you’ll be glad we stayed. You know she did the doggie parlour all by herself?’

  Justin’s eyes widen.

  ‘I know,’ Al beams proudly. ‘So, how many of these seminars will you be doing in Dublin? Me and Doris might accompany you on one of your trips over there, you know, see the place Dad was from.’

  ‘Dad was from Cork.’

  ‘Oh. Does he still have family there? We could go and trace our roots, what do you think?’

  ‘That’s not such a bad idea.’ Justin thinks of his schedule. ‘I have a few more seminars ahead. You probably won’t be here that long, though.’ He eyes Al sideways, testing him. ‘And you can’t come next week because I’m mixing that trip with a date with Sarah.’

  ‘You’re really hot on this girl?’

  His almost forty-year-old brother’s vocabulary never ceases to amaze Justin. ‘Am I hot on this girl?’ he repeats, amused and confused all at the same time. Good question. Not really, but she’s company. Is that an acceptable answer?

  ‘Did she have you at “I vant your blood”?’ Al chuckles.

  ‘Wow, that was uncanny,’ Justin says. ‘Sarah, too, is a vampire from Transylvania. Let’s do an hour at the gym.’ He changes the subject. ‘I don’t think “resting up” is going to make you any better. That’s what got you into this state in the first place.’

  ‘One hour?’ Al almost explodes. ‘What are you planning on doing on the date, rock-climbing?’

  ‘It’s just lunch.’

  Al rolls his eyes. ‘What, you have to chase and kill your food? Anyway, you wake up tomorrow morning after your first work-out for a whole year, you won’t be able to walk, never mind screw.’

  * * *

  I wake up to the sound of banging pots and pans coming from downstairs. I expect to be in my own bedroom at home and it takes me a moment to remember. And then I remember everything, all over again. My daily morning pill as usual, hard to swallow. One of these days I’ll wake up and I’ll just know. I’m not sure which scenario I prefer; the moments of forgetfulness are such bliss.

  I didn’t sleep well last night between the thoughts in my head and the sound of the cistern flushing every hour after Dad’s toilet breaks. When he was asleep, his snores rattled through the walls of the house.

  Despite the interruptions, my dreams during my rare moments of sleep are still vivid in my mind. They almost feel real, like memories, though who’s to know how real even they are, with all the altering our minds do? I reme
mber being in a park, though I don’t think I was me. I twirled a young girl with white-blonde hair around in my arms while a woman with red hair looked on smiling, with a camera in her hand. The park was colourful with lots of flowers and we had a picnic … I try to remember the song I’d been hearing all night but it fails me. Instead I hear Dad downstairs singing ‘The Auld Triangle’, an old Irish song he has sung at parties all of my life and probably most of his too. He’d stand there, eyes closed, pint in hand, a picture of bliss as he sang his story of how ‘the auld triangle went jingle jangle’.

  I swing my legs out of the bed and groan with pain, suddenly feeling an ache in both legs from my hips, right down my thighs, all the way down to my calf muscles. I try to move the rest of my body and feel paralysed with the pain too; my shoulders, biceps, triceps, back muscles and torso. I massage my muscles with complete confusion and make a note in my head to go to the doctor, just in case it’s something to be worried about. I’m sure it’s my heart, either looking for more attention, or so full of pain it has needed to ooze its ache around the rest of my body just to relieve itself. Each throbbing muscle is an extension of the pain I feel inside, though a doctor will tell me it’s due to the thirty-year-old bed I slept on, manufactured before the time people claimed nightly back support as their God-given right. Potayto, potato.

  I throw a dressing gown around me and slowly, as stiff as a board, make my way downstairs, trying my best not to bend my legs.

  The smell of smoke is in the air again and I notice as I’m passing the hall table that Mum’s photograph once again isn’t there. Something urges me to slide open the drawer beneath the table and there she is, lying face down in the drawer. Tears spring in my eyes, angry that something so precious has been hidden away. It has always meant more than a photograph to the both of us; it represents her presence in the house, pride of place to greet us whenever we come in the front door or down the stairs. I take deep breaths and decide to say nothing for now, assuming Dad has his reasons, though I can’t think of any acceptable examples at this point. I slide the drawer closed and leave her where Dad has placed her, feeling like I’m burying her all over again.

  When I limp into the kitchen, chaos greets me. There are pots and pans everywhere, tea towels, egg shells and what looks like the contents of the cupboards covering the counters. Dad is wearing an apron with an image of a woman in red lingerie and suspenders, over his usual sweater, shirt and trousers. On his feet are Manchester United slippers, shaped as large footballs.

  ‘Morning, love.’ He sees me and steps up onto his left leg to give me a kiss on the forehead.

  I realise it’s the first time in years somebody has made my breakfast for me, but it’s also the first time for many years that Dad has had somebody to cook breakfast for. Suddenly the singing, the mess, the clattering pots and pans all make sense. He’s excited.

  ‘I’m making waffles!’ he says with an American accent.

  ‘Ooh, very nice.’

  ‘That’s what the donkey says, isn’t it?’

  ‘What donkey?’

  ‘The one …’ he stops stirring whatever is in the frying pan and closes his eyes to think, ‘the story with the green man.’

  ‘The Incredible Hulk?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know any other green people.’

  ‘You do, you know the one …’

  ‘The Wicked Witch of the West?’

  ‘No! There’s no donkey in that! Think about stories with donkeys in them.’

  ‘Is it a biblical tale?’

  ‘Were there talking donkeys in the Bible, Gracie? Did Jesus eat waffles, do you think? Christ, we have it all wrong: it was waffles he was breaking at supper to share with the lads, and not bread after all!’

  ‘My name is Joyce.’

  ‘I don’t remember Jesus eating waffles but, sure, won’t I ask the crowd at the Monday Club? Maybe I’ve been reading the wrong Bible all my life.’ He laughs at his own joke.

  I look over his shoulder. ‘Dad, you’re not even making waffles!’

  He sighs with exasperation. ‘Am I a donkey? Do I look like a donkey to you? Donkeys make waffles, I make a good fry-up.’

  I watch him poking the sausages around, trying to get all sides evenly cooked. ‘I’ll have sausages too.’

  ‘But you’re one of those vegetarianists.’

  ‘Vegetarian. And I’m not any more.’

  ‘Sure of course you’re not. You’ve only been one since you were fifteen years old after seeing that show about the seals. Tomorrow I’ll wake up and you’ll be tellin’ me you’re a man. Saw it on the telly once. This woman, about the same age as you, brought her husband live on the telly in front of an audience to tell him that she decided that she wanted to turn her—’

  Feeling frustrated with him, I blurt out, ‘Mum’s photo isn’t on the hall table.’

  Dad freezes, a reaction of guilt, and this makes me somewhat angry, as though before I had convinced myself that the mysterious midnight photograph-mover had broken in and done the dirty deed himself. I’d almost prefer that.

  ‘Why?’ is all I say.

  He keeps himself busy, clattering with plates and cutlery now. ‘Why what? Why are you walking like that is what I want to know?’ Dad eyes my walk curiously.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I snap, and limp across the room to take a seat at the table. ‘Maybe it runs in the family.’

  ‘Hoo hoo hoo,’ Dad hoots and looks up at the ceiling, ‘we’ve got a live one here, boss! Set the table like a good girl.’

  He brings me right back and I can’t help but smile. And so I set the table and Dad makes the breakfast and we both limp around the kitchen pretending everything is as it was and forever shall be. World without end.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ‘So, Dad, what are your plans for the day? Are you busy?’

  A forkful of sausage, egg, bacon, pudding, mushroom and tomato stops on its way into my dad’s open mouth. Amused eyes peer out at me from under his wildly wiry eyebrows.

  ‘Plans, you say? Well, let’s see, Gracie, while I go through the ol’ schedule of events for the day. I was thinking of after I finish my fry in approximately fifteen minutes, I’d have another cuppa tea. Then while I’m drinking me tea I might sit down in this chair at this table, or maybe that chair where you are, the exact venue is TBD, as my schedule would say. Then I’ll go through yesterday’s answers of the crossword to see what we got correct and what was incorrect and then I’ll find out the answer to the ones I couldn’t figure out yesterday. Then I’ll do the Dusoku, then the word game. I see we’ve to try and find nautical words today. Seafaring, maritime, yachting, yes, I’ll be able to do that, sure I can see the word “boating” there on the first line already. Then I’m going to cut out my coupons and all that will fill my early morning right up, Gracie. Then I’d say I’ll have another cuppa after all of that and then my programmes start. If you’d like to make an appointment, talk to Maggie.’ He finally shovels the food into his mouth and egg drips down his chin. He doesn’t notice and leaves it there.

  I laugh. ‘Who’s Maggie?’

  He swallows and smiles, amused at himself. ‘I don’t know why I said it.’ He thinks hard and finally laughs. ‘There was a fella I used to know in Cavan, this is goin’ back sixty years now, Brendan Brady was his name. Whenever we’d be tryin’ to make arrangements he’d say,’ Dad deepens his voice, ‘“Talk to Maggie,” like he was someone awful important.’ She was either his wife or his secretary, I hadn’t a clue. “Talk to Maggie,”’ he repeats. ‘Maggie was probably his mother,’ he laughs, and continues eating.

  ‘So basically, according to your schedule, you’re doing exactly the same thing as yesterday.’

  ‘Oh, no, it’s not the same at all.’ He thumbs through his TV guide and stabs a greasy finger on today’s page. He looks at his watch and slides his finger down the page. He picks up his highlighter and marks another show. ‘Animal Hospital is on instead of the Antique
s Roadshow. Not exactly the same day as yesterday at all, at all, how’s about that. It’ll be doggies and bunnies today instead of Betty’s fake teapots. We might see her trying to sell the family dog for a few shillings. You might get that bikini on you after all, Betty.’ He continues to draw a design around his shows on the TV page, his tongue licking the corners of his mouth in concentration as though he was decorating a manuscript.

  ‘The Book of Kells,’ I blurt out of nowhere, though that is nothing odd these days. My random ramblings are becoming something of the norm.

  ‘What are you talking about now?’ Dad stops his colouring and resumes eating.

  ‘Let’s go into town today. Do a tour of the city, go to Trinity College and look at the Book of Kells.’

  Dad stares at me and munches. I’m not sure what he’s thinking. He’s probably thinking the same of me.

  ‘You want to go to Trinity College. The girl who never wanted to set foot near the place for either studies or excursions with me and your mother, suddenly out of the blue wants to go. Sure, aren’t “suddenly” and “out of the blue” one and the same? They shouldn’t go together in a sentence, Henry,’ he corrects himself.

  ‘Yes, I want to go.’ I suddenly, out of the blue, very much want to go to Trinity College.

  ‘If you don’t want to watch the Animal Hospital show just say so. You don’t have to go darting into the city. There’s such a thing as changing channels.’

  ‘You’re right, Dad, and I’ve been doing some of that recently.’

  ‘Is that so? I hadn’t noticed, what with your marriage breaking up, your not being a vegetarianist any more, your not mentioning a word about your job and your moving in with me, and all. There’s been so much action around here, how’s a man to tell if a channel’s been changed or if a new show has just begun?’

  ‘I need to do something new,’ I explain. ‘I have time for Frankie and Kate but everybody else … I’m just not ready right now. We need a change of schedule, Dad. I’ve got the big remote control of life in my hands and I’m ready to start pushing some buttons.’