Cecelia Ahern 2-book Bundle

by Cecelia Ahern

  ‘Dad,’ I warn. He stops dithering and sighs in surrender.

  I open the cupboard door and look inside. Nothing odd, or out of place, just the porridge I eat every morning and Sugar Puffs that I never touch. Dad looks satisfied, lets out a hearty harrumph-ing sound and makes his way back to the table. Hold on a minute. I open the press again and reach for the Sugar Puffs that I never eat and never see Dad eat. As soon as I lift it I know that it’s empty of cereal. I look inside.

  ‘Dad!’

  ‘Ah what, love?’

  ‘Dad, you promised me!’ I hold the packet of cigarettes in front of his face.

  ‘I only had one, love.’

  ‘You have not had only one. That smell of smoke every morning is not burned toast. You lied to me!’

  ‘One a day is hardly going to kill me.’

  ‘That’s exactly what it’s going to do. You’ve had bypass surgery, you’re not supposed to smoke at all! I turn a blind eye to your morning fry-ups but this, this is unacceptable,’ I tell him.

  Dad rolls his eyes and he holds his hand up like a puppet’s mouth, mimicking me as he snaps it open and closed in my face.

  ‘That’s it, I’m calling your doctor.’

  His mouth drops, he jumps out of his chair. ‘No, love, don’t do that.’

  I march out to the hall and he chases after me. Up, down, down, up, up, down. Goes down on his right, bends his left.

  ‘Ah, you wouldn’t do that to me. If the cigarettes don’t kill me, she will. She’s a battleaxe, that woman.’

  I pick up the phone that’s beside Mum’s photograph and dial the emergency number I’ve memorised. The first number that comes to my mind when I need to help the most import ant person in my life.

  ‘If Mum knew what you were doing she would go berserk – oh.’ I stall. ‘That’s why you hide the photograph?’

  Dad looks down at his hands and nods sadly. ‘She made me promise I’d stop. If not for me, for her. I didn’t want her to see,’ he adds in a whisper as though she can hear us.

  ‘Hello?’ There’s a response on the other end of the phone. ‘Hello? Is that you, Dad?’ a young girl with an American accent says.

  ‘Oh,’ I snap out of it and Dad looks pleading at me. ‘Pardon me,’ I speak into the phone. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I saw an Irish number and thought you were my dad,’ the voice on the other end explains.

  ‘That’s OK,’ I say, confused.

  Dad is standing before me with his hands together in prayer.

  ‘I was looking for …’ Dad shakes his head wildly and I stall.

  ‘Tickets to the show?’ the girl asks.

  I frown. ‘To what show?’

  ‘The Royal Opera House.’

  ‘Sorry, who is this? I’m confused.’

  Dad rolls his eyes and sits on the bottom stair.

  ‘I’m Bea.’

  ‘Bea.’ I look at Dad questioningly and he shrugs. ‘Bea who?’

  ‘Well, who is this?’ Her tone is harder.

  ‘My name is Joyce. I’m sorry, Bea, I think I’ve dialled the wrong number. You said you saw an Irish number? Have I called America?’

  ‘No, don’t worry.’ Happy there isn’t a stalker at the other end, her tone is friendly again. ‘You’ve called London,’ she explains. ‘I saw the Irish number and thought you were my dad. He’s flying back tonight to make it to my show tomorrow and I was worried because I’m still a student and it’s such a huge deal and I thought he was … sorry, I have absolutely no idea why I’m explaining this to you but I’m so nervous,’ she laughs and takes a deep breath. ‘Technically, this is his emergency number.’

  ‘Funny, I dialled my emergency number too,’ I say faintly.

  We both laugh.

  ‘Oh, weird,’ she says.

  ‘Your voice is familiar, Bea. Do I know you?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Don’t know anyone in Ireland apart from my dad, who is a man and American, so unless you’re my dad trying to be funny …’

  ‘No, no, I’m not trying to be …’ I feel weak at the knees. ‘This may sound like a stupid question but, are you blonde?’

  Dad holds his head in his hands and I hear him groan.

  ‘Yeah! Why, do I sound blonde? Maybe that’s not such a good thing,’ she laughs.

  I have a lump in my throat and must stop speaking. ‘Just a silly guess,’ I force out.

  ‘Good guess,’ she says curiously. ‘Well, I hope everything’s OK. You said you dialled your emergency number?’

  ‘Yes, thanks, everything’s fine.’

  Dad looks relieved.

  She laughs. ‘Well, this is weird. I better go. Nice talking to you, Joyce.’

  ‘Nice talking to you too, Bea. Best of luck with your ballet show.’

  ‘Oh, sweet, thank you.’

  We say our goodbyes and with a shaking hand I replace the handset.

  ‘You silly dope, did you just dial the Americas?’ Dad says, putting his glasses on and pressing a button on the phone. ‘Joseph down the road showed me how to do this when I was getting the cranky calls. You can see who’s called you and who you’ve called too. Turns out it was Fran bumping off her hand phone. The grandchildren got it for her last Christmas and she’s done nothing with it but wake me up at all hours. Anyway, there it is. First few numbers are 0044. Where’s that?’

  ‘That’s the UK.’

  ‘Why on earth did you do that? Were you trying to trick me? Christ, that alone was enough to give me a heart attack.’

  ‘Sorry, Dad.’ I lower myself to the bottom stair, feeling shaky. ‘I don’t know where I got that number from.’

  ‘Well, that sure taught me a lesson,’ he says insincerely. ‘I’ll never smoke again. No siree, Bob. Give me those cigarettes and I’ll throw them out.’

  I hold my hand out, feeling dazed.

  He snaps the packet up and shoves it deep into his trouser pocket. ‘I hope you’ll be paying for that phone call because my pension certainly won’t be.’ He narrows his eyes. ‘What’s up with you?’

  ‘I’m going to London,’ I blurt out.

  ‘What?’ His eyes almost pop out of his head. ‘Christ Almighty, Gracie, it’s just one thing after another with you.’

  ‘I have to find some answers to … something. I have to go to London. Come with me,’ I urge, standing up and stepping towards him.

  He begins to walk backward with his hand held protect ively over his pocket containing the cigarettes.

  ‘I can’t go,’ he says nervously.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Sure, I’ve never been away from here in my life!’

  ‘All the more reason to go away now,’ I urge him intensely. ‘If you’re going to smoke, you might as well see outside of Ireland before you kill yourself.’

  ‘There are numbers I can call about being spoken to like that. Don’t you think that I haven’t heard about all of that abuse carry-on that children do to their elderly parents?’

  ‘Don’t play the victim, you know I’m looking out for you. Come to London with me, Dad. Please.’

  ‘But, but,’ he keeps moving backward, his eyes wide, ‘I can’t miss the Monday Club.’

  ‘We’ll go tomorrow morning, be back before Monday, I promise.’

  ‘But, I don’t have a passport.’

  ‘You just need photo ID.’

  We’re approaching the kitchen now.

  ‘But we’ve nowhere to stay.’ He passes through the door.

  ‘We’ll book a hotel.’

  ‘It’s too expensive.’

  ‘We’ll share a room.’

  ‘But I won’t know where anything is in London.’

  ‘I know my way; I’ve been plenty of times.’

  ‘But … but,’ he bumps into the kitchen table and can move back no further. His face is a picture of terror. ‘I’ve never been on a plane before.’

  ‘There’s nothing to it. You’ll probably have a great time up there. And I’ll be right be
side you, talking to you the whole time.’

  He looks unsure.

  ‘What is it?’ I ask gently.

  ‘What will I pack? What will I need for over there? Your mother usually packed all my going-away bags.’

  ‘I’ll help you pack,’ I smile, getting excited. ‘This is going to be so much fun – you and me on our first overseas holiday!’

  Dad looks excited for a moment, then the excitement fades. ‘No, I’m not going. I can’t swim. If the plane goes down, I can’t swim. I don’t want to go over the seas. I’ll fly with you somewhere but not over the seas.’

  ‘Dad, we live on an island; everywhere we go outside of this country, has to be over the sea. And there are life jackets on the plane.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘Yeah, you’ll be fine,’ I assure him. ‘They show you what to do in case of emergencies, but believe me there won’t be one. I’ve flown dozens of times without so much as a hiccup. You’ll have a great time. And imagine all the things you’ll have to tell the gang at the Monday Club? They’ll hardly believe their ears, they’ll want to hear your stories all day.’

  A smile slowly creeps onto Dad’s lips and he concedes, ‘Big mouth Donal would have to listen to someone else tell a more interesting story, for a change. I think Maggie might be able to clear a spot for me in the schedule, all right.’

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  ‘Fran’s outside, Dad. We have to go!’

  ‘Hold on, love, I’m just making sure everything’s OK.’

  ‘Everything’s fine,’ I assure him. ‘You’ve checked five times already.’

  ‘You can never be too sure. You hear these stories of televisions malfunctioning and toasters exploding and people coming back from their holidays to a pile of smouldering ashes instead of their house.’ He checks the socket switches in the kitchen for the umpteenth time.

  Fran beeps the horn again.

  ‘I swear one of these days I’m going to throttle that woman. Beep, beep, beep yourself,’ he calls back, and I laugh.

  ‘Dad,’ I take his hand, ‘we really have to go now. The house will be fine. All your friends that live around will keep an eye on it. Any little noise outside and their noses are pressed up against their windows. You know that.’

  He nods and looks about, his eyes watering.

  ‘We’ll have great fun, really we will. What are you worried about?’

  ‘I’m worried about that damn Fluffy cat, comin’ into my garden and pissin’ on my plants. I’m worried that the stranglers will suffocate my poor petunias and snapdragons, and that there’ll be no one to keep an eye on my chrysanthemums. What if there’s wind and rain when we’re away? I haven’t staked them yet and the flowers get heavy and might break. Do you know how long the magnolia took to settle? Planted it when you were a wee one, while your mother was lying out catchin’ the sun on her legs and laughin’ at Mr Henderson, God rest his soul, who was peekin’ out the curtains at her from next door.’

  Beep, beeeeeeep. Fran presses down on the horn.

  ‘It’s only a few days, Dad. The garden will be fine. You can get to work on it as soon as you get back.’

  ‘OK, so.’ He takes a last look around and makes his way to the door.

  I watch his figure swaying. Dressed in his Sunday finest; a three-piece suit, shirt and tie, extra-shined shoes and his tweed cap, of course, which he’d never be seen without outside the house. He looks as though he’s jumped straight from the photographs on the wall beside him. He stalls at the hall table and reaches for the photograph of Mum.

  ‘You know your mother was always at me to go to London with her.’ He pretends to wipe a smudge on the glass but really he runs his finger over Mum’s face.

  ‘Bring her with you, Dad.’

  ‘Ah, no, that’d be silly,’ he says confidently, but looks at me unsurely. ‘Wouldn’t it?’

  ‘I think it’d be a great idea. The three of us will go and have a great time.’

  His eyes tear up again and with a simple nod of the head, he slides the photo frame into his overcoat pocket and exits the house to more of Fran’s beeping.

  ‘Ah, there you are, Fran,’ he calls to her as he sways down the garden path. ‘You’re late, we’ve been waiting for you for ages.’

  ‘I was beeping, Henry – did you not hear me?’

  ‘Were you now?’ He gets into the car. ‘You should press it a little harder the next time; we couldn’t hear a thing in there.’

  As I slide the key into the lock the phone sitting just inside the hall begins ringing. I look at my watch. Seven a.m. Who on earth would be calling at seven a.m.?

  Fran’s car beeps again and I turn round angrily and see Dad leaning over Fran’s shoulder, pushing his hand down on the steering wheel.

  ‘There you go now, Fran. We’ll hear you the next time. Come on, love, we’ve a plane to catch!’ he laughs uproariously.

  I ignore the ringing phone and hurry to the car with the bags.

  ‘There’s no answer.’ Justin paces the living room in a panic. He tries the number again. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about this yesterday, Bea?’

  Bea rolls her eyes. ‘Because I didn’t think it’d be such a big deal. People get wrong numbers all the time.’

  ‘But it wasn’t a wrong number.’ He stops walking and taps his foot impatiently to the sound of the rings.

  ‘That’s exactly what it was.’

  Answering machine. Damn it! Do I leave a message?

  He hangs up and frantically dials again.

  Bored with his antics, Bea sits on the garden furniture in the living room and looks around the dust-sheet-covered room and the walls filled with dozens of colour samples. ‘When is Doris going to have this place finished?’

  ‘After she starts,’ Justin snaps, dialling again.

  ‘My ears are burning,’ Doris sings, appearing at the door in a pair of leopard-print overalls, her face heavily made up as usual. ‘Found these yesterday, aren’t they adorable?’ she laughs. ‘Buzzy-Bea, sweetie, so lovely to see you!’ She rushes to her niece and they embrace. ‘We are so excited about your performance tonight, you have no idea. Little Buzzy-Bea all grown up and performing in the Royal Opera House.’ Her voice rises to a screech. ‘Oh, we are so proud, aren’t we, Al?’

  Al enters the room with a chicken leg in his hand. ‘Mmm hhm.’

  Doris looks him up and down with disgust, and then back to her niece. ‘A bed for the spare room arrived yesterday morning so you’ll actually have something to sleep on when you stay, won’t that be a treat?’ She glares at Justin. ‘Also, I got some paint and fabric samples so we can start planning your room design but I’m only designing according to feng shui rules. I won’t hear of anything else.’

  Bea freezes. ‘Oh gee, great.’

  ‘I know we’ll have such fun!’

  Justin glares at his daughter. ‘That’s what you get for withholding information.’

  ‘What information? What’s going on?’ Doris ties her hair up in a cerise-pink scarf and makes a bow at the top of her head.

  ‘Dad is having a conniption fit,’ Bea explains.

  ‘I told him to go to the dentist already. He has an abscess, I’m sure of it,’ Doris says matter-of-factly.

  ‘I told him too,’ Bea agrees.

  ‘No, not that. The woman,’ Justin says intensely. ‘Remember the woman I was telling you about?’

  ‘Sarah?’ Al asks.

  ‘No!’ Justin responds as though that was the most ridiculous answer ever given.

  ‘Who can keep up with you?’ Al shrugs him off. ‘Certainly not Sarah, especially when you’re running at top speed after buses, leaving her behind.’

  Justin cringes. ‘I apologised.’

  ‘To her voice mail,’ he chuckles. ‘She is never going to answer your calls again.’

  I wouldn’t blame her.

  ‘The déjà vu woman?’ Doris gasps, realising.

  ‘Yes.’ Justin gets excited. ‘Her name is Joyce and she
called Bea yesterday.’

  ‘She may not have.’ Bea’s protests falls on deaf ears. ‘A woman named Joyce rang yesterday. But I do believe there’s more than one Joyce in the world.’

  Ignoring her, Doris gasps again. ‘How can this be? How do you know her name?’

  ‘I heard somebody call her that on a Viking bus. And yesterday Bea got a phone call, on her emergency number, that no one but me has, from a woman in Ireland.’ Justin pauses for dramatic effect. ‘Called Joyce.’

  There’s a silence. Justin nods his head knowingly. ‘Yep, I know, Doris. Spooky, huh?’

  Frozen in place, Doris widens her eyes. ‘Spooky, all right. Besides from the Viking bus.’ She turns to Bea. ‘You’re eighteen years old and you’ve given your father an emergency number?’

  Justin groans with frustration and starts dialling again.

  Bea’s cheeks pink. ‘Before he moved over, Mum wouldn’t let him call at certain hours because of the time difference. So I got another number. It’s not technically an emergency number but he’s the only one that has it and every time he calls he seems to have done something wrong.’

  ‘Not true,’ Justin objects.

  ‘Sure,’ Bea responds breezily, flicking through a magazine. ‘And I’m not moving in with Peter.’

  ‘You’re right, you’re not. Peter,’ he spits out the name, ‘picks strawberries for a living.’

  ‘I love strawberries,’ Al offers his support. ‘If it wasn’t for Petey, I wouldn’t eat ’em.’

  ‘Peter is an IT consultant.’ Bea holds her hands out in confusion.

  Choosing this moment to butt in, Doris turns to Justin. ‘Sweetie, you know I’m all for this stuff with the déjà vu lady—’

  ‘Joyce, her name is Joyce.’

  ‘Whatever, but you got nothing but a coincidence. And I’m all for coincidences but this is … well, a pretty dumb one.’

  ‘I have not got nothing, Doris, and that sentence is atrociously wrong on so many grammatical levels, you wouldn’t believe. I have got a name and now I have a number.’ He kneels before Doris and squeezes her face in his hands, pushing her cheeks together so that her lips puff out. ‘And that, Doris Hitchcock, means that I got something!’

  ‘It also makes you a stalker,’ Bea says under her breath.