Cecelia Ahern 2-book Bundle

by Cecelia Ahern

  ‘You better believe it,’ she smiles. ‘God,’ she thinks back to his story, ‘I still can’t imagine somebody sending you all that stuff. Who could it be? The poor person must have waited and waited for you at the opera.’

  Justin covers his face and winces. ‘Please stop, it’s killing me.’

  ‘But you chose Joyce, anyway.’

  He nods and smiles sadly.

  ‘You must have really liked her.’

  ‘She must have really not liked me because she didn’t show up. No, Bea, I’m over it now. It’s time to move on. I hurt too many people in the process of trying to find out. If you can’t remember anyone else you told, then we’ll never know.’

  Bea thinks hard. ‘I only told Peter, the costume supervisor and her father. But what makes you think it wasn’t either of them?’

  ‘I met the costume supervisor that night. She didn’t act like she knew me, and she’s English – why would she have gone to Ireland for a blood transfusion? I called her and asked her about her father. Don’t ask.’ He sees off her glare. ‘Anyway, turns out her father’s Polish.’

  ‘Hold on, where are you getting that from? She wasn’t English, she was Irish,’ Bea frowns. ‘They both were.’

  Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

  ‘Justin,’ Laurence enters the room with cups of coffee for him and Bea, ‘I was wondering when you have a minute, if we could have a word.’

  ‘Not now, Laurence,’ Justin says, moving to the edge of his seat. ‘Bea, where’s your ballet programme? Her photograph’s in it.’

  ‘Honestly, Justin.’ Jennifer arrives at the door with her arms folded. ‘Could you please just be respectful for one moment. Laurence has something he wants to say and you owe it to him to listen.’

  Bea runs to her room, pushing through the battling adults, and returns waving the programme in her hand, ignoring them. As does Justin.

  He grabs it from her and flicks through it quickly. ‘There!’ he stabs his finger on the page.

  ‘Guys,’ Jennifer steps in between them, ‘we really have to settle this now.’

  ‘Not now, Mum. Please!’ Bea yells. ‘This is important!’

  ‘And this is not?’

  ‘That’s not her.’ Bea shakes her head furiously. ‘That’s not the woman I spoke to.’

  ‘Well, what did she look like?’ Justin is up on his feet now. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

  ‘Let me think, let me think.’ Bea panics. ‘I know! Mum!’

  ‘What?’ Jennifer looks from Justin to Bea with confusion.

  ‘Where are the photographs we took of the first night I stood in for Charlotte in the ballet?’

  ‘Oh, em—’

  ‘Quick.’

  ‘They’re in the corner kitchen cupboard,’ Laurence says, frowning.

  ‘Yes, Laurence!’ Justin punches the air. ‘They’re in the corner kitchen cupboard! Go get them, quick!’

  Alarmed, Laurence runs into the kitchen, while Jennifer watches him with an open mouth. There is much shuffling of papers while Justin paces the floor at top speed and Jennifer and Bea watch him.

  ‘Here they are.’ He offers them forward and Bea snaps them out of his hand.

  Jennifer tries to interject but Bea and Justin’s speech and movements are on fast forward.

  Bea shuffles through the photos at top speed. ‘You weren’t in the room at the time, Dad. You had disappeared somewhere but we all got a group photo and, here it is!’ She rushes to her dad. ‘That’s them. The woman and her father, at the end.’ She points.

  Silence.

  ‘Dad?’

  Silence.

  ‘Dad, are you OK?’

  ‘Justin?’ Jennifer moves in closer. ‘He’s gone very pale, get him a glass of water, Laurence, quick.’

  Laurence rushes back to the kitchen.

  ‘Dad.’ Bea clicks her fingers in front of his eyes. ‘Dad, are you with us?’

  ‘It’s her,’ he whispers.

  ‘Her who?’ Jennifer asks.

  ‘The woman whose life he saved.’ Bea jumps up and down excitedly.

  ‘You saved a woman’s life?’ Jennifer asks, shocked. ‘You?’

  ‘It’s Joyce,’ he whispers.

  Bea gasps. ‘The woman who phoned me?’

  He nods.

  Bea gasps again. ‘The woman you stood up?’

  Justin closes his eyes, and silently curses himself.

  ‘You saved a woman’s life and then stood her up?’ Jennifer laughs.

  ‘Bea, where’s your phone?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She called you, remember? Her number was in your phone.’

  ‘Oh, Dad, that was ages ago. My phone log only holds ten recent numbers. That was weeks ago!’

  ‘Damnit!’

  ‘I gave it to Doris, remember? She wrote it down. You called the number from your flat!’

  You threw it in the skip, you jerk! The skip! It’s still there!

  ‘Here.’ Laurence runs in with the glass of water, panting.

  ‘Laurence.’ Justin reaches out, takes him by the cheeks and kisses his forehead. ‘I give you my blessing. Jennifer,’ he does the same and kisses her directly on the lips, ‘good luck.’

  He runs out of the apartment as Bea cheers him on, Jennifer wipes her lips with disgust and Laurence wipes the spilled water from his clothes.

  As Justin sprints from the tube station to his house, rain pours from the clouds like a cloth being squeezed. He doesn’t care, he just looks up to the sky and laughs, loving how it feels on his face, unable to believe that Joyce was the woman all along. He should have known. It all makes sense now, her asking him if he was sure he wanted to make new dinner plans, her friend being at his talk, all of it!

  He turns the corner into his drive and sees the skip now filled to the brim with items. He jumps in and begins sorting through it.

  From the window, Doris and Al stop packing their suitcases and watch him with concern.

  ‘Damnit, I really thought he was getting back to normal,’ Al says. ‘Should we stay?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she replies worriedly. ‘What on earth is he doing? It’s ten o’clock at night – surely the neighbours will call the cops.’

  His grey T-shirt is soaked through, his hair slicked back, water drips from his nose, his trousers are stuck to his skin. They watch him whooping and hollering as he throws the contents of the skip onto the ground beside it.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  I lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to process my life. Dad is still in hospital undergoing tests and will be home tomorrow. With nobody around, it has forced me to think about my life and I have worked my way through despair, guilt, sadness, anger, loneliness, depression, cynicism and have finally found my way to hope. Like an addict going cold turkey, I have paced the floors of these rooms with every emotion bursting from my skin. I have spoken aloud to myself, screamed, shouted, wept and mourned.

  It’s eleven p. m., dark, windy and cold outside as the winter months are fighting their way through, when the phone rings. Thinking it’s Dad I hurry downstairs, grab the phone and sit on the bottom stair.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘It was you all along.’

  I freeze. My heart thuds. I move the phone from my ear and take a deep breath.

  ‘Justin?’

  ‘It was you all along, wasn’t it?’

  I’m silent.

  ‘I saw the photograph of you and your father with Bea. That’s the night she told you about my donation. About wanting thank yous.’ He sneezes.

  ‘Bless you.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say anything to me? All those times I saw you? Did you follow me or … or, what’s going on, Joyce?’

  ‘Are you angry with me?’

  ‘No! I mean, I don’t know. I don’t understand. I’m so confused.’

  ‘Let me explain.’ I take a deep breath and try to steady my voice, try to speak through the heartbeat that is currently at the base of my throat. ‘I didn�
��t follow you to any of the places we met so please don’t be concerned. I’m not a stalker. Something happened, Justin. Something happened when I received my transfusion and whatever that was, when your blood was transfused into mine, I suddenly felt connected to you. I kept turning up at places you were at, like the hair salon, the ballet. It was all a coincidence.’ I’m speaking too fast now but I can’t slow down. ‘And then Bea told me you’d donated blood around the same time that I’d received it and …’

  ‘What?’

  I’m not sure what he means.

  ‘You mean, you don’t know for sure if it is my blood that you received? Because I couldn’t find out, nobody would tell me. Did somebody tell you?’

  ‘No. Nobody told me. They didn’t need to. I—’

  ‘Joyce.’ He stops me and I’m immediately worried by his tone.

  ‘I’m not some weird person, Justin. Trust me. I have never experienced what I have over the past few weeks.’ I tell him the story. Of experiencing his skills, his knowledge, of sharing his tastes.

  He is quiet.

  ‘Say something, Justin.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say. It sounds … odd.’

  ‘It is odd, but it’s the truth. This will sound even worse but I feel like I’ve gained some of your memories too.’

  ‘Really?’ His voice is cold, far away. I’m losing him.

  ‘Memories of the park in Chicago, Bea dancing in her tutu on the red chequered cloth, the picnic basket, the bottle of red wine. The cathedral bells, the ice-cream parlour, the seesaw with Al, the sprinklers, the—’

  ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa. Stop now. Who are you?’

  ‘Justin, it’s me!’

  ‘Who’s told you these things?’

  ‘Nobody, I just know them!’ I rub my eyes tiredly. ‘I know it sounds bizarre, Justin, I really do. I am a normal decent human being who is as cynical as they come but this is my life and these are the things that are happening to me. If you don’t believe me then I’m sorry and I’ll hang up and go back to my life, but please know that this is not a joke or a hoax or any kind of set-up.’

  He is quiet for a while. And then, ‘I want to believe you.’

  ‘You feel something between us?’

  ‘I feel that.’ He speaks very slowly as though pondering every letter of every word. ‘The memories, tastes and hobbies and whatever else of mine that you mentioned, are things that you could have seen me do or heard me say. I’m not saying you’re doing this on purpose, maybe you don’t even know it, but you’ve read my books; I mention many personal things in my books. You saw the photo in Bea’s locket, you’ve been to my talks, you’ve read my articles. I may have revealed things about myself in them, in fact I know I have. How can I know that you knowing these things is through a transfusion? How do I know that – no offence – but that you’re not some lunatic young woman who’s convinced herself of some crazy story she read in a book or saw in a movie? How am I supposed to know?’

  I sigh. I have no way of convincing him. ‘Justin, I don’t believe in anything right now, but I believe in this.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Joyce,’ he begins to end the conversation.

  ‘No, wait,’ I stop him. ‘Is this it?’

  Silence.

  ‘Aren’t you going to even try to believe me?’

  He sighs deeply. ‘I thought you were somebody else, Joyce. I don’t know why because I’d never even met you, but I thought you were a different kind of person. This … this I don’t understand. This, I find … it’s not right, Joyce.’

  Each sentence is a stab through my heart and a punch in my stomach. I could stand hearing this from anyone else in the world but not him. Anyone but him.

  ‘You’ve been through a lot, by the sound of it, perhaps you should … talk to someone.’

  ‘Why don’t you believe me? Please, Justin. There must be something I can say to convince you. Something I know that you haven’t written in an article or a book or told anyone in a lecture …’ I trail off, thinking of something. No, I can’t use that.

  ‘Goodbye, Joyce. I hope everything works out for you, really I do.’

  ‘Hold on! Wait! There is one thing. One thing that only you could know.’

  He pauses. ‘What?’

  I squeeze my eyes shut and take a deep breath. Do it or don’t do it. Do it or don’t. I open my eyes and blurt it out, ‘Your father.’

  There’s silence.

  ‘Justin?’

  ‘What about him?’ His voice is ice cold.

  ‘I know what you saw,’ I say softly. ‘How you could never tell anyone.’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘I know about you being on the stairs, seeing him through the banisters. I see him too. I see him with the bottle and the pills closing the door. Then I see the green feet on the floor—’

  ‘STOP IT!’ he yells, and I’m shocked to silence.

  But I must keep trying or I’ll never have the opportunity to say these words again.

  ‘I know how hard it must have been for you as a child. How hard it was to keep it to yourself—’

  ‘You know nothing,’ he says coldly. ‘Absolutely nothing. Please stay away from me. I don’t ever wish to hear from you again.’

  ‘OK.’ My voice is a whisper but it is to myself as he has already hung up.

  I sit on the steps of the dark empty house and listen as the cold October wind rattles the building.

  So that’s that.

  One Month Later

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  ‘Next time we should take the car, Gracie,’ Dad says as we make our way down the road back from our walk in the Botanics. I link his arm and I’m lifted up and down with him as he sways. Up and down, down and up. The motion is soothing.

  ‘No, you need the exercise, Dad.’

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ he mutters. ‘Howya, Sean? Miserable day isn’t it?’ he calls across the street to the old man on his Zimmer frame.

  ‘Terrible,’ Sean shouts back.

  ‘So what did you think of the apartment?’ I broach the subject for the third time in the last few minutes. ‘You can’t dodge it this time.’

  ‘I’m dodging nothing, love. Howya, Patsy? Howya, Suki?’ He stops and bends down to pat the sausage dog. ‘Aren’t you a cute little thing,’ he says, and we continue on. ‘I hate that little runt. Barks all bloody night when she’s away,’ he mutters, pushing his cap down further over his eyes as a great big gust blows. ‘Christ Almighty, are we gettin’ anywhere at all, I feel like we’re on one of those milltreads with this wind.’

  ‘Treadmills,’ I laugh. ‘So come on, do you like the apartment or not?’

  ‘I’m not sure. It seemed awful small and there was a funny man that went into the flat next door. Don’t think I liked the look of him.’

  ‘He seemed very friendly to me.’

  ‘Ah, he would to you, and all.’ He rolls his eyes and shakes his head. ‘Any man would do for you now, I’d say.’

  ‘Dad!’ I laugh.

  ‘Good afternoon, Graham. Miserable day, isn’t it?’ he says to the neighbour passing.

  ‘Awful day, Henry,’ Graham responds, shoving his hands in his pockets.

  ‘Anyway, I don’t think you should take that apartment, Gracie. Hang on here a little longer until something more appropriate pops up. There’s no point in taking the first thing you see.’

  ‘Dad, we’ve seen ten apartments and you don’t like any of them.’

  ‘Is it for me to live in or for you?’ he asks. Up and down. Down and up.

  ‘For me.’

  ‘Well, then, what do you care?’

  ‘I value your opinion.’

  ‘You do in your—Hello there, Kathleen!’

  ‘You can’t keep me at home for ever, you know.’

  ‘For ever’s been and gone, my love. There’s no budging you. You’re the Stonehenge of grown-up children living at home.’

  ‘Can I go to the Monday Club tonight?’<
br />
  ‘Again?’

  ‘I’ve to finish off the game of chess I started with Larry.’

  ‘Larry just keeps positioning his pawns so that you’ll lean over and he can see down your top. That game will never end.’ Dad rolls his eyes.

  ‘Dad!’

  ‘What? Well, you need to get more of a social life than hanging around with the likes of Larry and me.’

  ‘I like hanging around with you.’

  He smiles to himself, pleased to hear that.

  We turn into Dad’s house and sway up the small garden path to the front door.

  The sight of what’s on the doorstop stops me in my tracks.

  A small hamper of muffins, covered in plastic wrapper and tied with a pink bow. I look at Dad, who steps right over them and unlocks the front door. His movement makes me question my eyesight. Have I imagined them?

  ‘Dad! What are you doing?’ Shocked, I look around behind me but nobody’s there.

  Dad winks at me, looks sad for a moment and then gives me a great big smile before closing the door in my face.

  I reach for the envelope that is taped to the plastic and with trembling fingers slide the card out.

  Thank you …

  ‘I’m sorry, Joyce.’ I hear a voice behind me that almost stops my heart and I twirl round.

  There he is, standing at the garden gate, a bouquet of flowers in his gloved hands, the sorriest look on his face. He is wrapped up in a scarf and winter coat, the tip of his nose and cheeks red from the cold, his green eyes twinkling in the grey day. He is a vision; he takes my breath away with one look, his proximity to me almost too much to bear.

  ‘Justin …’ Then I’m utterly speechless.

  ‘Do you think,’ he takes a step forward, ‘you could find it in your heart to forgive a fool like me?’ He stands at the end of the garden, beside the gate.

  I’m unsure what to say. It’s been a month. Why now?

  ‘On the phone, you hit a sore point,’ he says, clearing his throat. ‘Nobody knows that about my dad. Or knew that. I don’t know how you did.’

  ‘I told you how.’

  ‘I don’t understand it.’

  ‘Neither do I.’

  ‘But then I don’t understand most ordinary things that happen everyday. I don’t understand what my daughter sees in her boyfriend. I don’t understand how my brother has defied the laws of science by not turning into an actual potato chip. I don’t know how Doris can open the milk carton with such long nails. I don’t understand why I didn’t beat down your door a month ago and tell you how I felt … I don’t understand so many simple things, I don’t know why this should be any different.’