How to Fall in Love

by Cecelia Ahern

  So I told him the story of Adam and I, in the brief time we had, summarising Adam’s attempt to end his life, my promise to help him, our journey together and the steps I’d taken him on in an effort to help him to enjoy life.

  ‘Christine,’ Leo sat up in his large leather chair, looking concerned. ‘This is rather troubling.’

  ‘I know. Now you can understand why I’m here.’

  ‘Of course your friend’s situation is a concern, but it’s more that what you have been doing with him, from a therapist’s point of view, is incredibly damaging to him.’

  I froze. ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Where do I start?’ He shook his head as if to clear it. ‘Where did you learn these “tips” on how to enjoy life?’

  ‘From a book,’ I said, my heart banging.

  There was a flash of anger in his eyes and then he said sternly, ‘This pop psychology is a menace. Christine, you have taken the power away from him.’

  Seeing my confused look, he continued: ‘You do not know better than him. You cannot help him by taking away his integrity. By trying to “fix” his life, you are disempowering him, because intrinsically nothing will have changed, you’ll simply have made him dependent upon you. Your pursuit of these quick-fix methods that you read in a book—’

  ‘I’ve been trying to help him,’ I said, angry.

  ‘Indeed, I understand that,’ he said gently, ‘and as a friend I understand what you have tried to do. But as a therapist – which I must point out is something that you are not – I have to say that you have not gone about this in the right way.’

  ‘So I should have pushed him off the bridge?’ I said angrily, standing up.

  ‘Of course not. What I’m saying is, you must give him the power. You must let him have his own life in his own hands.’

  ‘He tried to take his own life!’

  ‘You’re upset. I understand that you were trying to do the right thing, and that this is a particularly stressful time for you—’

  ‘This isn’t about me, Leo. It’s about Adam. All I want to know is how do I make him better? Just tell me how to fix him!’

  There was a long silence as he looked at me, then he smiled gently and said, ‘Did you hear what you said, Christine?’

  I had and I was trembling.

  ‘You can’t fix him. He needs to help himself. I suggest you confine yourself to being there for him, listening to him, supporting him. But whatever you do, stop trying to fix him before you go too far.’

  I looked at him sadly.

  ‘I hope that’s of help to you. I’m sorry we didn’t have more time today, but if your friend would like to make an appointment with me I would be more than willing to oblige. And if you feel it would help you to speak to somebody, I’ll happily refer you to another therapist here I value highly.’ Registering my confusion, he added, ‘My wife would find my treating you … inappropriate.’

  ‘Of course,’ I whispered, cringing even more. ‘Thank you so much for your time. And again, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘On a personal note, if I may …’ he added looking at me for permission to speak frankly.

  I nodded.

  ‘You are wonderful at what you do. I’ve recommended your recruitment agency to many clients around here who have fallen on hard times; I think they’d find your way of doing things enlightening, uplifting. You care about where you place people. And you went beyond the call of duty by trying to help me with my smoking habit. I have a pile of books I still need to read,’ he said, smiling. I could smell the smoke from his jacket, but nonetheless I appreciated his gratitude. ‘You’re a fixer, Christine, but if you really want to help someone, to be a friend to them, sometimes you need to listen and let them do the work themselves. Be there for him. That’s all.’

  18

  How to Make Absolutely Everything Okay Again

  I should have learned from my session with Leo – stop meddling. In fact the message had come through loud and clear, but I had set up this meeting to solve Amelia’s predicament before meeting with Leo. I led the way up a staircase over an Afro-Caribbean grocery on Camden Street to the office of my cousin and private detective, Bobby O’Brien. He was thirty-two years old and hailed from County Donegal; after joining the Gardaí, and being sent to a posh Dublin suburb with not enough action, he had decided to leave. Then, on my advice – after continuously coming back to Rose Recruitment having been fired from or having walked out of the jobs I’d placed him in – he opted to set himself up as the Lone Ranger and investigate the juicy stuff all on his own.

  Since I was unable to go with Amelia on a wild-goose chase to find her parents, I hoped Bobby would point her in the right direction. The plan was for me to introduce them and then leave; I would put the power in Amelia’s hands, I would not take it away. Give others the power over their own lives, give others the power over their own lives. My new mantra.

  Confronted with the door to Bobby’s office, Amelia froze at the top of the stairs. ‘I can’t do this.’

  ‘That’s absolutely fine,’ I said, turning around and starting down the stairs again. ‘Nobody will think any worse of you.’

  ‘Hey,’ Amelia said, stopping me. ‘Aren’t you going to try to change my mind?’

  ‘No. I don’t want to force you into anything you don’t want to do, Amelia,’ I announced, hoping Adam would get the message too. ‘This is a difficult time for you and I appreciate that. This is your life and you’re totally in control of it. You should make your own decisions, I don’t want to influence you in any way or project my problems on to you, because thinking I can fix you won’t fix me.’

  Both Adam and Amelia narrowed their eyes at me suspiciously.

  ‘What happened to her?’ Amelia asked Adam.

  ‘I think she hit her head,’ he replied, poker-faced. ‘Come on,’ he said, encouraging Amelia to the office door. ‘We’re here now, let’s do it.’

  ‘But only if she wants to,’ I insisted.

  Adam rolled his eyes. Amelia stared at me, wide-eyed.

  ‘You want to find your biological parents, don’t you?’ Adam asked.

  She nodded.

  ‘Then try this,’ he said, taking control of the situation since I had pretty much flaked out on them. ‘And if this doesn’t work, try another route. Keep your options open. Be prepared for … you know …’ He looked around the grubby hall, the graffiti on the walls and tried not to breathe in the awful stench of fish, damp and sewerage that pervaded the old building. ‘… anything.’ He knocked on Bobby’s door.

  ‘Who’s there?’ Bobby replied, a certain urgency in his voice.

  ‘It’s Christine,’ I called.

  ‘Christine?’ The surprise was more than evident. ‘Do we have an appointment?’

  ‘Er, no. I was hoping you can help. I have some friends with me.’ Despite Adam’s progress, his volatile mind and fragile state still left me afraid to leave him alone. Only that morning a car had cut across me, in the wrong lane to turn off a roundabout, and as soon as we pulled up beside it at the lights Adam had leapt out of the car and screamed at the terrified woman behind the wheel, who had three kids in the back seat. He had ignored my pleas to get back into the car and so it had taken the lights going green and the woman speeding away for dear life, almost in tears, for him to get back into the car, where he went quiet, cracking his knuckles over and over again. Afterwards it was an hour before he’d speak to me. He had acted as if coming with me on this trip was punishment, but it wasn’t, I was simply afraid, always afraid to leave him alone in case anything else tipped him over the edge.

  ‘What friends?’ Bobby asked. There it was again, the slight fear, the distrust, as if he was up to divilment, or had been and didn’t want to get caught. ‘Look, if it’s about your husband, I’m sorry I spoke to him that way, okay? We never got along – no surprises there – but he was way out of line calling me like that.’

  I closed my eyes and counted to three at that revelation.

 
; ‘Can you please open the door?’ I asked impatiently.

  There was the sound of locks and bolts being undone and then the door opened the slightest amount, a couple of inches, the chain visible. One blue eye peered out at us. It looked left and right, studied Adam and Amelia, then the hallway behind us. Apparently satisfied, he pulled the door to, slid the chain free and opened the door to usher us in.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ he said. ‘Part of the job, you know. I have to be careful.’ He closed the door behind us, slid the bolts and turned the key in the lock.

  ‘Bobby O’Brien,’ he smiled, charmingly, and held out his hand first to Adam and then Amelia.

  ‘You’ve met Amelia before,’ I said. ‘We’re friends from school. She’s at every family event.’

  ‘Really?’ He studied her. ‘I’m sure I would have remembered a pretty woman like you.’

  Amelia’s cheeks pinked.

  I rolled my eyes at his efforts to charm her. ‘You stole her ice-cream at my eighth birthday and threw it over the neighbour’s wall.’

  He thought about it. ‘That was you?’

  Amelia laughed. ‘I look different when I’m not wailing that I hate boys.’

  ‘Hasn’t changed all that much,’ Adam mumbled so only I could hear, and I threw him a look.

  ‘How are you doing, Christine?’ Bobby gave me a warm hug.

  After he released me from his embrace he made his way to the window behind his desk. The vertical blinds were closed. He pulled the slats apart slightly and peeked out at the road below, then back at us.

  ‘How can I help you?’

  He was wearing a green T-shirt with ‘Beer Heaven’ written on it and ripped blue jeans. His hair was black and curly, falling down over his eyes, his skin was pale and his jaw stubbled. He always looked as if he was up to mischief, probably because he always was; never more so than now. I noticed Amelia was checking him out. I liked this, and fought the urge to meddle. Let them take control of this themselves, I told myself.

  ‘Bobby, Amelia is the reason we’re here. She recently discovered that her parents are not her biological parents. Amelia, would you like to take it from here? Show him what you found?’

  While Amelia talked about the contents of the shoebox I looked out of the window to see what had been making Bobby so anxious. There was nobody there. I quickly closed the blinds and stepped away. Bobby noticed me and gave me a weak, nervous smile. I didn’t want to know what he’d done.

  ‘So basically you’re saying that everything in this box, this collection of items that were left with you when you were passed on to your adopted mother, leads to Kenmare?’ Bobby summed it up.

  ‘I wouldn’t say that,’ Adam interrupted. ‘The person who came up with that is extremely unbalanced.’

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ Amelia snapped, putting Adam in his place.

  ‘So let’s go to Kenmare,’ Bobby said quickly, clapping his hands.

  I narrowed my eyes at him suspiciously.

  ‘You think it’s a good idea?’ Amelia asked, surprised. ‘You think my friend is right?’

  ‘I think your friend is a genius,’ Bobby said. ‘I mean, I would have recognised the lace at some stage myself, but she saw it straight away. I’d love to go to Killarney—’

  ‘Kenmare,’ I interrupted.

  ‘Kenmare, excuse me.’ He gave Amelia a charming smile. ‘I’d love to go to Kenmare, ask a few questions. We’ll find your parents in no time.’

  I raised my eyebrows.

  ‘I’ve had plenty of adoption cases,’ he said, feeling the bad vibes Adam and I were giving out and selling himself a bit harder. ‘Usually we go to the adoption authority and I assist people through that process. It can be a stressful business; it’s not easy to think, to process everything,’ he said, sincere now. ‘We can get results that way too, but it’s always good to follow any clues you can come up with yourself.’

  ‘I already contacted the adoption authority,’ Amelia said. ‘I’ve downloaded paperwork from their website but,’ she lowered her voice even though there was no one around to hear her, ‘I’m not entirely sure this adoption was done officially. There’s no paperwork that I could find.’

  ‘Yeah …’ Bobby fingered the note and looked deep in thought. ‘I agree. So, what do you say?’ He reached out his hand to Amelia, eager to close the deal, so he could flee from his nest.

  ‘How much do you cost?’ The cynical Adam interrupted their exchange.

  ‘One hundred and fifty euro if I find them, plus my accommodation. Other expenses I’ll cover myself. Deal?’ He looked down at his hand, which was still extended.

  Amelia seemed uncertain.

  He dropped his hand.

  ‘I can’t promise miracles,’ he said gently, ‘but I’ve found parents and reunited families before. There’s not much of a set-up here, but I’m good. I don’t get paid until I solve the puzzle and I pay the rent every month. Just about.’ He offered a cheeky smile.

  ‘It’s not you, Bobby,’ Amelia said. ‘It’s the … situation. If I go ahead with this, well, then it’s real.’ She looked at me for help.

  What was considered meddling? ‘You should do what you feel is right,’ I eventually said, then added, ‘What have you got to lose? You haven’t been on holiday for a long time. At the very least, you’ll see another part of the country.’

  Amelia smiled shyly. ‘Okay.’ She shook his hand.

  Adam shook his head.

  ‘I know this is crazy,’ Amelia said, keeping her voice down as we walked back to the car. ‘But I have to get out of Dublin, I have to get away from the shop. I need to get away. Get my head together. Everything has been turned upside down, I can barely think straight.’

  ‘And you think the trip will help that?’

  ‘No,’ she laughed. ‘But at least I’m going to have fun being wildly confused about it all. Bobby,’ she smiled, ‘he’s an interesting one.’

  I was only half-listening, trying at the same time to eavesdrop on the two men behind us.

  ‘So how did you meet Christine?’ Bobby asked.

  ‘On a bridge.’

  ‘Which bridge?’

  ‘The Ha’penny.’

  ‘That’s romantic,’ Bobby said, slapping Adam’s back like they were buddies. Adam shoved his hands deeper into his pockets and waited for me to stop talking so we could finally get away.

  I turned my attention back to Amelia.

  ‘Thanks for humouring me,’ she said.

  ‘That’s what friends are for. But can I ask a question? When we were in the storage room, you went straight to the box with the year you were born. You suspected, didn’t you?’

  ‘I always wondered. Sometimes I’d ask Mum and Dad questions about the pregnancy, about where I was born, and the answers they gave were all a bit too vague. Plus they never seemed to want to talk about it. I didn’t want to make them uncomfortable or hurt them, so eventually I stopped asking, I gave up on finding the answers. I had no idea what it was they were hiding. But I do know that Mum had four pregnancies before me and she lost every one of those babies. She said having me was a blessing from God. So I thought she was afraid of losing me the way she’d lost them, that’s why she was so precious about me.’

  ‘Your parents loved you so much.’

  ‘I felt loved.’ She smiled. ‘So it’s okay. It’s not so much that I want to be reunited with my biological parents, I just … I want to know. And then I think I could walk away. It won’t matter if they want nothing to do with me. I’m not sure yet if I want anything to do with them. All I want is to know the story. I feel like I deserve to know.’

  ‘You do.’ I thought about it. ‘You’re right, you know, if I was in your shoes and if I knew my mum was out there and I had a chance to find her, I’d do whatever it took. I’d do anything to get her back.’

  ‘I know you would,’ Amelia said, throwing a worried look at Adam before covering her concern with a smile that was too bright and too quick.

&nb
sp; I swallowed hard.

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ Adam said from the door, watching me pack my bag.

  Everything had seemed ridiculous to him all day. Pointless, a waste of time, ridiculous.

  ‘What’s ridiculous?’ I asked, trying not to sound as drained as I felt.

  ‘Going to Tipperary.’

  ‘How are you going to not take over the company if we don’t go to the company to sort it out?’

  ‘We can’t sort it out, it’s in my grandfather’s will. There’s no way of changing it. This trip will be a total waste of time.’ His voice was hard.

  I didn’t know exactly how we were going to sort this out but where there was a will, there was a way and Adam had to face up to his responsibilities sooner or later. The prospect was making him tetchy, fidgety. He was moody again.

  He left the room. ‘So this is my last time here?’ he said from the living area.

  Then I got it. He had a problem with people leaving him, and him leaving too. I hurriedly followed his voice.

  ‘You’re moving on, Adam. This is a good thing.’

  He nodded, not believing a word of it.

  ‘Right now, I’m feeling …’ I prompted him.

  He sighed. ‘Right now I’m feeling … sentimental.’

  I felt it too. Then his phone rang.

  ‘It’s Maria.’ He handed it to me.

  I stared at it, wanting to hang up straight away, but I thought of Leo’s advice. ‘Answer it,’ I swallowed. ‘Invite her to your party. If you want to.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ He looked uncertain.

  ‘Of course.’ I was confused by his reaction. ‘Don’t you want her to be there?’

  The phone kept ringing.

  ‘Yeah, only, you know …’

  We stared at each other.

  I wasn’t sure what he was thinking, but I knew what I was thinking. Don’t answer it, don’t fall in love with her, fall out of love with her. Love me.

  The phone stopped ringing, leaving a silent room. He didn’t even look at the phone in his hand. He swallowed. He took a step towards me.