The Marble Collector

by Cecelia Ahern

  I drive to the address Amy has provided, and I look up at the sun and wonder if there’s anything in what Amy said. Is today the day we’re doomed? Or is today the day I’ve finally lost it myself, going on a hunt for some lost marbles that I’ve no real proof ever really existed in the first place. Just a handwritten inventory from I don’t know how many years ago. About to approach a man named Looper in the middle of nowhere and accuse him of stealing.

  After driving up and down a few random streets, satnav giving up almost as soon as I pass the town limits, much as Amy warned, I find the right place. Looper, a concerning name in itself, lives in a small bungalow, a Seventies-style build, which has been badly maintained and looks completely run-down. The front yard is covered in car parts, tyres, engines, car hoods, random items strewn about the place. There’s a white van on the front drive, beneath it a pair of legs stick out wearing filthy stone-washed jeans and workman’s boots. A nearby radio blares AC/DC. I pull up outside the front gate and can’t get any further as it’s heavily padlocked with a sign saying ‘No Trespassing – guard dogs on duty’, alongside a picture of two snarling dogs.

  I get out of the car and stand at the gate wondering if I have finally lost it.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I call to the pair of legs, loudly. ‘Looper!’

  The legs finally move and slide from under the van. A young man climbs up. He’s got long greasy hair that grows from a well receded hairline, despite his youth, is wearing a white vest covered in oil, sweat and grease and who knows what else. He’s more chunky than muscular but he’s tall and big, like an oaf, something that wouldn’t look out of place in Middle-earth.

  He stares at me, wiping a tool on his T-shirt, taking me in, slowly, bit by bit. He stares at the car, then back at me and then slowly saunters towards me with the wrench in his hand, as though he’s got all the time in the world and he’s giving great academic thought as to whether to whack me with it. He doesn’t come to the gate, stops a few strides short. He licks a snake-like tongue over his lips as he looks me up and down. Smacking sounds like I’m his next meal.

  ‘Are you Looper?’ I ask.

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not. Depends on who’s asking.’

  ‘Well … I am.’ I smile. A wobbly one.

  Looper doesn’t like this hint of a smile, he thinks he’s being made fun of, doesn’t like this, isn’t sure why, doesn’t understand. Confusion makes him feel less of a man so he behaves like more of a grunt. He hacks up a golly, spits it on the ground in clear protest.

  ‘You’re the delivery man around here?’

  ‘The one and only. You got a job for me? ’Cos I’ve got a job for you …’ He gropes his crotch and sneers.

  I step back, revolted. ‘Are you Mickey Flanagan’s nephew?’

  ‘Who’s asking?’

  ‘Me. Again,’ I say flatly. ‘I’m a client. He sent me here.’ He knows I’m here, I will be missed. Don’t kill me! ‘Did you do a delivery yesterday to Dublin for your uncle?’

  ‘I do a lot of deliveries to Dublin.’

  I sincerely doubt that. ‘Specifically, a hospital.’

  ‘That where you live?’ he sneers, revealing that the few teeth he has are a greenish colour. He looks me up and down, like a cat would a mouse. He wants to play. His eyes are unusual, a murky colour with not much going on in them or behind them. The thought of this man in possession of my dad’s precious marbles makes me sick. I wouldn’t trust this guy with anything. I look around, mostly for help, for a witness in case it all goes wrong, for a rescuer in case Looper does what I’m thinking he wants to do. There are acres upon acres surrounding the house. A burned-out car sits in the middle of one unfarmed field.

  Looper follows my gaze to the fields that stretch into the distance. ‘Pain in my hole. Spuds is all it was ever good for. Daddy was a farmer. Them developers offered him a fortune, he said no, says he’s a farmer what else would he do? Then he went and fucking died and left it to me and no one is interested in buying it now. It’s a waste of space.’

  ‘Why don’t you farm it?’

  ‘I’ve my own thing going on here. My garage and delivery business.’

  Nothing in this yard vaguely resembles a business.

  ‘Want to come inside? I’ll show you around.’

  I look in the open front door and see mayhem in the house, dirty, piled-up, cluttered mess. I shake my head. I don’t want to pass the gate.

  ‘You brought five boxes from Mickey’s garage to my dad’s home. Some things are missing from the box and I’m wondering if you could … help me.’

  ‘You calling me a thief?’

  ‘No, I would like your help,’ I stress. ‘Did you stop off anywhere? Anybody else have access to your van?’

  ‘I put them in the van and drove them to Dublin. Simple as.’

  ‘Did you open the boxes? Could something have fallen out?’

  He smiles. ‘Tell you what, I’ll answer your question if you give me a kiss.’

  I back away.

  ‘Okay okay!’ he laughs. ‘I’ll answer your question if you shake my hand.’

  That’s bad enough, but I’ll play along. I want him to answer my question.

  Looper steps forward. Hand extended. He puts the wrench in his back pocket and raises his hand to show he’s weapon free.

  ‘Come on. If you shake my hand, I’ll answer your questions. I’m a man of my word.’

  I look at the hand suspiciously. I reach out and as he takes my hand, he pulls my arm roughly, pulling me towards him and grabs the back of my neck, and pulls my head close for a kiss. His lips touch mine and I’m stuck in that position. I close mine tight, not letting a part of him get into me. I try to move but I can’t, his hand stays at the back of my neck. I lift my hands to his chest to push him away but he’s too strong and I feel panic rising. Finally he pulls back and licks his lips and howls with laughter.

  I wipe at my face furiously, wanting to run to my car. My heart pounding, I look around for help, but he’s not coming after me for any more, he’s standing back laughing.

  ‘You didn’t answer my question,’ I say angrily, wiping my lips roughly. I refuse to leave now without an answer, or even better, without the marbles. This will not be a wasted trip.

  Looper looks at me, wrench back in hand, amused. ‘I picked up your boxes from Mickey’s, pulled over on the motorway and had a look through them. Nothing good in it so I sealed them up again and drove to Dublin.’ He shrugs unapologetically. ‘Papers and some kids’ marbles don’t do it for me. I didn’t take a thing. I suggest you look elsewhere.’

  And I actually believe him. He wouldn’t have the brains to have looked through the inventory. It’s a book and I doubt he’s ever read a book in his life. He also wouldn’t have the common sense to recognise or link the items on the list to the marbles in the boxes. The person who picked the two most expensive items spent time going through the list, and the marbles, not just a quick pull-over on the road. They took the two most expensive, which would have taken time to discover as the list does not go from low to high, it is categorised by the names of the marbles.

  ‘Was it worth it?’ he winks as I storm back to the car. ‘Did I help?’ he calls after me.

  I start up the engine and drive away. Yes, he helped.

  Looper didn’t take the marbles. Those marbles weren’t in the box when they left Mickey Flanagan’s house. I’m absolutely sure of that now. And they weren’t in the boxes when they reached Mickey’s house. So I have to go back. Back to last year. Maybe even further than that.

  ‘Fergus, it’s time!’ Nurse Lea says brightly as she enters my room with a great big smile on her face. She’s always smiling, she has two big dimples in her cheeks, like holes, big enough to fit marbles in; maybe not average-sized marbles, but miniature ones would slot in there quite nicely and never budge. She’s a young girl, a country girl, from Kerry. She sings everything and you can hear her laugh from the nurses’ desk all the way down the corridor to my room at the end. My sp
irits are usually up but she has the ability to lift them even higher. If I’ve had a tough day in physio – and there are plenty of those – she always arrives with a smile on her face, a steaming mug of coffee and a cupcake. She makes them herself and hands them around to everyone. I tell her if she put as much effort into her boyfriends she’d have them eating out of her hand, but she’s single and always has stories of disastrous dates to share with me.

  I have a soft spot for her. She reminds me of Sabrina. Or how Sabrina used to be before she had the boys. Now she’s distracted, obviously, by three little boys on hyper drive. We start a conversation and never finish it, a lot of the time we barely get the chance to finish the sentence. She’s scattier than she used to be; she used to be sharp, like Lea. She’s always tired, she’s put on weight too. My ma was always as tough as old boots, the only time I recall her softening is when she’d had more than one brandy, which was rare, maybe twice a year. She was rake thin, always running after the seven of us, and after her pregnancies she always managed to get her figure straight back. Maybe if I’d known my ma before she’d had us I’d see a change in her too, maybe she had a carefree spirit before us and the pressures of life and motherhood changed that. God knows I changed in my life; I’m in here now. I can’t imagine her ever carefree, not even in photos, they’re posed rigid and uptight-looking. Arms down by your sides, no physical contact, glum faces to the camera, which I expect was felt to be the best face forward. There is one photograph though, one which I keep close to me at all times, of Ma, on the beach, taken by Da, in Scotland. She’s sitting on a towel on the sand, leaning back on her elbows, her face lifted to the sun, her eyes closed. She’s laughing. I don’t know how many times I’ve studied it and wondered what she’s laughing at. It’s a sexy pose, provocative, though I’m sure she didn’t intend it to be so. Hamish is a baby and sits by her toes. She’s probably laughing at something Hamish has done, or something Da said, something innocent that resulted in this look. It’s odd, I know, to keep provocative photos of your ma, psychotherapists would have a field day with it, but it lifts me.

  When I picture Sabrina in my mind I see a screwed-up face, worried.

  ‘Are we watching a 3-D film?’ I ask Lea, teasing her about the funny glasses that she’s wearing.

  ‘I have a pair for you too,’ she says, taking a pair out of her pocket and handing them to me. ‘Stick them on.’

  I put them on and stick out my tongue and she laughs.

  ‘Did you forget, Fergus, the solar eclipse is today?’

  I’m not sure if I’d forgotten it, as I don’t remember ever knowing it.

  ‘We have a perfect sky to see it, not a cloud anywhere. Of course we’re not in the perfect place, they keep going on on the radio about the best path to stand in, but the sun is the sun, sure wherever you stand you’ll see it. I’ve made cupcakes for everyone. Vanilla cupcakes. I wanted to make chocolate but Fidelma, my new flat mate – remember I told you about her, the Donegal nurse? She’s a pig, she ate all the Cadbury bars in the fridge,’ she fumes. ‘Four of them. The large ones. I’ve put Post-its all over the flat now, “Don’t touch this”, “Don’t eat this”. Just looking at her makes me mad. And remember that new plasma TV I got from my neighbour who was throwing it out? She hasn’t a clue how to use it, keeps feckin’ using the wrong remote controls. Found her pointing the gas fire remote control at the TV screen.’

  We both laugh at that. She gives out but not in an angry way, it’s humorous, it’s all with a smile on her face, and that strong sing-song voice. It’s lovely, like a bird chirping outside your window on a sunny May day. She tells this story while she helps me up out of my reading chair and into the wheelchair. Lea is with me most days, but when she’s not the others have a different style, which is difficult to adjust to. Some are quieter, trying to be respectful, or lost in their heads with whatever’s going on in their own lives, or they’re too bossy and talk at me, reminding me of my ma barking at me when I was a boy. They’re not rude, but Lea just has the magic touch. She knows to talk me through it, talks about other things like what we’re doing isn’t happening. You want that from a person who has had to wipe your arse and clean your balls. The silence with the others makes me realise it’s really happening. Tom next door can’t stand her. ‘Does she ever shut up?’ he grumbles. He says it so loud I’m sure she’s heard, but it doesn’t stop her. But that’s Tom, he wouldn’t be happy unless he had something to complain about.

  She wheels me out into the sunshine, to the small lawn that we sit out on on sunny days like today. Everyone is gathered outside and looking up at the sky with these ridiculous plastic glasses. The radio is on, Radio One, a live commentary of what we’re about to see, like they’ve been doing all week. I’ve never heard so much about numbras and penumbras and then fellas on talking about voodoo stuff with the full moon, though that I believe. Sabrina could never sleep as a little girl whenever there was a full moon. She’d always come into our room, crawl into our bed, curl up in the middle of me and Gina, and lie there awake, sighing loudly, tapping on my shoulder, my face, anything to wake me up to have some company. Once I brought her downstairs and made her a hot chocolate and we sat in the dark kitchen, lights off, and watched the moon, her wide awake, staring at the moon as though hypnotised by it, as though having a silent conversation with it, me falling asleep in the chair. Gina came down and shouted the head off me, it was a school night, it was three a.m., what did I think I was doing? That was that.

  I think of her now on nights when I see the full moon, wonder if she’s up, sitting in her kitchen having a hot chocolate, long curls down her back, though the curls are gone now of course.

  Everyone is in flying form, excited about the natural phenomenon. Lea is telling me about the date she was on last night as she applies sun cream to my face and arms. My legs are covered up. She went to the cinema with a garda from Antrim. I tut.

  ‘You can’t talk at the cinema,’ I say. ‘Never go to the cinema on a first date.’

  ‘I know, I know, you told me that when he asked me and you’re right, but we went for drinks afterwards and believe me I was glad of the two hours not talking, he was such an eejit, Fergus. My ex-girlfriend this, my ex-girlfriend that. Well, tell you what, fella, you can have your ex-girlfriend. I’m off.’

  I chuckle.

  ‘I’ll get you a cupcake, which one do you want? I’ve some with jellies, marshmallows, I had Maltesers but Fidelma ate them too,’ she says with a grin.

  ‘Surprise me,’ I say. While she’s gone I look around and see that there’s lots of visitors today. Children run around the grass, one has a kite, though no matter how fast he runs it won’t take off from the ground, no wind today. There’s not a cloud in the sky, it’s a beautiful indigo blue, with wispy white swirls. This triggers something and I try hard to remember but I can’t. This happens sometimes. A lot. And it frustrates me.

  ‘Here you go.’ She returns with a plate of two cupcakes and a soft drink.

  I look at them, feeling a bit confused.

  ‘Don’t you want them?’ she asks.

  ‘No, no, it’s not that,’ I say. ‘Is my wife coming?’

  She stiffens a little, but pulls up a chair and sits down beside me.

  ‘Do you mean Gina?’

  ‘Of course I mean Gina. My wife, Gina. And Sabrina, and the boys.’

  ‘Remember the boys are going off camping with their dad today? Aidan was to bring them to Wicklow with their cousins.’

  ‘Ah.’ I don’t remember that. Sounds like fun for them. Alfie will no doubt go hunting for worms, he likes that. Reminds me a bit of Bobby when he was little, except instead of eating them like Bobby did, he likes to name them. He once made me keep Whilomena worm in a cup for an entire day. ‘But what about Sabrina? Where is she?’ I picture that screwed-up worried face, frowning in concentration like she’s trying to solve a problem, or remember the answer to something that she’s forgotten. Yes, that’s what it is. Always as though she ha
s forgotten something. If the boys are all off on their jaunt then she must be alone. Unless she’s with Gina, but Gina is very busy these days, with Robert, her new husband. Of course, that’s why Lea looked at me in that way, I must stop calling Gina my wife. I sometimes forget these things.

  ‘Sabrina was here this morning, remember? I think she had some stuff to take care of, but she’ll be back in to visit tomorrow as usual, I’m sure.’

  I feel around my pockets.

  ‘Can I help you, Fergus?’

  Lea again, always at the right time.

  ‘My phone, I think I left it in my room.’

  ‘I think it’s getting close to the eclipse now. Will I get it for you after? I don’t want you to miss it, being on the phone.’

  I think of Sabrina and I have an overwhelming feeling for her not to be alone. I see her as a little girl again, her serious pale face lit up by the white light.

  ‘Now, please, if you don’t mind.’

  I feel like I’ve blinked and Lea is back. I was lost in a thought but now I can’t remember what that thought was. Lea’s breathless and I feel bad for nearly making her miss the eclipse. Of course she’s excited about a thing like that. She should have gone on a date to watch it, if she could have got the time off, and I’m selfishly glad she didn’t. The others would have waited until after the eclipse to get my phone.

  I dial Sabrina’s number.

  ‘Dad,’ she answers immediately, on the first ring. ‘I was just thinking about you.’

  I smile. ‘I picked up on your thoughts. Is everything okay?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ she says, distracted. ‘Hold on, let me move away for a minute so I can talk.’

  ‘Oh. You’re not alone then?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good. I was hoping you weren’t. I know Aidan and the boys are camping.’ I feel foolishly proud of myself for sounding like I remembered such a fact, when I didn’t. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I’m sitting on the hood of a car in the middle of a field in Cavan.’