If You Could See Me Now

by Cecelia Ahern

  ‘Oh,’ Elizabeth blushed, ‘please don’t.’

  ‘Believe me, you’ll have a few hundred more offers after I do,’ he said before he made his way towards the microphone, decorated with a vine of leaves.

  ‘Excuse me, Ms Egan.’ A member of the bar staff approached her. ‘You have a phone call just outside at the main desk.’

  Elizabeth frowned, ‘Me? A phone call? Are you sure?’

  ‘You are Ms Egan, yes?’

  She nodded, confused. Who would be ringing her here?

  ‘It’s a young woman, says she’s your sister?’ he explained quietly.

  ‘Oh.’ Her heart beat wildly. ‘Saoirse?’ she asked, shocked.

  ‘Yes, that’s it,’ the young man said, sounding relieved. ‘I wasn’t sure I’d remembered right.’

  At that moment it felt as if the music got louder, the drumming beats were pounding her head, the fur prints were all coming together in a blur. Saoirse never called her; something had to be seriously wrong.

  ‘Leave it, Elizabeth,’ Mark said rather forcefully. ‘Tell the woman on the phone that Ms Egan is busy at the moment,’ Mark said to the barman. ‘This is your night, enjoy it,’ he added softly to Elizabeth.

  ‘No, no, don’t tell her that,’ Elizabeth stammered. It must be 3 a.m. in Ireland – why was Saoirse calling so late? ‘I’ll take the call, thank you,’ she said to the young man.

  ‘Elizabeth, the speech is about to begin,’ Mark warned her as the room began to quieten down and gather before the microphone. ‘You can’t miss it,’ he hissed. ‘This is your moment.’

  ‘No, no, I can’t,’ she trembled, and she left him, heading in the direction of the phone.

  ‘Hello?’ she said a few moments later, the concern evident in her voice.

  ‘Elizabeth?’ Saoirse’s voice sobbed.

  ‘It’s me, Saoirse. What’s wrong?’ Elizabeth’s heart thudded in her chest.

  There was silence in the club as Henry made his speech.

  ‘I just wanted to…’ Saoirse trailed off and was silent.

  ‘You wanted to what? Is everything OK?’ Elizabeth asked hurriedly.

  Henry’s voice boomed, ‘… And last but not least I’d like to thank the wonderful Elizabeth Egan from Morgan Designs for designing this place so wonderfully in such a short time. She’s created something that’s completely different to what’s out there right now, making Club Zoo the most popular, trendy and newest club on the scene, guaranteed to have people queuing down the block to get in. She’s down the back there somewhere. Elizabeth, give us all a wave, let them know who you are so they can steal you away from me.’

  Everyone turned around in silence, searching for the designer.

  ‘Oh,’ Henry’s voice echoed, ‘well, she was there a second ago. Maybe someone’s snapped her up already to do a job.’

  Everyone laughed.

  Elizabeth looked inside and saw Mark standing alone with two champagne glasses in his hand, shrugging at everyone who had turned to him and laughing. Pretending to laugh.

  ‘Saoirse,’ Elizabeth’s voice broke, ‘please tell me if there’s something wrong. Have you gotten into trouble again?’

  Silence. Instead of the weak sobbing voice Elizabeth had heard previously, Saoirse’s voice had become strong again. ‘No,’ she snapped. ‘No, I’m fine. Everything’s fine. Enjoy your party,’ and she hung up.

  Elizabeth sighed and slowly hung up the phone.

  Inside the speech had finished and the drums had started up again; the conversation and drinks continued to flow.

  Neither she nor Mark was in the mood to party.

  * * *

  Elizabeth could see a giant figure looming in the distance as she drove down the road that led to her father’s bungalow. She had left work early and was searching for Saoirse. Nobody had seen her for days, not even the local publican, which made a change.

  It had always been difficult to direct people to the bungalow as it was so cut off from the rest of the town. The road didn’t even have a name, which Elizabeth thought was appropriate; it was the road that people forgot. Postmen and milkmen new to the job always took a few days to find the address, politicians never canvassed to their door, there were no trick-or-treaters. As a child Elizabeth had tried to convince herself that her mother had simply become lost and couldn’t find her way home. She remembered sharing her theory with her father, who gave a smile so small it was hardly a smile at all and replied, ‘You know, you’re not far wrong there, Elizabeth.’

  That was the only explanation, if you could even call it that, which she got. They never discussed her mother’s disappearance; neighbours and visiting family hushed when Elizabeth was near. Nobody would tell her what had happened and she didn’t ask. She didn’t want that uncomfortable quiet to descend on them or for her father to storm out of the house when her mother’s name was mentioned. If not mentioning her mother ensured that everyone was happy, then Elizabeth was happy to oblige, as usual.

  She didn’t think she really wanted to know, anyway. The mystery of not knowing was more enjoyable. She would create scenarios in her head, painting her mother in exotic and exciting worlds and she would fall asleep imagining her mother on a desert island, eating bananas and coconuts and sending messages in a bottle to Elizabeth. She would check the coastline every morning with her father’s binoculars for sign of a bobbing bottle.

  Another theory was that she had become a Hollywood movie star. Elizabeth sat with her nose almost up against the TV screen for every Sunday matinée, searching for her mother’s grand debut. But she grew tired of searching, hoping, imagining, and not asking, and eventually she no longer even wondered.

  The figure didn’t move from the window of Elizabeth’s old bedroom. Usually her father would be waiting in the garden for her. Elizabeth hadn’t been inside the bungalow for years. She waited outside for a few minutes, and when there was no sign of her father or of Saoirse she got out of the car, slowly pushed open the gate, goose pimples rising on her skin from the noise of the gate’s hinges, and wobbled up the uneven stone slabs in her high heels. Weeds popped up from the cracks to study the stranger trespassing on their territory.

  Elizabeth knocked twice on the green paint- flecked door and quickly pulled her fist away, cradling it as though it had been burned. There was no answer yet she knew there was someone in the bedroom to the right. She held out her hand and pushed open the door. There was a stillness inside and the familiar musty smell of what she once considered home hit her and stopped her in her tracks for a few moments. Once she had adjusted to the emotions the scent had woken inside her, she stepped inside.

  She cleared her throat. ‘Hello?’

  No answer.

  ‘Hello?’ she called more loudly. Her grown-up voice sounded wrong in her childhood home.

  She began to walk towards the kitchen, hoping her father would hear her and come out to her. She had no desire to revisit her old bedroom. Her high heels echoed on the stone floor, another sound unfamiliar to the house. She held her breath as she stepped into the kitchen and dining area. Everything and nothing was the same. The smells, the clock on the mantel, the lace tablecloth, the rug, the chair by the fireplace, the red teapot on the green Aga, the curtains. Everything still had its place, had aged and was faded with time, but still belonged. It was as though no one had lived there since Elizabeth had left. Maybe no one had truly lived there.

  She stayed standing in the centre of the room for a while, eyeing the ornaments, reaching out to touch them but allowing her fingers only to linger. Nothing had been disturbed. She felt as though she were in a museum; even the sounds of tears, laughter, fights and love had been preserved and hung in the air like cigarette smoke.

  Eventually she couldn’t take it any more; she needed to talk to her father, to find out where Saoirse was, and in order to do that she needed to go to her bedroom. She slowly turned the brass door knob that was still hanging loose as it had been in her childhood. She pushed the door open, did
n’t step in, and didn’t look around. She just looked straight at her father, who sat in an armchair in front of the window, not moving.

  Chapter 24

  She didn’t move her eyes from the back of his head, couldn’t move her eyes anywhere else. She tried not to breathe in the smell but it gathered in her throat, blocking her wind pipe.

  ‘Hello?’ she croaked.

  He didn’t move, just kept his head straight ahead.

  Her heart skipped a beat. ‘Hello?’ She detected an air of panic in her voice.

  Without thinking, she stepped into the room and rushed towards him. She fell to her knees and examined his face. He still didn’t move and kept his eyes straight ahead. Her heart quickened. ‘Daddy?’ rushed out of her mouth in a panic, sounding childlike. It felt real to her then. The word meant something. She held out to touch him, placed one hand on his face and another on his shoulder. ‘Dad, it’s me – are you OK? Talk to me.’ Her voice shook. His skin was warm.

  He blinked and she breathed a sigh of relief.

  He slowly turned to look at her. ‘Ah, Elizabeth, I didn’t hear you come in.’ His voice sounded like it was coming from another room. It was gentle; gone were his gravelly tones.

  ‘I was calling you,’ she said softly. ‘I drove down the road – didn’t you see me?’

  ‘No,’ he said in surprise, turning back to face the window.

  ‘Then what were you looking at?’ She too turned to the window and the view took her breath away. The scene – the path, the garden gate and the long stretch of road – momentarily threw her into the same trance as her father. The same hopes and wishes of the past came back in that instant. On the windowsill sat a photograph of her mother, which had never been there before. In fact, Elizabeth thought her father had got rid of all the photographs after her mother left.

  But the image of her silenced Elizabeth. It was so long since she had seen her mother; she no longer had a face in Elizabeth’s mind. All she was was a fuzzy memory, more like a feeling than a picture. Seeing her was a shock. It was like looking at herself, a perfect mirror image. When she found her voice again she spoke quietly, shaken. ‘What are you doing, Dad?’

  He didn’t move his head, didn’t blink, just had a faraway look in his eye and an unfamiliar voice that came deep from within him. ‘I saw her, Elizabeth.’

  Palpitations. ‘Saw who?’ But she knew who.

  ‘Gráinne, your mother. I saw her. At least I think I did. It’s been so long since I’ve seen her that I wasn’t sure. So I got the photo just so I can remember. So that when she walks down the road I’ll remember.’

  Elizabeth gulped. ‘Where did you see her, Dad?’

  His voice was higher pitched and slightly bewildered. ‘In a field.’

  ‘A field? What field?’

  ‘A field of magic.’ His eyes glistened, seeing it all over again. ‘A field of dreams, as they say. She looked so happy, dancing and laughing just like she always did. She hasn’t aged a day.’ He looked confused. ‘But she should have, shouldn’t she? She should be older, like me.’

  ‘Are you sure it was her, Dad?’ Her whole body was shaking.

  ‘Oh aye,’ twas her, moving in the wind like the dandelions, sun shining on her like she was an angel.’ Twas her, alright.’ He was sitting upright in the chair, two hands lying on the armrests, looking more relaxed than ever.

  ‘She had a child with her, though, and it wasn’t Saoirse. No, Saoirse’s grown up now,’ he reminded himself. ‘It was a boy, I think. Little blond fella, like Saoirse’s boy …’ His thick caterpillar-like eyebrows furrowed for the first time.

  ‘When did you see her?’ Elizabeth asked, dread and relief both filling her body, realising it was she her father had seen in the field.

  ‘Yesterday,’ he smiled, remembering. ‘Yesterday morning. She’ll be coming to me soon.’

  Tears filled Elizabeth’s eyes. ‘Have you been sitting here since yesterday, Dad?’

  ‘Aye, I don’t mind. She’ll be here soon but I need to remember her face. I sometimes don’t remember, you see.’

  ‘Dad,’ Elizabeth’s voice was a whisper, ‘wasn’t there someone else in the field with her?’

  ‘No,’ Brendan smiled, ‘just her and the boy. He looked so happy too.’

  ‘What I mean is,’ Elizabeth held his hand; hers was childlike next to his tough-skinned fingers, ‘I was in the field yesterday. It was me, Dad, catching dandelion seeds with Luke and a man.’

  ‘No.’ He shook his head and scowled. ‘There was no man. Gráinne was with no man. She’s coming home soon.’

  ‘Dad, I promise you it was me, Luke and Ivan. Perhaps you were mistaken,’ she said as gently as she could.

  ‘No!’ he yelled, causing Elizabeth to jump. He faced her with a look of disgust. ‘She’s coming home to me!’ He glared at her. ‘Get out!’ he finally yelled, waving his hand and knocking her small hand off his.

  ‘What?’ Her heart beat wildly. ‘Why, Dad?’

  ‘You’re a liar,’ he spat. ‘I saw no man in the field. You know she’s here and you’re keeping her from me,’ he hissed. ‘You wear suits and sit behind desks, you know nothing of dancing in fields. You’re a liar, pollutin’ the place. Get out,’ he repeated quietly.

  She looked at him in shock. ‘I’ve met a man, Dad, a beautiful, wonderful man who’s been teaching me of all these things,’ she started to explain.

  He moved his face in front of hers until they were almost touching nose to nose. ‘GET OUT!’ he yelled.

  Tears spilled from her eyes and her body shook as she rushed to her feet. Her room became a whirl as she saw everything she didn’t want to see in her disoriented state – old teddies, dolls, books, a writing desk, the same duvet cover. She charged for the door, not wanting to see any more, not being able to see any more. Her trembling hands fumbled with the latch as her father’s yells for her to leave got louder and louder.

  She pulled the door open and ran outside into the garden, breathing the fresh air into her lungs. A knocking on the window spun her round. She faced her father, waving angrily at her to get out of his garden. She gasped for breath, her tears raced down her face and she pulled open the gate and left it open, not wanting to hear the closing creak of its hinges.

  She sped down the road in her car as fast as she could, not looking in the rear-view window, not wanting ever to see the place again, not wanting ever to have to drive down the road of disappointment again.

  There would be no more looking back.

  Chapter 25

  ‘What’s wrong?’ a voice called from the back patio door. Elizabeth was sitting at the kitchen table, head in her hands, as still as Muckross Lake on a calm day.

  ‘Jesus,’ Elizabeth said under her breath, not looking up but wondering how it was that Ivan always managed to appear at the moments when she least expected him but needed him most.

  ‘Jesus? Has he been giving you a hard time?’ He stepped into the kitchen.

  Elizabeth looked up from her hands. ‘It’s actually his father I’m having an issue with right now.’

  Ivan took another step towards her; he had the ability to overstep the boundaries but never in a threatening or intrusive way. ‘I hear that a lot.’

  Elizabeth wiped her eyes with a mascara-stained and crumpled tissue. ‘Don’t you ever work?’

  ‘I work all the time. May I?’ He gestured to the chair opposite her.

  She nodded. ‘All the time? So is this work for you? Am I just another hopeless case for you to deal with today?’ she asked sarcastically, catching a tear halfway down her cheek with the tissue.

  ‘There’s nothing hopeless about you, Elizabeth. However, you are a case; I’ve already told you that,’ he said seriously.

  She laughed. ‘A headcase.’

  Ivan looked sad. Misunderstood again.

  ‘So is that your uniform?’ She indicated his attire.

  Ivan looked down at himself in surprise.

  ‘You’ve been wearing th
at outfit everyday I’ve seen you,’ she smiled, ‘so it’s either a uniform or you’re completely unhygienic and lack imagination.’

  Ivan’s eyes widened. ‘Oh, Elizabeth, I don’t lack imagination at all.’ Not realising what he had implied, Ivan continued, ‘Do you want to talk about why you are so sad?’

  ‘No, we’re always talking about me and my problems,’ Elizabeth replied. ‘Let’s talk about you for a change. What did you do today?’ she asked, trying to perk herself up. It had seemed like such a long time ago since she had kissed Ivan on the main street that morning. She had thought about it all day and had worried about who had seen her, but amazingly, for a town that learned of everything quicker than Sky News, nobody had mentioned a thing to her about the mystery man.

  She had longed to kiss Ivan again, had felt scared about that longing and tried to numb herself of feeling for him but she couldn’t. There was something about him so pure and untarnished, yet he was powerful and well-versed in life. He was like the drug she knew she shouldn’t take but which kept coming back to feed her addiction. As her weariness set in later in the day, the memory of the kiss had become a comfort to her and the uneasiness vanished. All she wanted now was a repeat of that moment where her troubles fizzled away.

  ‘What did I do today?’ Ivan twiddled his thumbs and thought aloud. ‘Well, today I gave Baile na gCroíthe a big wake-up call, kissed a very beautiful woman and then spent the rest of the day being unable to do anything but think of her.’