A Place Called Here

by Cecelia Ahern

  “I have given you the exact description.” Yes, he noticed it. Footsteps moved toward the door again, the door squeaked, and the bell rang.

  “Was there a name on the watch?” Bobby called out at the last minute, and the squeak of the front door stopped. It closed again, and footsteps got louder as they neared me again.

  “Why do you ask?” Joseph’s voice was firm.

  “Because sometimes people engrave names, dates, or messages on the backs of watches.” Bobby sounded nervous.

  “You asked me if there was a name. Why did you specifically ask about a name?”

  “Some watches have names engraved on them.” His voice went up an octave in defense. “I should know.” He tapped on glass and I guessed it was the jewelry cabinet.

  There was a funny atmosphere outside, I didn’t like it.

  “Let me know if you find the watch. Be quiet about it, you know how people would react if they found out that things from Here were going missing.”

  “Of course, I understand it might give them hope.”

  “Bobby…” Joseph warned, and a chill ran through me.

  “Yes, sir,” Bobby said smartly.

  The door squeaked, the bell rang, and it was closed again. I waited a while to make sure Joseph didn’t come back in. Bobby was silent outside. I was about to stand up when Joseph walked by the window again, closer this time, staring at the building suspiciously. I quickly ducked and lay flat on the floor, wondering why on earth I was suddenly hiding from Joseph.

  Bobby opened the door and looked down at me. “What on earth are you doing?”

  “Bobby Stanley,” I said as I sat up, brushing the dust off me, “you have a lot of explaining to do.”

  He took me by surprise and folded his arms across his chest. “And so have you,” he said coolly. “Want to know why I wasn’t at your auditions? Because nobody told me about them. Want to know why? Because around here everybody knows me as Bobby Duke. Ever since the day I arrived here, I haven’t told anybody that my name is Bobby Stanley. So how did you know?”

  34

  Mr. Le Bon, I assume,” Dr. Burton addressed Jack, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms.

  Jack reddened but he was determined not to back down or be dismissed from Dr. Burton’s company as a raving lunatic. He leaned forward. “Dr. Burton, there are many of us who are trying to find Sandy—”

  “I don’t need to hear any more.” He pushed his chair back, grabbed Jack’s file from the coffee table, and got to his feet. “Our time is up, Mr. Ruttle. You can settle the fee outside with Carol.” He spoke with his back turned as he made his way to his desk.

  “Doctor—”

  “Good-bye, Mr. Ruttle.” His voice rose.

  Jack took the silver watch in his hands and stood. He spoke quietly but quickly while he had the chance. “Can I just say that a garda by the name of Graham Turner may contact—”

  “Enough!” Dr. Burton shouted, slamming the file down on the desk. His face reddened and his nostrils flared. Jack froze and was immediately silenced.

  “You obviously haven’t known Sandy very long or intimately. Taking that into consideration, it’s glaringly obvious that it’s absolutely no business of yours to go snooping around in her life.”

  Jack opened his mouth to protest but he was beaten to it again.

  “But,” Dr. Burton continued, “I believe that you and your group are genuine and so I will tell you this before you take things any further with the police.” He battled visibly with his anger. “I’ll tell you what the Gardaí will tell you if they start calling around. I’ll tell you what Sandy’s own family will tell you.” His anger rose again and he ground his back teeth. “And what every single person who knows her will tell you, and that is this: that this,” he said, and threw his arms up helplessly in the air, “is what Sandy does.”

  Jack tried to speak again.

  “All of the time,” he shouted. “She floats in and floats out, leaves things behind, sometimes she collects them, sometimes she doesn’t.” He placed his hands on his hips, his chest heaving with anger. “But the point is, she’ll come back again. She always comes back.”

  Jack nodded and looked down at the ground. He started to cross the room to leave.

  “You can leave her things here,” Dr. Burton added. “I’ll make sure she gets them and thanks you on her return.”

  Jack slowly lowered the rucksack of her belongings to the ground by the door and quietly stepped out, feeling like a scolded schoolboy, but at the same time feeling sympathy for the schoolmaster who had chastised him. It wasn’t Jack he was angry at. It was the breeze that came and went, blowing sporadic gusts of hot and cold air from puckered lips, kisses that tickled and air that smelled sweet, but who at the snap of her fingers inhaled it all back in an instant. It was Sandy he was mad at. And himself, for his eternal wait.

  Jack left Dr. Burton, hands on hips, staring out the Georgian window, grinding his jaw. Jack closed the door softly behind him, locking the atmosphere inside. It was far too precious to allow to creep into the reception for the awaiting people to sense. It would remain locked in the office, hovering around Dr. Burton while he took the time to process it, deal with it, allow it to cool, and then eventually dissipate.

  The receptionist, Carol, looked at Jack with worry, not sure whether to be frightened of him or sorry for him at the screaming she had heard inside. Jack placed his credit card on the counter and reached down to her desk to pass her a piece of paper.

  “Could you please tell Dr. Burton that if he changes his mind, here’s my phone number and the address of the meeting point later today?”

  She read the note quickly and nodded, still defensive of her boss.

  He entered his PIN into the machine and retrieved his credit card. “Oh, and please give him this, too.” He placed the silver watch on the counter. Her eyes narrowed as he walked away.

  “Mr. Ruttle?” he heard her say as he reached the door. A man reading a car magazine looked up at the mention of the peculiar name.

  Jack froze and turned to her slowly. “Yes?”

  “I’m sure Dr. Burton will be in contact soon.”

  Jack laughed lightly, “Oh, I’m not too sure about that.” He moved to leave again and she cleared her throat, trying to get his attention. He walked back to her desk.

  She leaned forward and lowered her voice. The man took the hint and went back to reading his magazine.

  “It’s usually just a few days each time. The longest was almost two weeks but that was at the beginning. This is by far the longest in a while,” she whispered. “When you find her, tell her to come back to…” She looked sadly at the door to Dr. Burton’s office. “Well, just tell her to come back.”

  As quickly as she’d spoken, she stopped, took the watch from the counter, placed it in a drawer, and carried on typing. “Kenneth,” she called, ignoring Jack now. “Dr. Burton will see you now. Go right in.”

  It’s difficult beginning a relationship with someone you were never allowed to know anything about.

  Our relationship to date had been based on me, and I was finding it hard to make the transition to it suddenly being about the both of us. Every week our meetings were centered on how I was feeling, what I had done that week, what I thought and what I’d learned. He was allowed to access my mind whenever he wanted, that was the sole reason for our relationship; for him to delve into my mind and try to figure me out. And to try and stop me from trying to figure him out.

  A more serious relationship, a more intimate relationship was proving to be the opposite. I had to remember to ask him about him, and to remember that he couldn’t now know everything that was inside my head. Some things had to be held back, for safekeeping, for self-preservation, and in a way, I lost my confidant. The closer we got, the less he knew about me, the more I learned about him.

  An hour a week had been intensified and roles had been reversed. Who’d have thought Mr. Burton had a life beyond the four walls of the old
school. He knew people and did things that I never knew about; things that I was suddenly allowed to know about but wasn’t sure whether I wanted to. How could a person historically incapable of sharing a bed and a head not need to run from all of that? Sure, I went missing for days at a time.

  No, the age gap didn’t matter, it had never mattered. The years weren’t the problem; it was the time that was the fault. This new relationship existed without a ticking clock. There was no long hand to dictate the end of a conversation; I could not be saved by the proverbial bell. He could access me at all times. Of course I ran.

  There’s a fine line between love and hate. Love frees a soul and in the same breath can sometimes suffocate it. I walked that tightrope with all the gracefulness of an elephant, my head weighing me to the side of hate, my heart hoisting me to the side of love. It was a wobbly journey and sometimes I fell. Sometimes I fell for long periods of time, but never for too long.

  Never for as long as this.

  I’m not asking to be liked. I’ve never yearned to be liked, nor am I asking to be understood; I’ve never been that, either. When I behaved that way, when I left his bed, let go of his hand, hung up the phone, and closed his door behind me, even I had difficulty liking me, understanding me. But it’s just how I was.

  How I was.

  35

  Bobby stood at the door of the stockroom, arms folded across his chest, a scowl on his face.

  “What?” I scrambled to my feet and towered over him. He didn’t seem so confident now that I’d risen to my full six-foot-one height. He dropped his hands by his sides and looked up at me. “Your name isn’t Bobby Stanley?”

  “No, according to everybody else here, my name is Bobby Duke,” he said defensively, accusingly, childishly.

  “Bobby Duke?” I rubbed my face in frustration. “What?” I repeated. “The guy from the cowboy movies? Why?”

  “Never mind the why.” His face reddened. “I think the issue here is that you are the only one who knows my real name. How?”

  “I know your mother, Bobby,” I said softly. “There’s no great mystery, it’s as simple as that.” The past few days had consisted of secrets, mysteries, and little white lies. It was time to stop all that, for now anyway. All I wanted to do was meet the people I had been searching for, tell them all that I knew, and then bring them home. That is what I would do. While contemplating all this I suddenly noticed that Bobby had gone completely silent and had whitened ever so slightly.

  “Bobby?” I said.

  He didn’t speak, just backed away a little from the doorway.

  “Bobby, are you OK?” I asked a little more gently.

  “Yeah,” he said, not looking at all OK.

  “You’re sure?”

  “I kind of knew that,” he said quietly.

  “What?”

  “I kind of knew that you knew my mum. Not just when I first opened the shop door this morning and you called me Mr. Stanley and not just when everybody from the auditions told me that you knew so much, but I kind of knew when I kept finding all of your things.” He looked beyond me to my lost life, scattered on the floor. “When you’re on your own, you look for signs. Sometimes you make them up, sometimes they’re actually there, but most of the time you can’t tell the difference between the two. I believed in this one the most.”

  I smiled. “You’re exactly as she said you’d be.”

  His lower lip trembled and he tried to stop it. “Is she OK?”

  “Apart from missing you like crazy, she’s OK.”

  “Ever since Dad left it was always just her and me. She’s on her own now; I hate that she’s on her own.” His voice went up and down as he tried to control it.

  “She’s never alone, Bobby; she has your uncles, aunts, and grandparents. Besides she brings anyone and everyone who’ll listen into her home and goes through photo albums and home videos of you. I don’t think there’s one person in Baldoyle who hasn’t seen you score against St. Kevin’s in the finals.”

  He smiled. “We could have won that match had it not been…” His voice trailed off.

  I continued for him: “Had it not been for Gerald Fitzwilliam getting injured in the second half.”

  He raised his head and looked at me, light in his eyes. “It was Adam McCabe’s fault,” he tutted, and shook his head.

  “He should never have been put in midfield,” I said, and he laughed. He laughed that loud, cartoon laugh that I’d heard so many times in the home videos, the laugh that his family spoke about so much. The high-pitched, addictively funny sound that instantly made me giggle.

  “Wow,” he said, followed by a breath. “You know her well.”

  “Bobby, believe me, you don’t need to know your mother well to know that.”

  Jack sat in Mary Stanley’s home, drinking coffee and watching home videos of her son, Bobby.

  “See this bit here.” Mary inched forward suddenly in her chair, coffee spilling over the side of her mug and falling onto her blue jeans. “Ah.” She jumped back, making a face, and Jack leaped forward thinking she’d burned herself. “That’s where it all went wrong,” she said angrily.

  Jack realized she was still referring to the television and he sat back on the couch.

  “See him?” she pointed at the TV, spilling coffee again.

  “Watch yourself,” Jack warned her.

  “I’m fine.” She rubbed her leg without looking. “This is where it all went wrong. We could have won that match had it not been for him.” She pointed again. “Gerald Fitzwilliam, getting injured right there in the second half.”

  “Mmm,” Jack replied sipping his coffee and watching the amateur footage of the match jumping up and down on the screen. Most of the time all he could see was a blur of green followed by closeups of Bobby’s head.

  “It was Adam McCabe’s fault,” she tutted, and shook her head. “He should never have been put in midfield.”

  Bobby brought me up a small winding staircase, which led to his residence above the shop. I sat waiting for him in his living room on an impressive leather couch I imagined somebody had impatiently waited to be delivered, for longer than the average four-to-six-week period. He brought me in a glass of orange juice and a croissant and my ravenous stomach gurgled in thanks.

  “I thought everybody was supposed to eat in the eatery,” I said, attacking the fresh croissant, which flaked in my hands.

  “Let’s just say the chef has a soft spot for me. She has a son my age back home in Tokyo. She slips me food every once in a while and I occasionally tease her, disgust her, and do other son-like things.”

  “Charming,” I murmured, face covered in pastry.

  Bobby was staring at me, his food untouched on his plate.

  “Whapft?” I said with a mouthful of food. He continued staring and I quickly swallowed. “Is there something on my face?” I felt around.

  “I want to hear more,” he said sombrely.

  I looked sadly to the remainder of food on my plate, wanting so much to finish it but knowing by the look on Bobby’s face that I owed it to his mother to start talking fast.

  “You want to know about your mum?” I washed down the crumbs with orange juice.

  “No, I want to know about you.” He got comfortable on the couch while I watched him, suddenly uncomfortable, with my mouth agape.

  “I was told you ran an acting agency. Was it through the agency that you became friends with my mum?”

  “No, not really.”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “You don’t run an acting agency do you? You don’t seem like the type.”

  My mouth dropped open and I felt oddly insulted. “Why, what type of person usually runs an acting agency?”

  “People that aren’t like you,” he said, but with a smile. “What do you really do?”

  “I search,” I said, smiling. “I hunt.”

  “For talent?”

  “For people.” />
  “For talented people?”

  “I suppose everybody I look for has a talent of some sort, although I’m not too sure about you.” Bobby looked confused and I decided to drop the awkward humor and place my trust in him. “I run a missing-persons agency, Bobby.”

  At first he looked shocked. Then, as the realization hit him, he began to smile, the smile grew into a grin, the grin worked its way into laughter, laughter became the addictively funny sound I knew so well, and then I was laughing too.

  Suddenly he stopped. “Are you here to bring us all home or are you just visiting?”

  I looked at his hopeful face and immediately felt sad. “Neither. I’m stuck here too, unfortunately.”

  At moments when life is at its worst there are two things that you can do: 1) break down, lose hope, and refuse to go on while lying facedown on the ground banging your fists and kicking your legs, or 2) laugh. Bobby and I did the latter.

  “OK, here’s what you have to do. Do not tell anybody else this news,” Bobby said.

  “I haven’t. Apart from Helena and Joseph, nobody else knows.”

  “Good. We can trust them. The idea for the play was Helena’s?”

  I nodded.

  “Clever move.” His eyes glistened mischievously. “Sandy, you really need to be careful. People were talking this morning at the eatery.”

  “People don’t usually talk at the eatery?” I joked, tucking into the remainder of my croissant.

  “Come on, this is serious. They were talking about you. The group of auditionees must have told their friends and their families here about what you’d told them, who in turn told a few other people, and now everybody’s talking.”

  “Is it really that bad that they know? I mean, what harm will it do if they all know I used to look for missing people?”

  Bobby’s eyes widened. “Are you crazy? The vast majority of people here are settled and wouldn’t go back to their old ways if you paid them, and not just because money is of absolutely no use to them here. But there are a number of people, the kind of people that are how I was when I arrived. These people haven’t found their feet yet because they are still trying to find their way out. Those people will latch onto you like you don’t know what and you’ll be wishing you’d never opened your mouth.”