Cecelia Ahern 2-book Bundle

by Cecelia Ahern

  ‘What size?’ The man behind the desk looked at him.

  ‘Ten please,’ Lou responded, and looked down at Lucy to speak up. Her big brown eyes stared back up at him.

  ‘Tell the man your size, sweetheart,’ he said, feeling Smug Family Man breathing down his neck as he waited.

  ‘I don’t know, Daddy,’ she said, almost in a whisper.

  ‘Well, you’re four, aren’t you?’

  ‘Five,’ she frowned.

  ‘She’s five,’ he told the man. ‘So whatever size a five-year-old would take.’

  ‘It really depends on the child.’

  Lou sighed and took out his BlackBerry, refusing to have to queue again. Behind him, Smug Family Man with the baby in the pouch called over his head, ‘Two size fours, a size three, and an eleven, please.’

  Lou rolled his eyes and mimicked him as he waited for his call to be answered. Lucy laughed and copied his face.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘What size is Lucy?’

  Ruth laughed. ‘She’s a twenty-six.’

  ‘Okay, thanks.’ He hung up.

  Once on the ice, he held on to the side of the rink carefully. He took Lucy’s hand and guided her along. Ruth stood by with Pud, who kicked his legs excitedly while bouncing up and down and pointing at nothing in particular.

  ‘Now, sweetheart,’ Lou’s voice and ankles wobbled as he stepped on the ice, ‘it’s very dangerous, okay, so you have to be very careful. Hold on to the sides now, okay?’

  Lucy held on to the side with one hand and slowly got used to moving along the ice while Lou’s ankles wobbled on the thin blades.

  Lucy started to skate faster. ‘Honey,’ Lou said, his voice shaky as he looked down at the cold, hard ice, dreading what it would feel like to fall. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d fallen, as a child most probably, and childhood was where falling belonged.

  The distance between Lucy and Lou widened.

  ‘Keep up with her, Lou,’ Ruth called from the other side of the barrier, walking alongside him as he moved, and he could hear the smile in her voice.

  ‘I bet you’re enjoying this.’ He could barely look up at her, he was concentrating so much.

  ‘Absolutely.’

  He pushed with his left foot, which skidded further than he planned, and he almost broke into the splits. Feeling like Bambi getting to his feet for the first time, he wobbled and spun, arms waving around in circles like a fly trapped in a jam jar, while not too far away he heard Ruth’s distinctive laugh. But he was making progress. He looked up now and then to keep his eye on Lucy, who was clearly visible in her fire-engine-red coat, halfway around the rink.

  Smug Family Man went flying by him, arms swinging as though he was about to take part in a bobsleigh race, the speed of him almost toppling Lou. Behind him, Smug Family Man’s kids raced along, holding hands, and were they singing? That was it. Slowly letting go of the barrier at the side, his wobbly legs tried to balance. Then, bit by bit, he slid a foot forward, almost toppling backwards, his back arching as though about to fall into a crab position, but he rescued himself.

  ‘Hi Daddy,’ Lucy said, speeding by him as she completed the first round of the rink.

  Lou moved out from the side of the rink, away from the beginners who were shuffling around inch by inch, determined to beat Smug Family Man, who was racing around like the roadrunner.

  Halfway between the centre and the barrier, Lou was out on his own now. Feeling a little more confident, he pushed himself further, trying to swing his arms for balance like the others were doing. He picked up speed. Dodging children and old people, he quite unsophisticatedly darted around the rink, hunched over and swinging his arms, more like an ice-hockey player than a graceful skater. He bumped against children, knocking some over, causing others to topple. He heard a child cry. He broke through a couple holding hands. He was concentrating on not falling over so much that he could barely find the time to apologise. He passed Lucy but, unable to stop, had to keep moving, his speed picking up as he went round and round. The lights that decorated the park trees blurred as he raced around. The sounds and colours of the skaters around him whirled around. Feeling like he was on a merry-go-round, he smiled and relaxed a little bit more, as he raced round, and round, and round. He passed Smug Family Guy; he passed by Lucy for a third time; he passed by Ruth, who he heard call his name and take a photograph. He couldn’t stop and he wouldn’t stop; he didn’t know how. He was enjoying the feel of the wind in his hair, the lights of the city around him, the crispness of the air, the sky so filled with stars as the evening began to close in at the early hour. He felt free and alive, happier than he remembered being for a long time. Round and round he went.

  Alexandra and the crew had taken on the course for the third and final time. Their speed and coordination had come together better over the last hour, and Lou had fixed any previous hiccups that he’d had. They were coming up to rounding the bottom mark and they needed to once again execute the spinnaker drop.

  Lou made sure that the ropes were free to run. Geoff hoisted the genoa, Lou guided it into the luff groove and Luke made sure that the genoa sheet was cleated off. Robert positioned himself to grab the loose sheet under the mainsail so that it could be used to pull in the spinnaker. As soon as he was in position, everyone prepared for everything to happen at once. Geoff released the halyard and helped to stuff the spinnaker down below. Joey released the guy and made sure it ran out fast so that the spinnaker could fly flaglike outside the boat. When the spinnaker was in the boat, Luke trimmed the genoa for the new course, Joey trimmed the main, Geoff lowered the pole and Lou stowed the pole.

  Spinnaker down for the last time and approaching the finishing line, they radioed the race officer on Channel 37 and waited for recognition. Not first in, but they were all happy. Lou looked at Quentin as they sailed in and they smiled. Neither of them said anything. They didn’t need to. They both knew.

  Lying on his back in the middle of the rink with people flying by him, Lou held on to his sore rib-cage and tried to stop laughing, but he just couldn’t. He had done what he had been dreading all his life and achieved the most dramatic and comical fall of the day. He lay in the centre of the rink, with Lucy laughing too, trying to lift his arm and pull him up. They had been holding hands and skating around slowly together when, too cocky, Lou had tripped over his own feet, gone flying and landed on his back. Nothing was broken, thankfully, other than his pride, but even that he surprisingly didn’t care about. He allowed Lucy to believe she was helping him up from the ice as she pulled on his arm. He looked over to Ruth and saw a flash as she took yet another photo. They caught one another’s eyes and he smiled.

  They didn’t say anything about the day that evening. They didn’t need to. They all knew.

  It had been the best day of all of their lives.

  26.

  It All Started with a Mouse

  On the Monday following his weekend of sailing and skating, Lou Suffern found himself floating down the corridor to the room with the bigger desk and better light. It was Christmas Eve and the office block was near empty, but the few souls that haunted the halls – dressed in their casuals – offered pats on the back and firm handshakes of congratulations. He had made it. Behind him, Gabe helped carry a box of his files. Being Christmas Eve, it was the last day he would have the opportunity to prepare himself before the Christmas break. Ruth had wanted him to accompany her and the kids into the city and wander around absorbing the atmosphere, but he knew the best thing to do was to get a headstart in his new job, so that he could come back in the New Year and not have to waste time settling in. Christmas Eve or no Christmas Eve, he was intent on familiarising himself with the job now.

  Down he and Gabe went to his bigger office with better light. When they opened the door and entered, it was almost as though angels were singing, as the morning sun lit a pathway from the door to the desk, shining directly on his new oversized leather chair as though it were an appar
ition. He’d made it. And although he could breathe a sigh of relief, he was about to take another deep breath for the new task ahead of him. No matter what he achieved, the feelings of having to reach again were endless. Life for him felt like an endless ladder that disappeared somewhere in the clouds, wobbling, threatening to topple and bring him down with it. He couldn’t look down now or he would freeze. He had to keep his eyes upward. Onward and upward.

  Gabe placed the boxes down where Lou directed and he whistled as he looked around.

  ‘Some office, Lou.’

  ‘Yeah, it is,’ Lou grinned, looking around.

  ‘It’s warm,’ Gabe added, hands in pockets and strolling around.

  Lou frowned. ‘Warm is … a word I wouldn’t use to describe this’, he spread his hands out in the vast space, ‘enormous fucking office.’ He started laughing, feeling slightly delirious. Tired and emotional, proud and a little fearful, he tried to take it all in.

  ‘So what exactly is it that you do now?’ Gabe asked.

  ‘I’m the Business Development Director, which means I now have the authority to tell certain little shits exactly what to do.’

  ‘Little shits like you?’

  Lou’s head snapped around to face Gabe, like a radar that had found a signal.

  ‘I mean, just a few days ago you would have been one of those little shits being told what to … never mind,’ Gabe trailed off. ‘So how did Cliff take it?’

  ‘Take what?’

  ‘That his job was gone?’

  ‘Oh.’ Lou looked up. He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I didn’t tell him.’

  Gabe left a silence.

  ‘I don’t think he’s well enough yet to talk to anyone,’ Lou added, feeling the need to explain.

  ‘He’s seeing visitors now,’ Gabe told him.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I know. You should go and see him. He might have some good advice for you. You could learn from him.’

  Lou laughed at that.

  Gabe didn’t blink, and stood staring at him in the silence.

  Lou cleared his throat awkwardly.

  ‘It’s Christmas Eve, Lou. What are you doing?’ Gabe’s voice was gentle.

  ‘What do you mean, what am I doing?’ Lou held his hands up questioningly. ‘What does it look like? I’m working.’

  ‘Bar security, you’re the only person left in the building. Haven’t you noticed? Everybody’s out there.’ Gabe pointed out at the busy city.

  ‘Yeah, well, everybody out there isn’t as busy as I am,’ Lou said childishly. ‘Besides, you’re here too, aren’t you?’

  ‘I don’t count.’

  ‘Well, that’s a great answer. I don’t count then, either.’

  ‘You keep on going like this and you won’t. You know, one of the most successful businessmen of all time, a certain Walt Disney, I’m sure you’ve heard of him, he has a company or two here and there,’ Gabe smiled, ‘said that “A man should never neglect his family for business.”’

  There was a long, awkward silence where Lou clenched and unclenched his jaw, trying to decide whether to ask Gabe to leave or physically throw him out.

  ‘But then,’ Gabe laughed, ‘he also said, “It all started with a mouse.”’ Gabe smiled.

  ‘Okay, well, I’d better get to work now, Gabe. I hope you have a happy Christmas.’ Lou tried to control his tone so that if he didn’t exactly sound happy, he at least didn’t sound like he wanted to strangle Gabe.

  ‘Thank you, Lou. A very happy Christmas to you too. And congratulations on your warm, enormous fucking office.’

  Lou couldn’t help but laugh at that, and as the door closed he was alone for the first time in his new office. He made his way to the desk, ran his finger along the walnut border to the pigskin surface. All that was on the desk was a large white computer, a keypad and a mouse.

  He sat down on the leather chair and swung around to face towards the window, watching the city below him preparing for the celebrations. A part of him felt pulled outside, yet he felt trapped behind the window that showed him the world yet wouldn’t let him touch it. He often felt as though he were trapped inside an oversized snow globe, responsibilities and failures sprinkling down around him. He sat in that chair, at that desk, for over an hour, just thinking. Thinking about Cliff; thinking about the events of the past few weeks, and the best day of all, only two days ago. He thought about everything. When a mild panic began inside him, he turned in his chair and faced the office, facing up to it all.

  He stared at that keypad. Stared at it hard. Then he followed the thin white wire that was connected to the mouse. He thought about Cliff, about finding him underneath this very desk, clutching this very keyboard, swinging that very mouse at him with wide, terrified, haunted eyes.

  In honour of Cliff – something that Lou realised he hadn’t managed to do in the entire time that the man had been out of work – he kicked off his shoes, unhooked the keyboard from the computer monitor, and he pushed back the leather chair. He got onto his hands and knees and crawled underneath the desk, clutching the keyboard close to him. He looked at the windows that were floor to ceiling and watched the city racing by. He sat there for another hour, just pondering.

  The clock on the wall ticked loudly in the silence. Gone was the usual hustle and bustle of the office block. No phones ringing, no photocopiers going, no hum of the computers, no voices, no footsteps passing by. Before looking at the clock, he hadn’t heard the seconds at all, but now the ticking seemed to get louder and louder as soon as he’d registered it. Lou looked at the keypad, and then he looked at the mouse. He had a jolt, felt it smack him in the head for the second time that year, but for the first time, Cliff’s message finally reached him. Whatever Cliff had been so afraid of coming to get him, Lou sure as hell didn’t want it chasing him either.

  He clambered out from under the desk, shoved his feet into his polished black leather shoes and walked out of the office.

  27.

  Christmas Eve

  Grafton Street, the busy pedestrian street in Dublin city, was awash with people doing their last-minute shopping. Hands were fighting to grab the last remaining items on shelves, budgets and all thought had gone out of the window as rash decisions were made according to availability and time, and not necessarily with the recipient in mind. Presents first; for who, later.

  For once not keeping up the pace of the panicked around him, Lou and Ruth held hands and slowly wandered the streets of Dublin, allowing others to rush and push by them. Lou had all the time in the world. Ruth had been more than taken aback when he’d arranged to meet her after his earlier brusque no, but, as usual, hadn’t asked any questions. She’d welcomed his new change with a silent delight but with equal amounts of cynicism that she’d refuse to ever speak aloud. Lou Suffern had much to prove to her.

  They walked down Henry Street, which was filled with market stalls as hawkers cleared the last of their stock: toys and wrapping paper, leftover tinsel and baubles, remote-control cars that ran up and down the street, everything on show for the last few hours of manic Christmas shopping. On the ever-changing Moore Street, alongside traditional market stalls, displays included a lively ethnic mix of Asian and African stores. Lou bought Brussels sprouts from the sharp-tongued stall-sellers whose stream-of-consciousness outpourings were enough entertainment for anyone. They attended early Christmas Eve Mass and ate lunch together in the Westin Hotel in College Green, the historic nineteenth-century building, formerly a bank, that had been transformed to a five-star hotel. They ate in the Banking Hall, where Pud spent the entire time lopsided with his head tilted to the ceiling, watching in awe the intricately hand-carved ornate ceiling and the four chandeliers that glistened with the eight thousand pieces of Egyptian crystal, shouting over and over again just to hear the echo of his voice in the high ceiling.

  Lou Suffern saw the world differently that day. Instead of viewing it from thirteen floors up, behind tinted, reinforced glass in an oversized
leather chair, he had chosen to join in. Gabe had been right about the mouse; he’d been right about Cliff teaching him something – in fact it had happened six months ago as soon as the plastic mouse had hit him across the face, causing Lou’s fears and his conscience to resurface after long being buried. In fact, when Lou thought about it, Gabe had been right about a lot of things. The voice that had grated so much on his ear had in fact been speaking the words he hadn’t wanted to hear. He owed Gabe a lot. As the evening was closing in, and the children had to return home before Santa took to the skies, Lou kissed Ruth and the kids goodbye, saw them safely into her car and then headed back to the office. He had one more thing to do.

  In the office lobby, while waiting at the elevators, the doors opened, and as Lou was about to step in Mr Patterson stepped out.

  ‘Lou,’ he said in surprise, ‘I can’t believe you’re working today, you really are a piece of work.’ He eyed the box in Lou’s hand.

  ‘Oh no, I’m not working. Not on a holiday,’ Lou smiled, trying to make a point, subtly attempting to set the ground rules for his new position. ‘I just have to, em,’ he didn’t want to get Gabe into trouble by revealing his whereabouts, ‘I just left something behind in the office.’

  ‘Good, good. Well, Lou,’ Mr Patterson rubbed his eyes tiredly, ‘I’m afraid I have to tell you something. I deliberated over whether to or not, but I think it’s best that I do. I didn’t come in this evening to work either,’ he admitted, ‘Alfred called me in. Said it was urgent. After what happened to Cliff we’re all on tenterhooks, I’m afraid, and so I made my way in quickly.’

  ‘I’m all ears,’ Lou said, the panic building inside him. The elevator doors closed again. Escape route gone.