Cecelia Ahern - The Gift

He felt a presence beside him, and he didn’t need to turn around to know who it was.

“You’re following me?” he asked, still watching through the window.

“Nah, just figured you’d come here,” Gabe responded, shivering and stuffing his hands into his pockets. “How are you doing in there? Entertaining the crowd as usual, I see. Ah, it’s the one about the three blondes in the elevator. You do like telling that joke, don’t you?”

“What’s going on, Gabe?”

“Busy man like you? You got what you wished for. Now you can do everything. Mind you, it’ll wear off by the morning, so watch out for that.”

“Which one of us is the real me?”

“Neither of you, if you ask me.”

Lou finally turned to look at him then, and frowned. “Enough of the deep insights, please. They don’t work on me.”

Gabe sighed. “Both of you are real. You both function as you always do. You’ll eventually merge back into one and be as right as rain again.”

“And who are you?”

Gabe rolled his eyes. “You’ve been watching too many holiday movies. I’m Gabe. The same guy you dragged off the streets.”

“What’s in these?” Lou took the pills out of his pocket. “Are they dangerous?”

“Just a little bit of insight. And that never killed anyone.”

“But these things…you could make some real money. Who else knows about them?”

“All the right people — the people who made them — and don’t you go trying to make a fortune off them, or you’ll have a few serious people to answer to.”

Lou backed off for the moment. “Gabe, you can’t just double me up and then expect me to accept it without question. This could have dire medical consequences for me, not to mention life-changing psychological reactions. And the rest of the world really needs to know about this. This is insane! We really need to talk about this — I need to know much more.”

“Sure, we will.” Gabe studied him. “And then, when you tell the world, you’ll either be locked up in a padded cell or you’ll become a freak-show act, and every day you can read about yourself in exactly the same amount of column inches as Dolly the cloned sheep. If I were you, I’d just keep quiet about it all and make the best of a very fortunate situation.” He paused. “Wait, you’re very pale. Are you okay?”

Lou laughed hysterically. “No, I’m not okay! This is not normal. Why are you behaving like this is normal?!”

Gabe shrugged. “I’m just used to it, I guess.”

“Used to it?” Lou asked, bewildered. “Then you tell me, where do I go now?”

“Well, you’ve taken care of business at the office, and it looks like your other half is taking care of business here.” Gabe smiled. “That would leave one special place for you to go.”

Lou thought about that, and then a smile slowly crawled onto his face as he finally understood Gabe for the first time that evening. “Okay, let’s go.”

“I think Ruth would rather you come home alone tonight,” Gabe said. “She liked me, but she didn’t like me that much.”

“What the hell are you talking about? I’m not going home. Let’s go to the pub. We have to celebrate.”

Gabe stared at him.

“What’s wrong?”

“Go home, Lou.”

“Home?” Lou scrunched up his face. “Why would I do that? You’ve just given me a free ticket to stay out late. He can bloody well go home.” He turned back to watch himself at the dinner table, launching into yet another story. “Oh, I’m telling the one about the time I was stranded in the Boston airport. There was this woman on the same flight as me…” He grinned, turning around to tell Gabe the story, but his friend was gone.

“Suit yourself,” Lou mumbled. He watched himself for a little bit longer, still in shock and unsure whether he was really experiencing this night. He definitely deserved a pint, and if the other half of him was heading home after the dinner, that meant he could stay out all night and nobody would notice — nobody, that was, but the person he ended up with. Happy days.

A TRIUMPHANT LOU ROLLED UP to his home, gratified by the sound of the gravel beneath his wheels and the sight of his electronic gates closing behind him. The dinner meeting had been a success: he had commanded the conversation and had done some of the best convincing, negotiating, and entertaining he’d ever done. They’d laughed at his jokes, all his best ones, and they’d hung on his every word. All the gentlemen had left the table content and in full agreement. He’d shared a final drink with an equally jubilant Alfred before driving home.

The lights in the downstairs rooms were out, but they were all on upstairs, despite this late hour, bright enough to help land a plane.

He stepped inside, into the blackness. Ruth usually left the entrance-hall lamp on, and he felt around the walls for the light switch. There was an ominous smell in the air.

“Hello?” he called. His voice echoed three flights up to the skylight in the roof.

The house was a mess, not the usual tidiness that greeted him when he came home. Toys were scattered around the floor. He tutted.

“Hello?” He made his way upstairs. “Ruth?”

He waited for her shushing to break the silence, but it didn’t.

Instead, once he reached the landing, Ruth ran from Lucy’s bedroom and dashed by him, hand over her mouth, eyes wide and bulging. She hurried into their bathroom and closed the door. This was followed by the sound of her vomiting.

Down the hall, Lucy started to cry and call for her mother.

Lou stood in the middle of the landing, looking from one room to the other, frozen on the spot.

“Go to her, Lou,” Ruth just about managed to say before another encounter with the toilet bowl.

He was hesitant, and Lucy’s cries got louder.

“Lou!” Ruth yelled, more urgently this time.

He jumped, startled by her tone, and made his way to Lucy’s room. He slowly pushed open the door and peeked inside, feeling like an intruder as he entered a world he had never ventured into before. The smell of vomit was pungent inside. Her bed was empty, but her sheets and pink duvet were unkempt from where she’d been sleeping. He followed her sounds into the bathroom and found her on the tiles, bunny slippers on her feet, throwing up into the toilet. She was weeping quietly as she did so. Spitting and crying, crying and spitting, her sounds echoing into the base of the toilet.

Lou stood there, looking around, briefcase still in his hand, unsure of what to do. He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and covered his nose and mouth, both to block the smell and to prevent the infection from spreading to him.

Ruth returned, much to his relief, and noted him just idly standing by and watching his five-year-old daughter being ill, then barged by him to tend to her.

“It’s okay, sweetheart.” Ruth fell to her knees and wrapped her arms around her daughter. “Lou, I need you to get me two damp facecloths.”

“Damp?”

“Run them under some cold water and wring them out so they’re not dripping wet,” she explained calmly.

“Of course, yes.” He shook his head at himself. He wandered slowly out of the bedroom, then froze once again on the landing. Looked left, looked right. He returned to the bedroom. “Facecloths are in the…?”

“Hall closet,” Ruth said.

“Of course.” He made his way to the closet and, with his briefcase still in hand and his coat on, fingered the various colors of facecloths inside. Brown, beige, or white. He couldn’t decide. Choosing brown, he returned to Lucy and Ruth, ran them under the tap, and handed them to her, hoping what he’d done was correct.