Cecelia Ahern - There’s No Place Like Here

Judith was the closest of his siblings. Married with five kids, she was a mother from the moment she arrived kicking and screaming into this world. Eight years older than Jack, she had practiced her skills of obedience training and nurturing on every doll and every child that lived nearby. The common joke on the street was that there wasn’t a doll in the city that didn’t sit up straight and shut up when Judith was around. As soon as Jack was born, she turned her attention to him, a real baby whom she could mother and often smother from that day until now. She was still the one he ran to for advice and she still always found time between school runs, diaper changing, and breastfeeding to lend an ear.

As he pulled up outside her terraced house, the front door opened and the wail of a thousand banshees flew past his ears, almost blowing his hair.

“Daaa-deee,” a banshee yelled.

The banshee’s father appeared at the door in an off-white creased shirt with an open top button and a loosened tie in an uneven knot. He held in one hand a mug that he clung to for dear life and gulped on with bulging eyes. His other hand gripped a tattered briefcase while the banshee with white-blond hair, Power Rangers pajamas, and Kermit the Frog slippers clung to his leg.

“Dooon’t gooooo,” she yelled, wrapping her limbs around one of his legs as though her life depended on his staying.

“I have to go, sweetie. Daddy has to work.”

“Nooooooo.”

An arm appeared from inside the door, thrusting a slice of toast in Willie’s direction. “Eat,” said Judith’s voice over more wails from a second source.

Willie took a bite, slugged down some more coffee, and gently shook Katie from his leg. His head disappeared from the doorway, kissed the owner of the arm, shouted, “Bye, kids!” and the door was slammed. The screams were still audible, yet Willie kept a smile on his face. It was eight A.M. and he’d already been through an hour or two of what Jack would consider pure torture. Yet he smiled.

“Hiya, Jack.” His moon-shaped face beamed.

“Good morning Willie,” Jack said, noticing how his shirt buttons strained at his gut, a coffee stain decorated his shirt pocket, and there was toothpaste on his paisley tie.

“Sorry. Can’t talk. Escaping,” he said with chuckle, patting Jack on the back and squeezing into his car. The tailpipe let out a bang and off he sped.

Jack looked around the housing estate of tightly packed gray houses and noticed a similar scene occurring on each doorstep.

He opened the door tentatively, hoping the madhouse wouldn’t swallow him whole. He stepped inside and saw fifteen-month-old Nathan running off down the hall, with a bottle hanging from his lips and naked but for a bulging diaper. Jack followed him. Four-year-old Katie, who only seconds ago had clung to her father as though her world was going to end, was sitting a foot away from the television, cross-legged on the floor, a bowl of cereal spilling onto the already stained carpet, completely captivated by dancing bugs singing about the rainforest.

“Nathan!” Judith called pleasantly from the kitchen, “I have to change your diaper. Come back in here, please!”

She had the patience of a saint, while around her, chaos ensued. Toys cluttered every surface, scribbles and drawings were either pinned to the walls or directly on the walls. There were baskets of dirty clothes, baskets of clean clothes, clotheshorses with drying clothes lining the walls. The television was blaring, a baby was wailing, pots and pans were being banged. It was a human zoo; three girls and two boys, a ten-year-old, an eight-year-old, a four-year-old, a fifteen-month-old, and a three-month-old, all running riot and demanding attention, while Judith sat at the kitchen table, dressed in her stained robe, hair wild and unwashed, things just everywhere, cluttering every surface, and her face a picture of serenity.

“Hi, Jack.” She looked up in surprise. “How did you get in here?”

“The door was open, and I followed your doorman in.” He nodded at Nathan, who had taken his position on the floor, stinky diaper and all, and had resumed banging pots with a wooden spoon. Three-month-old Rachel was shocked into silence, her eyes widened and her lips parted, ready to release bubbles. “Don’t get up.” Jack leaned over Rachel in her cot to kiss Judith.

“Nathan, honey, I told you not to unlock the door without Mammy saying so,” Judith explained calmly. “He keeps turning the lock,” she explained to Jack.

Nathan stopped banging and looked up at her with big blue eyes, a double chin with drool dripping from it. “Dada,” he gurgled in response.

“Yes, you do look like your daddy,” Judith replied, getting to her feet. “Can I get you anything, Jack? A cup of tea, coffee, toast, earplugs?”

“Tea and toast, please. I’ve had enough coffee,” Jack replied, rubbing his face wearily as the banging of saucepans became almost unbearable.

“Nathan, stop,” Judith said firmly, flicking the switch on the kettle. “Come on, let’s change your diaper.”

She lifted him onto a diaper-changing facility in the kitchen and got to work, giving Nathan her house keys to amuse himself with.

Jack looked away, no longer feeling hungry.

“So why aren’t you at work?” Judith asked, holding two pudgy legs together at the ankles as though she were about to stuff a turkey.

“I took the day off.”

“Again?”

He didn’t answer.

“I spoke to Gloria yesterday and she said you’d taken the day off,” Judith explained.

“How did she know?”

Judith pulled a baby wipe from a container. “Now is not the time to start thinking your intelligent partner of eight years is stupid. Oh, what’s that I hear?” She held her hand to her ear and looked off into the distance. Nathan stopped jangling the keys and watched her. “Oh, no, I don’t hear it anymore but I used to hear the sound of wedding bells and the pitter-patter of tiny feet.”

Nathan laughed and continued jangling his keys. Judith popped Nathan back on the floor again, the sound of his feet on the tiles like a duck stepping on puddles.

“Gee, Jack, you’ve gone awful quiet,” she said sarcastically, washing her hands in the kitchen sink, he noted, over a pile of dirty dishes and cups.

“It’s not the right time,” Jack said tiredly, taking the wooden spoon from Nathan, who in turn started screaming, which woke Rachel, who started screaming, which caused Katie to turn up the volume of the television instantly in the living room. “Besides, this place alone is enough of a contraceptive for me.”

“Yes, well, when you marry a man with the name Willie you pretty much know what you’re getting.” In less than one minute Judith had calm again, a cup of tea and a slice of toast on the table before Jack. She finally sat down, removed Rachel from her cot, moved her bathrobe to one side and began breastfeeding while Rachel’s tiny fingers opened and closed in midair, playing an invisible harp with her eyes closed.

“I’ve taken the week off work,” Jack explained. “Arranged it on the way here this morning.”

“You’ve what?” she took a sip of tea. “They let you have more time off?”

“With a bit of persuasion.”

“That’s good. You and Gloria need to spend more time together.” But she could tell by his face that that wasn’t the intention. “What’s going on, Jack?”

He sighed, wanting so much to tell her the story but afraid to do so. “Tell me,” she said gently.

“I came across someone,” he began. “An agency.”

“Yes?” Her voice was low and questioning, like it used to be when he came home from school after being in trouble and was forced to explain such things as why they’d stripped Tommy McGovern naked and tied him to the goalposts in the yard.