Cecelia Ahern - The Gift & Thanks for the Memories

She looks a little taken aback but directs him. ‘Sure, it’s straight down the hall at the end.’

Standing outside, which has a newly hammered ‘For Sale’ sign attached to the front wall, Linda and her husband, Joe, are pressing their faces up against the window and gawking into the living room. A protective feeling comes over me. Then as soon as it comes, it vanishes. Home is not a place – not this place, anyway.

‘Joyce? Is that you?’ Linda slowly lowers her sunglasses.

I give them a big wobbly smile, reaching into my pocket for the bunch of keys, which is already minus my car keys and furry ladybird that used to be on Mum’s set. Even the set of keys have lost their heart, their playfulness; all they have now is their function.

‘Your hair, you look so different.’

‘Hi, Linda. Hi, Joe.’ I hold out my hand to greet them.

Linda has other plans and reaches out to offer me a huge, tight hug.

‘Oh, I’m so sorry for you.’ She squeezes me. ‘Poor you.’

A nice gesture, if perhaps I’d known her a bit longer to than show her three houses over a month ago, and even then she’d done the same with her hands on my practically flat stomach on learning I was pregnant. My body suddenly becoming everybody else’s property, I’d found entirely annoying during my only month of being able to talk about it.

She lowers her voice to a whisper. ‘Did they do that at the hospital?’ She eyes my hair.

‘Eh, no.’ I laugh. ‘They did that at the hair salon,’ I chirp, my usual Lady of Trauma coming back to save the day. I turn the key in the door and allow them to enter first.

‘Oh,’ she breathes excitedly, and her husband smiles and takes her hand. I have a flashback of Conor and me ten years ago, coming to view the house, which had just been deserted by an old lady who had lived alone for the previous twenty years. I follow my younger self and him into the house and suddenly they are real and I am the ghost, remembering what we saw and listening to our conversation, replaying the moment again.

It had reeked inside, had old carpets, creaking floors, rotting windows and wallpaper that was so old it had just gone out of fashion for the third time round. It was disgusting and a money pit, and we loved it as soon as we stood where Linda and her husband stand right now.

We had it all ahead of us back then, when Conor was the Conor I loved and I was the old me; a perfect match. Then Conor became who he is now and I became the Joyce he no longer loved. As the house became more beautiful, our relationship became uglier. We could have lain on a cat-hair-infested rug on our first night in our home back then and would have been happy, but then every minute detail of what was wrong in our marriage we attempted to fix by getting a new couch, repairing the doors, replacing the draughty windows. If only we’d put that much time and concentration into ourselves; self-improvement rather than home improvement. Neither of us thought to fix the draught in our marriage. It whistled through the growing cracks while neither of us was paying attention until we both woke up one morning with cold feet.

‘I’ll show you around downstairs, but, em,’ I look up at the nursery door, no longer vibrating as it had when I first returned home. It is just a door, quiet and still. Doing what a door does. Nothing. ‘I’ll let you wander around upstairs by yourselves.’

‘Are the owners still living here?’ Linda asks.

I look around. ‘No. No, they’re long gone.’

As Justin makes his way down the hall to the toilet, he examines each of the names on the doors, looking for Sarah’s office. He has no idea where to start but maybe if he can find the folder that deals with blood taken from Trinity College in early autumn, then he’ll be closer to finding out.

He sees her name on the door, raps on it gently. When he hears no response he enters and closes it quietly behind him. He looks around quickly, piles of folders on the shelves. He runs immediately to the filing cabinets and starts rifling through them. Moments later the door knob turns. He drops the file back into the cabinet, turns towards the door and freezes. Sarah looks at him, shocked.

‘Justin?’

‘Sarah?’

‘What are you doing in my office?’

You’re an educated man, think of something smart .

‘I took a wrong turn.’

She folds her arms. ‘Why don’t you tell me the truth now?’

‘I was on my way back and I saw your name on the door and I thought I’d come in and have a look around, see what your office is like. I have this thing, you see, where I believe that an office really represents what a person is like and I thought that if we’re to have a future tog—’

‘We’re not going to have a future.’

‘Oh. I see. But if we were to—’

‘No.’

He scans her desk and his eyes fall upon a photograph of Sarah with her arms around a young blonde girl and a man. They pose happily together on a beach.

Sarah follows his gaze.

‘That’s my daughter, Molly.’ She tightens her lips then, angry at herself for saying anything.

‘You have a daughter?’ He reaches for the frame, pauses before touching it and looks to her for permission first.

She nods, lips loosening, and he takes it in his hands.

‘She’s beautiful.’

‘She is.’

‘How old is she?’

‘Six.’

‘I didn’t know you had a daughter.’

‘You don’t know a lot of things about me. You never stuck around long enough on our dates to talk about anything that wasn’t about you.’

Justin cringes, his heart falls. ‘Sarah, I’m so sorry.’

‘So you said, so sincerely, right before you came into my office and started rooting around.’

‘I wasn’t rooting—’

Her look is enough to stop himself from telling another lie. She takes the photo frame from his hands, gently. Nothing about her is rough or aggressive. She is filled with disappointment; not for the first time an idiot like Justin has let her down.

‘The man in the photo?’

She looks sad as she studies it and then places it back on the table.

‘I would have been happy to tell you about him before,’ she says softly. ‘In fact, I remember trying to on at least two occasions.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he repeats, feeling so small he almost can’t see over her desk. ‘I’m listening now.’

‘And I’m sure I remember you telling me you had a flight to catch,’ she says.

‘Right,’ he nods, and makes his way to the door. ‘I am so truly, very, very sorry. I am hugely embarrassed and disappointed in myself.’ And he realises he actually means it from the bottom of his heart. ‘I am going through some strange things at the moment.’

‘Find me someone who isn’t. We all have crap to deal with, Justin. Just please do not drag me into yours.’

‘Right.’ He nods again and offers another apologetic, embarrassed smile before exiting her office, rushing down the stairs and into the car, feeling two foot tall.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

‘What’s that?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Just give it a wipe.’

‘No, you do.’

‘Have you seen something like that before?’

‘Yeah, maybe.’

‘What do you mean, maybe? You either have or you haven’t.’

‘Don’t get smart with me.’

‘I’m not, I’m just trying to figure it out. Do you think it will come off?’

‘I’ve no idea. Let’s ask Joyce.’

I hear Linda and Joe mumbling together in the hallway. I’ve left them to their own devices and have been standing in the galley kitchen, drinking a black coffee and staring out at my mother’s rose bush at the back of the garden and seeing the ghosts of Joyce and Conor sunbathing on the grass during a hot summer with the radio blaring.