Cecelia Ahern - The Gift & Thanks for the Memories

He gives a single nod and is unsure of how convincing it seems.

Sensing this, Doris begins to pull him away. ‘Well, it was wonderful to meet you all but we really better get back to shopping. Nice to meet you, Kate, Frankie, Joyce sweetie.’ She gives her a quick hug. ‘Enjoy dinner. At eight. Shelbourne Hotel. Don’t forget now.’

‘Red or black?’ Joyce holds up the two dresses to Justin, before he’s pulled away.

He considers this carefully. ‘Red.’

‘Black it is, then,’ she smiles, mirroring their first and only conversation from the hair salon, the first day they met.

He laughs and allows Doris to drag him away.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

‘What the hell did you do that for, Doris?’ Justin asks as they walk back towards their hotel.

‘You’ve gone on and on about this woman for weeks and now you’ve finally got a date with her. What’s so wrong with that?’

‘I have plans tonight! I can’t just stand the person up.’

‘You don’t even know who they are!’

‘It doesn’t matter, it’s still rude.’

‘Justin, seriously, listen to me. This whole Thank You message thing could honestly be somebody playing a cruel joke.’

He narrows his eyes with suspicion. ‘Is it?’

‘I honestly don’t know.’

‘I have no idea,’ Al shrugs, beginning to pant.

Doris and Justin slow down immediately, taking baby steps.

Justin sighs.

‘Would you rather risk going to something where you have no idea what or who to expect? Or go to dinner with a pretty lady, who you are absolutely crazy about and have been thinking about for weeks?’

‘Come on,’ Al joins in, ‘when’s the last time you felt like this about anyone? I don’t even think you were like this with Jennifer.’

Justin smiles.

‘So, bro, what’s it gonna be?’

‘You should really take something for that heartburn, Mr Conway,’ I can hear Frankie telling Dad in the kitchen.

‘Like what?’ Dad asks, enjoying the company of two young ladies.

‘Christian gets that all the time,’ Kate says, and I hear Sam’s babbling echo around the kitchen.

Dad babbles back at him, imitating his non-words.

‘Oh, it’s called, em …’ Kate thinks, ‘I can’t remember what it’s called.’

‘You’re the same as me,’ Dad says to her. ‘You’ve got CRAFT too.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Can’t. Remember. A. Fuc—’

‘OK, I’m coming!’ I call down the stairs to Kate, Frankie and Dad.

‘Yahooo!’ Frankie hollers.

‘OK, I’ve got the camera ready!’ Kate calls.

Dad starts making trumpet noises as I walk down the stairs and I start to laugh. I keep an eye on Mum’s photo on the hall table as I walk down the steps, maintaining eye contact with her all the way as she looks up at me. I wink at her as I pass.

As soon as I step into the hall and turn to them in the kitchen, they all go quiet.

My smile fades. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Oh, Joyce,’ Frankie whispers as though it’s a bad thing, ‘you look beautiful.’

I sigh with relief and join them in the kitchen.

‘Do a twirl.’ Kate films with the video camera.

I spin in my new red dress while Sam claps his podgy hands.

‘Mr Conway, you haven’t said anything!’ Frankie nudges him. ‘Isn’t she beautiful?’

We all turn to face Dad, who has gone silent, eyes filled with tears. He nods up and down quickly, but no words come.

‘Oh, Dad,’ I reach out and wrap my arms around him, ‘it’s only a dress.’

‘You look beautiful, love,’ he manages to say. ‘Go get him, kiddo.’ He gives me a kiss on the cheek and hurries into the living room, embarrassed by his emotion.

‘So,’ Frankie says smiling, ‘have you decided whether it’s going to be dinner or the opera tonight?’

‘I still don’t know.’

‘He asked you out to dinner,’ Kate says. ‘Why do you think he’d rather go to the opera.’

‘Because firstly, he didn’t ask me out for dinner. His sister-in-law did. And I didn’t say yes. You did.’ I glare at Kate. ‘I think it’s killing him not knowing whose life he saved. He didn’t seem so convinced at the end, before he left the shop, did he?’

‘Stop reading so much into it,’ Frankie says. ‘He asked you out so go out.’

‘But he looked guilty to be standing the opera date up.’

‘I don’t know,’ Kate disagrees. ‘He seemed to really want you at that dinner.’

‘It’s a tough decision,’ Frankie summarises. ‘I would not like to be in your shoes.’

‘Hey, they’re my shoes,’ Kate says, insulted. ‘Why can’t you just come clean and tell him that it’s you?’

‘My way of coming clean was supposed to be him seeing me at the opera. This was going to be it, the night he found out.’

‘So go to dinner and tell him that it was you all along.’

‘But what if he goes to the opera?’

We talk in circles for a while longer, and when they leave, I discuss the pros and cons of both situations with myself until my head is spinning so much I can’t think any more. When the taxi arrives, Dad walks me to the door.

‘I don’t know what you girls were in such deep conversation about but I know you’ve to make a decision about something. Have you made it?’ Dad asks softly.

‘I don’t know, Dad.’ I swallow hard. ‘I don’t know what the right decision is.’

‘Of course you do. You always take your own route, love. You always have.’

‘What do you mean?’

He looks out to the garden. ‘See that trail there?’

‘The garden path?’

He shakes his head and points to a track in the lawn where the grass has been trampled on and the soil is slightly visible beneath. ‘You made that path.’

‘What?’ I’m confused now.

‘As a little girl,’ he smiles. ‘We call them “desire lines” in the gardening world. They’re the tracks and trails that people make for themselves. You’ve always avoided the paths laid down by other people, love. You’ve always gone your own way, found your own way, even if you do eventually get to the same point as everybody else. You’ve never taken the official route,’ he chuckles to himself. ‘No, indeed you haven’t. You’re certainly your mother’s daughter, cutting the corners, creating spontaneous paths, while I’d stick to the routes and make my way the long way round.’ He smiles as he reminisces.

We both study the small well-worn ribbon of trampled grass across the garden leading to the path.

‘Desire lines,’ I repeat, seeing myself as a little girl, as a teenager, a grown woman, cutting across that patch, each time. ‘I suppose desire isn’t linear. There is no straightforward way of going where you want.’

‘Do you know what you’re going to do now?’ he asks as the taxi arrives.

I smile and kiss him on his forehead. ‘I do.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

I step out of the taxi at Stephen’s Green and immediately see the crowds flowing towards the Gaiety Theatre, all dressed in their finest for the National Irish Opera’s production. I have never been to an opera before, have only ever seen one on television, and my heart, tired of a body that can’t keep up with it, is pounding to get out of my body and run into the building itself. I’m filled with nerves, with anticipation, and with the greatest hope I have ever felt in my life, that the final part of my plan will come together. I’m terrified that Justin will be angry that it’s me, though why he would be, I’ve run through a hundred thousand times in my head and can’t seem to come to any rational conclusion.

I stand halfway between the Shelbourne Hotel and the Gaiety Theatre, no less than three hundred yards between them. I look from one to the other, close my eyes and don’t care how stupid I look in the middle of the road as people pass by me on this Saturday night. I wait to feel the pull. Which way to go. Right to the Shelbourne. Left to the Gaiety. My heart drums in my chest.