Cecelia Ahern: The Gift & Thanks for the Memories

Sergeant Raphael O’Reilly moved slowly and methodically about the cramped staff kitchen of Howth Garda Station, his mind going over and over the revelations of the morning. Known to others as Raphie, pronounced Ray-fee , at fifty-nine years old he had one more year to go until his retirement. He’d never thought he’d be looking forward to that day until the events of this morning had grabbed him by the shoulders, turned him upside down like a snow-shaker, and he’d been forced to watch all his preconceptions sprinkle to the ground. With every step he took he heard the crackle of his once-solid tight beliefs under his boots. Of all the mornings and moments he had experienced in his forty-year career, what a morning this one had been.

He spooned two heaps of instant coffee into his mug. The mug, shaped like an NYPD squad car, had been brought back from New York by one of the boys at the station, as his Christmas gift. He pretended the sight of it offended him, but secretly he found it comforting. Gripping it in his hands during that morning’s Kris Kringle reveal, he’d time-travelled back over fifty years to when he’d received a toy police car one Christmas from his parents. It was a gift he’d cherished until he’d abandoned it outside overnight and the rain had done enough rust damage to force his men into early retirement. He held the mug in his hands now, feeling that he should run it along the countertop making siren noises with his mouth before crashing it into the bag of sugar, which – if nobody was around to see – would consequently tip over and spill onto the car.

Instead of doing that, he checked around the kitchen to ensure he was alone, then added half a teaspoon of sugar to his mug. A little more confident, he coughed to disguise the crinkling sound of the sugar bag as the spoon once again pushed down and then quickly fired a heaped teaspoon into the mug. Having gotten away with two spoons, he became cocky and reached into the bag one more time.

‘Drop your weapon, sir,’ a female voice from the doorway called with authority.

Startled by the sudden presence, Raphie jumped, the sugar from his spoon spilling over the counter. It was a mug-on-sugar-bag pile-up. Time to call for back-up.

‘Caught in the act, Raphie.’ His colleague Jessica joined him at the counter and whipped the spoon from his hand.

She took a mug from the cupboard – a Jessica Rabbit novelty mug, compliments of Kris Kringle – and slid it across the counter to him. Porcelain Jessica’s voluptuous breasts brushed against his car, and the boy in Raphie thought about how happy his men inside would be.

‘I’ll have one too.’ She broke into his thoughts of his men playing pat-a-cake with Jessica Rabbit.

‘Please,’ Raphie corrected her.

‘Please,’ she imitated him, rolling her eyes.

Jessica was a new recruit. She’d just joined the station six months ago, and already Raphie had grown more than fond of her. He had a soft spot for the twenty-six-year-old, five-foot-four athletic blonde who always seemed willing and able, no matter what her task was. He also felt she brought a much-needed feminine energy to the all-male team at the station. Many of the other men agreed, but not quite for the same reasons as Raphie. He saw her as the daughter that he’d never had. Or that he’d had, but lost. He shook that thought out of his head and watched Jessica cleaning the spilled sugar from the counter.

Despite her energy, her eyes – almond-shaped and such a dark brown they were almost black – buried something beneath. As though a top-layer of soil had been freshly added, and pretty soon the weeds or whatever was decaying beneath would begin to show. Her eyes held a mystery that he didn’t much want to explore, but he knew that whatever it was, it drove her forward during those stand-out times when most sensible people would go the opposite way.

‘Half a spoon is hardly going to kill me,’ he added grumpily after tasting his coffee, knowing that just one more spoon would have made it perfect.

‘If pulling that Porsche over almost killed you last week, then half a spoon of sugar most certainly will. Are you actually trying to give yourself another heart attack?’

Raphie reddened. ‘It was a heart murmur , Jessica, nothing more, and keep your voice down,’ he hissed.

‘You should be resting,’ she said more quietly.

‘The doctor said I was perfectly normal.’

‘Then the doctor needs his head checked, you’ve never been perfectly normal.’

‘You’ve only known me six months,’ he grumbled, handing her the mug.

‘Longest six months of my life,’ she scoffed. ‘Okay then, have the brown,’ she said, feeling guilty, shovelling the spoon into the brown sugar bag and emptying a heaped spoon into his coffee.

‘Brown bread, brown rice, brown this, brown that. I remember a time when my life was in Technicolor.’

‘I bet you can remember a time when you could see your feet when you looked down too,’ she said without a second’s thought.

In an effort to dissolve the sugar in his mug completely, she stirred the spoon so hard that a portal of spinning liquid appeared in the centre. Raphie watched it and wondered: If he dived into that mug, where would it bring him.

‘If you die drinking this, don’t blame me,’ she said, passing it to him.

‘If I do, I’ll haunt you until the day you die.’

She smiled but it never reached her eyes, fading somewhere between her lips and the bridge of her nose.

He watched the portal in his mug begin to die down, his chance of leaping into another world disappearing fast along with the steam that escaped the liquid. Yes, it had been one hell of a morning. Not much of a morning for smiles. Or maybe it was. A morning for half-smiles, perhaps. He couldn’t decide.

Raphie handed Jessica a mug of steaming coffee – black with no sugar, just as she liked – and they both leaned against the countertop, facing one another, their lips blowing on their coffee, their feet touching the ground, their minds in the clouds.

He studied Jessica, hands wrapped around the mug and staring intently into her coffee as though it were a crystal ball. How he wished it was; how he wished they had the gift of foresight to stop so many of the things they witnessed. Her cheeks were pale, a light red rim around her eyes the only give-away to the morning they’d had.

‘Some morning, eh, kiddo?’

Those almond-shaped eyes glistened but she stopped herself and hardened. She nodded and swallowed the coffee in response. He could tell by her attempt to hide the grimace that it burned, but she took another sip as if in defiance. Standing up even against the coffee.

‘My first Christmas Day on duty, I played chess with the sergeant for the entire shift.’

She finally spoke. ‘Lucky you.’

‘Yeah,’ he nodded, remembering back. ‘Didn’t see it that way at the time, though. Was hoping for plenty of action.’

Forty years later he’d gotten what he’d hoped for and now he wanted to give it back. Return the gift. Get his time refunded.

‘You win?’

He snapped out of his trance. ‘Win what?’

‘The chess game.’

‘No,’ he chuckled. ‘Let the sergeant win.’

She ruffled her nose. ‘You wouldn’t see me letting you win.’

‘I wouldn’t doubt it for a second.’

Guessing the hot drink had reached the right temperature, Raphie finally took a sip of coffee. He immediately clutched at his throat, coughing and spluttering, feigning death and knowing immediately that despite his best efforts to lift the mood, it was in poor taste.

Jessica merely raised an eyebrow and continued sipping.

He laughed and then the silence continued.

‘You’ll be okay,’ he assured her.