Cecelia Ahern - The Gift & Thanks for the Memories

‘Well, yeah, Lou,’ Alfred said in a ridiculing tone, with a shrug that went with it. ‘Of course I do. I cleared my schedule as soon as they confirmed it. It’s the biggest chance we’ve got to make the Manhattan development work. We’ve all been talking about this for months.’

The others around the table squirmed uncomfortably in their seats, though there were some, Lou was certain, who would be enjoying this moment profusely, documenting every sigh, look and word to rehash it to others as soon as they were out of the room.

‘Everybody, you can all get back to work,’ Mr Patterson said with concern. ‘We need to deal with this rather urgently, I fear.’

The room emptied and all that were left at the table were Lou, Alfred and Mr Patterson; and Lou instantly knew by Alfred’s stance and the look on his face, by his stubby fingers pressed together in prayer below his chin, that Alfred had already taken the higher moral ground on this one. Alfred was in his favourite mode, his most comfortable position of attack.

‘Alfred, how long have you known about this dinner and why didn’t you tell me?’ Lou immediately went on the offensive.

‘I told you, Lou.’ Alfred addressed him as though he were slow and unable to comprehend.

With Lou a sweaty, unshaven mess and Alfred so cool, he knew he wasn’t coming out of this looking the best. He removed his shaky fingers from the schedule and clasped his hands together.

‘It’s a mess, a bloody mess.’ Mr Patterson rubbed his chin roughly with his hands. ‘I needed both of you at that dinner, but I can’t have you missing the call with Arthur. The dinner can’t be changed, it took us too long to get it in the first place. How about the call with Arthur?’

Lou swallowed. ‘I’ll work on it.’

‘If not, there’s nothing we can do, except for Alfred to begin things, and Lou, as soon as you’ve finished your meeting, you make your way as quickly as you can to Alfred.’

‘Lou has serious negotiations to discuss, so he’ll be lucky if he makes it to the restaurant for after-dinner mints. I’ll be well able to manage it, Laurence.’ Alfred spoke from the side of his mouth with the same smirk that made Lou want to pick up the water jug from the middle of the table and bash it against Alfred’s head. ‘I’m capable of doing it alone.’

‘Yes, well, let’s hope Lou negotiates fast and that he’s successful, otherwise this entire day will have been a waste of time,’ Mr Patterson snapped, gathering his papers and standing up. Meeting dismissed.

Lou felt like he was in the middle of a nightmare; everything was falling apart, all his good work was being sabotaged.

‘Well, that was a disappointing meeting. I thought he was going to tell us about who was taking over when he leaves,’ Alfred said lazily. ‘Not a word out of him, would you believe. I really think he owes it to us to let us know, but I have been in the company longer than you, so …’

‘Alfred?’ Lou stared at him with amazement.

‘What?’ Alfred took a packet of chewing gum out of his pocket and threw one into his mouth. He offered one to Lou, who shook his head wildly.

‘I feel like I’m in the twilight zone. What the hell is going on here?’

‘You’re hungover is what’s going on. You look more like the homeless man than the homeless man himself,’ Alfred laughed. ‘And you should really take one of these,’ he offered the mint gum again, ‘your breath stinks of vomit.’

Lou waved them away again.

‘Why didn’t you tell me about the dinner, Alfred?’ he said angrily.

‘I told you,’ Alfred said, smacking the gum in his mouth. ‘I definitely told you. Or I told Alison. Or was it Alison? Maybe it was the other one, the one with the really big boobs. You know, the one you were banging?’

Lou stormed off on him then and headed straight to Alison’s desk, where he threw the details of that evening’s dinner on her keyboard, stopping the acrylic nails from tapping.

She narrowed her eyes and read the brief.

‘What’s this?’

‘A dinner tonight. A very important one. At eight p.m. That I have to be at.’ He paced the area before her while she read it.

‘But you can’t, you have the conference call.’

‘I know, Alison,’ he snapped. ‘But I need to be at this.’ He stabbed a finger on the page. ‘Make it happen.’ He rushed into his office and slammed the door. He froze before he got to his desk. On the surface his mail was laid out.

He backtracked and opened his office door again.

Alison, who had snapped to it quickly, hung up the phone and looked up at him. ‘Yes?’ she said eagerly.

‘The mail.’

‘Yes?’

‘When did it get here?’

‘First thing this morning. Gabe delivered it the same time as always.’

‘He can’t have,’ Lou objected. ‘Did you see him?’

‘Yes,’ she said, concern on her face. ‘He brought me a coffee too. Just before nine, I think.’

‘But he can’t have. He was at my house,’ Lou said, more to himself.

‘Em, Lou, just one thing before you go … Is this a bad time to go over some details for your dad’s party?’

She’d barely finished her sentence before he’d gone back into his office and slammed the door behind him.

There are many types of wake-up calls in the world. For Lou Suffern, a wake-up call was a duty for his devoted BlackBerry to perform on a daily basis. At six a.m. every morning, when he was in bed both sleeping and dreaming at the same time, thinking of yesterday and planning tomorrow, his BlackBerry would dutifully and loudly ring in an alarming and screeching tone purposely uneasy on the ear. It would reach out from the bedside table and prod him right in the subconscious, taking him away from his slumber and dragging him into the world of the awakened. When this happened, Lou would wake up; eyes closed, then open. Body in bed, then out of bed; naked, then clothed. This, for Lou, was what waking up was about. It was the transition period from sleep to work.

For other people wake-up calls took a different form. For Alison at the office it was the pregnancy scare at sixteen that had forced her to make some choices; for Mr Patterson it was the birth of his first child that had made him see the world in a different light and affected every single decision he made. For Alfred it was his father’s loss of their millions when Alfred was twelve years of age that forced him to attend state school for a year, and although they had returned to their wealthy state without anybody of importance knowing about the family hiccup, this experience changed how he saw life and people forever. For Ruth, her wake-up call was when, on their summer holidays, she walked in on her husband in their bed with their twenty-six-year-old Polish nanny. For little Lucy at only five years old, it was when she looked out at the audience of her school play and saw an empty seat beside her mother. There are many types of wake-up calls, but only one that holds any real importance.

Today, though, Lou was experiencing a very different kind of wake-up call. Lou Suffern, you see, wasn’t aware that a person could be awakened when their eyes were already open. He didn’t realise that a person could be awakened when they were already out of their bed, dressed in a smart suit, doing deals and overseeing meetings. He didn’t realise a person could be awakened when they considered themselves to be calm, composed and collected, able to deal with life and all it had to throw at them. The alarm bells were ringing, louder and louder in his ear, and nobody but his subconscious could hear them. He was trying to knock it off, to hit the snooze button so that he could nestle down in the lifestyle he felt cosy with, but it wasn’t working. He didn’t know that he couldn’t tell life when he was ready to learn, but that life would teach him when it was good and ready. He didn’t know that he couldn’t press buttons and suddenly know it all; that it was the buttons in him that would be pressed.