Cecelia Ahern - The Gift & Thanks for the Memories

‘Or you’ll what?’

‘Or I’ll bring him in myself.’ She lowered the mug slowly from her lips and those intense, secretive eyes stared deep into his. ‘Bring him in for what, Raphie?’

Raphie ignored her and instead poured himself another coffee, adding two sugars, which Jessica – sensing his mood – did not protest to. He filled a Styrofoam cup with water and shuffled off down the corridor again.

‘Where are you going?’ she called after him.

‘To finish the story,’ he grumbled.

The Remainder of the Story

21. Man of the Moment

‘Wakey wakey,’ a sing-song voice penetrated Lou’s drunken dreams, where everything was being rerun a hundred times over: mopping Lucy’s brow, plugging Pud’s soother back into his mouth, holding back Lucy’s hair over the toilet, hugging his wife close, Ruth’s body relaxing against his, then back to Lucy’s heated brow again, Pud spitting out his soother, Ruth’s smile when he’d told her he loved her.

He smelled fresh coffee under his nose. He finally opened his eyes and jumped back with fright at the sight that greeted him, bumping his already throbbing head against the concrete wall.

Lou took a moment to adjust to his surroundings. Sometimes the visions that greeted his newly opened eyes of a morning were more comforting than others. As opposed to the mug of coffee that at that moment was thrust mere inches from his nose, he was more accustomed to the sound of a toilet flush acting as his wake-up call. Often, the wait for the mystery toilet-flusher to exit the bathroom and show her face in the bedroom was a long and unnerving one, and on some occasions, though rare, Lou had taken it upon himself to disappear from the bed, and the building – at exactly the same time – before the mystery woman had the opportunity to show her face.

On this particular morning after Lou Suffern had been doubled up for the very first time, he was faced with a new scenario: a man of similar age was before him thrusting a mug of coffee at him with a satisfied look on his face. This was certainly a new one for the books. Thankfully, the young man was Gabe, and Lou found, with much relief, that they were both fully dressed and that there was no toilet-flushing involved. With a throbbing head and the foul stench of rotting dead rats working his mouth, like a presidential candidate working a room on a campaign trail, he took in his surroundings.

He was on the ground. That he could tell by his proximity to the concrete and the longer distance to the open panelled ceiling with wires dripping down. The floor was hard despite the sleeping bag beneath him. He had a crick in his neck from the position his head had been rather unfortunately lodged in against the concrete wall. Above him, metal shelves towered to the ceiling: hard, grey, cold and depressing, they stood like the cranes that littered Dublin’s skyline, metal invaders umpiring a developing city. To the left, a shadeless lamp was the guilty party behind the unforgiving bright white light that wasn’t so much thrown around the room as it was aimed at Lou’s head, like a pistol in a steady hand. What was glaringly obvious was that he was in Gabe’s storage room, in the basement. Gabe stood over him, his hand thrust towards him, and in it a mug of steaming coffee. The sight was familiar, a mirror-image of only a week ago, when Lou had stopped on the street to offer Gabe a coffee. Only this time the image was as distorted and disturbing as a funfair mirror, because when Lou assessed the situation, it was him that was down here, and Gabe that was up there.

‘Thanks.’ He took the mug from Gabe, wrapping his cold hands around the porcelain. He shivered. ‘It’s freezing in here.’ His first words were a croak, and as he sat up he felt the weight of the world crashing down on his head as a hangover for the second morning running reminded him that although age had brought him much to celebrate – for example, the nose that as a boy had always been too big for his face, was finally, in his thirties, in proportion – this hangover was not one of them.

‘Yeah, someone promised to bring me an electric heater but I’m still waiting.’ Gabe grinned. ‘Don’t worry, I hear blue lips are in this season.’

‘Oh, sorry, I’ll get Alison on to that,’ Lou mumbled, and sipped on the black coffee. He had taken his initial wakening moment to figure out where he was, and once the confusion of his whereabouts had been cleared up and his position established, he relaxed and started drinking. But the one sip of caffeine that followed alerted him to another problem.

‘What the hell am I doing here?’ He sat up properly, attentive now, and studied himself for clues. He was dressed in yesterday’s suit, a crumpled, rumpled mess with some questionable, though mostly self-explanatory, stains on his shirt, tie and jacket. In fact there was dirt just about everywhere he looked. ‘What the hell is that smell?’

‘I think it’s you,’ Gabe smiled. ‘I found you around the back of the building last night throwing up into a skip.’

‘Oh God,’ Lou whispered, covering his face with his hands. Then he looked up, confused. ‘But last night I was home. Ruth and Lucy; they were sick. And as soon as they fell asleep, Pud woke up.’ He rubbed his face tiredly. ‘Did I just dream that?’

‘Nope,’ Gabe replied chirpily, pouring hot water into his instant coffee. ‘You did that too. You were very busy last night, don’t you remember?’

It took a moment for last night’s events to register with Lou, but the onslaught of memories of the previous night – the pill, doubling up – came to his mind and suddenly pennies were dropping all over the place like a malfunctioning coin dispenser.

‘That girl I met.’ He aborted the sentence, both wanting to know the answer and not wanting to know at exactly the same time. A part of him was sure of his innocence, while the other part of him wanted to take himself outside and beat himself up for possibly jeopardising his marriage again. His body broke out into a cold sweat, which added a new scent to the mix.

Gabe let him stew for a while, as he blew on his coffee and took tiny sips like a mouse nibbling on a hot piece of cheese.

‘You met a girl?’ he asked, wide-eyed and innocent.

‘I, erm, I met a – never mind – was I alone when you found me last night?’ Same question, different words. Both at the same time.

‘Indeed you were, very alone. Though not lonely, you were quite content to keep yourself company, mumbling about a girl,’ Gabe teased him. ‘Seemed as though you’d lost her and couldn’t remember where you’d put her. You didn’t find her at the bottom of the skip, anyway, though perhaps if we clear away the layer of vomit you deposited in the recycle bin, your cardboard cut-out woman may be revealed.’

‘What did I say? I mean, don’t tell me exactly, just tell me if I said anything about – you know – shit, if I’ve done something, Ruth will kill me.’ Tears sprang into his eyes. ‘I’m the biggest fucking asshole.’ He kicked away the crate that was at the end of the sleeping bag, with frustration.

Gabe’s smile faded, respecting this side of Lou. ‘You didn’t do anything with her.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I know.’

Lou studied him then, warily, curiously, distrustingly and then trusting all at the same time. Gabe seemed to be his everything right then: his one parent, the kidnapper he was growing to like, the only person who understood his situation, yet the one who had put him in that situation. A dangerous relationship.

‘Gabe, we really have to talk about these pills. I don’t want them any more.’ He took them out of his pocket. ‘I mean, last night was a revelation, it really was, in so many ways.’ He rubbed his eyes tiredly, remembering the sound of his drunken voice at the end of the phone. ‘I mean, are there two of me now?’