Cecelia Ahern - The Gift & Thanks for the Memories

‘That Cliff’s not coming back?’

‘Yes, that and … you know,’ he looked around, ‘other things. Maybe a new job, more than likely a promotion. Nice big pay rise.’ He grinned. ‘He’s going to talk to me about it soon.’ Lou cleared his throat. ‘So whatever it is that he has in store for me, I’m going to need those little herbal beauties because I can’t possibly sustain my previous work-rate without ending up either divorced or six feet under.’

‘Ah, yes. Them. Well, you can’t have them.’

Gabe continued pushing the trolley down the hall. Lou quickly followed, yapping at his heels like a Jack Russell after a postman.

‘Ah, come on, I’ll pay you whatever you want for them. How much do you want?’

‘I don’t want anything.’

‘Okay, you probably want to keep them for yourself, I get it. At least tell me where I can get them?’

‘You can’t get them anywhere. I threw them away. You were right about them, they’re not right. Psychologically. And who knows the physical side-effects? They’d probably just end up hurting people in the long run. I mean, I don’t think they were made to be used continuously, Lou. Maybe they were a scientific experiment that found their way out of a lab.’

‘You did what to them?’ Lou panicked, ignoring all that Gabe had said. ‘Where did you put them?’

‘In the skips.’

‘Well, get them for me. Climb in and get them back,’ Lou said angrily. ‘If you just put them there this morning, they will still be there now. Come on, hurry, Gabe.’ He prodded Gabe in the back.

‘They’re gone, Lou. I opened the container and emptied them into the skip, and considering what you deposited inside it last night, I’d steer clear.’

Lou grabbed him by the arm and led him to the staff elevator. ‘Show me.’

Once outside, Gabe pointed the skip out to Lou, large and filthy yellow. Lou charged over. Looking inside, he could see the container sitting on top, so close he could touch it, and then, beside it, the pile of pills lay among a greenish-brown ooze of some sort. The smell was dire and so he held his nose and tried not to retch. The pills were soaked in whatever the substance was and his heart sank. He took off his suit jacket and threw it at Gabe to catch. He rolled up his shirt-sleeves and prepared to shove his hands in the foul-smelling ooze. He paused before going in.

‘If I can’t get these pills, where can I get more?’

‘Nowhere,’ Gabe responded, standing by the back door and watching him, arms folded and sounding bored. ‘They don’t make them any more.’

‘What?’ Lou spun around. ‘Who made them? I’ll pay them to make more.’

This panic went on for a while, Lou interrogating Gabe as to how he could get his hands on more pills, until he realised the only way he could get his hands on them was by dealing with what was right in front of him. Once again distracted, he decided what needed to be dealt with was the skip, not his life.

‘Shit. Maybe I can wash them.’ He stepped closer and leaned in. The smell made him retch. ‘What the hell is that?’ He gagged again and had to step away from the skip. ‘Damn it.’ Lou kicked the skip and then regretted it when the pain hit.

‘Oh look,’ Gabe said in a bored tone. ‘It looks like I dropped one on the ground.’

‘What? Where?’ He instantly forgot the pain in his toe and raced back to the skip like a child racing for the last seat in musical chairs. He examined the ground around the bins. Between the cracks of the cobbles he saw something white peering up at him. Leaning closer, he noticed it was a pill.

‘A-ha! Found one!’

‘Yeah, I had to throw them from a distance, the smell was so bad,’ Gabe explained. ‘A few fell on the ground.’

‘A few? How many?’

Lou got down on his hands and knees and started searching.

‘Lou, you really should just go back inside. You’ve had a good day. Why don’t you just leave it at that? Learn from it and move on?’

‘I have learned from it,’ he said, nose close to the cobbles. ‘I’ve learned that I’m the hero around here with these things. Ah-ha – there’s another one.’ Satisfied that those two were all he could salvage from the skip, he put them in his handkerchief, back into his pocket, and he stood up and wiped his knees.

‘Two will do for now,’ he said, wiping his forehead with his handkerchief. ‘I can see two more under the skip but I’ll leave them for the time being.’

When Lou climbed up from his knees, which were by then black and dirty and his hair dishevelled, he turned around and found he had more company. Alfred was standing beside Gabe, his arms folded, a smug look on his face.

‘Drop something, Lou? Well, look at that. The man of the moment, indeed.’

22. ’Tis the Season …

‘You’ll be there, won’t you, Lou?’ Ruth asked, trying her best to hide the panic from her voice. She moved around their bedroom in her bare feet, the sound of her skin against the wooden floors like little feet splashing in water. Her long brown hair was up in rollers, her body was draped in a towel with beads of shower water glistening on her shoulders as they caught the light.

Lou watched his wife of ten years from their bed, his head moving back and forth as though a tennis-match spectator. They were going into the city centre in separate cars at separate times; he had his office party to get to before joining the rest of his family at a later stage for his father’s party. He wasn’t long home from work, had showered and dressed in the space of twenty minutes, but instead of his usual pacing downstairs and waiting for his wife impatiently, he had chosen to lie on the bed and watch her. He had just learned tonight that watching was so much more entertaining than pacing with a rising anger. Lucy had joined him on their bed only moments ago and was cuddling her blanket. Fresh out of the bath, she was dressed in her sleeping suit and smelled so freshly of strawberries that he almost wanted to eat her.

‘Of course I’ll be there.’ He smiled at Ruth.

‘It’s just that you should have left the house a half-hour ago and that puts you behind as it is.’ She rushed by him and disappeared into the walk-in wardrobe. The rest of her sentence disappeared along with her, as the muffled sounds drifted out into the bedroom, leaving the words behind in the wardrobe hanging on rails and folded neatly on the shelves. He lay back on the bed, rested his arms behind his head and laughed.

‘She’s talking fast,’ Lucy whispered.

‘She does that.’ Lou smiled, reached out and tucked a loose strand of hair behind his daughter’s ear.

Ruth reappeared dressed in her underwear.

‘You look beautiful,’ he smiled.

‘Daddy!’ Lucy giggled outrageously. ‘She’s in her panties!’

‘Yes, well, she looks beautiful in her panties.’ He kept his eyes on Ruth while Lucy rolled around the bed laughing at this idea.

Ruth turned around and studied him quickly. Lou could see her swallow, her face curious, not used to the sudden attention, perhaps worrying that he was acting this way out of guilt, another part of her afraid to become hopeful, afraid that it was yet another build-up to a later let-down. She disappeared to the bathroom for a few moments, and when she re-entered the room she hopped around in her underwear.

Lucy and Lou started laughing while watching her.

‘What are you doing?’ Lou laughed.

‘I’m drying my moisturiser.’ She ran on the spot, smiling. Lucy hopped up and momentarily joined her, giggling and dancing, before deciding her mother was dry, and joining her father back on the bed again.

‘Why are you still here?’ Ruth asked gently. ‘You don’t want to be late for Mr Patterson.’