Cecelia Ahern - The Gift & Thanks for the Memories

Alexandra and the crew had taken on the course for the third and final time. Their speed and coordination had come together better over the last hour, and Lou had fixed any previous hiccups that he’d had. They were coming up to rounding the bottom mark and they needed to once again execute the spinnaker drop.

Lou made sure that the ropes were free to run. Geoff hoisted the genoa, Lou guided it into the luff groove and Luke made sure that the genoa sheet was cleated off. Robert positioned himself to grab the loose sheet under the mainsail so that it could be used to pull in the spinnaker. As soon as he was in position, everyone prepared for everything to happen at once. Geoff released the halyard and helped to stuff the spinnaker down below. Joey released the guy and made sure it ran out fast so that the spinnaker could fly flaglike outside the boat. When the spinnaker was in the boat, Luke trimmed the genoa for the new course, Joey trimmed the main, Geoff lowered the pole and Lou stowed the pole.

Spinnaker down for the last time and approaching the finishing line, they radioed the race officer on Channel 37 and waited for recognition. Not first in, but they were all happy. Lou looked at Quentin as they sailed in and they smiled. Neither of them said anything. They didn’t need to. They both knew.

Lying on his back in the middle of the rink with people flying by him, Lou held on to his sore rib-cage and tried to stop laughing, but he just couldn’t. He had done what he had been dreading all his life and achieved the most dramatic and comical fall of the day. He lay in the centre of the rink, with Lucy laughing too, trying to lift his arm and pull him up. They had been holding hands and skating around slowly together when, too cocky, Lou had tripped over his own feet, gone flying and landed on his back. Nothing was broken, thankfully, other than his pride, but even that he surprisingly didn’t care about. He allowed Lucy to believe she was helping him up from the ice as she pulled on his arm. He looked over to Ruth and saw a flash as she took yet another photo. They caught one another’s eyes and he smiled.

They didn’t say anything about the day that evening. They didn’t need to. They all knew.

It had been the best day of all of their lives.

26. It All Started with a Mouse

On the Monday following his weekend of sailing and skating, Lou Suffern found himself floating down the corridor to the room with the bigger desk and better light. It was Christmas Eve and the office block was near empty, but the few souls that haunted the halls – dressed in their casuals – offered pats on the back and firm handshakes of congratulations. He had made it. Behind him, Gabe helped carry a box of his files. Being Christmas Eve, it was the last day he would have the opportunity to prepare himself before the Christmas break. Ruth had wanted him to accompany her and the kids into the city and wander around absorbing the atmosphere, but he knew the best thing to do was to get a headstart in his new job, so that he could come back in the New Year and not have to waste time settling in. Christmas Eve or no Christmas Eve, he was intent on familiarising himself with the job now.

Down he and Gabe went to his bigger office with better light. When they opened the door and entered, it was almost as though angels were singing, as the morning sun lit a pathway from the door to the desk, shining directly on his new oversized leather chair as though it were an apparition. He’d made it. And although he could breathe a sigh of relief, he was about to take another deep breath for the new task ahead of him. No matter what he achieved, the feelings of having to reach again were endless. Life for him felt like an endless ladder that disappeared somewhere in the clouds, wobbling, threatening to topple and bring him down with it. He couldn’t look down now or he would freeze. He had to keep his eyes upward. Onward and upward.

Gabe placed the boxes down where Lou directed and he whistled as he looked around.

‘Some office, Lou.’

‘Yeah, it is,’ Lou grinned, looking around.

‘It’s warm,’ Gabe added, hands in pockets and strolling around.

Lou frowned. ‘Warm is … a word I wouldn’t use to describe this’, he spread his hands out in the vast space, ‘enormous fucking office.’ He started laughing, feeling slightly delirious. Tired and emotional, proud and a little fearful, he tried to take it all in.

‘So what exactly is it that you do now?’ Gabe asked.

‘I’m the Business Development Director, which means I now have the authority to tell certain little shits exactly what to do.’

‘Little shits like you?’

Lou’s head snapped around to face Gabe, like a radar that had found a signal.

‘I mean, just a few days ago you would have been one of those little shits being told what to … never mind,’ Gabe trailed off. ‘So how did Cliff take it?’

‘Take what?’

‘That his job was gone?’

‘Oh.’ Lou looked up. He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I didn’t tell him.’

Gabe left a silence.

‘I don’t think he’s well enough yet to talk to anyone,’ Lou added, feeling the need to explain.

‘He’s seeing visitors now,’ Gabe told him.

‘How do you know?’

‘I know. You should go and see him. He might have some good advice for you. You could learn from him.’

Lou laughed at that.

Gabe didn’t blink, and stood staring at him in the silence.

Lou cleared his throat awkwardly.

‘It’s Christmas Eve, Lou. What are you doing?’ Gabe’s voice was gentle.

‘What do you mean, what am I doing?’ Lou held his hands up questioningly. ‘What does it look like? I’m working.’

‘Bar security, you’re the only person left in the building. Haven’t you noticed? Everybody’s out there.’ Gabe pointed out at the busy city.

‘Yeah, well, everybody out there isn’t as busy as I am,’ Lou said childishly. ‘Besides, you’re here too, aren’t you?’

‘I don’t count.’

‘Well, that’s a great answer. I don’t count then, either.’

‘You keep on going like this and you won’t. You know, one of the most successful businessmen of all time, a certain Walt Disney, I’m sure you’ve heard of him, he has a company or two here and there,’ Gabe smiled, ‘said that “A man should never neglect his family for business.”’

There was a long, awkward silence where Lou clenched and unclenched his jaw, trying to decide whether to ask Gabe to leave or physically throw him out.

‘But then,’ Gabe laughed, ‘he also said, “It all started with a mouse.”’ Gabe smiled.

‘Okay, well, I’d better get to work now, Gabe. I hope you have a happy Christmas.’ Lou tried to control his tone so that if he didn’t exactly sound happy, he at least didn’t sound like he wanted to strangle Gabe.

‘Thank you, Lou. A very happy Christmas to you too. And congratulations on your warm, enormous fucking office.’

Lou couldn’t help but laugh at that, and as the door closed he was alone for the first time in his new office. He made his way to the desk, ran his finger along the walnut border to the pigskin surface. All that was on the desk was a large white computer, a keypad and a mouse.

He sat down on the leather chair and swung around to face towards the window, watching the city below him preparing for the celebrations. A part of him felt pulled outside, yet he felt trapped behind the window that showed him the world yet wouldn’t let him touch it. He often felt as though he were trapped inside an oversized snow globe, responsibilities and failures sprinkling down around him. He sat in that chair, at that desk, for over an hour, just thinking. Thinking about Cliff; thinking about the events of the past few weeks, and the best day of all, only two days ago. He thought about everything. When a mild panic began inside him, he turned in his chair and faced the office, facing up to it all.