Cecelia Ahern - The Gift & Thanks for the Memories

‘I’ll love you forever,’ he whispered to her, and she smiled, halfway to her dream world.

It was in the middle of the night that the dream world was shattered when Ruth was awakened by the gate buzzer. Half-asleep, she stood in her dressing gown and welcomed both Raphie and Jessica into her home. Quentin and Lou’s father accompanied her, keen to protect the house against such late-night dangers. But they couldn’t protect her from this.

‘Morning,’ Raphie said sombrely as they all gathered in the living room. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you at such a late hour.’

Ruth looked the young garda beside him up and down, at her dark black eyes that seemed cold and sad, at the grass and dried muck splattered on her boots, which clung to the bottom of her navy-blue trousers. At the small scrapes across the face and the cut that she was trying to hide behind her hair.

‘What is it?’ Ruth whispered, her voice catching in her throat. ‘Tell me, please.’

‘Mrs Suffern, I think you should sit down,’ Raphie said gently.

‘We should get Lou,’ she whispered, looking to Quentin. ‘He wasn’t in bed when I woke up, he must be in his study.’

‘Ruth,’ the young garda said, so softly that Ruth’s heart sank even further, and as her body went limp she allowed Quentin to reach for her and pull her down to the couch beside him and Lou’s father. They grabbed one another’s hands, squeezed one another so tightly that they were linked like a chain, and they listened as Raphie and Jessica told them how life for them had changed beyond all comprehension, as they learned that a son, a brother and a husband had left them as suddenly as he’d arrived.

While Santa laid gifts in homes all across the country; while lights in windows began to go out for the night; while wreaths upon doors became fingers upon lips and blinds went down as the eyelids of a sleeping home drooped, hours before a turkey went through a window at another home in another district, Ruth Suffern had yet to learn that despite losing her husband she had gained his child, and together the family realised – on the most magical night of the year – the true gift that Lou had given them in the early hours of Christmas morning.

29. The Turkey Boy 5

Raphie watched the Turkey Boy’s reaction as he heard the last of the story. He was silent for a moment.

‘How do you know all of this?’

‘We’ve been piecing it all together today. Talking to the family and to his colleagues.’

‘Did you talk to Gabe?’

‘Briefly, earlier. We’re waiting for him to come to the station.’

‘And you called to Lou’s house this morning?’

‘We did.’

‘And he wasn’t there.’

‘Nowhere to be seen. Sheets still warm from where he’d lain.’

‘Are you making this up?’

‘Not a word of it.’

‘Do you expect me to believe this?’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘Then what was the point?’

‘People tell stories, and it’s up to those who listen whether to believe them or not. It’s not the job of the storyteller.’

‘Shouldn’t the storyteller believe it?’

‘The storyteller should tell it,’ he winked.

‘Do you believe it?’

Raphie looked around the room to make sure nobody had sneaked in without him noticing. He shrugged awkwardly, moving his head at the same time. ‘One man’s lesson is another man’s tale, but often, a man’s tale can be another’s lesson.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Raphie avoided the question by taking a slug of coffee.

‘You said there was a lesson – what was the lesson?’

‘If I have to tell you that, boy …’ Raphie rolled his eyes.

‘Ah, come on.’

‘Appreciating your loved ones,’ Raphie said, a little embarrassed at first. ‘Acknowledging all the special people in your life. Concentrating on what’s important.’ He cleared his throat and looked away, not comfortable with preaching.

The Turkey Boy rolled his eyes and faked a yawn.

Raphie tossed his embarrassment to the side, giving himself one more opportunity to get through to the teen before he gave up altogether. He should have been at home on his second helping of Christmas dinner instead of being here with this frustrating boy.

He leaned forward. ‘Gabe gave Lou a gift, son, a very special gift. I’m not going to bother asking you what that was, I’m going to tell you, and you’d better listen up, because right after this I’m leaving you and you’ll be alone to think about what you did and if you don’t pay attention then you’ll go back out to the world an angry young man who’ll feel angry for the rest of his life.’

‘Okay,’ the Turkey Boy said defensively, sitting up in his seat as though being told off by the headmaster.

‘Gabe gave Lou the gift of time , son.’

The Turkey Boy ruffled up his nose.

‘Oh, you’re fourteen years old, and you think you’ve all the time in the world, but you haven’t. None of us have. We’re spending it with all the might and indifference of January sales shoppers. A week from now they’ll be crowding the streets, swarming the shops, with open wallets, just throwing all their cash away.’ Raphie seemed to crawl into the shell on his back for a moment, his eyes tucked under his grey bushy eyebrows.

The Turkey Boy leaned forward and glared at him, amused by Raphie’s sudden emotion. ‘But you can earn more money, so who cares?’

Raphie snapped out of his trance and looked up as though seeing the Turkey Boy in the room for the first time. ‘So that makes time more precious, doesn’t it? More precious than money, more precious than anything. You can never earn more time. Once an hour goes by, a week, a month, a year, you’ll never get them back. Lou Suffern was running out of time, and Gabe gave him more, to help tie things up, to finish things properly. That’s the gift.’ Raphie’s heart beat wildly in his chest. He looked down at his coffee and pushed it away, feeling his heart cramp again. ‘So we should fix things before …’

He ran out of breath and waited for the cramping to fade.

‘Do you think it’s too late to, you know,’ the Turkey Boy twisted the string of his hoody around his finger, speaking self-consciously, ‘fix things with my, you know …’

‘With your dad?’

The boy shrugged and looked away, not wanting to admit it.

‘It’s never too late –’ Raphie stopped abruptly, nodded to himself as though registering a thought, nodded again with an air of agreement and finality, then pushed back his chair, the legs screeching against the floor, and stood.

‘Hold on, where are you going?’

‘To fix things, boy. To fix some things. And I suggest you do the same when your mother comes.’

The young teenager’s blue eyes blinked back at him, innocence still there, though lost somewhere in the mist of his confusion and anger.

Raphie made his way down the hall, loosening his tie. He heard his voice being called but continued walking anyway. He pushed his way out of the staff quarters, into the public entrance room that was empty on Christmas Day.

‘Raphie,’ Jessica called, chasing after him.

‘Yes,’ he said, turning around finally, slightly out of breath.

‘Are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Is it your heart? Are you okay?’

‘I’m fine,’ he nodded. ‘Everything’s fine. What’s up?’

Jessica narrowed her eyes and studied him, knowing he was lying. ‘Is that boy giving you trouble?’

‘No, he’s fine, purring like a pussy cat now. Everything’s fine.’

‘Then where are you going?’

‘Eh?’ He looked towards the door, trying to think of another lie, another untruth to tell somebody for the tenth year running. But he sighed – a long sigh that had been held in for many years – and he gave up, the truth finally sounding odd yet comfortable as it fell from his tongue.