Cecelia Ahern - P.S. I Love You

Twenty-two

IT WAS EIGHT O'CLOCK WHEN Holly finally drove up her driveway, and it was still bright.

She smiled, the world never felt quite so depressing when it was bright. She had spent the day with Ciara chatting about her adventures in Australia. Ciara had changed her mind at least twenty times in the space of a few hours about whether or not she should call Mathew in Australia. By the time Holly left, Ciara was adamant she would never speak to him again, which probably meant she had already called him by now.

She walked up the path to the front door and stared at the garden curiously. Was it her imagination or did it look a little tidier? It was still a complete mess with weeds and overgrown shrubs sprouting up everywhere, but something about it looked different.

The sound of a lawnmower started and Holly spun around to face her neighbor, who was out working in his garden. She waved over to thank him, presuming it was he who had helped her, and he held his hand up in response.

It had always been Gerry's job to do the garden. He wasn't necessarily a keen gardener, it was just that Holly was an incredibly unkeen gardener, so somebody had to do the dirty work. It had been agreed between them that there was no way in the world Holly was going to waste her day off toiling in the sand. As a result, their garden was simple; just a small patch of grass surrounded by a few shrubs and flowers. As Gerry knew very little about gardening, he often planted flowers during the wrong season or put them in the wrong place; they just ended up dying. But even their patch of grass and few shrubs now looked like nothing more than an overgrown field. When Gerry died, the garden had died along with him.

This thought now reminded Holly of the orchid in her house. She rushed inside and filled a jug with water and poured it over the extremely thirsty-looking plant. It didn't look very healthy at all and she promised herself not to let it die under her care. She threw a chicken curry into the microwave and sat down to wait at the kitchen table. Outside on the road she could still hear the kids playing happily. She always used to love when the bright evenings came; Mum and Dad would let them all play outside longer, which meant she wouldn't have to go to bed till later than usual, and that had always been a treat for them all. Holly thought back over her day and decided it had been a good one, apart from one isolated incident . . .

She looked down at the rings on her wedding finger and she immediately felt guilty. When that man had walked away from her, Holly had felt so awful. He had given her that look as if she were about to initiate an affair when that was the last thing in the world she would ever do. She felt guilty for even considering accepting his invitation to go for a coffee.

If Holly had left her husband because she absolutely couldn't stand him anymore, she could understand being able to eventually become attracted to someone else. But her husband had died when they were both still very much in love, and she couldn't just fall out of love all of a sudden solely because he wasn't around anymore. She still felt married, and going for a coffee would have seemed like she was betraying her husband. The very thought disgusted her. Her heart, soul and mind still belonged with Gerry.

Holly continued to twist her rings around on her finger. At what point should she take her wedding ring off? Gerry was gone almost five months now, so when was the appropriate time to remove her ring and tell herself she wasn't married anymore? Where was the rulebook for widows that explained when exactly the ring should be taken off? And when it finally did come off, where would she put it, where should she put it? In the bin? Beside her bed so she could be reminded of him every single day? She plagued herself with question after question. No, she wasn't quite ready to give up her Gerry yet; as far as she was concerned, he was still living.

The microwave beeped as her dinner was ready. She took the dish out and threw it straight into the bin. She had lost her appetite.

Later that night Denise rang her in a tizzy. “Switch Dublin FM on quick!” Holly raced to the radio and flicked the switch. “I'm Tom O'Connor and you're listening to Dublin FM. If you've just joined us, we are talking about bouncers. In light of the amount of persuasion it took the

'Girls and the City' girls to blag their way in to the club Boudoir, we wanna know what your thoughts on bouncers are. Do you like them? Do you not? Do you agree or understand why they are the way they are? Or are they too strict? The number to call is . . .”

Holly picked the phone back up, forgetting Denise had still been on the other end.

“Well?” Denise said, giggling.

“What the hell have we started, Denise?”

“Oh I know,” she giggled again. It was obvious she was loving every minute of it. “Did you see the papers today?”

“Yeah, it's all a bit silly, really. I agree it was a good documentary, but the stuff they were writing was just stupid,” Holly said.

“Oh honey, I love it! And I love it even more because I'm in it!” she laughed.

“I bet you do,” Holly responded.

They both remained quiet while they listened to the radio. Some guy was giving out about bouncers and Tom was trying to calm him down.

“Oh, listen to my baby,” Denise said. “Doesn't he sound so sexy?”

“Em . . . yeah,” Holly mumbled. “I take it you two are still together?”

“Of course.” Denise sounded insulted by the question. “Why wouldn't we be?”

“Well, it's been a while now, Denise, that's all.” Holly quickly tried to explain so she wouldn't hurt her friend's feelings. “And you always said you couldn't be with a man for over a week!

You always talk about how much you hate being tied down to one person.”

“Yes, well, I said I couldn't be with a man for over a period of a week, but I never said I wouldn't . Tom is different, Holly,” Denise said breathily.

Holly was surprised to hear this coming from Denise, the girl who wanted to remain single for the rest of her life. “Oh, so what's so different with Tom then?” Holly rested the phone between her ear and her shoulder and settled down in the chair to examine her nails.

“Oh, there's just this connection between us. It's like he's my soul mate. He's so thoughtful, always surprising me with little gifts and taking me out for dinner and spoiling me. He makes me laugh all the time, and I just love being with him. I haven't gotten sick of him like all the other guys. Plus he's good-looking.”

Holly stifled a yawn, Denise tended to say this after the first week of going out with all her new boyfriends and then she would quickly change her mind. But then again, perhaps Denise meant what she said this time; after all, they had been together for over several weeks now. “I'm very happy for you,” Holly added genuinely.

The two girls began listening to a bouncer speaking on the radio with Tom.

“Well, first of all I just want to tell you that for the past few nights we have had I don't know how many princesses and ladies queuing up at our door. Since that bloody program was aired people seem to think we're going to let them in if they're royalty! And I just want to say, girls, it's not going to work again, so don't bother!”

Tom kept laughing and tried to hold himself together. Holly flicked the switch off on the radio.

“Denise,” Holly said seriously, “the world is going mad.”

The next day Holly dragged herself out of bed to go for a stroll in the park. She needed to start doing some exercise before she turned into a complete slob, and she also needed to start thinking about job-hunting. Everywhere she went she tried to picture herself working in that environment. She had definitely ruled out clothes stores (the possibility of having a boss like Denise had talked her out of that one), restaurants, hotels and pubs, and she certainly didn't want another nine-to-five office job, which left . . . nothing. Holly decided she wanted to be like the woman in the film she saw the night before; she wanted to work in the FBI so she could run around solving crimes and interrogating people and then eventually fall in love with her partner, whom she had hated when they first met. However, seeing as though she neither lived in America nor had any police training, the chances of that happening didn't seem too hopeful.