Cecelia Ahern - One Hundred Names

Number 42 was a terraced house in Beaumont, with nothing in particular to distinguish it from the line of identical pebble-dash houses on that row, opposite it, or around the maze that made up the estate. In an effort to inject colour into the estate some homeowners had painted their houses, though they clearly hadn’t pulled together. There were clashing lemons and oranges, snot greens beside mint greens, pretty pinks beside unpainted murky pebble dash. The house number was displayed as a novelty happy-faced sticker on the wheelie bins out by the front gate, the driveway was littered with abandoned toys and bikes, but there was no car inside the gates or outside on the path. It was 5.30 p.m., people were returning from work and the evening was already closing in. Next door an old woman was sitting at her front door on a kitchen chair catching the last of the evening sun. She was wearing a knee-length skirt, thick tights on her bumpy bandaged legs, and tartan slippers on her feet. She watched Kitty closely and nodded at her when she caught her eye.

Kitty rang the doorbell to Bridget Murphy’s house and stepped down from the doorstep.

‘They’re having their dinner,’ the old woman said. On Kitty’s displaced interest in her, she continued, ‘Chicken curry. They always have it on Thursdays. I can smell it in my house every week.’ She ruffled up her nose.

Kitty laughed. ‘You’re not a fan of chicken curry?’

‘Not of hers, I’m not,’ she said, looking away from the house as if the very sight of it offended her. ‘They won’t hear you out here, they’re a noisy lot.’

Kitty could hear that from where she stood. It sounded like there was an army of squealing kids dropping knives and clanging glasses. She didn’t want to be rude by ringing again, particularly as she was disturbing a family dinner and she had the old woman as her audience.

‘I’d ring again if I were you,’ the neighbour said.

Happy to receive permission, Kitty pressed the doorbell again.

‘Who are you looking for anyway? Him or her? Because he’s not in, doesn’t get home until seven most days. A banker.’ She rolled up her nose again.

‘I’m here to see Bridget.’

The old woman frowned. ‘Bridget Murphy?’

Kitty checked her notepad again even though she had memorised practically the entire list, but she did that now, checked everything twenty times and then still wasn’t sure.

‘Bridget doesn’t live there any more,’ the old woman said just as the front door opened and a flushed-looking mother of the army stared at a confused Kitty.

‘Oh. Hello,’ Kitty said.

‘Can I help you?’

‘I hope so. I’m looking for Bridget Murphy but I’ve just learned that she might not live here any longer.’

‘She doesn’t,’ the old woman said. ‘I told you that. I already told her that, Mary.’

‘Yes, that’s right,’ the mother said, ignoring the old lady.

‘See?’

‘Do you know how I could contact Bridget?’

‘I don’t know Bridget at all. We bought the house last year but perhaps Agnes here could help.’

Kitty apologised for disturbing her dinner, the door closed and they heard Mary’s ironic shout for silence rattle through the building.

She turned to Agnes. Kitty guessed Agnes knew the business of most people on the street. A journalist’s dream. She contemplated climbing over the knee-high wall that separated them but decided Agnes might consider it rude so she walked down the path, out the gate, in at Agnes’s gate and up the path again.

Agnes looked at her oddly. ‘You could have just climbed over the wall.’

‘Do you know where Bridget lives?’

‘We lived next door to each other for forty years. She’s a great woman. A bunch of selfish good-for-nothings her children turned out to be. To hear them talk you’d think they think they’re royalty. Far from how they were reared, I’ll tell you that. She had a fall is all,’ she said angrily. ‘She tripped. Who doesn’t take a tumble now and then? But oh no, it was off to the nursing home for poor Birdie just so that lot could sell that house and spend the money on another skiing holiday.’ She grumbled to herself, her mouth moving up and down angrily, her false teeth sloshing around inside.

‘Do you know which nursing home she’s in?’

‘St Margaret’s in Oldtown,’ she said, sounding angry at the whole of Oldtown.

‘Have you visited her?’

‘Me? No. The furthest I can get is the shop at the end of the road and then I have to figure out how to get back,’ she laughed, a wheezy sound that resulted in a cough.

‘Do you think she’d see me?’

Agnes looked at her then. ‘I know your face.’

‘Yes,’ Kitty said, not proudly this time.

‘You did the show about the tea.’

‘Yes, I did,’ Kitty brightened up.

‘I drink Barry’s,’ she said. ‘So did my mother. And her mother.’

Kitty nodded solemnly. ‘A good choice, I believe.’

Agnes’s eyes narrowed as she made a decision. ‘Tell her Agnes said you were all right. And that I was asking after her. We go way back, me and her.’ She looked off into the distance again, reflective. ‘You can tell her I’m still here.’

When Kitty was leaving, the door next to Agnes’s opened again and four kids came firing out as if from a cannon, their mother quickly following to shout her orders. Agnes called out, ‘And tell her they cut her rose bush down. Butchered it, they did.’

Mary threw Agnes a look of absolute loathing and Kitty smiled and lifted her hand in a farewell. En route to her next destination, Kitty looked at the two names she had visited that day. Sarah McGowan and Bridget Murphy.

Story theory: people who have had to move home against their will?

That was definitely a theme she could relate to. Her and Colin Maguire.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Due to a very limited bus service to Oldtown, Kitty had no choice but to get a taxi and with a driver hailing from the opposite side of the county, a fact he pointed out many times, they had to stop three times for directions as they drove down a series of country lanes that seemed to get ever narrower. In the heart of the countryside they finally reached St Margaret’s, a 1970s bungalow that had been extended on all sides to meet its new requirements as a nursing home. The south-facing conservatory to the right was set as a dining room, an extension to the left and then further to the back filled with couches and armchairs. The gardens were extensively landscaped, with benches placed all around and colourful hanging baskets hung from the sides of the house. If she ever saw her again, Kitty would be sure to tell Agnes that her friend Bridget was in a good place. It was 7 p.m., only thirty minutes of visiting time remaining, and having not had the greatest luck so far with hunting down her subjects, Kitty was really hoping Bridget would agree to see her.

She asked at the desk for Bridget Murphy and waited while a stern-faced nurse, her hair in a severe bun, checked the visitors’ book. Kitty squirmed as she watched her, trying to figure out how to tell her she wasn’t expected and figure out her best way of manipulating the situation. To her right was the common room, busy with visitors, and on-going chess games. A middle-aged woman with dreadlocks was in the centre of the floor forcing three old men, one using a walking frame, another wearing hearing aids in both ears, to play Simon Says.

‘No, Wally!’ she screeched with laughter. ‘I didn’t say “Simon Says”!’

The old man with the hearing aids looked confused.

‘You have to sit down now, you’re out of the game. You’re out of the game!’ she shouted even louder.

She abandoned the two remaining men standing with their hands on their heads and came to the common room door. ‘Molly,’ she called, looking Kitty up and down as though surveying the competition, ‘where is Birdie?’