Cecelia Ahern - One Hundred Names

Me too, thought Kitty.

‘You know, Oisín O’Ceallaigh and Olivia Wallace have agreed to write their stories for Constance’s tribute.’

‘Really?’ Kitty’s eyes widened. ‘I can’t believe you talked them into it. Did they ask for much money?’

‘They’re doing it for free. For Constance.’

Kitty nodded. Constance had so much respect for the writers, she was glad to see them returning the support she’d given them over the years.

‘It’s a really big scoop to get stories from them, Kitty,’ Pete said. ‘No one has seen or heard from Oisín for almost ten years. Olivia hasn’t written for over five years and has turned down every publishing deal offer imaginable to return to writing.’

‘I know, I agree.’ Kitty replied emphatically, wondering why he felt he had to tell her the importance of this. These were big-name writers; it was obviously a huge deal for Etcetera to get the opportunity to publish their original stories.

‘They’re only doing this because it’s for Constance’s tribute and their stories can only be included in Constance’s tribute section if we also have Constance’s last story. Do you understand?’

Kitty swallowed. Nodded.

‘So you need to keep thinking, Lois Lane,’ he warned playfully.

‘No pressure then,’ she said, trying to hide her nerves with a smile.

‘Welcome to my world,’ he said and gave her such a vulnerable look she wanted to reach out to him. Instead she cleared her throat, severing their eye contact, and climbed out of the car.

When she reached the ticket desk they refused to let her buy a ticket. Her bus was driving off.

‘Jesus,’ she fumed, her phone starting to vibrate in her pocket. ‘What next?’ She looked at her screen: it was Steve. She had thrown the man out of his bed in the middle of the night and had probably caused his housemates to think he was terminally ill. She couldn’t ignore this call.

‘I’m sorry, I just said what you told me to say, then they read way too much into it and made it a bigger deal than it actually was. I’m sorry but I was just doing what you told me to do.’

There was a silence. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Your housemates. They saw me this morning.’

‘Never mind them, I haven’t been home yet. Did you know he was a journalist?’ He spoke quickly, with a sense of urgency.

She sighed and sat down on a chair. ‘Steve, I know you don’t think very highly of me and my moral standards but—’

‘Did you know he was a journalist?’ He sounded like he was running and out of breath.

‘Where are you?’

‘Answer the question, Kitty.’

‘No. He told me he was writing a book. A fictional thing. A novel. He didn’t mention anything about being a journalist. I feel such an idiot.’

‘What happened?’

‘Are you running or something because you really sound like—’

‘What happened?’

‘Jesus! Okay! He showed up at the dry-cleaners like it was the biggest coincidence in the world, even though he lived on the other side of the city. I should have known. Then we went for drinks, caught up on old times, he knew nothing about Thirty Minutes , didn’t even pretend to be all that interested, which, again, I should have been suspicious of, but I’d had a few drinks, so I talked a little … then … it doesn’t matter. Then that was it. We left.’

‘No, that wasn’t it. Then what?’

‘No, it’s embarrassing, Steve. I—’

‘Tell me,’ he practically shouted at her.

‘I ended up in his place.’ She felt physically sick. ‘Oh God, I feel so … crap. What do you think I should do?’

He was quiet. Then just when she thought he’d gone, he said, ‘What do you mean, you ended up in his place?’

‘Jesus, how else can I put it? I stayed over, you know?’

‘Okay,’ he said quietly, and he hung up the phone.

Kitty stared at the phone in shock. He hung up on her, probably for the first time ever. He must have been so disgusted by her.

Kitty’s phone rang again and, assuming it was Steve to tell her their connection failed, she answered it immediately. It wasn’t.

‘Kitty, are you okay?’ Sally asked.

‘No.’

‘Where are you?’

‘BusÁras.’

‘Why?’

‘I was going to Kildare but I missed my bus.’

‘I’ll drive you.’

‘You don’t even know when I’m coming back.’

‘When are you coming back?’

‘Never.’

‘Perfect. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.’

Kitty had met Sally at a television presentation course five years previously. Sally was a meteorologist who had attained an honours degree in Mathematical Physics and, at the time, was working in Met Éireann and preparing to stretch her wings by moving into television weather presentations in the Irish language. Along with writing for Etcetera , Kitty, at that time, was preparing to make her move into television journalism after presenting a few small but successful shows on a small city channel. She had set her sights on bigger stories on a bigger network and was fine-tuning her presentation skills, which meant slowing down her speech and trying to stop looking so concerned or, in Steve’s words, constipated, when she was concentrating on remembering her words.

Sally arrived at BusÁras with the top down on her convertible, and her long blond hair tied back. Kitty quickly scuttled away from her hiding place by the vending machine with her head down and as much hair in front of her face as possible.

‘Everyone around me is reading the paper,’ Kitty explained, after embracing her friend. ‘I’m probably just being paranoid, though. I’m sure they’re not paying the slightest bit of attention to my story, they’re too busy reading about the earthquake. Aren’t they? Tell me they’re all reading about the earthquake.’

‘There was an earthquake?’ Sally asked without a hint of irony.

Kitty sighed. ‘Isn’t it your job to know about things like that?’

‘I don’t work weekends.’

‘Obviously not.’ Kitty looked up at the grey clouds they were headed towards. ‘Maybe you should put the roof up; it looks like it’s going to rain.’

Sally laughed as if she had the inside scoop, which she believed she had. ‘It’s not due to rain today.’

‘Thought it was your weekend off.’

‘I pay attention,’ she shrugged, and they laughed.

‘So, where are we going?’

‘Straffan, to a butterfly farm.’

‘Why?’

‘I’m interviewing the woman who runs it. Kind of. She doesn’t know she’s going to be interviewed yet.’

‘Be careful. Are you trying to get your own back?’

Kitty smiled but it faded quickly. ‘At least I won’t sleep with her for her story.’

Sally gasped. ‘You slept with him?’

Kitty covered her face in her hands and slid down the chair. ‘I’m a despicable human being.’

‘Not really, but you know you could have got some money for the story, or were you desperate for sex?’

Kitty laughed. ‘I’m kind of desperate for both.’

Sally gave her a sympathetic look and Kitty explained what had happened that night.

‘Have your parents called?’ she asked, after getting over her initial anger.

‘Yes. To tell me once again how embarrassed and ashamed they are of me. I just let Mum get it out of her system. It seems to help her to have a go at me but there’s nothing new there.’ She looked up at the sky as she felt a drop of rain fall on her face.

‘Did you feel that?’

‘What?’

‘Rain.’

‘It’s not going to rain today,’ Sally said confidently.

Ten minutes later they had to pull over by the side of the road while Sally manually closed the roof.