Cecelia Ahern: One Hundred Names

Steve shook his head and sprayed more bleach on the door.

‘It’s used to dry-clean clothes as well as degrease metal parts. It’s considered a probable carcinogen by the World Health Organization. Tests showed that short-term exposure of eight hours or less to seven hundred thousand micrograms per cubic metre of air causes central nervous system symptoms such as dizziness, sleepiness, headaches, lightheadedness and poor balance. The red is difficult to get off, isn’t it?’

‘You do the green, I’ll do the red.’

They switched places.

‘Exposure to three hundred and fifty thousand micrograms for four hours affects the nerves of the visual system.’ Kitty dipped her sponge into her bucket of water and continued scrubbing the door. ‘Long-term exposure on dry-cleaner workers indicates biochemical changes in blood and urine. PERC can travel through floor, ceiling and wall materials, and there was a study on fourteen healthy adults living in apartments near dry-cleaners that showed their behaviour tests were lower than the average score of unexposed people.’

‘So that’s what’s wrong with you. I take it from that verbal diarrhoea that you did a story about PERC.’

‘Not quite. I researched it, then I told the landlord downstairs that I was doing a story on it and that I’d circulate it to all the neighbours and I’d tell their staff about the effects of working with PERC, so he reduced the rent by one hundred euro.’

Steve looked at her, shocked. ‘They could just have got another tenant.’

‘I told them I’d tell the next tenant and every other tenant they found. They panicked.’

He shook his head. ‘You’re …’

‘Smart?’ she smiled.

‘A journo scumbag bitch,’ he said. ‘Maybe we should stop cleaning this now, they’re right.’ He continued looking at her as if he suddenly didn’t recognise her.

‘Hey! They’re the ones using PERC!’

‘Then move somewhere else.’

‘It would be too expensive.’

‘Kitty, you can’t just threaten people like that. You can’t use your job to get what you want. That’s called bullying, you know.’

‘Oooh.’ She rolled her eyes, but dropped the sponge into the bucket in frustration and opened the door to the flat. She left the door open, sat at the kitchen table and waited for him to follow her. She bit into one of the cupcakes she’d brought back home. Steve closed the door behind him but he didn’t sit down.

‘Is there something you want to get off your chest, Steve?’

‘I came by to make sure that you were feeling okay about the trial tomorrow, but the more you talk, the more I can’t help but not feel sorry for you.’

The cupcake felt like a rock in her mouth. She swallowed it quickly. And then, finally, it came.

‘You accused a well-respected PE teacher, who is married, with a young family, of sexually abusing two students and fathering a child. On television. In front of the entire country. And you were wrong.’

She looked at him, her eyes stinging. Her heart hurt from the way he was speaking to her, and though she knew she had been wrong, she had made a mistake, she still didn’t feel that she deserved to be spoken to like that.

‘I know all of this, I know what I did,’ she said more confidently than she felt.

‘And are you sorry?’

‘Of course I’m bloody sorry,’ she exploded. ‘My career is destroyed. Absolutely nobody will ever hire me again. I’ve cost the network who knows what, if he wins his case, which he probably will, and God knows how much in legal fees, and their reputation. I’m over.’ Feeling unnerved, Kitty watched her usually calm friend struggle with his composure.

‘You see, this is what bugs me, Kitty.’

‘What?’

‘Your tone, you’re so … flippant about it all.’

‘Flippant? I’m panicking here, Steve!’

‘Panicking for yourself. For “Katherine Logan, TV journalist”,’ he said, using his fingers as inverted commas.

‘Not just that,’ she swallowed. ‘I’m really worried about my job on Etcetera too. There’s a lot at stake, Steve.’

He laughed to himself but it wasn’t a happy sound. ‘That’s exactly what I mean, you’ve just done it again. All I’ve heard from you is how your name, your reputation and your profession are ruined. It’s all about you. When I hear of you doing stupid things like threatening your landlord with a story, then it bothers me. You bother me.’ He stopped pacing back and forth and fixed his eyes on her. ‘You have for the past year.’

‘The past year ? Oh, okay, I think somebody has definitely been hanging on to a few issues,’ she replied, shocked. ‘I made a mistake in my story. The thing about the apartment? That was harmless! Hold on, I remember you pretending to find a pubic hair in your burger on the very last bite just so you could get another one for free. And you did too. That poor manager, you embarrassed him so much in front of the other customers, he had no choice.’

‘I was eighteen,’ he said quietly. ‘You’re thirty-two.’

‘Thirty-three. You missed my last birthday,’ she added childishly. ‘It’s the way I am; I find stories in everything.’

‘Stories to use people.’

‘Steve!’

‘They used to be good stories, Kitty. Positive. A story for the sake of telling a good story. Not about exposing people, or setting people up.’

‘I’m sorry I wasn’t aware that your story about Victoria Beckham’s new line was going to change the world,’ she said cattily.

‘What I’m saying is, I used to like reading them, hearing about them. Now you’re just …’

‘Now I’m what?’ Her eyes filled.

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘No, please, please tell me what I am because I’ve only been hearing it on every single news station, reading it on internet sites and graffitied on my own front door for the last week, and I’d really like to know what my best friend thinks of me because that would just be the icing on the cake,’ she yelled.

He sighed and looked away.

There was a long silence.

‘How am I supposed to fix this, Steve?’ she finally asked. ‘What do I do to make you and the rest of the world not hate me?’

‘Have you spoken to the guy?’

‘Colin Maguire? No way. We’re about to begin a court case. If I go anywhere near him I’ll get into even more trouble. We made an apology to him at the start of Thirty Minutes , when it was discovered he wasn’t the father. We gave it priority to the show.’

‘Do you think that will make him feel better?’

She shrugged.

‘Kitty, if you did to me what you did to him, I would do a lot worse than they’ve done to your door. I would want to kill you,’ he said sternly.

Kitty’s eyes widened. ‘Steve, don’t scare me like that.’

‘This is what you’re not understanding, Kitty. This is not about your career. Or your good name. This is not about you. This is about him .’

‘I don’t know what to do,’ she said, struggling. ‘Maybe if I can explain what happened … The two women were so credible, Steve. Their stories matched up, the dates, the times, everything was so … real. Believe me, I followed it up over and over. I didn’t just run with it straight off. It took me six months . The producer was behind me, the editor, I wasn’t the only person who did this. And it wasn’t just about him. Did you even see it? It was about the number of paedophiles and sex offenders in Ireland who occupy roles in schools and other jobs with direct contact to children who have been reported and who have been charged with the crime of abusing students in their care.’