Cecelia Ahern - One Hundred Names

‘I just think you should give her another chance,’ Gaby was saying to Kitty over her second espresso in the Merrion Hotel in Merrion Square.

Kitty had called her the previous night to arrange a meeting, Gaby had chosen the venue and so far had done all the talking, and Kitty was hoping Gaby planned on picking up the tab too for what seemed like the most expensive coffee she’d ever drunk. They were sitting outside in the garden, meetings going on all around them, and Gaby had one eye and ear on everybody else’s conversations and the other on her and Kitty’s. She lit up another cigarette. Gaby appeared to be under the illusion that Kitty had the intention of dropping Eva from her story and had launched into a tirade of Eva’s career history, starting with celebrity clients and magazines she had been featured in, and while that was partly correct, as Kitty was reluctant to waste more of her precious time on Eva after being fobbed off with the My Little Pony present response, this wasn’t actually something she had yet shared with either Eva or Gaby. However, they weren’t foolish women. Kitty had turned down an opportunity to meet Eva twice over the past few days, unsure that she was ever going to get anything from Eva about herself as a person as opposed to her business. Kitty simply didn’t have enough time to spend with such a closed book.

‘She’s been mentioned in Vogue on their “Who’s hot” list and was in Cosmopolitan ’s “Young and Happening” slot. She really is incredible. ’ She shut her eyes and squeezed her entire body to emphasise the word, then opened her eyes and took another puff of her cigarette.

‘She’s a closed book, Gaby. Each time I ask her a question she either refuses to answer or she brings it back to work. I know that she is a hard worker and that she is passionate about her company ethos but I have to have more to run with than that. The other people that I’m interviewing are more …’ she tried to think of a polite way of saying it but realised it was Gaby she was speaking to and politeness counted for nothing ‘… substantial. They intrigue me. I want to find out more and when I dig a little deeper, I discover more. Eva isn’t willing to open up to me and I don’t want to force her into talking about anything she doesn’t want to talk about. That’s not the kind of journalist I am.’

Gaby raised one eyebrow, thinking otherwise.

‘At least, I’m not any more.’ Kitty raised her chin haughtily.

‘She’s difficult to get to know, I realise that. The problem with Eva is that she is …’ Gaby paused for dramatic effect, which worked as Kitty hung on every word ‘… creative .’ She said it like it was a bad word. Then she lowered her voice so that nobody could hear the dirty secret to come. ‘She’s one of these types who thinks that their art speaks for themselves.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Honestly. I deal with this crap all the time with my writers. They think their work is their voice, they don’t understand that they have to give it one. They don’t realise that it’s people like me and you who help them sell their bloody art . Do you know how long it took me to get Eva to start that “Dedicated” blog? They think that stuff is in the way of whatever it is they think they’re channelling. Think about it, if James Joyce were alive today, don’t you think his tweets could make his stuff more accessible?’

Kitty really hoped nobody was listening to their conversation.

‘Anyway,’ she waved her hand dismissively, ‘Eva is an interesting person, she’s got a great heart, you just need to spend a lot of time with her to really open her up and when you see inside, well then, you’ll understand it all.’

‘You know something about her?’

‘I know more than most, which isn’t saying a lot, but I’ve seen in there once or twice. She went out with my brother for three years. He was an idiot but she was adorable. We’ve been close ever since. I vowed to help her out and I won’t let her down.’

Kitty had wanted to talk to Gaby about something that had nothing to do with Eva Wu at all, but while they were there and talking about her she was interested in new insights on the girl she couldn’t quite find a story on.

‘It would help if I could at least talk to her clients, hear how she’s helped them, learn what she’s done for them. She’s so secretive about it all.’

‘Not so much secretive as protective of her clients. She insists on discretion. She sees what she does as more than giving a gift and she’s right really. What she does is very special.’

Kitty shook her head, confused.

‘I know. It will all make sense when you’re in Cork.’

‘How did you know I was going to Cork?’

‘To the wedding? I just assumed.’

‘The wedding, on Friday.’ Kitty gasped. ‘Of course.’ With all the excitement of Birdie’s impending road trip she had forgotten about the wedding where Eva was due to present the Webb family with their gifts. ‘How does Eva usually travel?’ Kitty asked.

‘She drives, why?’

‘Ask her if she’d like to catch a bus with me on Thursday to Cork. There’s something I have to do there that I think she’ll like.’

‘Sure,’ Gaby said, looking over Kitty’s shoulder towards her next appointment arriving. ‘Here’s Jools Scott. The writer. Great on a page but can’t put two words together in person. If I manage to get him one interview I’ll be doing well,’ she said out of the side of her mouth, and then waved at him happily.

‘Before you move on, there’s something I have to ask you. I’m sure everyone asks you this but I wonder if you could do me a huge favour.’ Kitty got to the real reason she’d asked for the meeting. She placed Richie’s USB down on the table before her and fixed Gaby with her sweetest smile.

To Kitty’s great relief Gaby took care of the bill with her publisher’s credit card, her final bribe to Kitty to write a positive piece on Eva. Feeling that she owed Eva for letting her down twice, Kitty called Nigel at George Webb’s office.

‘Molloy Kelly Solicitors.’

‘It’s Kitty Logan. I’m outside your office. Eva Wu is incredibly protective of her clients and won’t tell me a thing. If you want the piece to be as favourable as possible then I need you to start talking.’

He was quiet, then: ‘Fine.’

Five minutes later he was outside with her in another of his dapper suits. When he saw her bike his lips curled at the edges. ‘How twee. Walk with me, Judy Bloom, I don’t want anybody to see me with you in those last season’s pumps.’

Kitty smiled and they walked to the famine memorial and leaned out overlooking the rather murky Liffey.

‘Let’s get straight to the point. I’m gay.’ He looked at Kitty but she wasn’t in the mood for smart comments. ‘I’m from a small parish in Donegal where everybody knows everybody’s business. As soon as I could talk I knew that I was gay and in my family that kind of thing is completely unacceptable. My father is a dairy farmer, like his father before him, like his father before him. I’m the only boy in the family and it was expected that I would go into the family business. It wasn’t a life that appealed to me. My parents are fanatically Catholic. Hell, for them, is a very real place. Sex before marriage would have my sisters kicked out of the house, if my parents ever knew the truth. They live in a world of religious rules and they do not break them. They can’t see beyond them; it’s all they’ve ever known. Homosexuality,’ he laughed bitterly, ‘you can imagine what they thought of that. If my father couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t want to be a dairy farmer for the rest of my life, he certainly wouldn’t understand the fact that I just happen to love men. When I told him I didn’t want to be involved in the family business he didn’t speak to me for almost a year. Imagine how he felt when I told him I was gay. But I’d no choice but to tell him. I’d met someone, he was a huge part of my life, it felt like I was living a lie not being able to talk about him or my life in Dublin, or not being able to bring him to family occasions. I finally told them and, well, my mother could deal with it as long as we never discussed it again and she prayed every day for me to be healed, but my father refused to be in the same house as me. He wouldn’t look me in the eye, he wouldn’t speak to me.’