Cecelia Ahern - One Hundred Names

‘So you told her deliberately,’ she snapped, face hot, eyes bright, one green and burning bright, the other as fearsome though dull brown, ‘to force me to do it. If she writes about it then I have to do it, is that your plan?’

‘I think your work is something to tell the world about,’ he said firmly, trying to keep the stammer out of his voice. ‘I doubt anybody else in the world has studied the Peacock butterfly as closely as you have. You have the data, the experience to prove it. Why spend five years studying and writing a report if you’re not going to show it to anybody?’ He realised his voice had risen louder and louder. Ambrose seemed surprised. Amused, even.

‘You told her I was going to Cork and now she wants to come with us,’ she said, frustrated.

‘Correction. She wants us to go with her .’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘You will soon. She’ll be here soon to talk to you. She wants to spend the afternoon with you.’

The doorbell rang.

‘That will be her,’ Eugene said. Shaking from his confrontation he left an open-mouthed Ambrose quickly pulling down her hair from its clip, covering her face in a panic.

He took a deep breath and smiled before opening the door. ‘Ah. Ms Logan, how lovely to see you. Please do come in.’

‘She ties her hair back when she’s around you,’ Kitty said to Eugene after her interview session with the increasingly intriguing Ambrose was finished.

Eugene looked up in surprise from his paperwork where he was sitting in a small cubbyhole office. ‘She told you that?’

‘No, I saw you two talking through the window before I rang the doorbell.’ Which translated to: ‘I was snooping before I rang the doorbell.’

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Well then, I’ve nothing further to add to that.’

‘I’m not going to write about that,’ Kitty said, leaning against the doorframe, making him feel trapped. ‘It just must be nice for you to know that.’

‘Nice? Why would it be nice?’ He fidgeted with papers. His cheeks flushed and the colour ran down his neck and stopped at his bow tie.

‘Because she obviously feels very comfortable around you,’ Kitty smiled and watched the corners of his mouth twitch as he thought about it.

‘Well, I’ve never considered it. I mean, that’s no reason to … It’s not … She’s not, we’re not …’ he stammered, unable to finish a single sentence he’d started.

‘So I’ll see you both tomorrow afternoon,’ Kitty said.

‘She said she’d go?’

‘No, but I’ll leave it up to you to convince her. I have a feeling she listens to what you say.’ She winked at him and left the museum.

Ashford Private College was situated on Parnell Square beside the Irish Writers’ Centre, which faced the Garden of Remembrance and other such important venues as the Gate Theatre and Rotunda Maternity Hospital. It was a Georgian square and the college filled four floors of classrooms, advertising subjects from cookery to technology, interior design, business studies, marketing and media. Part of that media course was a television presentation class that taught the student how to speak properly and slowly, how to speak to the camera, getting rid of any habits or tics they unknowingly had and becoming comfortable with presentation and the sound of their own voice. Kitty had taken the class five years ago and was now attending an interview to teach it. It didn’t escape her that she had no teaching credentials but she had gained plenty of experience actually working in the field, and in addition to being keen to share her knowledge, she really needed the money. Pay for two and a half hours a week would go a long way in her current situation.

She sat before Daniel Meara, the captain of the ship, former principal-turned-businessman, who had opened up the college to teach part-time and night courses, making money on handing out diplomas and certificates for employment opportunities that no longer existed.

‘Katherine,’ he looked down at her résumé and back up at her with a smile. It was an awkward smile, one that immediately had Kitty questioning why on earth she had come at all. If she didn’t believe in herself, how on earth was she going to convince this man that she was good enough for the job? She braced herself.

‘I appreciate you coming in to us today. And here is the thing,’ he said, placing the palms of his hands down flat on the surface of the table. His fingers were sweaty and made a sticky sound each time he lifted them from the table, which he did to emphasise certain words. ‘You are a past student of ours, which we appreciate greatly, and so that’s why I told Triona to ask you in, so I could see you myself.’ He moved his fingers and they made that sticky noise. ‘And you have gone on to work in the field you studied, which we admire greatly and are most proud of.’ He cleared his throat. ‘However, under the current circumstances, your current circumstances …’ They were the only words Kitty needed to hear to understand where this was going, and the rest disappeared before it reached her head apart from the memorable: ‘The students are studying your case in Media Law and we feel this would be a conflict of interest and very uncomfortable for you.’

She would have preferred to have heard it over the phone. She had spent time getting dressed up, doing her make-up and hair, wearing shoes that cut off her circulation, and was now being smiled at patronisingly. At least with the phone she wouldn’t have had to cycle home with tears streaming down her face. The one thing she could be grateful for was Sally’s predicted torrential rain, which suddenly fell as she made her way through the miserable dark night.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Kitty couldn’t sleep the night before Birdie’s excursion. She couldn’t even close her eyes. She had pushed the humiliation of the job interview to the back of her mind, to be dealt with at another time on another day when she had the resources, and right now her mind was on the story, on the people and the trip. She felt nervous. Excited tingles rippled through her stomach, and then the all-too-familiar negative thoughts would immediately follow. What if she had made a mistake in throwing them all together? What if her entire plan of action regarding the angle she was taking was wrong? She felt an overwhelming duty to Constance, and also to Bob, to get it right. Her desire to please Pete no longer existed. He would have to employ some of Constance’s belief and spirit and trust that his writer knew what she was doing. The thing was that she felt that she knew what she was doing; she was back to following her instincts instead of reacting to somebody else’s. That outcome alone from this entire process was enough to celebrate. She had found the confidence to listen to herself again, she was simply worried that her instincts were wrong, that this trip would be a disaster.

As she lay in bed looking at the apartment bathed in blue moonlight she began to think about having to leave it. She had lived there alone for five years, and for four months with Glen. She loved her apartment, was so fond of the space and didn’t want to leave it. She had been lucky to find it, cheeky to threaten her landlord into giving it to her cheaper and now her dastardly ways had come back to haunt her. She was going to be out on her ear in less than a fortnight. Wide awake at the thought of her uncertain future, she threw off the bedcovers and immediately began packing, afraid about the impending trip and afraid to be moving on. By three thirty her clothes were all in suitcases; by 4 a.m. she was fast asleep dreaming of her adventure with six of the one hundred names.

The plan was for Kitty to collect Birdie from the nursing home in a taxi, where the battle-axe had been informed she would be taking Birdie away to stay overnight with her family. In the meantime, she saw the Oldtown Pistols return right on cue, victorious from their win against the Balbriggan Eagles. While on duty, Molly had arranged for the bus to be serviced, concocting a lie about hearing it make a funny noise and that a ‘Pistol’ had reported a funny smell and noise. This was taken seriously and the nurses had agreed to Molly’s arrangements of local man Billy Meaghar to take the bus for a check-up, with strict instructions that it be returned for the Pink Ladies’ bridge night the following evening. For an extra fifty euro Billy had agreed that Molly could take the bus and have it back on time for him to return it to the nursing home the following day.