Cecelia Ahern: If You Could See Me Now

If You Could

See Me

Now

Cecelia Ahern

If You Could See Me Now

Cecelia Ahern

For Georgina, who believes...

Chapter One

Elizabeth’s heart hammered loudly against her chest. She banged the front door behind her and paced the hallway in uneven strides. With the phone pressed hard between her ear and shoulder, she balanced herself against the hall table and pulled off her broken-heeled shoe. Another bit of chaos to thank her sister for.

She stopped pacing long enough to stare at her reflection in the mirror. Her brown eyes widened with horror. Rarely did she allow herself to look so bedraggled. So out of control. Strands of her chocolate-brown hair were fleeing from the tight French plait and mascara nestled in the lines under her eyes. Her lipstick had faded, leaving only her plum-colored lip-liner as a frame, and her foundation clung to the dry patches of her olive skin. Gone was her usually pristine look. This caused her heart to beat faster, the panic to accelerate.

Breathe, Elizabeth, just breathe, she told herself. She ran a trembling hand over her tousled hair, forcing down the strays. She wiped the mascara away with a wet finger, pursed her lips together, smoothed down her suit jacket, and cleared her throat. It was merely a momentary lapse of concentration on her part, that was all. Not to happen again. She transferred the phone to her left ear and noticed the impression of her Claddagh earring against her neck; such was the pressure of her shoulder’s grip on the phone against her skin.

Finally someone answered and Elizabeth turned her back on the mirror to stand to attention. Back to business.

“Hello, Baile na gCroíthe Garda Station .”

Elizabeth winced as she recognized the voice on the phone. “Hi, Marie, Elizabeth here again. Saoirse’s gone off with the car,” she paused, “again.”

There was a gentle sigh on the other end of the phone. “How long ago, Elizabeth?”

Elizabeth sat down on the bottom stair and settled down for the usual line of questioning. She closed her eyes, only meaning to rest them briefly, but at the relief of blocking everything she kept them closed. “Just five minutes ago.”

“Right. Did she say where she was going?”

“The moon,” she replied matter-of-factly.

“Excuse me?” Marie asked.

“You heard me. She said she was going to the moon,” Elizabeth said firmly. “Apparently people will understand her there.”

“The moon,” Marie repeated.

“Yes,” Elizabeth replied, feeling irritated. “You could perhaps start looking for her on the motorway. I would imagine that if you were heading to the moon that would be the quickest way to get there, wouldn’t you? Although I’m not entirely sure which exit she would take. Either way, I’d check the motor—”

“Relax, Elizabeth; you know I have to ask.”

“I know.” Elizabeth tried to calm herself again. She was missing an important meeting right now. Her nephew Luke’s fill-in babysitter had fled. Elizabeth could hardly blame the girl. Her nephew’s mother, Elizabeth’s younger sister Saoirse, was unmanageable and the frantic young babysitter had called Elizabeth in a panic. Elizabeth had to drop everything and come home. Luke’s nanny, Edith, had left for the three months of traveling she had threatened Elizabeth with for the past six years. She was, however, surprised that Edith, apart from the current trip to Australia, was still turning up to work every day. Six years she had been helping Elizabeth to raise Luke, six years of drama, and still after all her years of loyalty, Elizabeth expected a phone call or her letter of resignation practically every day. Being Luke’s nanny came with a lot of baggage. Then again, so did being Luke’s adoptive parent.

“Elizabeth, are you still there?”

“Yes.” Her eyes shot open. She was losing concentration. “Sorry, what did you say?”

“I asked you what car she took.”

Elizabeth rolled her eyes and made a face at the phone. “The same one, Marie. The same bloody car as last week, and the week before and the week before that,” she snapped.

Marie remained firm. “Which is the—?”

“BMW,” she interrupted. “The same damn 330 black BMW Cabriolet. Four wheels, two doors, one steering wheel, two wing mirrors, lights, and—”

“A partridge in a pear tree,” Marie interrupted. “What condition was she in?”

“Very shiny. I’d just washed her,” Elizabeth replied cheekily.

“Great, and what condition was Saoirse in?”

“The usual one.”

“Intoxicated.”

“That’s the one.” Elizabeth stood up and walked down the hall to the kitchen. Her sun trap. Her one heel against the marble floor echoed in the empty high-ceilinged room. Everything was in its place. The room was hot from the sun’s glare through the glass of the conservatory. Elizabeth’s tired eyes squinted in the brightness. The spotless kitchen gleamed, the black granite countertops sparkled, the chrome fittings mirrored the bright day. A stainless-steel and walnut heaven. She headed straight to the espresso machine. Her savior. Needing an injection of life into her exhausted body, she opened the kitchen cabinet and took out a small beige coffee cup. Before closing the press, she turned a cup ’round so that the handle was on the right side like all the others. She slid open the long steel cutlery drawer, noticed a knife in the fork compartment, put it back in its rightful place, retrieved a spoon, and slid it shut.

From the corner of her eye she saw the hand towel messily strewn over the handle of the cooker. She threw the crumpled cloth into the utility room, retrieved a fresh towel from the neat pile in the press, folded it exactly in half, and draped it over the cooker handle. Everything had its place.

She placed the steaming espresso cup on a marble coaster to protect the glass kitchen table. She smoothed out her trousers, removed a piece of fluff from her jacket, sat down in the conservatory, and looked out at her long swath of garden and the rolling green hills beyond which seemed to stretch on forever. Forty shades of green, gold, and brown.

She breathed in the rich aroma of her steaming espresso and immediately felt revived. She pictured her sister racing over the hills with the top down on Elizabeth’s convertible, arms in the air, eyes closed, flame-red hair blowing in the wind, believing she was free. Saoirse meant freedom in Irish. The name had been chosen by their mother in her last desperate attempt to make the duties of motherhood she despised so much seem less like a punishment. She felt by naming her this, her second daughter could some way bring her freedom from the shackles of marriage, motherhood, responsibility, reality.

Elizabeth and Saoirse’s mother, Gráinne, had met their father when Gráinne was just sixteen. She was traveling through the town with a group of poets, musicians, and dreamers and got talking to Brendan Egan, a farmer in the local pub. He was twelve years her senior and was enthralled by her wild, mysterious ways and carefree nature. She was flattered. And so they married. At eighteen Gráinne had their first child, Elizabeth. As it turned out, her mother couldn’t be tamed and found it increasingly frustrating being held in the sleepy town nestled in the hills she had only ever intended to pass through. A crying baby and sleepless nights drove her further and further away in her head. Dreams of her own personal freedom became confused with her reality and she started to go missing for days at a time. She went exploring, discovering places and other people.