Cecelia Ahern - How to Fall in Love

‘She almost made love to them, she was so happy to see them again. You made a woman chocolates? Jesus, Adam, you were good.’

‘Were?’

‘You know what I mean. You’re getting there again.’

‘They had praline, hazelnuts and almond in them, because she’s nutty,’ he said proudly.

‘I know, she told me.’

‘She did? What did she say?’

His eagerness was endearing so I rehashed the entire conversation, leaving out the part where Maria questioned me about my role in his life. I still hadn’t made sense of that part yet.

‘So you’re Adam Basil of Basil’s Chocolate.’ I shook my head, still not believing it. ‘You should have told me yesterday. You denied it.’

‘I didn’t deny it. As I recall, I said, “Yes, and like the herb.”’

‘Oh. Well, when all this ends you’ll have to make me my own chocolate, as a token of your appreciation.’

‘Easy. Black coffee flavour.’

I rolled my eyes. ‘Not very original.’

‘Shaped as an espresso cup.’ He tried hard to impress me.

‘I hope you have a good creative team at Basil’s.’

‘Why? You wouldn’t eat it anyway,’ he laughed.

We were silent as we walked. I had to switch my brain off, I had a headache and it hurt to think, so I allowed him to lead me. I grabbed his hand as we approached Samuel Beckett Bridge; it was instinctive, I didn’t want him to suddenly jump, even though I knew he was on a high after Maria’s reaction. He didn’t object. We held hands as we walked over the bridge, and when we were over it he didn’t let go.

‘Where do the company, Basil’s, think you are?’ I asked.

‘Visiting my father. They said take all the time I need. I wonder if they’ll accept the rest of my life.’

‘I’m sure they’d be happy to hear that instead of the alternative.’

He looked at me sharply. ‘They can’t know.’

‘That you tried to die by suicide?’

He dropped my hand. ‘I told you not to use those words.’

‘Adam, if they knew you were so miserable that you wanted to end your life, I’m sure that would be a big way out of the job.’

‘That’s not an option and you know it,’ he said. ‘It’s not why I did it.’

We left a long silence.

‘You should go see your dad.’

‘Not today. Today is a good day,’ he said, jubilant again about the Maria outcome. ‘Where to now?’

‘I’m a bit tired, Adam. I think I’ll go home and have a rest.’

He looked disappointed, then concerned. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Yeah.’ I nodded, needing to seem upbeat. ‘I just need a catnap and I’ll be fine.’

‘I’ve arranged for Pat to collect us.’

‘Who’s Pat?’

‘My father’s driver.’

‘Your father’s driver?’ I repeated.

‘Well, Father’s in hospital, he’s not going to need him, and your car is out of action. So I called Pat. He’s bored of waiting around anyway.’

Moments later, Pat rolled up in a two hundred and fifty thousand euro brand-new Rolls-Royce. I knew little about cars, but while Barry displayed no real passion for anything in life he did know about cars and pointed out the good ones that ‘gobshites’ always seemed to be driving. In Barry’s opinion, the Rolls-Royce was the car of choice for the biggest kind of gobshite. I greeted Pat the driver and sat into the car. It was deliciously warm after the freezing cold outside. Adam hadn’t closed the door yet; he was staring at me, a thoughtful look on his face.

‘What?’ I asked.

‘Rose petal,’ he said simply.

‘I love rose petal.’

‘And the chocolate would be in the shape of a petal.’

‘You’re good,’ I acknowledged. ‘All the more reason for me to keep you alive.’

‘You mean there’s more than one reason?’ he joked, and closed the door.

Yes , I thought to myself as I watched him make his way around the car.

13

How to Recognise and Appreciate the People in Your Life Today

I sat in the row behind Amelia at her mother’s funeral. Apart from an aged uncle, her father’s brother, who was out of his nursing home for the day, she was alone in the family front pew. Fred, who days before had asked her to move to Berlin with him, hadn’t bothered to ask her a second time. In fact I had detected a panic within him when we spoke. His original proposal had been made in the sure knowledge that Amelia would say no because of her mother; now Magda had passed on and there was nothing to bind Amelia to the bookshop and Dublin, his terror was palpable. I was sure that Amelia was right about him having another woman waiting for him in Berlin. I caught his eye a few rows back and threw him the dirtiest look I could muster, all in the name of a friend. He lowered his eyes and when I felt satisfied he was sufficiently squirming I turned back to face the front, feeling like a dirty hypocrite and regretting it instantly. There had been no secret man waiting for me, that much was obvious, but I had walked out on Barry, ended our relationship for no real reason at all – well, no reason that anybody else could see. It was almost as if my unhappiness wasn’t enough. If he didn’t cheat on me, hit me or was unkind to me, nobody could seem to understand that my not loving him and being unhappy was enough of a reason. I wasn’t perfect, but I tried my best, like most people, not to make mistakes. For an entire marriage to be a mistake was one of the most hurtful, not to mention embarrassing things that could have happened in my life. The thought of Barry possibly being in the church ended my wandering eyes.

Though Fred had hurt Amelia, how could I blame him when he had done the very thing that I had predicted in my private discussions with Barry? Amelia had been wedged in her rut of caring for her mother and devoting herself to a business her father had loved, a noble rut, granted, but one she had lodged herself in of her own free will. There was only so much of Amelia’s standing still that Fred, or anyone in her life, could take.

Amelia’s head was bowed, her curly red hair hiding her face. When she turned to me her tired green eyes were rimmed with red, the tip of her nose was red, raw from the tissues, the pain on her face clear. I smiled back supportively, then realised the entire church was quiet and the priest was looking at me.

‘Oh.’ I realised they were waiting for me. I stood and made my way to the altar.

Whether Adam liked it or not, I had insisted he come to the funeral and sit with me and my family. Despite his great mood after my meeting with Maria, I couldn’t risk leaving him alone. We were taking great leaps forward, a little with Maria, a little with himself, but for every leap there were a few steps back. I had banned him from reading newspapers and from watching the news. He needed to focus on the positive; the news did not. There were ways to keep in touch with reality without allowing yourself to be bombarded with information as outsiders saw fit. Yesterday, we had spent much of the day doing a jigsaw while I picked his brains in the most non-invasive way I could, then we played Monopoly, which meant I had to stop my questioning and concentrate to prevent Adam wiping the floor with me. It didn’t work and I’d gone to bed in a bad mood. I knew these activities weren’t going to save him, but they did help me learn more about him as it made it easier for him to talk to me. I think it also gave him a moment to think about his problems, process them while concentrating on something else at the same time, instead of bringing them to centre stage. This morning I’d listened to his muted sobs while he was in the shower and made plans for how to fix the rest of his problems. I believed that most things were possible if you put your mind to it, but I was also realistic; ‘most’ implied not everything. I couldn’t afford to examine the odds in this case; there could only be one outcome.