Cecelia Ahern - How to Fall in Love

‘Now, now,’ I had to stop the silliness. ‘Let’s not go there. I’m sure this could have been made by anyone in the world, Elaine. We mustn’t go getting Amelia’s hopes up about finding her parents.’

‘Finding my parents?’ Amelia whispered, stunned. It was as if the thought hadn’t yet occurred to her. She had been so wrapped up in wondering why her adoptive parents had kept this from her and how they could have lied to her for so long, that she hadn’t yet come round to thinking about the possibility of finding her real parents.

‘All I’m saying is, this is Kenmare lace, made with love and care. I know, because I started a lace-making class to meet men. Every single item in this box points to Kenmare. The lace is Kenmare lace and the sweaters are from Quills, which is Kenmare.’

‘There’s no way you could recognise the knitting is from Quills,’ I said, in a rush to derail this ridiculous train of thought.

‘The label is on it,’ Elaine said, showing it to me. She looked up at Amelia. ‘Amelia, I think your biological mother is in Kenmare.’

‘Jesus,’ I rubbed my face wearily. We were in for a long night.

Adam had gone back to my flat under strict instructions to complete the fifteen-hundred-piece jigsaw puzzle I’d bought for him. He had been unimpressed and unmotivated by the oil painting of a stormy sea puzzle that I’d been doing with him for an hour every day, so I’d purchased a topless babe on the beach jigsaw online, which had arrived that morning. I guessed he wouldn’t be starting at the border for that puzzle.

I arrived back in the early hours of the morning, exhausted from going round in circles with Amelia. If Elaine hadn’t been there it would have been easier to talk sense into her, but despite all my efforts, when I left late that night, Amelia was dead set on going to Kenmare.

‘How is she?’ Adam asked, bent over the coffee table with a piece in his hand. His forehead was furrowed, his lips pouted in concentration. It was sweet and it made me smile.

‘What?’ He looked up and caught me gazing at him.

‘Nothing. You just answered my queries on whether you were a bum or a boob man.’

‘Boob man all the way.’ He had successfully completed one boob. As I had predicted, not one piece of the frame had been put together. ‘This puzzle is much better than the last one, thank you.’

‘I aim to please.’ I got down on my knees and joined him in his quest.

I felt him watching me. He studied me for a bit and when I didn’t meet his gaze he continued: ‘I’m currently looking for a right nipple.’

We examined the glass table, our heads together. ‘There.’ I handed him a piece.

‘That’s not a nipple.’

‘It is – it’s a bit of the nipple and a bit of her armpit, and a bit of the sea. Look at the box: her nipple is hard and it’s about to knock that surfer in the background right off his board. See, that’s the board there.’ I pointed at the piece.

‘Oh yeah,’ he laughed. ‘You know, the way you talk, you turn me on like Irma.’

‘Irma,’ I snorted. ‘I can’t believe she asked for your number.’

‘And I can’t believe I gave her yours.’

‘You what?’ I shoved him. He shoved me back. It was all childish flirting and deliciously fun at the same time.

‘So what’s Amelia going to do?’

‘She’s a bit all over the place. It’s a huge shock, obviously. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if I heard I was adopted. Might even be a bit glad.’

‘Hear, hear,’ he concurred.

‘That’s from her thong.’ I handed him a piece.

We sat in a comfortable silence.

‘Amelia didn’t seem all that shocked, considering,’ he said suddenly. ‘Did you notice the way she rushed to find the year she was born? She was frantic.’

‘She said she hadn’t a clue,’ I protested, though deep down I agreed with Adam’s instincts.

‘And I say she knew. Sometimes you can know a thing even when you don’t know,’ he said, looking at me.

And there it was again. That sentence. I was looking at him in surprise.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing.’ I swallowed. ‘Just …’ I changed the subject. ‘Elaine is trying to convince Amelia that she needs to go to Kenmare to find her biological parents.’

‘Elaine needs her head checked.’

I was silent.

He looked up at me. ‘You do know it’s a ridiculous idea, don’t you?’

‘I do. But Amelia wants to do it.’

‘Of course she wants to do it. In the space of a week her entire world has toppled on her head. She’s not thinking properly. She’d agree to go to the moon if someone suggested it.’

What he said hammered home. Not about Amelia, but about him. His world had almost ended on Sunday night, he wasn’t thinking properly; he would do anything to make it right. I happened to be that anything. I swallowed hard, knowing that this experience was for him, not for me. I needed to extricate myself from the situation, I needed to stop feeling for him. I needed to get him out of Dublin, out of my life, and I needed to start fixing his life, laying the groundwork so that it would be comfortable enough to slip into, then I’d tuck him in and say goodnight and goodbye.

‘I’ve never known Amelia to want to go anywhere in all the time we’ve been friends. She wouldn’t go away for a weekend, or if she did it was under protest. She could never go anywhere, she’s never even been out of the country. Her wanting to do this trip is a really big deal, regardless of whether she finds her biological parents or not. I told her I’d bring her to a private detective tomorrow to see if he can help.’ I sighed. I was going to have to put Amelia to one side. ‘Adam, we need to go to Tipperary. We need to fix things there. We’ve done what we can with Maria for now, it’s time to leave Dublin for a few days. I’ll have you back in time for your birthday, all set to announce that you’re not taking over Basil’s. You’ll get your Maria back, your coast guard job back, Basil’s will be rescued and I’ll be out of your hair for ever.’ I smiled tightly.

He didn’t look too happy about it.

‘Don’t look so miserable. We’ve one more thing to do tomorrow before we leave Maria for a few days.’

I picked up the box beside the door; another delivery that morning. Insomnia was good for some things. Online shopping.

‘What’s in that box?’ He eyed it suspiciously.

‘Maria said she wants to see you. Well, tomorrow, she is going to see you. A lot.’ I opened the box and revealed its contents. ‘Ta-da!’

His beautiful face lit up as he looked at me in amazement. ‘Christine, I wish the world was filled with people like you, do you know that?’ he laughed.

So fill your world with me! I shouted at him in my head.

17

How to Stand Out from the Crowd

The following morning the jigsaw had been abandoned. Eager for his next project, Adam was standing in the centre of Dublin wearing a white-and-red woolly hat with a red bobble, a black wig peeking out beneath it, round black glasses, a red-and-white striped jumper, his own blue jeans and a walking stick. One look at him kitted out as Where’s Wally and I’d started laughing and hadn’t been able to stop. Even dressed as Wally, he was beautiful.

Maria was going up the escalator in Marks and Spencer’s when she saw, directly beside her but going down, a man who looked remarkably like Adam dressed as Where’s Wally. He didn’t look in her direction once, his head was held high and his eyes looked straight ahead. The expression on his face never changed, leading her to question whether it was an act carried out for her or merely a coincidence. But it was when she was putting broccoli into her basket and Where’s Wally walked past her pushing an empty shopping trolley, disappearing round a corner as soon as she tried to follow him down the aisle, that she began to suspect it might be for her. When she was sitting on the fourth floor of Brown Thomas department store having a manicure and the same man walked by, weaving in and out of the clothes rails and eventually disappearing, she was sure it was him. Catching sight of him from the corner of her eye as she was buying flowers on Grafton Street confirmed it, and when she was buying a coffee in Butler’s and he walked by the window before ducking out of view, she was laughing out loud. As she walked across the bridge in Stephen’s Green, she was scanning the park for a sight of him. A flash of red caught her eye and she saw him on the path beneath the bridge. She watched him enter on one side, and she ran to the other side of the bridge to catch him exit. From that moment, every time she saw a flash of red she found herself stopping and staring, anticipation fluttering in her stomach that he would appear again.