Cecelia Ahern - How to Fall in Love

‘Of course,’ I whispered, cringing even more. ‘Thank you so much for your time. And again, I’m so sorry.’

‘On a personal note, if I may …’ he added looking at me for permission to speak frankly.

I nodded.

‘You are wonderful at what you do. I’ve recommended your recruitment agency to many clients around here who have fallen on hard times; I think they’d find your way of doing things enlightening, uplifting. You care about where you place people. And you went beyond the call of duty by trying to help me with my smoking habit. I have a pile of books I still need to read,’ he said, smiling. I could smell the smoke from his jacket, but nonetheless I appreciated his gratitude. ‘You’re a fixer, Christine, but if you really want to help someone, to be a friend to them, sometimes you need to listen and let them do the work themselves. Be there for him. That’s all.’

18

How to Make Absolutely Everything Okay Again

I should have learned from my session with Leo – stop meddling. In fact the message had come through loud and clear, but I had set up this meeting to solve Amelia’s predicament before meeting with Leo. I led the way up a staircase over an Afro-Caribbean grocery on Camden Street to the office of my cousin and private detective, Bobby O’Brien. He was thirty-two years old and hailed from County Donegal; after joining the Gardaí, and being sent to a posh Dublin suburb with not enough action, he had decided to leave. Then, on my advice – after continuously coming back to Rose Recruitment having been fired from or having walked out of the jobs I’d placed him in – he opted to set himself up as the Lone Ranger and investigate the juicy stuff all on his own.

Since I was unable to go with Amelia on a wild-goose chase to find her parents, I hoped Bobby would point her in the right direction. The plan was for me to introduce them and then leave; I would put the power in Amelia’s hands, I would not take it away. Give others the power over their own lives, give others the power over their own lives. My new mantra.

Confronted with the door to Bobby’s office, Amelia froze at the top of the stairs. ‘I can’t do this.’

‘That’s absolutely fine,’ I said, turning around and starting down the stairs again. ‘Nobody will think any worse of you.’

‘Hey,’ Amelia said, stopping me. ‘Aren’t you going to try to change my mind?’

‘No. I don’t want to force you into anything you don’t want to do, Amelia,’ I announced, hoping Adam would get the message too. ‘This is a difficult time for you and I appreciate that. This is your life and you’re totally in control of it. You should make your own decisions, I don’t want to influence you in any way or project my problems on to you, because thinking I can fix you won’t fix me.’

Both Adam and Amelia narrowed their eyes at me suspiciously.

‘What happened to her?’ Amelia asked Adam.

‘I think she hit her head,’ he replied, poker-faced. ‘Come on,’ he said, encouraging Amelia to the office door. ‘We’re here now, let’s do it.’

‘But only if she wants to,’ I insisted.

Adam rolled his eyes. Amelia stared at me, wide-eyed.

‘You want to find your biological parents, don’t you?’ Adam asked.

She nodded.

‘Then try this,’ he said, taking control of the situation since I had pretty much flaked out on them. ‘And if this doesn’t work, try another route. Keep your options open. Be prepared for … you know …’ He looked around the grubby hall, the graffiti on the walls and tried not to breathe in the awful stench of fish, damp and sewerage that pervaded the old building. ‘… anything.’ He knocked on Bobby’s door.

‘Who’s there?’ Bobby replied, a certain urgency in his voice.

‘It’s Christine,’ I called.

‘Christine?’ The surprise was more than evident. ‘Do we have an appointment?’

‘Er, no. I was hoping you can help. I have some friends with me.’ Despite Adam’s progress, his volatile mind and fragile state still left me afraid to leave him alone. Only that morning a car had cut across me, in the wrong lane to turn off a roundabout, and as soon as we pulled up beside it at the lights Adam had leapt out of the car and screamed at the terrified woman behind the wheel, who had three kids in the back seat. He had ignored my pleas to get back into the car and so it had taken the lights going green and the woman speeding away for dear life, almost in tears, for him to get back into the car, where he went quiet, cracking his knuckles over and over again. Afterwards it was an hour before he’d speak to me. He had acted as if coming with me on this trip was punishment, but it wasn’t, I was simply afraid, always afraid to leave him alone in case anything else tipped him over the edge.

‘What friends?’ Bobby asked. There it was again, the slight fear, the distrust, as if he was up to divilment, or had been and didn’t want to get caught. ‘Look, if it’s about your husband, I’m sorry I spoke to him that way, okay? We never got along – no surprises there – but he was way out of line calling me like that.’

I closed my eyes and counted to three at that revelation.

‘Can you please open the door?’ I asked impatiently.

There was the sound of locks and bolts being undone and then the door opened the slightest amount, a couple of inches, the chain visible. One blue eye peered out at us. It looked left and right, studied Adam and Amelia, then the hallway behind us. Apparently satisfied, he pulled the door to, slid the chain free and opened the door to usher us in.

‘Sorry about that,’ he said. ‘Part of the job, you know. I have to be careful.’ He closed the door behind us, slid the bolts and turned the key in the lock.

‘Bobby O’Brien,’ he smiled, charmingly, and held out his hand first to Adam and then Amelia.

‘You’ve met Amelia before,’ I said. ‘We’re friends from school. She’s at every family event.’

‘Really?’ He studied her. ‘I’m sure I would have remembered a pretty woman like you.’

Amelia’s cheeks pinked.

I rolled my eyes at his efforts to charm her. ‘You stole her ice-cream at my eighth birthday and threw it over the neighbour’s wall.’

He thought about it. ‘That was you?’

Amelia laughed. ‘I look different when I’m not wailing that I hate boys.’

‘Hasn’t changed all that much,’ Adam mumbled so only I could hear, and I threw him a look.

‘How are you doing, Christine?’ Bobby gave me a warm hug.

After he released me from his embrace he made his way to the window behind his desk. The vertical blinds were closed. He pulled the slats apart slightly and peeked out at the road below, then back at us.

‘How can I help you?’

He was wearing a green T-shirt with ‘Beer Heaven’ written on it and ripped blue jeans. His hair was black and curly, falling down over his eyes, his skin was pale and his jaw stubbled. He always looked as if he was up to mischief, probably because he always was; never more so than now. I noticed Amelia was checking him out. I liked this, and fought the urge to meddle. Let them take control of this themselves, I told myself.

‘Bobby, Amelia is the reason we’re here. She recently discovered that her parents are not her biological parents. Amelia, would you like to take it from here? Show him what you found?’

While Amelia talked about the contents of the shoebox I looked out of the window to see what had been making Bobby so anxious. There was nobody there. I quickly closed the blinds and stepped away. Bobby noticed me and gave me a weak, nervous smile. I didn’t want to know what he’d done.

‘So basically you’re saying that everything in this box, this collection of items that were left with you when you were passed on to your adopted mother, leads to Kenmare?’ Bobby summed it up.