Cecelia Ahern - How to Fall in Love

Score one to me, I thought childishly.

‘Not fat cat, but complicated words like …’ he looked around ‘… deciduous immediately says to me fastidious. ’

‘God, you’re so weird.’ I threw him a look.

‘Hey!’

I laughed. ‘I’m joking. That’s cool.’

‘That’s not cool.’

‘Hey, the secret mind is a very uncool place.’

‘Is that the message?’

I looked out at the lake. ‘What about “Never Ever Have I Ever …”? My sisters and I used to play it while in the car on holidays.’

‘You all must have near destroyed your dad.’

‘I actually think we kept him alive. Okay, you start. Never ever have I ever …’

‘You know, this sounds remarkably like one of Elaine’s “How to Fall in Love” techniques.’

‘Well, maybe I do want you to fall in love.’

I felt his eyes searing into me.

‘With life,’ I clarified. ‘I want you to love life. So go,’ I nudged him.

‘Okay, never ever have I ever …’ he thought about it for some time ‘… had a lollipop.’

‘What?!’ I exploded. ‘Explain!’

He laughed. ‘We were never allowed to have lollies as kids because they were dangerous. Every day we were told of the dangers: we’d choke, we’d break our teeth, we’d lose an eye or we’d cause someone else to lose an eye. And then finally we were told we could have them, but we had to sit down and eat or else we’d choke and die. I mean, why would any kid want that? So I never had one. It put me off for ever. I can’t even stand to watch kids eat them.’

I laughed.

‘Your turn.’

‘Never ever …’ I knew what I wanted to say but wasn’t sure whether to say it or not. I swallowed. ‘Have I ever … been in love.’

He looked at me in surprise. ‘But your husband?’

‘I thought it was. But I’m beginning to think that it wasn’t.’

‘Why?’

We looked at each other and I silently said to him in my head, Because it’s nothing like this but instead I said, ‘I don’t know. Do you think that unrequited love is real love?’

‘The answer is in the question, isn’t it?’ he said slowly.

‘Yeah, but if it’s not reciprocated, is the person experiencing the full, proper thing?’

He thought about it, he really thought about it and I waited for an answer that would represent all that thought, but he simply said, ‘Yes.’ He was obviously thinking about Maria, though I was sure Maria loved him dearly, despite her mistake with Sean.

‘Christine, why are we talking about this?’

I really didn’t know, I could barely remember how we got on to the topic. I had been trying to distract him and instead I’d ended up wandering into my own thoughts.

‘I don’t know,’ I shivered. ‘Let’s go inside before we freeze.’

Since we were in Adam’s territory I asked him to show me around. I wanted to get a feel for his life as a child and what his life would be if he moved back from Dublin, I wanted to know what it was that freaked him out so much that he became a different person down here. Adam took a car from the garage, which housed a selection of classic cars and sports cars in storage, and he drove us to the Basil’s factory twenty minutes away, pointing out landmarks and sites associated with stories from his childhood.

‘One of my ideas was to arrange tours of the factory. We could make money from it,’ he said, thoughtful. ‘I brought it to Dad, but he wasn’t too keen.’

‘What were your other ideas?’ I asked. Mary had said he had some good ideas, which intrigued me. He’d given the impression he didn’t care at all about the business, but being here had opened my eyes to the reality that he had cared, only his father had shut him down time and time again.

‘An adventure park.’

‘Seriously? Like Disney World?’

‘Not that elaborate, but maybe a petting zoo, playgrounds, a restaurant, that kind of thing. It’s being done elsewhere, I know that, and I thought it would be good for the area as a whole.’

‘What did your dad say?’

His face darkened and he didn’t respond. He indicated to pull into the factory and Mr Basil’s – now Adam’s – car space, but there was a car already there.

‘What the hell?’

‘Whose car is that?’

‘I’ve absolutely no idea.’

He parked elsewhere and we made our way inside, Adam with a worried expression on his face as the weight of the world had once again landed on him and only him. I had a feeling I wasn’t going to get my tour when I saw what was happening in the office. A meeting was in progress. An entire table filled with men in suits, no sign of Mary, and a strange woman in a trouser suit holding court. The woman looked out of the boardroom window, saw Adam and excused herself from the room. All the heads followed her, then turned back to each other to utter quiet words in ears before she returned.

‘Ah, Adam, nice of you to join us.’

‘Lavinia,’ he said, shocked. ‘What are you doing here?’

They didn’t embrace, there was no warmth.

‘A little birdy told me our daddy died. Hadn’t you heard?’

He glared at her.

‘I’m running the company, Adam, what do you think I’m doing?’ she said firmly.

‘You live in Boston. You can’t run the company.’

‘We’re moving back. Maurice has agreed to face the music. He’s co-operating with the gardaí, or at least he’s going to. We’ve a few things to tie up first.’ She smiled tightly but it didn’t reach her eyes.

‘You mean you talked in him into taking the fall,’ he accused.

She looked at me. ‘Is this a new girl or has Maria finally changed her lipstick?’

He ignored the question. ‘What do you think you’re doing, Lavinia?’

‘Everyone knows Daddy wanted me in charge, so I’m in charge. I’m merely obeying his wishes. God knows you wouldn’t.’

‘He was leaving that job to me.’

‘Adam, let’s not have one of your dramas. I’m back now and everything is going to be under control, so you can toddle off to Dublin and get on with your life. Everyone knows you don’t want anything to do with the company.’

He looked at her coolly. ‘That’s where you’re wrong.’

And I felt the direction shift, and in that moment everything clicked into place and I knew this time I was on course.

That night we lay in the same bedroom, me in the large bed, Adam on the couch at my feet. I was holding my breath while I listened to his breathing, which was solid and rhythmic. I listened and hoped; hoped that he would keep breathing for a long time, that his heart would keep pumping. It was as if I was relishing the sound of him living. It became so relaxing to me that I finally let go and breathed easily. I wasn’t sure who fell asleep first, but the sound of his breathing near me carried me off delicately into a blissful sleep for the first time in a very long time.

21

How to Dig a Hole to the Other Side of the World

‘Our brother has gone to his place of rest in the peace of Christ. May the Lord now welcome him to the table of God’s children in Heaven. With faith and hope in eternal life, let us assist him with our prayers.’

The congregation were standing at the Basil plot in Terryglass – Tír Dhá Ghlas, meaning the land of the two streams – at the north-eastern shore where the River Shannon entered Lough Derg. The world and its wife had turned out for Dick Basil’s funeral; not because he was a popular man, no, they knew that wasn’t true, but because of what he had brought to the community, to the communities, to the country. With a factory employing more than eight hundred people there were many families wondering and worrying about their jobs and their children’s jobs now that Mr Basil had passed away. Hundreds of families survived on Basil pay cheques. He may have been a rude, arrogant man who took no prisoners and thought little of friendship, but he was a loyal man, a patriotic man who had been born and bred in North Tipperary. Though he travelled the world in his private jet, he always came home to the place he loved and did his best to help the people and its villages and towns. In the midst of a recession, with rising industrial, labour and energy costs, he’d held strong to keep production in this place he loved when the cost-effective option would have been to move it overseas. Now the future of the factory was in jeopardy. Dick Basil had his own personal reasons for keeping the business close, and locals feared that whoever came after him wouldn’t feel the same loyalty to the area, particularly if either of his children, Lavinia and Adam, who were standing by the graveside, both looking cold – and only one of them from the icy weather – took over. Two kids who had moved out of North Tipperary at the earliest opportunity; one who regularly graced the society pages hosting glamorous charity dos and lunches in designer dresses, the other out of public view, rescuing others in the Irish Coast Guard. One had a kindness, the other was selfish. They hoped for Adam but knew Lavinia was the business brain, though there had been accusations implicating her in a foul Ponzi scheme. Now it was rumoured her children had been enrolled in a nearby boarding school, adding fuel to the fire. And then there was their cousin Nigel, hiding among the black suits by the graveside, who since taking charge of Bartholomew’s had closed down the Irish factory and moved production to China. Everyone hoped that if he got involved and the two companies merged, as rumour suggested, he wouldn’t close down the Tipperary factory as well. They were keeping an eye on him. They watched everyone’s faces, looking for signs of what was to come, until it was time for the congregation to bow their heads for the rite of committal. Change was ahead, they all knew it and were readying themselves. It was imminent and it was inevitable.