Cecelia Ahern - How to Fall in Love

‘Oh don’t, Dad,’ I sighed. ‘They’re perfect for each other, they’re meant to be. I mean, the man was about to throw himself off a bridge if he couldn’t get her back. How romantic is that?’

‘Not romantic at all,’ Adrienne said, still unhappy that her announcement had been overlooked.

‘ Saving him from jumping off a bridge is far more romantic,’ Brenda said.

‘You’re lucky you saved him,’ Dad said, then they all went quiet.

It had been almost thirty years since our mother had taken her life, since Dad had walked in to find her on the floor of their bathroom with the empty pill bottle beside her body. He had confessed to us that he hadn’t tried to save her, a revelation we had been in various degrees of understanding about. Brenda understood, Adrienne saw his point of view but wished that he had called the ambulance services sooner, and I hadn’t spoken to him for months. I had been nineteen and at college when he told me. Thinking I could save everyone or at least wanted to attempt to save everyone, I told him I would never forgive him. It had been hard on Dad at the time, because he had saved his wife six times already. He had given her CPR twice, pulled her out of a bath, done God knows what else, rushed her to hospital so many times he just didn’t have it in him to keep trying, to persuade her to stay.

‘You know what, Dad,’ I said suddenly. ‘I think you did save her. She didn’t want to be here.’

He was so moved by that he had to look away to compose himself.

‘There she is,’ I said, watching Maria enter the room ahead of Adam.

‘Ooh, I won’t know whether to shake his hand or lick his face,’ Brenda said.

‘Please shake his hand,’ I said.

‘Is that her? With the red lips?’ Adrienne asked.

‘You want to lick her face, don’t you?’ Dad said to her.

Adrienne giggled.

I sighed. ‘I knew it. I told you she was beautiful.’

‘In a Morticia Addams kind of way,’ said Brenda.

Adam and Maria made their way into the room, Maria greeting people warmly, obviously familiar with most of the guests from her time with Adam. I downed my champagne and plucked the flute from Brenda’s hands.

‘Hey!’ she protested, then gave up.

Then there was a tapping of a glass and everyone looked to a man on stage who was trying to hush the crowd.

He thanked a few illustrious guests for being there – the Minister for Trade, not the Taoiseach as Dad had been hoping for – and each time he named someone of importance Dad made an impressed face. He talked about the sad passing of Mr Richard Basil, who would be greatly missed – clearly he hadn’t known him very well – and then announced Adam as the new CEO of Basil Confectionery. There was a great cheer from the crowd and Adam moved towards the stage.

He climbed the steps and took his place, looking like a movie star.

‘A friend of mine helped me word this speech tonight,’ he said, looking out to the crowd. Maria smiled at him proudly from the wings and my throat tightened. ‘I’m not the best at talking about how I’m feeling. Nights like this aren’t always the easiest as it’s overwhelming, but I’m feeling … honoured that you’ve all come here today. I’ve heard talk that it’s a new beginning for Basil, but I’m hoping it’s more of a continuation of its success, perhaps the beginning of new growth for the company. I’m feeling … uplifted and sustained by so many kind words so many people have had to say about my father, though it is clear, despite your good intentions, that you are all liars.’

That got a laugh from the crowd.

‘My father was a lot of things, but mostly he was good at his job.’

Some nodding of heads. I spotted Arthur May, the solicitor, among the crowd.

‘He put his heart and soul into the business. In fact I think he poured so much into the business that he had very little left for the rest of us.’

They laughed again.

‘ I’m feeling … proud that he has named me as his successor, that he felt me able for this role. I know that myself and the board and the wonderful Mary Keegan, our new MD, are united in our goals for the company. I’m feeling … ready. My experience may be short and my task unfamiliar, but I have in my father and grandfather an example that I can follow with certainty and with confidence as I take on the traditions of Basil while at the same time looking to the future. And finally, I owe a great thank you to those who planned this evening and those it took to get me here.’ His eyes rested on me. There was a considerable silence. He cleared his throat. ‘Thank you from a full heart.’

As everyone broke into applause, I moved through the crowd, hurried, I couldn’t get out of the room fast enough, I couldn’t get enough air. I ran down a flight of stairs, grateful to find the toilets empty during the speeches, locked myself in a cubicle and burst into tears.

‘Christine?’

It was Brenda’s voice. I froze. The bathroom had filled up very quickly after the speeches had ended and there was a queue outside the cubicles. I was waiting for my puffy eyes to calm down before I risked opening the door to reveal a tear-stained face to anyone who might be out there. The problem was, I had been in there for so long I was a constant subject of debate for the queue outside.

‘Christine?’ Adrienne called. ‘Christine, are you in here?’

‘We think that one is out of order,’ someone said.

Mortified, I took out my phone and started furiously texting my sisters to leave me alone, but they began banging on the door, startling me and ending my frantic text.

‘Christine, is Adam in there with you?’ Adrienne asked, right outside the door.

‘Adam?! Of course not!’ I blurted out. I’d given myself away and I heard a woman in the queue say, ‘It must have been the vol au vents.’

‘He’s missing,’ Brenda said quickly. ‘Did you hear that? They’re bringing out the cake and no one can find him.’

‘He’s not with Maria, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ Adrienne added.

That was exactly what I’d been thinking.

‘We asked her where he was as she was leaving. She said she had no idea.’ Adrienne lowered her voice and must have come closer to the door because it sounded right on top of her. ‘They didn’t get back together, Christine.’ Her voice was low and urgent.

All of a sudden my pulse was throbbing in my ears and I could hear nothing else and couldn’t wait to get out of there. I opened the door and suddenly didn’t care about the twenty women staring at me or the fact no one would go into my cubicle after I’d been in there for so long. All I could see was Brenda and Adrienne’s concerned faces – faces that never showed concern, not to their baby sister who was always far too concerned; instead they always maintained a breezy repartee that was meant to jolly me along just in case, God forbid, I was like Mum after all. But now they were looking at me, serious, concerned, panicked.

‘Do you know where he is?’ Brenda asked and I wracked my brain, searching, trawling through our conversation archive for a hint of where he could be.

‘No, I don’t know,’ I stammered, trying to think straight. ‘I can’t believe Maria did that to him,’ I said angrily. Twice now she’d broken his heart – couldn’t she see how amazing he was?! ‘I should have stayed with him, what was I thinking?’

‘Okay, don’t worry about that now, just focus on where he’d be. Think hard.’

I thought of the penthouse, the night we’d spent together, his last night. The view of the Ha’penny Bridge. I froze. He’d been planning it all along.

‘She knows,’ Adrienne said.