Cecelia Ahern Untitled Novel 1

‘PS,’ she blows a kiss, ‘I love you.’

Ciara grabs my arm and slowly turns to look at me. ‘Oh my …’ she whispers.

The screen goes black and everybody, everybody is crying. I can’t imagine how her family feel after this. I can’t look at Ciara. I feel sick. I feel dizzy. I feel like there’s no air. Nobody is paying the slightest attention to me but I feel self-conscious, as if they all know about me, and what Gerry did for me. Would it be rude for me to leave? I’m so near to the door. I need air, I need light, I need to get out of this claustrophobic suffocating scene. I stand and steady myself on the back of the pew then walk towards the door.

‘Holly?’ Ciara whispers.

Outside, I suck in air, but it’s not enough. I need to move away, get away.

‘Holly!’ Ciara calls, hurrying to catch up with me. ‘Are you OK?’

I stop walking and look at her. ‘No. I’m not OK. I’m definitely not OK.’

‘Shit, this is my fault. I’m so sorry, Holly. I asked you to do the podcast, you didn’t want to and I practically forced you, I’m so sorry, this is all my fault. No wonder you were avoiding her. It all makes sense now. I’m so sorry.’

Her words somehow manage to steady me, it’s not my fault for feeling like this. This happened to me. It’s not my fault. It’s unfair. She’s offering sympathy. She hugs me and I rest my head on her shoulder, back to feeling weak and vulnerable and sad. I don’t like it. I stop myself. My head snaps up.

‘No.’

‘No what?’

I wipe my eyes roughly and charge towards the car. ‘This is not who I am any more.’

‘What do you mean? Holly, look at me please,’ she pleads, trying to meet my eye as I look around wildly, desperate to sharpen my focus, desperate to get things in perspective.

‘This is not happening to me again. I’m going back to the shop. I’m going back to my life.’

The skill I discovered when I began working with my sister, after the magazine I worked for folded, is that I’m good at sorting. While Ciara is a magnificent creature when it comes to dealing with the aesthetic, beautifying the shop and placing each item in a place of importance, I could happily, and do quite happily, spend long days in the stockroom emptying boxes and bin liners of the things people no longer want. I get lost in the rhythm of it. These actions are particularly therapeutic in the days that follow Angela Carberry’s funeral. I empty everything on to the floor, sit down and go through the contents of handbags and pockets, sorting the precious from the trash. I polish jewellery until it sparkles, shoes until they shine. I dust off old books. I discard anything that’s not appropriate: dirty underwear, odd socks, used handkerchiefs and tissues. Depending on how busy I am, I can be nosy and get lost in studying receipts and notes, trying to date the last use of the object, understand the life of the person who lived with it. I run the clothes through a rinse wash, I use a steamer to smooth wrinkled fabric. I treasure anything of value: money, photographs, letters that should be returned to their sender. As far as possible, I make detailed notes of who owns what. Sometimes the possessions will never be reunited with their owner; those who have dropped boxes and bags off without contact details are just happy to be rid of their clutter. But sometimes I manage to matchmake. If we don’t feel we can sell the product, if it’s not right for Ciara’s vision, then we repackage them and give them to charities.

I take what’s old and make it new and I’m rewarded by the belief that there is value in my work. Today is a good day to get lost in a cardboard box filled with possessions that became objects as soon as they were dropped into the bag. I lift a box of books from the stockroom and carry them to the shop floor. Again I sit on the floor, wiping covers, folding back dog-eared pages and flicking through the pages for bookmarks of value. Sometimes I find old photographs that are used as bookmarks; mostly I don’t find anything, but every find is important. I’m lost in this world of sorting when the bell rings above the shop door.

Ciara is across the other side of the shop battling with a disarmed and beheaded mannequin as she tries to squeeze a polka-dot tea dress onto its body.

‘Hello,’ she greets the customer warmly.

She is better with customers than I am. I focus on the products when given the choice and she focuses on the people. She and Mathew opened the shop five years ago after they bought it as a house on St. George’s Avenue in Drumcondra, Dublin. The front of the house already had a floor-to-ceiling window built in, from its former life as a sweet shop. They live upstairs in a flat. As a second-hand shop on a quiet terraced street, we don’t attract much in the way of passing trade, but people travel to get here, and the local university provides plenty of students as customers, lured by the cheaper prices and the cool factor that comes with wearing vintage. Ciara is the star of the shop, hosting evening events, attending trade fairs, contributing to magazines, and a sometime-TV-presenter of breakfast television fashion slots, displaying the latest arrivals to the shop. If she is the heart of this shop, Mathew is the brains who handles the accounts, runs their online presence and oversees the technical side of the podcasts, and I’m the guts.

‘Hello,’ the customer, a woman replies.

I can’t see her, I’m hidden behind a display unit, sitting on the floor. I’m already zoning out and allowing Ciara to do her thing.

‘I recognise you,’ Ciara says. ‘You spoke at Angela’s funeral.’

‘You were there?’

‘Yes, of course. Angela was a fantastic supporter of the shop. My sister and I were there. We’ll miss her, she was a powerhouse of a woman.’

So now I’m listening.

‘Your sister was there too, you say?’

‘Yes. Holly, she’s … busy at the moment.’ Ciara uses her smarts and remembers that I will not wish to speak to this woman, as I have not wanted to speak about the entire funeral episode since it happened two weeks ago.

I did what I said I would do. I returned to the shop, I went back to my life, I tried not to think of what happened at the funeral for one second, but inevitably I did. I can’t stop thinking about it. Angela was clearly inspired by my experience with Gerry’s letters to do the same for her family in her final weeks, this I understand, but what I don’t understand is her business card. What on earth was she intending on doing with the PS, I Love You Club? Over the past few weeks I’ve wanted to know and I didn’t want to know and yet, here I am, not wanting to be seen but wanting to hear at the same time.

‘Did Holly …’ The woman abandons her question. ‘My name is Joy, pleased to meet you. Angela loved this shop. Did you know this is the house she grew up in?’

‘No! She never mentioned it. Never, I can’t believe it.’

‘Yes. Well, it would have been like her not to say. She and I were school friends, I lived around the corner. We recently reconnected, but I know she would have enjoyed seeing her belongings in the place she grew up – not that we had such fine things back then. I still don’t.’

‘Wow! I can’t believe this,’ Ciara replies. Sensing this woman is not here to browse, she extends her usual wonderful and, in this instance, annoying, hospitality. ‘Would you like a tea or coffee?’

‘Oh, a tea would be lovely, thank you. With a small drop of milk, please.’

Ciara goes into the back rooms, and I hear Joy walk around the shop. I pray that she won’t discover me but I know that she will. Her footsteps near me. They stop, I look up.

‘You must be Holly,’ she says. She has a cane.

‘Hello,’ I say, as though I hadn’t heard a word her and Ciara had said.

‘I’m Joy. A friend of Angela Carberry’s.’

‘I’m sorry for your loss.’

‘Thank you. She went fast in the end. She declined so quickly. I wonder if she had a chance to speak with you.’

If I was polite I would stand up. Stop this woman on a cane from having to lean down and talk to me. But I’m not feeling polite.

‘About?’

‘About her club.’ She reaches into her pocket and retrieves a business card. The same one that Gabriel had shown me.

‘I received the business card, but I have no idea what it’s about.’

‘She gathered – well, she and I both gathered a group of people who are fans of yours.’

‘Fans?’

‘We listened to your podcast, we were so moved by your words.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I wonder if you could meet with us? I want to continue the good work Angela began …’ her eyes fill. ‘Oh, I’m very sorry.’

Ciara returns with the tea. ‘Are you OK, Joy?’ she asks when she sees the woman with a cane crying, while I’m still sitting on the floor with a book in my hand. She throws me a look of confusion and horror. Her cold-hearted sister.

‘I’m fine. Yes, I am, thank you. I’m very sorry for the imposition. I think I’ll just … gather myself.’

‘There’s no need to leave, take a seat over here.’ Ciara guides Joy to an armchair beside the dressing room, a corner of the room with a mirror and dramatic draping, still in my line of vision. ‘You stay here and rest until you feel right. There’s your tea. I’ll get you a tissue.’

‘You’re very kind,’ Joy says, weakly.

I remain on the floor. I wait for Ciara to leave before speaking, ‘What’s the club about?’

‘Did Angela not explain it to you?’

‘No. She left the business card here for me, but we never talked.’

‘I’m sorry she didn’t explain it to you. So please do let me. Angela was shining like a light after she attended your talk; she came to me with her idea, and when Angela Carberry got something in her head she was bound to it. She could be very persistent, and not always in the right ways. She was used to getting what she wanted.’

I think of Angela’s hand squeezing my arm, her nails digging into my flesh. The urgency that I misread.

‘Angela and I were in school together but we lost contact, as you do. We met each other a few months ago and because of our illnesses I think we connected more than we ever had. After she heard you speak, she called me and told me all about it. I was as greatly inspired by your story as she was. I told a few others who I felt would benefit.’

As Joy takes a breath I realise I’m holding mine. My chest is tight, my body is rigid.

‘There are five of us – well, four of us now. Your story filled us with light and hope. You see, dear Holly, we got together because we have something that bonds us.’

My fingers are clenching the book so hard it’s almost bending.

‘We have all been diagnosed with terminal illnesses. We joined together not just because of the hope that your story inspired in us but because we have a shared goal. We want to write letters for our loved ones as your husband did for you. We desperately need your help, Holly. We’re running out of ideas and …’ she breathes in as if summoning the energy, ‘all of us are running out of time.’

Silence as I pause, freeze, try to absorb that. I’m speechless.

‘I’ve put you on the spot and I’m very sorry,’ she says, embarrassed. She attempts to stand, with the cup of tea in one hand and her cane in the other. I can only watch her; I’m too stunned to feel anything but numb to the sadness of Joy and her fellow club members. If anything, I’m irritated that she would bring this back into my life.

‘Let me help you,’ Ciara says, rushing over to take the tea and hold her arm to assist her.

‘Perhaps I’ll leave my phone number for you, Holly. So that if you want to …’ She looks at me to finish her sentence but I don’t. I’m cruel and I wait.

‘I’ll get a pen and paper,’ Ciara says, jumping in.

Joy leaves her details with Ciara and I call goodbye as she makes her exit.

The bell rings, the door closes, Ciara’s footsteps click-clack across the wooden floors. Her 1940s vintage peep-toe heels, worn with fishnet stockings, come to a halt beside me. She stares at me, studies me, and I’m quite sure she has eavesdropped and heard it all. I look away and slide the book on to the shelf. Here. Yes, I think it will look good here.

6

‘Easy on the gravy, Frank,’ Mum says, taking hold of the jug in Dad’s hands. Dad clings to it, intent on finishing his gravy annihilation of his roast dinner, and in the tug of war the gravy glugs from the spout and drips on the table. He looks pointedly at Mum, then wipes the thick drips from the linen with his finger and sucks it in protest.

‘There won’t be enough for everyone,’ Mum says, holding it out to Declan.

Declan catches the dribbles from the spout and licks his finger. Then goes for another swipe.

‘No double-dipping,’ Jack warns, stealing the jug from Mum’s hands.

‘I haven’t had any yet,’ Declan gripes, trying to steal it back, but Jack retains possession and pours it over his food.

‘Boys,’ Mum admonishes them. ‘Honestly, you’re behaving like children.’

Jack’s kids laugh.

‘Leave some for me,’ Declan watches Jack. ‘Do they not have gravy in London?’

‘They don’t have Mum’s gravy in London,’ Jack says, winking at Mum, before pouring a little on the kids’ plates, and then passing it to his wife, Abbey.

‘I don’t want gravy,’ one of the kids moans.

‘I’ll have it,’ Declan and Dad say in unison.

‘I’ll make more,’ Mum says with a sigh, and hurries back to the kitchen.

Everybody mills into their food as if they haven’t eaten for days: Dad, Declan, Mathew, Jack, Abbey and their two children. My older brother Richard is delayed at choir practice and Gabriel is spending the day with his teenage daughter Ava. As she has wanted very little to do with him most of her life, these visits are precious to him. All are preoccupied by their meal apart from Ciara, who watches me. She looks away when I catch her eye and reaches for the salad spoon in the centre of the table. Mum returns with two jugs. She places one in the centre and another beside Ciara. Jack pretends to reach for it, like a false start, and it makes Declan panic, jump and grab the jug.

Jack laughs.

‘Boys,’ Mum says, and they stop.

The kids giggle.

‘Sit down, Mum,’ I say gently.

She surveys the table, her hungry family all greedily tucking in, and finally sits beside me at the head of the table.

‘What’s this?’ Ciara says, looking into the jug.

‘Vegan gravy,’ Mum says proudly.

‘Ahh, Mum, you’re the best.’ Ciara pours, and a murky watery substance flows all over the base of her plate like soup. She looks up at me, uncertain.

‘Yum,’ I say.

‘I’m not sure if I made it correctly,’ Mum says apologetically. ‘Is it nice?’

Ciara takes a small taste. ‘Delicious.’

‘Liar,’ Mum says with a laugh. ‘Are you not hungry, Holly?’

My plate is practically empty and I haven’t even begun eating. Broccoli and tomatoes are all I could bear to look at on my plate.

‘I had a big breakfast,’ I say, ‘but this is fabulous, thank you.’

I sit forward and tuck in. Or try to. Mum’s food, vegan gravy aside, really is delicious and on as many Sundays as possible she tries to gather the troops for a family meal, which we all adore. But today, as has been the case for the past few weeks, my appetite is gone.

Ciara eyes my plate, then me, worriedly. She and Mum share a look and I immediately sense that Ciara has spilled the beans about the PS, I Love You Club. I roll my eyes at both of them.

‘I’m fine,’ I say defiantly, before stuffing an entire broccoli floret in my mouth as proof of my stability.

Jack looks up at me. ‘Why, what’s wrong?’

My mouth is stuffed. I can’t answer, but I roll my eyes and give him a frustrated look.

He turns to Mum. ‘What’s wrong with Holly? Why is she pretending she’s fine?’

I grumble through my food and try to chew quickly so I can end this conversation.

‘There’s nothing wrong with Holly,’ Mum says calmly.

Ciara pipes up in a fast-paced high-pitch volley: ‘A woman who died of cancer started a PS, I Love You Club before her death, made up of people who are terminally ill, and they want Holly to help them write letters to their loved ones.’ She seems immediately relieved to have gotten it out of her system and then afraid of what will happen next.

I swallow my broccoli and almost choke. ‘For fuck sake, Ciara!’

‘I’m sorry, I had to!’ Ciara says, holding her hands up defensively.

The kids laugh at my language.

‘Sorry,’ I say to their mum, Abbey. ‘Guys,’ I clear my throat. ‘I’m fine. Really. Let’s change the subject.’

Mathew looks at his tell-tale wife with disapproval. Ciara sinks lower.

‘Are you going to help these people write their letters?’ Declan asks.

‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ I say, slicing a tomato.

‘With who? With them or with us?’ Jack asks.

‘With anyone!’

‘So you’re not going to help them?’ Mum asks.

‘No!’

She nods. Her face is completely unreadable.

We eat in silence.

I hate that her face is unreadable.

Frustrated, I give in. ‘Why? Do you think I should?’

Everyone at the table, bar the kids and Abbey, who knows better than to get involved, answer at the same time and I can’t decipher anybody’s words.

‘I was asking Mum.’

‘You don’t care what I think?’ Dad asks.

‘Of course I do.’

He concentrates on his food, hurt.

‘I think …’ Mum says thoughtfully, ‘you should do what feels right for you. I never like to interfere, but as you’ve asked: if it has you this …’ she looks at my plate, then back at me ‘… upset, then it’s not a good idea.’

‘She said she ate a big breakfast,’ Mathew says in my defence, and I throw him a grateful look.

‘What did you eat?’ Ciara asks.

I roll my eyes. ‘A big dirty fry-up, Ciara. With pig’s meat and pig’s blood and eggs and all kinds of dirty animal products dripping in butter. Butter that came from a cow.’ I didn’t. I couldn’t stomach breakfast either.

She glares at me.

The kids laugh again.

‘Can I film it if you help them?’ Declan asks, his mouth full of food. ‘Could make a good documentary.’

‘Don’t talk with your mouth full, Declan,’ Mum says.

‘No. Because I’m not going to,’ I reply.

‘What does Gabriel think?’ Jack asks.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Because she hasn’t told him yet,’ Ciara says.

‘Holly,’ Mum admonishes me.

‘I don’t need to tell him about it if I’m not doing it,’ I protest, but I know I’m wrong. I should have discussed it with Gabriel. He’s not an idiot, he already senses something is up. Never mind Joy’s reveal about the club, ever since I got off the phone with Angela’s husband weeks ago, I’ve not been my usual self.

We all go quiet.

‘You still didn’t ask me,’ Dad says, looking around at everyone as though they’ve all individually hurt his feelings.

‘What do you think, Dad?’ I ask, exasperated.

‘No, no. It’s clear you don’t want to know,’ he says, while he reaches for the replenished jug of gravy and drowns his second helpings.

I violently fork another floret. ‘Dad, tell me.’

He swallows his hurt. ‘I think it sounds like a very thoughtful caring gesture for people in need, and it might do you good to do good.’

Jack appears irritated by Dad’s response. Mum, again, is unreadable; she’s thinking it all through, examining the angles before sharing her opinion.

‘She can’t eat as it is, Frank,’ Mum says quietly.

‘She’s practically inhaling her broccoli,’ Dad says, winking at me.

‘And she put six chipped teacups out in the shop this week,’ Ciara adds salt to the wound. ‘She’s distracted as it is, just knowing about it.’

‘Some people don’t mind chipped teacups,’ I retort.

‘Like who?’

‘Beauty and the Beast,’ Mathew replies.

The kids laugh.

‘Hands up if you think it’s a good idea,’ Ciara addresses the table.

The kids put their hands up, Abbey quickly pushes them down.

Dad raises his fork in the air. So does Declan. Mathew looks like he’s with them, but Ciara glares at him and he stares her down, but doesn’t raise his hand.

‘No,’ Jack says firmly. ‘I don’t.’

‘Me neither,’ says Ciara. ‘And I don’t want it to be all my fault if it goes wrong.’

‘It’s not about you,’ Mathew mutters, frustrated.

‘No, I know. But she’s my sister and I don’t want to be the one to be responsible for—’

‘Good afternoon, everybody,’ Richard’s voice calls out from the hall. He appears at the door. He looks around at us all, sensing something. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Nothing,’ we say in unison.

I’m alone in the shop, behind the desk. Sitting on a stool, staring into space. Ciara and Mathew have gone out to collect donations from a family nearby who are moving house. The shop is empty of customers, and has been for the past hour. I’ve emptied every bag and box I could, setting precious things aside and making phone calls to their owners to arrange for collection. I’ve tidied every rail, moved things an inch to the left or an inch to the right. There’s nothing left to do. The bell rings as the door opens and a young girl, a teenager, steps inside. She’s tall, wearing a striking black-and-gold turban on her head.

‘Hello,’ I attempt cheerily.

She smiles shyly and self-consciously, so I look away. Some customers want attention lavished on them, others like to be left alone. I watch her while she’s not looking. She’s carrying a baby in a baby carrier. The baby, who’s only a few months old, is facing outward, pudgy legs squeezed into a pair of leggings that kick spontaneously. Her mother – if she is her mother, as she seems so young to have a child, but what do I know – has mastered the craft of standing sideways so that the child can’t reach anything on the rails. The teenager keeps glancing at me and then back to the rails. She’s looking at the clothes but not really looking, she’s more intent on keeping an eye on me. I wonder if she’s going to steal something; sometimes shoplifters have that look, checking out my whereabouts rather than the items. The baby cries out, practising her sounds, and the teenager reaches for the baby’s hand; little fingers wrap around her finger.

I wanted a baby once. It was ten years ago and I wanted a baby so much my body was calling out to me every day to provide one. That longing vanished when Gerry became sick. It became a longing for something else: for him to survive. It put all its energy into making him survive, and when he was gone, the longing for a child died with him. I had wanted a baby with him, and he was no longer here. Looking at her beautiful bouncy baby, something chimes inside me, a reminder of what I once wanted. I’m thirty-seven years old, it could still happen. I’m moving in with Gabriel, but I don’t think either of us are quite there yet. He’s too busy working on the relationship with the daughter he has.

‘I’m not going to steal nothing,’ she says, snapping me out of my trance.

‘Pardon?’

‘You keep staring. I’m not going to steal nothing,’ the teenager says defensively, annoyed.

‘Sorry, I wasn’t, I didn’t mean to … I was daydreaming,’ I say. I stand up. ‘Can I help you with anything?’

She looks at me, a long stare as if deciding something, as if weighing me up. ‘No.’

She walks to the door, the bell rings, it closes. I stare at the closed door and I remember, she’s been in here before. A few weeks ago, maybe last week, perhaps a few times, doing the same thing, browsing with her baby. I remember because Ciara complimented her on her turban and then, fashion-inspired, wore a red and white polka-dot headscarf for a week. The girl has never bought anything. It’s no big deal, people always browse through second-hand shops, people like to see what others once owned and gave away, how others once lived. There’s an extra something attached to objects that have once had an owner. Some think they’re more precious, others think used means dirty, and then there are those who have a desire to be around these things. But she was right, I hadn’t trusted her.