Читать книгу Cecelia Ahern 2-Book Gift Collection: The Gift, Thanks for the Memories - Cecelia Ahern, Cecelia Ahern - Страница 33

Lou awoke the morning after to a woodpecker sitting on his head and hammering away consistently with great gregariousness at the top of his skull. The pain worked its way from his frontal lobe, through both his temples, and down to the base of his head. Somewhere outside, a car horn beeped, ridiculous for this hour, and an engine was running. He closed his eyes again and tried to disappear into the world of sleep, but responsibilities, the woodpecker, and what sounded like the front door slamming, wouldn’t allow him safe haven in his sweet dreams.

His mouth was so dry, he found himself smacking his gums together and thrashing his tongue around in order to gather the smallest amount of moisture to give him the honour of avoiding the loathful task of dry-retching. And then the saliva came, and he found himself in that awful place – between his bed and the toilet bowl – where his body temperature went up, his mind dizzied and the moisture came to his mouth in waves. He kicked off his bedclothes, ran for the toilet and fell to his knees in a heavy, heaving, worshipping of the toilet bowl. It was only when he no longer had any energy, or anything left inside his stomach, for that matter, that he sat on the heated tiles in physical and mental exhaustion, and noticed that the skylight was bright. Unlike the darkness of his usual morning rises at this time of the year, the sky was a bright blue. And then panic overcame him, far worse than the dash he’d just encountered, but more like the panic that a child would experience on learning they’re late for school.

Lou dragged himself up from the floor, and returned to the bedroom with the desire to grab the alarm clock and strangle the nine a.m. that flashed boldly in red. They’d all slept it out. They’d missed their wake-up call. Only they hadn’t, because Ruth wasn’t in bed, and it was only then he noticed the smell of a fry drifting upstairs, almost mockingly doing the can-can under his nose. He heard the clattering and clinking of cups and saucers. A baby’s babbles. Morning sounds. Long, lazy sounds that he shouldn’t be hearing. He should be hearing the hum of the fax machine and photocopier, the noise of the elevator as it moved up and down the shaft and every now and then pinged as though the people inside had been cooked. He should be hearing Alison’s acrylic nails on the keyboard. He should be hearing the squeaking of the mail cart as Gabe made his way down the hallways …

Gabe.

He pulled on a robe and rushed downstairs, almost falling over the shoes and briefcase he’d left at the bottom step, before bursting through the door into the kitchen. There they were, the three usual suspects: Ruth, his mother and his father. Gabe wasn’t anywhere to be seen, thankfully. Egg was dribbling down his father’s grey stubbled chin, his mother was reading the newspaper, and both she and Ruth were still in their dressing gowns. Pud was the only one to make a sound as he sang and babbled, his eyebrows moving up and down with such expression it was as though his sentences actually meant something. Lou took this scene in, but at the very same time failed to appreciate a single pixel of it.

‘What the hell, Ruth?’ he said loudly, causing all heads to look up and turn to him.

‘Excuse me?’ She looked at him with widened eyes.

‘It’s nine a.m. Nine o-fucking-clock.’

‘Now, Aloysius,’ his father said angrily. His mother looked at him in shock.

‘Why the hell didn’t you wake me?’ He came closer to her.

‘Lou, why are you talking like this?’ Ruth frowned, then turned to her son. ‘Come on, Pud, a few more spoons, honey.’

‘Because you’re trying to get me fired is what you’re doing. Isn’t it? Why the hell didn’t you wake me?’

‘Well, I was going to wake you but Gabe said not to. He said to let you rest until about ten o’clock, that a rest would do you good, and I agreed,’ she said matter-of-factly, appearing unaffected by his attack in his parents’ presence.

‘Gabe?’ He looked at her as though she were the most ludicrous thing on the planet. ‘GABE?’ he shouted now.

‘Lou,’ his mother gasped. ‘Don’t you dare shout like that.’

‘Gabe the mailboy? The fucking MAILBOY?’ He ignored his mother. ‘You listened to him? He’s an imbecile!’

‘Lou!’ his mother said once again. ‘Fred, do something.’ She nudged her husband.

‘Well, that imbecile,’ Ruth fought to stay calm, ‘drove you home last night instead of leaving you to drive to your death.’

As though just remembering that Gabe had driven him home, Lou rushed outside to the driveway. He made his way around the perimeter of the car, hopping from foot to foot on the pebbles, his concern for his vehicle so great that he couldn’t feel the occasional sharp corner breaking through his flesh. He examined his Porsche from all angles, running his fingers along the surface to make sure there weren’t any scratches or dents. Finding nothing wrong, he calmed a little, though he still couldn’t understand what had made Ruth value Gabe’s opinion so highly. What was going on in the world that had everybody eating out of Gabe’s palm?

He made his way back inside, where his mother and father threw him such a look, he couldn’t for once think of anything to say to them. He turned away from them and returned to the kitchen, where Ruth was still sitting at the table feeding Pud.

‘Ruthy,’ he cleared his throat and made an attempt at a Lou-style apology, the kind of apology that never involved the word sorry, ‘it’s just that Gabe is after my job, you see. You didn’t understand that, I know, but he is. So when he left bright and early this morning to get to work –’

‘He left five minutes ago.’ She cut him off straight away, not turning around, not looking at him. ‘He stayed in one of the spare rooms because I’m not too sure if he’s got anywhere else to go. He got up and made us all breakfast and then I called him a taxi, which I paid for so that he could get to work. He just left five minutes ago and so he, too, is late for work. So you can take your accusations and your behaviour and follow him in there, where you can act the bully-boy.’

‘Ruthy, I –’

‘You’re right, Lou, and I’m wrong. It’s clear from this morning’s behaviour that you’re totally in control of things and not in the least bit stressed,’ she said sarcastically. ‘I was such a fool to think you needed an extra hour’s sleep. Now, Pud,’ Ruth lifted the baby from his chair and kissed his food-stained face, ‘let’s go give you a bath,’ she smiled.

Pud clapped his hands and turned to jelly under her raspberry kisses. Ruth walked towards Lou with Pud in her arms, and for a moment Lou softened at the look on his son’s face, his smile so big it could light up the world if ever the moon lost its beam. He prepared to take Pud in his arms but it didn’t happen. Ruth walked right on by, cuddling Pud tight while he laughed uproariously as though her kisses were the funniest thing that had happened in his short life. Lou acknowledged the rejection. For about five seconds. And then he realised that was five seconds out of the time needed for him to get to work. And so he dashed.

In record time, and thankfully due to Sergeant O’Reilly not being present when Lou put his foot down and fired his way to work, Lou arrived at the office at ten fifteen a.m.; the latest he had ever arrived at the office. He still had a few minutes before the meeting ended, and so, spitting on his hand and smoothing down his hair, which hadn’t been washed, and running his hands across his face, which hadn’t been shaved, he shook off the waves of dizziness that his hangover had brought, took a deep breath and then entered the boardroom.

There was an intake of breath at the sight of him. It wasn’t that he looked so bad, it was just that, for Lou, he wasn’t perfect. He was always perfect. He took a seat opposite Alfred, who beamed with astonishment and absolute delight at his friend’s apparent breakdown.

‘I’m so sorry I’m late,’ Lou addressed the table of twelve more calmly than he felt, ‘I was up all night with one of those tummy bugs, but I’m okay now, I think.’

Faces nodded in sympathy and understanding.

‘Bruce Archer has that very same bug,’ Alfred smirked, and he winked at Mr Patterson.

The switch was flicked and Lou’s blood began to boil, expecting any minute for a loud whistling to drift from his nose as he reached boiling point. He sat through the meeting, fighting flushes and nausea, while the vein in his forehead pulsated at full force.

‘And so, tonight is an important night, lads.’ Mr Patterson turned to Lou, and Lou zoned in on the conversation.

‘Yes, I have the audio-visual conference call with Arthur Lynch,’ Lou spoke up. ‘That’s at seven thirty, and I’m sure it will all go without a hitch. I’ve come up with a great number of responses to his concerns, which we went through during the week. I don’t think we need to go through them again –’

‘Hold on, hold on.’ Mr Patterson lifted a finger to stall him and it was only then that Lou noticed that Alfred’s cheeks had lifted into a great big smile.

Lou stared at Alfred to catch his eye, hoping for a hint, a give-away, but Alfred avoided him.

‘No, Lou, you and Alfred have a dinner with Thomas Crooke and his partner, this is the meeting we’ve been trying to get all year,’ Mr Patterson laughed nervously.

Crumble, crumble, crumble. It was all coming tumbling down. Lou shuffled through his schedule, ran shaky fingers through his hair and wiped the beads of sweat on his forehead. He ran his finger along the freshly printed schedule, his tired eyes finding it hard to focus, his clammy forefinger smudging the words as he moved it along the page. There it was, the visual conference call with Arthur Lynch. No mention of a dinner. No damn mention of a damn dinner.

‘Mr Patterson, I’m well aware of the long-hoped-for meeting with Thomas Crooke,’ Lou cleared his throat and looked at Alfred with confusion, ‘but nobody confirmed any dinner with me, and I made it known to Alfred last week that I have a meeting with Arthur Lynch at seven thirty p.m. tonight,’ he repeated with some urgency. ‘Alfred? Do you know about this dinner meeting?’

‘Well, yeah, Lou,’ Alfred said in a ridiculing tone, with a shrug that went with it. ‘Of course I do. I cleared my schedule as soon as they confirmed it. It’s the biggest chance we’ve got to make the Manhattan development work. We’ve all been talking about this for months.’

The others around the table squirmed uncomfortably in their seats, though there were some, Lou was certain, who would be enjoying this moment profusely, documenting every sigh, look and word to rehash it to others as soon as they were out of the room.

‘Everybody, you can all get back to work,’ Mr Patterson said with concern. ‘We need to deal with this rather urgently, I fear.’

The room emptied and all that were left at the table were Lou, Alfred and Mr Patterson; and Lou instantly knew by Alfred’s stance and the look on his face, by his stubby fingers pressed together in prayer below his chin, that Alfred had already taken the higher moral ground on this one. Alfred was in his favourite mode, his most comfortable position of attack.

‘Alfred, how long have you known about this dinner and why didn’t you tell me?’ Lou immediately went on the offensive.

‘I told you, Lou.’ Alfred addressed him as though he were slow and unable to comprehend.

With Lou a sweaty, unshaven mess and Alfred so cool, he knew he wasn’t coming out of this looking the best. He removed his shaky fingers from the schedule and clasped his hands together.

‘It’s a mess, a bloody mess.’ Mr Patterson rubbed his chin roughly with his hands. ‘I needed both of you at that dinner, but I can’t have you missing the call with Arthur. The dinner can’t be changed, it took us too long to get it in the first place. How about the call with Arthur?’

Lou swallowed. ‘I’ll work on it.’

‘If not, there’s nothing we can do, except for Alfred to begin things, and Lou, as soon as you’ve finished your meeting, you make your way as quickly as you can to Alfred.’

‘Lou has serious negotiations to discuss, so he’ll be lucky if he makes it to the restaurant for after-dinner mints. I’ll be well able to manage it, Laurence.’ Alfred spoke from the side of his mouth with the same smirk that made Lou want to pick up the water jug from the middle of the table and bash it against Alfred’s head. ‘I’m capable of doing it alone.’

‘Yes, well, let’s hope Lou negotiates fast and that he’s successful, otherwise this entire day will have been a waste of time,’ Mr Patterson snapped, gathering his papers and standing up. Meeting dismissed.

Lou felt like he was in the middle of a nightmare; everything was falling apart, all his good work was being sabotaged.

‘Well, that was a disappointing meeting. I thought he was going to tell us about who was taking over when he leaves,’ Alfred said lazily. ‘Not a word out of him, would you believe. I really think he owes it to us to let us know, but I have been in the company longer than you, so …’

‘Alfred?’ Lou stared at him with amazement.

‘What?’ Alfred took a packet of chewing gum out of his pocket and threw one into his mouth. He offered one to Lou, who shook his head wildly.

‘I feel like I’m in the twilight zone. What the hell is going on here?’

‘You’re hungover is what’s going on. You look more like the homeless man than the homeless man himself,’ Alfred laughed. ‘And you should really take one of these,’ he offered the mint gum again, ‘your breath stinks of vomit.’

Lou waved them away again.

‘Why didn’t you tell me about the dinner, Alfred?’ he said angrily.

‘I told you,’ Alfred said, smacking the gum in his mouth. ‘I definitely told you. Or I told Alison. Or was it Alison? Maybe it was the other one, the one with the really big boobs. You know, the one you were banging?’

Lou stormed off on him then and headed straight to Alison’s desk, where he threw the details of that evening’s dinner on her keyboard, stopping the acrylic nails from tapping.

She narrowed her eyes and read the brief.

‘What’s this?’

‘A dinner tonight. A very important one. At eight p.m. That I have to be at.’ He paced the area before her while she read it.

‘But you can’t, you have the conference call.’

‘I know, Alison,’ he snapped. ‘But I need to be at this.’ He stabbed a finger on the page. ‘Make it happen.’ He rushed into his office and slammed the door. He froze before he got to his desk. On the surface his mail was laid out.

He backtracked and opened his office door again.

Alison, who had snapped to it quickly, hung up the phone and looked up at him. ‘Yes?’ she said eagerly.

‘The mail.’

‘Yes?’

‘When did it get here?’

‘First thing this morning. Gabe delivered it the same time as always.’

‘He can’t have,’ Lou objected. ‘Did you see him?’

‘Yes,’ she said, concern on her face. ‘He brought me a coffee too. Just before nine, I think.’

‘But he can’t have. He was at my house,’ Lou said, more to himself.

‘Em, Lou, just one thing before you go … Is this a bad time to go over some details for your dad’s party?’

She’d barely finished her sentence before he’d gone back into his office and slammed the door behind him.

There are many types of wake-up calls in the world. For Lou Suffern, a wake-up call was a duty for his devoted BlackBerry to perform on a daily basis. At six a.m. every morning, when he was in bed both sleeping and dreaming at the same time, thinking of yesterday and planning tomorrow, his BlackBerry would dutifully and loudly ring in an alarming and screeching tone purposely uneasy on the ear. It would reach out from the bedside table and prod him right in the subconscious, taking him away from his slumber and dragging him into the world of the awakened. When this happened, Lou would wake up; eyes closed, then open. Body in bed, then out of bed; naked, then clothed. This, for Lou, was what waking up was about. It was the transition period from sleep to work.

For other people wake-up calls took a different form. For Alison at the office it was the pregnancy scare at sixteen that had forced her to make some choices; for Mr Patterson it was the birth of his first child that had made him see the world in a different light and affected every single decision he made. For Alfred it was his father’s loss of their millions when Alfred was twelve years of age that forced him to attend state school for a year, and although they had returned to their wealthy state without anybody of importance knowing about the family hiccup, this experience changed how he saw life and people forever. For Ruth, her wake-up call was when, on their summer holidays, she walked in on her husband in their bed with their twenty-six-year-old Polish nanny. For little Lucy at only five years old, it was when she looked out at the audience of her school play and saw an empty seat beside her mother. There are many types of wake-up calls, but only one that holds any real importance.

Today, though, Lou was experiencing a very different kind of wake-up call. Lou Suffern, you see, wasn’t aware that a person could be awakened when their eyes were already open. He didn’t realise that a person could be awakened when they were already out of their bed, dressed in a smart suit, doing deals and overseeing meetings. He didn’t realise a person could be awakened when they considered themselves to be calm, composed and collected, able to deal with life and all it had to throw at them. The alarm bells were ringing, louder and louder in his ear, and nobody but his subconscious could hear them. He was trying to knock it off, to hit the snooze button so that he could nestle down in the lifestyle he felt cosy with, but it wasn’t working. He didn’t know that he couldn’t tell life when he was ready to learn, but that life would teach him when it was good and ready. He didn’t know that he couldn’t press buttons and suddenly know it all; that it was the buttons in him that would be pressed.

Lou Suffern thought he knew it all.

But he was only about to scratch the surface.