Cecelia Ahern Untitled Novel 1. Cecelia Ahern
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prepare herself to say something and I brace myself. She’s firm, strong, shoots from the hip, a hip loaded with a baby she made.
‘You weren’t right in there, what you said, about everyone remembering us when we’re gone. She won’t remember me.’ She holds her baby tighter. ‘She won’t remember anything about me. Not my smell or nothing of the things you said. She’s not going to look at anything and think of me. Whether it’s good or bad. Ever.’
She’s right. I hadn’t considered that.
‘That’s why I have to tell her everything. Everything from the start, all the things about me that she knows now but won’t remember, and all the things about her as a baby, because there’ll be no one to tell her. Because if I don’t write it all down about her, then she’ll never know. All she’ll have of me is one letter for the rest of her life, and that letter has to be from me. About me and her. Everything about us that only we know and that she won’t remember.’
‘That’s a beautiful idea, Ginika, it’s perfect. I’m sure Jewel will treasure it.’ These are feathery kinds of words in response to the weight of her reality but I have to say something.
‘I can’t write it.’
‘Of course you can.’
‘No, I mean. I can’t write. I can barely read. I can’t do it.’
‘Oh.’
‘I left school. I didn’t, couldn’t keep up’ She looks around, embarrassed. ‘I can’t even read that sign up there.’
I look up at the road sign. I’m about to tell her that it says No Through Road but I realise it doesn’t matter.
‘Can’t read my baby bedtime stories. Can’t read the instructions on my medication. Can’t read the hospital paperwork. Can’t read directions. Can’t read buses. I know you’re so smart and all, you probably don’t understand.’
‘I’m really not smart Ginika,’ I say, with a bitter laugh. If I had been smart I wouldn’t have gone to Joy’s house today, I wouldn’t be in this position now. If I was smart, if I could think clearly through the mush and the fog, then I would know exactly what to do next, instead of standing here, feeling completely emotionally incapacitated, this supposedly experienced adult facing a teenager, unable to aid or guide. I’m reaching out and grasping for golden nuggets of advice and inspiration, but my hands flail uselessly in the emptiness. Too wrapped up trying to clean the shit off my own wings instead of helping a younger woman to fly.
‘I don’t ask for help,’ Ginika says. ‘I’ve always been able to do everything myself. Don’t need no one else.’ She shifts Jewel’s weight to her left hip. ‘But I need help writing the letter,’ she says it as though she’s pushing it out through her teeth, it’s that hard for her to say.
‘Why don’t you ask somebody in the club to write the letter for you?’ I suggest, trying to weasel myself out of the equation. ‘I’m sure Joy would be wonderful. You can tell her exactly what you want to say and she can write it down, exactly as you want. You can trust her.’
‘No. I want to write it myself. I want to learn how to write this letter for her. Then she’ll know that I done something good for her, because of her. And I don’t want to ask any of them. They mean well, but they haven’t a clue. I’m asking you to help me.’
I look at her, feeling stunned, frozen, by the magnitude of this request. ‘You want me to teach you how to write?’ I ask slowly.
‘Can you?’ she looks at me, her large brown eyes deep and pleading.
I feel that I should say yes; I know that I shouldn’t.
‘Can I …’ I begin nervously, then shut down my emotions, the desire to protect myself is too great. ‘I’d like to take some time to think about it.’
Ginika’s shoulders drop instantly, her demeanour slackens. She has swallowed her pride and asked for help and, selfish coward that I am, I can’t bring myself to say yes.
I know it’s prosaic, I know it’s tedious to say this after so much time has passed, when everything is OK, when I am more than a woman in grief, but sometimes something sets me off and everything gets tilted. I lose him all over again and all I am is a woman in grief.
The smashing of his favourite Star Wars mug. Discarding our bedsheets. When his clothes lost his smell. The broken coffee machine, the sun we’d rotated every day like two desperate planets. Small losses but huge. We all have something that unexpectedly derails us when we are motoring smoothly, blissfully, ardently. This encounter with the club is mine. And it hurts.
My instinct is to move inward, recoil, curl in a ball like a hedgehog, but never hide or run. Problems are excellent hunters with their flaring nostrils and sharp teeth; their special sensory organs ensure there is no place they can’t find you. They like nothing more than to be in control, on top, predator to you the prey. Hiding from them gives them power, even feeds their strength. A face-to-face meeting is what is required, but on your own terms, in your own territory. I go to the place where I process and acknowledge what is happening. I ask for help; I ask it of myself. I know the only person who can ultimately cure me is me. It’s in our nature. My troubled mind calls out to my roots to dig deep and steady myself.
I cycle away from Ginika, my heart pounding, my legs feeling shaky, but I don’t go home. As if I’m a homing pigeon, an inner compass takes over and I find myself at the graveyard staring at a Columbarium Wall. I read the familiar words of one of Gerry’s favourite phrases, and wonder just how and when the past started chasing me, when I started running, and the moment it caught me. I wonder how on earth all that I worked so hard to build up has so suddenly come crashing down.
Damn you, Gerry. You came back.
I watch the ‘For Sale’ sign being hammered into the soil in the front garden.
‘I’m glad we finally got to do this,’ the estate agent breaks into my thoughts.
I’d made the decision to sell the house in January, and it’s now April. I’d cancelled our appointment a few times, a representation of the yin-yang pendulum swinging in my newly altered state of mind, though I told Gabriel it was because the estate agent kept cancelling. I had to arm-wrestle his phone to the floor when he threatened to give her a piece of his mind. My reluctance has not been because I’ve changed my mind, but because I seem to have lost the ability to focus my mind on ordinary tasks. Though as I watch the ‘For Sale’ sign’s violent disturbance of the peaceful daffodil beds, I acknowledge this task is not ordinary.
‘I’m sorry, Helen, my schedule kept changing.’
‘I understand. We all lead busy lives. The good news is I have a list of very interested people – it’s the ideal starter home. So I’ll be in touch with you very soon to organise viewings.’
A starter home. I look out the window at the sign. I’ll miss the garden, not miss doing the physical work which I delegated to my landscaper brother Richard anyway, but I’ll miss the view and the escape. He created a haven for me, one that I could disappear to when I craved it. He will miss this garden and I will miss the connection we have because of this garden; it binds us together. Gabriel’s house has a courtyard in the back, with a beautiful lone mature pink cherry blossom tree. I sit and gaze at it from his conservatory, captivated by it when in bloom and willing it on in winter. I wonder if I should grow new plants, how Gabriel will feel about a pot of sunflowers, in keeping with my annual tradition since Gerry sent me the seeds in one of his ten letters. If this is my starter home, does that mean Gabriel’s house is the main event? Or is there a third course with him or another person that I have to look forward to?
Helen is staring at me. ‘Can I ask a question? It’s about the podcast. It was wonderful, incredibly