The Gift. Cecelia Ahern

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      ‘Good morning, Mr Suffern.’ His secretary greeted him without looking up from her papers.

      He stopped at her desk and looked at her with a puzzled expression. ‘Alison, call me Lou, like you always do, please.’

      ‘Of course, Mr Suffern,’ she said perkily, refusing to look him in the eye.

      While Alison moved about, Lou tried to get a glimpse of the soles of her shoes. He was still standing at her desk when she returned and once again refused to meet his eye as she sat down and began typing. As inconspicuously as possible, he bent down to tie his shoelaces and peeked through the gap in her desk.

      She frowned and crossed her long legs. ‘Is everything okay, Mr Suffern?’

      ‘Call me Lou,’ he repeated, still puzzled.

      ‘No,’ she said rather moodily and looked away. She grabbed the diary from her desk. ‘Shall we go through today’s appointments?’ She stood and made her way around the desk.

      Tight silk blouse, tight skirt, his eyes scanned her body before getting to her shoes.

      ‘How high are they?’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘Are they one hundred and twenty millimetres?’

      ‘I’ve no idea. Who measures heels in millimetres?’

      ‘I don’t know. Some people. Gabe,’ he smiled, following her as they made their way into his office, trying to get a glimpse of her soles.

      ‘Who the hell is Gabe?’ she muttered.

      ‘Gabe is a homeless man,’ he laughed.

      As she turned around to question him, she caught him with his head tilted, studying her. ‘You’re looking at me the same way you look at the art on these walls,’ she said smartly.

      Modern impressionism. He’d never been a fan of it. Regularly throughout the days he’d find himself stopping to stare at the blobs of nothing that covered the walls of the corridors of these offices. Splashes and lines scraped into the canvas that somebody considered something, and which could easily be hung upside down or back to front with nobody being any the wiser. He’d contemplate the money that had been spent on them too – and then he’d compare them to the pictures lining his refrigerator door at home; home art by his daughter Lucy. And as he’d tilt his head from side to side, as he was doing with Alison now, he knew there was a playschool teacher out there somewhere with millions of euro lining her pockets, while four-year-olds with paint on their hands, their tongues dangling from their mouths in concentration, received gummy bears instead of a percentage of the takings.

      ‘Do you have red soles?’ he asked Alison, making his way to his gigantic leather chair that a family of four could live in.

      ‘Why, did I step in something?’ She stood on one foot and hopped around lightly, trying to keep her balance while checking her soles, appearing to Lou like a dog trying to chase its tail.

      ‘It doesn’t matter.’ He sat down at his desk wearily.

      She viewed him with suspicion before returning her attention to her schedule. ‘At eight thirty you have a phone call with Aonghus O’Sullibháin about needing to become a fluent Irish speaker in order to buy that plot in Connemara. However, I have arranged for your benefit for the conversation to be as Béarla …’ She smirked and threw back her head, like a horse would, pushing her mane of highlighted hair off her face. ‘At eight forty-five you have a meeting with Barry Brennan about the slugs they found on the Cork site –’

      ‘Cross your fingers they’re not rare,’ he groaned.

      ‘Well, you never know, sir, they could be relatives of yours. You have some family in Cork, don’t you?’ She still wouldn’t look at him. ‘At nine thirty –’

      ‘Hold on a minute.’ Despite knowing he was alone with her in the room, Lou looked around hoping for back-up. ‘Why are you calling me sir? What’s gotten into you today?’

      She looked away, mumbling what Lou thought sounded like, ‘Not you, that’s for sure.’

      ‘What did you say?’ But he didn’t wait for an answer. ‘I’ve a busy day, I could do without the sarcasm, thank you. And since when did the day’s schedule become a morning announcement?’

      ‘I thought that if you heard how packed your day is, aloud, then you might decide to give me the go-ahead to make less appointments in future.’

      ‘Do you want less work to do, Alison, is that what this is all about?’

      ‘No,’ she blushed. ‘Not at all. I just thought that you could change your work routine a little. Instead of these manic days spent darting around, you could spend more time with fewer clients. Happier clients.’

      ‘Yes, then me and Jerry Maguire will live together happily ever after. Alison, you’re new to the company so I’ll let this go by, but this is how I like to do business, okay? I like to be busy, I don’t need two-hour lunchbreaks and schoolwork at the kitchen table with the kids.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘You mentioned happier clients; have you had any complaints?’

      ‘Your mother. Your wife,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘Your brother. Your sister. Your daughter.’

      ‘My daughter is five years old.’

      ‘Well, she called when you forgot to pick her up from Irish dancing lessons last Thursday.’

      ‘That doesn’t count,’ he rolled his eyes, ‘because my five-year-old daughter isn’t going to lose the company hundreds of millions of euro, is she?’ Once again he didn’t wait for a response. ‘Have you received any complaints from people who do not share my surname?’

      Alison thought hard. ‘Did your sister change her name back after the separation?’

      He glared at her.

      ‘Well then, no, sir.’

      ‘What’s with the sir thing?’

      ‘I just thought,’ her face flushed, ‘that if you’re going to treat me like a stranger, then that’s what I’ll do too.’

      ‘How am I treating you like a stranger?’

      She looked away. ‘Not something He lowered his voice. ‘Alison, we’re at the office, what do you want me to do? Tell you how much I enjoyed screwing your brains out in the middle of discussing our appointments?’

      ‘You didn’t screw my brains out, we just kissed.’

      ‘Whatever.’ He waved his hand dismissively. ‘What’s this about?’

      She had no answer to that but her cheeks were on fire. ‘Perhaps Alfred mentioned something to me.’

      Lou’s heart did an unusual thing then, that he hadn’t experienced before. A fluttering of some sort. ‘What did he mention?’

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