A Place Called Here. Cecelia Ahern

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СКАЧАТЬ handler at Shannon Foynes Port his entire working life.

      He had chosen Glin village, thirteen kilometres west of Foynes, for the meeting with Sandy Shortt as it was a place none of his family inhabited. He sat in a small café at nine a. m., a half-hour before they were due to meet. Sandy had said on the phone that she was always early and he was eager, fidgety and more than willing to give this fresh idea a go. The more time they had together, the better. He ordered a coffee and stared at the most recent photograph of Donal on the table before him. It had been printed in almost every newspaper in Ireland and seen on notice boards and shop windows for the past year. In the background of the photo was the fake white Christmas tree his mother had set up in the living room every year. The baubles caught the flash of the camera and the tinsel twinkled. Donal’s mischievous smile grinned up at Jack as though he was taunting him, daring him to find him. Donal had always loved playing hide-and-seek as a child. He would stay hidden for hours if it meant winning. Everyone would become impatient and declare loudly that Donal was the winner just so that he could leave his place with a proud beaming smile. This was the longest search Jack had ever endured and he wished his brother would come out of his hiding place now, show himself with that proud smile and end the game.

      Donal’s blue eyes, the only similar feature between the two brothers, sparkled up at Jack and he almost expected him to wink. No matter how long and hard he had stared at the photograph, he couldn’t inject any life into it. He couldn’t reach into the print and pull his brother out; he couldn’t smell the aftershave he used to engulf himself in, he couldn’t ruffle his brown hair and ruin his hairstyle as he annoyingly had, and he couldn’t hear his voice as he helped their mother around the house. One year on he could still remember the touch and smell of him, though unlike the rest of his family, to him the memory alone wasn’t enough.

      The photo had been taken the Christmas before last, just six months before he went missing. Jack used to call round to his mother’s house once a week, where Donal was the only one of six siblings who remained living there. Apart from the habitual short casual conversations between Jack and Donal that lasted for no more than two minutes at a time, that Christmas was the last occasion Jack had spoken to Donal properly. Donal had given him the usual present of socks and Jack had given him the box of handkerchiefs his oldest sister had given him the year before. They’d both laughed at the thoughtlessness of their gifts.

      That day, Donal had been animated, happy with his new job as a computer technician. He’d begun it in September after graduating from Limerick University; a ceremony at which their mother had almost toppled off her chair such was the weight of her pride for her baby. Donal had spoken confidently about how he enjoyed the work and Jack could see how much he had matured and become more comfortable after leaving student life behind.

      They had never been particularly close. In the family of six children, Donal was the surprise baby, nobody more surprised than their mother, Frances, who was forty-seven at the time she learned of the pregnancy. Being twelve years older than Donal meant that Jack had moved out of home by the time Donal was six. He lost out in knowing the secret sides to his brother that only living with someone brought, and so for eighteen years they had been brothers, but not friends.

      Jack wondered, not for the first time, if he had known Donal better, whether he could have solved part of the mystery. Maybe if he’d worked harder at getting to know his little brother or had had more conversations about something rather than nothing, then perhaps he could have been out with him on the night of his birthday. Maybe he could have prevented him from leaving that fast-food restaurant or maybe he could have left with him and shared a taxi.

      Or maybe Jack would have found himself in the same place as Donal was right now. Wherever that place was.

       8

      Jack slugged back his third cup of coffee and looked at his watch.

      Ten fifteen.

      Sandy Shortt was late. His legs bounced up and down nervously beneath the table, his left hand drummed on the wood and his right hand signalled for another coffee. His mind stayed positive. She was coming. He knew she would come.

      Eleven a.m., he tried calling her mobile number for the fifth time. It rang and rang and finally, ‘Hello, this is Sandy Shortt. Sorry I’m not available at the moment. Leave a message and I’ll call you back as soon as I can.’ Beep.

      Jack hung up.

      Eleven thirty, she was two hours late, and once again Jack listened to the voice message Sandy had left the previous night.

      ‘Hi, Jack, Sandy Shortt here. I’m ringing to confirm our meeting tomorrow at nine thirty a.m. in Kitty’s Café in Glin. I’m driving down tonight.’ Her tone softened. ‘As you know, I don’t sleep,’ she laughed lightly, ‘so I’ll be there early tomorrow. After all our conversations I look forward to finally speaking to you in person. And, Jack,’ she paused, ‘I promise you I’ll do my best to help you. We won’t give up on Donal.’

      Twelve o’clock, Jack played it again.

      At one o’clock, after countless cups of coffee, Jack’s fingers stopped drumming and instead made a fist for his chin to rest on. He had felt the café owner’s gaze on his back as he sat for hours waiting nervously, watching the clock and not giving up his table to a group willing to spend more money than he. Tables filled and emptied around him, his head snapped up every time the bell over the door rang. He didn’t know what Sandy Shortt looked like; all she had said was that he couldn’t miss her. He didn’t know what to expect but each time the bell tinkled, his head and his heart both lifted with hope and then fell as the newcomer’s gaze flitted past him and settled on another.

      At two thirty, the bell rang once more.

      After five and a half hours waiting, it was the sound of the door opening and closing behind Jack.

       9

      For almost two days I’d stayed in the same wooded area, jogging back and forth, trying to recreate my movements and somehow reverse my arrival here. I ran up and down the mountainside, testing different speeds as I struggled to remember how fast I’d been running, what song I’d been listening to, what I’d been thinking of and what area I was in when I first noticed the change in my location. As though any of those things had any part in what happened. I walked up and down, down and up, searching for the point of entry and, more importantly, the point of exit. I wanted to keep busy. I didn’t want to settle like the personal possessions scattered around; I didn’t want to end up like the backless earrings that glinted from the long grass.

      Thinking you’re missing is a bizarre conclusion to arrive at – I’m well aware of that – but it wasn’t a sudden conclusion, believe me. I was hugely confused and frustrated for those first few hours but I knew that something more extraordinary than taking a wrong turn had occurred because, geographically, a mountain couldn’t just rise from the ground in a matter of seconds, trees that had never grown before in Ireland couldn’t all of a sudden sprout from the ground, and the Shannon Estuary couldn’t dry up and disappear. I knew I was somewhere else.

      I did of course contemplate the fact that I was dreaming, that I had fallen and hit my head and was currently in a coma, or that I’d died. I did wonder whether the anomalous nature of the countryside was pointing towards the end of the world and I questioned my knowledge of the geography of West Limerick. I did indeed consider very strongly the fact that I’d lost my mind. This was number one on the list of possibilities.

      But СКАЧАТЬ