Cecelia Ahern Untitled Novel 1. Cecelia Ahern

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СКАЧАТЬ he can cope. My fingers on his lips, my lips on his. Inhale his breath, inhale his words. Words mean he’s alive.

      Not yet, not yet. Don’t go yet.

      ‘I’ll see you everywhere.’ My reply.

      We never speak again.

       10

      I study Denise for a hint of what to expect. She seems calm, but impossible to read, and that’s always how Denise announces these things. I recall her face when she announced her engagement, her apartment, her promotion, coveted shoes bagged in a sale: any announcement of good news has been preceded by this solemn expression, to trick us into thinking she’s going to deliver bad news.

      ‘No.’ She shakes her head and her face crumples.

      ‘Oh sweetie,’ Sharon says, reaching for her and embracing her.

      I haven’t seen the old bubbly Denise for a few years. She is tamer, quieter, distracted. I see her less often. She’s exhausted, constantly putting her body under stress. This is the third course of IVF that has failed in six years.

      ‘That’s it, we can’t do it any more.’

      ‘You can keep trying,’ Sharon says, in soothing tones. ‘I know somebody who went through seven courses.’

      Denise cries harder. ‘I can’t do this four more times.’ There is pain in her voice. ‘We can’t afford one more time. This has wiped us out.’ She wipes her eyes roughly, sadness turned to anger. ‘I need a drink.’ She stands. ‘Wine?’

      ‘Let me get it,’ I say, standing.

      ‘No,’ she snaps. ‘I’m getting it.’

      I hurriedly sit.

      ‘You’ll have one too, Sharon,’ I say in a tone that I hope she can decipher. I want her to order the wine, sit with it, pretend to drink it, anything to draw attention away from the fact Sharon currently has something growing inside her that is the only thing Denise wants. But Sharon isn’t getting it. She thinks that I’ve forgotten. She’s making ridiculous wide-open eyes in an attempt to secretly remind me, but Denise watches this pantomime act and knows at once that something is up.

      ‘Sparkling water is fine,’ Sharon says to Denise finally.

      I sigh and sit back. All she had to do was order the damn thing. Denise wouldn’t have noticed. Denise’s eyes run over Sharon’s body, as if she’s carrying out her own ultrasound.

      ‘Congratulations,’ Denise says flatly, before continuing to the bar.

      ‘Fuck,’ Sharon says, breathing out.

      ‘You should have just ordered the drink,’ I sing. ‘That’s all you had to do.’

      ‘I know, I get it now, but I couldn’t figure out what you were doing – I thought you’d forgotten. Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ she says, holding her hand to her head. ‘Poor Denise.’

      ‘Poor you.’

      Denise returns to the table. She sets down the glasses of wine and the sparkling water, then reaches over to hug Sharon. They hold each other for a long time.

      I take a large gulp of wine that burns going down my throat. ‘Can I run something by you both?’

      ‘Sure,’ Denise says, concerned and happy to be distracted.

      ‘After the Magpie podcast, a woman from the audience was so moved by what she heard she set up a club, called the PS, I Love You Club. It’s made up of people who are ill, and they want to write letters to their loved ones, the way Gerry did.’

      ‘Oh my …’ Denise says, looking at me with wide eyes.

      ‘They reached out to me and want me to help them write their letters.’

      Sharon and Denise share a concerned look, each trying to figure out how the other feels.

      ‘I need your honest opinions, please.’

      ‘Do you want to help them?’ Denise asks.

      ‘No,’ I say firmly. ‘But then I think about what I’d be helping them with, I know the value of what they’re doing and I feel slightly obligated.’

      ‘You are not obligated,’ Sharon says firmly.

      They’re both pensive.

      ‘On the positive side,’ Denise begins, ‘It’s beautiful that they asked you.’

      The beauty of it we cannot deny.

      ‘On the realistic side,’ Sharon steps in, ‘for you, it would be like reliving the entire thing. It would be going backwards.’

      She echoes Gabriel’s podcast concerns and half of my family’s feelings on the matter too. I look from one to the other like it’s a tennis match, my two best friends replaying the exact same conversation I’ve had in my head all week.

      ‘Unless it would actually take her forward. She’s moved on,’ Denise defends it. ‘She’s a different Holly now. She has a new life. She works. She washes herself. She’s selling her house, she’s moving in with the sexy tree-man.’

      The more Denise speaks, the more nervous I get. These are all things I worked hard to achieve. They cannot become undone.

      Sharon is studying me, concerned. ‘How ill are they?’

      ‘Sharon,’ Denise elbows her. ‘Ill is ill.’

      ‘Ill is not ill. There’s ill and then there’s …’ she sticks her tongue out and closes her eyes.

      ‘Ugly?’ Denise finishes.

      ‘They aren’t all terminally ill,’ I admit, attempting a hopeful tone. ‘One guy, Paul, is in remission and Joy, has a life-long … deteriorating condition.’

      ‘Well, isn’t that a rosy picture,’ Sharon says, sarcastically. She doesn’t like it. She fixes me with one of her scary mummy faces that takes no nonsense. ‘Holly, you need to be prepared. You’d be helping these people because they’re sick and they’re dying. You’re going to have to say goodbye over and over again.’

      ‘But imagine, how beautiful it could be,’ Denise changes the tone, to our surprise. ‘When they write the letters. When they die knowing they achieved it. When their loved ones read their letters. Think ahead to that part. Remember how we felt, Sharon, when Holly would open an envelope on the first day of every month? We couldn’t wait to get to her. Holly, you received a gift from Gerry and you are in a position to pass it on. If you are able to, if you feel it’s good for you, you should do it; if you think it will set you back, then don’t and don’t feel guilty about it.’

      Wise words but a straight yes or no would have been more helpful.

      ‘What СКАЧАТЬ