Cecelia Ahern 3-Book Collection: One Hundred Names, How to Fall in Love, The Year I Met You. Cecelia Ahern
with my poor health there was very little I could do. So many people died in those sanatoriums. But because of my condition, my father wrapped me up in cotton wool. He had plans for me, he was very controlling of me – who I played with, who I talked to, eventually who I loved.’ She looked sad at that. ‘Even when I was improved, he couldn’t change. I was his sick little girl, his youngest, and he wouldn’t, couldn’t, I suppose, let me go.’
She was silent.
‘This is so silly, Kitty.’
‘It’s not. Please tell me.’
‘I suppose I got used to being treated as if at any moment I could break. Not to run too fast, not to jump too high, not to laugh too loud, not to do anything too much, just take it nice and easy, but I never liked it. The whole town knew that I was the headmaster’s sick daughter and many of them thought the TB would come back. I was brittle, I was fragile, I was not to be treated the same. I was the one who could drop dead at any moment, the one who wouldn’t live to see her eighteenth birthday. When I moved away it broke my father’s heart but I needed my own space and my own identity. I forgot about all those feelings over the years as I got married, had my babies, reared my children, and I could look after people for a change. But I see that is all I did. As though it was my way of rebelling against my adolescence. I became a childminder and cared for other children, never wanted to be cared for in that way again.
‘But coming here to this place has brought it back to me. That feeling of …’ she thought about it and looked as though she’d a bad taste in her mouth ‘… of being mollycoddled. Of being powerless. My children, as beloved as they are, have almost written me off already. I’m old, I know that, but I still have fire in my belly. I’m still … alive!’ She chuckled at that. ‘Oh, if the village could see me now.’
When Birdie looked at Kitty, her eyes sparkled mischievously. ‘On my eighteenth birthday I made a bet. I used the birthday money my father had given me and on the day I left the village for ever I made a bet.’
‘What was the bet?’
‘That I would reach the age of eighty-five.’
Kitty’s eyes widened. ‘Can you make a bet like that?’
‘Josie O’Hara, the meanest man in town, had the bookies in his family for what seems like for ever. He thought I was on my way out, just like all the others, and he was only too happy to take the bet.’
‘How much money?’
‘I bet one hundred pounds. A lot of money back then. And so confident was the bookmaker on my demise that he gladly offered me odds of one hundred to one.’
‘So that means, to the bookie’s dismay, you’ll be collecting …’ Kitty calculated it.
‘Ten thousand pounds,’ chuckled Birdie.
‘Birdie!’ Kitty gasped. ‘That is phenomenal! Ten thousand!’
‘Yes,’ Birdie raised her eyebrows. ‘But it’s not just the money.’ She turned serious. ‘Not that any of those old codgers are alive now. I just need to go back there for myself.’
‘You have unfinished business,’ Kitty smiled, loving this story.
Birdie thought about that. ‘Yes. I suppose I do.’
‘So here’s the plan,’ Molly said, leaning in towards Kitty and Birdie conspiratorially around the garden table. ‘Now that you’re in on it, we could use your help.’
‘Oh, don’t drag poor Kitty into this,’ Birdie interrupted.
‘Are you joking? I wouldn’t miss this for the world.’
‘Really?’
‘This is the most exciting thing I’ve heard all day. Apart from a man who hears prayers and a woman who gets proposed to every week.’
‘What?’ Molly asked.
‘Never mind.’
‘Okay, so the bus is out of action from Thursday morning, when the Oldtown Pistols return from their semi-final with the Balbriggan Eagles, to Friday evening, when the Pink Ladies go to bridge. Which gives us a window of opportunity to take the bus Thursday at 10 p.m., drive to Cork, stay the night, pick up the money and drive back the following morning to be home by Friday evening.’
‘Hold on,’ Kitty interrupted. ‘You’re taking the nursing home bus?’
‘Unless you have a car or any other ideas, it’s all we can do.’
‘Are you allowed to take the bus?’
‘It’s strictly for nursing home activities.’
‘So you’re not allowed to take the bus.’
‘Exactly.’
‘So you’re effectively stealing the bus.’
‘We’re borrowing the bus.’
‘Birdie,’ Kitty said in surprise, ‘did you know this?’
‘The woman is going to collect ten grand – what does she care how we get there? So I’ll get slapped on the wrists if they find out, it’s no big deal, but Bernadette won’t find out. We’ll be gone and back before they even notice we’re gone.’
Kitty thought about it – it seemed innocent enough when she put it like that – but she didn’t need vehicle theft on her record to top it all off. ‘But what about you, Molly? They’ll notice you’re gone.’
‘I don’t work that shift. I don’t start work until Friday evening, and before you ask, as far as the old battle-axe knows, Birdie is going out with her family on an overnight trip for her birthday.’
‘You two have thought this all through, haven’t you?’
They chuckled mischievously.
‘Well?’ Molly asked. ‘Are you in?’
‘I’m in,’ Kitty replied, and the three reached into the centre of the table and held hands.
On the way home, Kitty took out her notepad.
Name Number Six: Bridget Murphy
Story Title: Birdie’s Nest Egg
After a long day working on her subjects for the story, Kitty finally felt like she was getting somewhere. She had scratched the surface and was getting glimpses of the people beneath, the underneath part everyone hid from everyone else, the part of a person beneath the mask, beneath social politeness, beneath insecurity. She felt that she was beginning to get to the juicy parts of her list. Despite that, she had only met six of her one hundred names, had less than a week left of her deadline and she was no closer to establishing a solid link. Could it be hidden secrets, like Birdie and Archie’s? She was going to have to dig a lot deeper with Eva, Mary-Rose and Jedrek, if so.
She called Pete for the second time that day.
‘You better have something for me, Lois Lane.’
She laughed. ‘Not that I’m ready to reveal yet. I told you, Friday. I forgot to ask, how long is the piece?’
He paused. ‘Kitty, considering you should be finished and merely going over the article for perfection right now, I’m a little surprised to hear you ask that.’
‘Have we gone back to bad Pete again?’ She moved to the vacated back row of the bus for privacy.
‘Bad Pete,’ he laughed. ‘Am I really that bad?’
‘At times you are horrendously scary.’
‘Well, I don’t mean to be horrendously scary,’ he said, and she almost felt his breath on her ear, one of those conversations when every pause, every word, breath and sigh meant something. ‘Not to you, anyway.’
She smiled