One Hundred Names

CHAPTER THIRTY

‘Yes, my dear, and I love you so much too. I wish you were here but this is my opportunity now to prove to everyone, to prove to you, that I can be something.’ Jedrek’s voice cracked and he stopped talking to compose himself. Kitty wanted to reach out to him to hurry him on but she couldn’t. She was eavesdropping on his phone conversation with his wife, which was beautiful and touching, but they had an impatient judge waiting and an entire wedding congregation lining up along the shore to watch, as Kitty had burst into the reception a little too loudly to announce the adjudicator was there. Much interest had been taken in the table of people quickly escaping the reception and the sight of two men and a pedalo running past them on the grass. So everybody had trickled out of the party to join them on the banks of the river where they were currently waiting for Jedrek to get off the phone to his wife.

Finally he hung up and wiped his eyes, turned to the crowd with pride and confidence in his eyes. ‘We can do this, my friend Achar.’ He reached out to his compadre and they walked arm in arm down to the water. Everybody cheered as they went.

‘Could you do the honours, please?’ Jedrek said to Kitty.

‘Okay, em…’ Kitty cleared her throat and Steve circled her and moved around snapping photographs of the entire event. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, bride and groom, we’re sorry to have taken you from your wedding party.’ The bride and groom seemed as excited as everybody else. ‘But our friends Jedrek and Achar, who have been in training for almost a year, are about to make a world record attempt for the fastest two men in a pedalo dash. The current record is one-minute fifty-eight point six two and they are attempting to break this record at one minute fifty.’

There was an excited response from the crowd.

‘I’ve seen them do it, but today we are joined by a Guinness World Record adjudicator who will witness this officially for our friends. So please lend your support to our friends Jedrek and Achar!’

Another cheer and James, the adjudicator, immediately perked up at the response of the two-hundred-strong crowd.

‘You can do it, Jedrek, Achar.’ Birdie gave them each a pink lipsticked kiss on the cheek. Archie slapped their backs and took his place as coach and morale-booster. Steve took photographs, Eva, Mary-Rose, Ambrose and Eugene crowded around them, and suddenly Kitty felt overwhelmingly proud of her little group of random people whom she – whom Constance – had brought together.

Everybody neared the water’s edge to get a full view of the record attempt.

Jedrek and Achar climbed into the pedalo, cycled slowly out one hundred and fifty metres and prepared themselves. They held hands tightly, said a prayer, looked at one another and passed silent words of support, and then they were ready.

The adjudicator made the official call for them to start, holding the stopwatch in his hands and immediately they were off.

The crowd cheered them on, the bride and groom in pride of place whooping and hollering, delighted to have this entertainment at their wedding. Achar and Jedrek pumped their little legs like they’d never done before, their faces full of concentration, of need, of want, of pure desire to be accepted, to be deemed worthy, to forget about the few years of emptiness and despair they had felt, for this moment to rescue them, to make them feel like men again. The sounds of their encouragement to each other were audible from the water’s edge. And finally they reached the one-hundred-metre mark and there was a burst of cheering from the crowd. Jedrek and Achar looked up anxiously to see if they had done it.

‘You did it!’ Kitty shouted, and the two men stood up and celebrated, hugging each other and jumping up and down so much they eventually fell into the water.

Everyone laughed, and Eugene and Archie helped pull them out.

The adjudicator pulled a rolled-up piece of paper from his bag and gathered a dripping wet Achar and Jedrek beside him.

‘Unfortunately I didn’t know that I was going to be here today, I was merely accosted by these two men yesterday,’ he explained. ‘But I had the office fax me some paperwork so that they could have something to see today. It officially declares them as record owners for the fastest pedalo dash by two men in a distance of one hundred metres.’

He presented them with the rolled-up fax, and Jedrek and Achar took it in their wet hands as though it were the Holy Grail. Though it was Jedrek and Achar’s win, Kitty felt that all of her little group felt some ownership of it too. They had convinced the judge to come here today and so a small part of it was owed to them. They all hugged each other, congratulating and celebrating at the same time. Finally Kitty found herself embracing Steve.

Their eyes locked.

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘Yes, what?’

‘Yes I’ll be your girlfriend,’ she said softly.

‘Oh,’ he frowned. ‘I don’t want to any more. That was so twenty minutes ago.’

She slapped him playfully and he pulled her close. And finally, they kissed.

The cheers increased again, and while Kitty imagined they were for her and Steve, behind them Achar and Jedrek were hoisted up onto Archie and Sam’s now very wet shoulders and were being paraded around.

‘We’d really better get a move on,’ Molly said, looking at her watch, worried. ‘I have to get this bus back this evening.’

‘Don’t worry, we’ve plenty of time, we can do it,’ Edward said, placing a hand protectively on Molly’s shoulder, and she softened and smiled.

‘Thanks.’

‘We’d better make it.’ Kitty looked at Steve, worried. ‘I have a presentation at the office at six.’

‘Can you delay it?’

‘I’ve delayed it a week already. I’m supposed to make a presentation about Constance’s story,’ Kitty said, sweat breaking out all over her body at the thought.

They were waiting for George and Eva to finish their private conversation, everyone was on the bus celebrating Jedrek and Achar’s record attempt, and nobody but Molly and Kitty were starting to get nervous.

‘You really know how to leave things last minute, don’t you?’ Steve smiled. ‘So, do you know what it’s about yet? The thing that links them all? Because personally I’ve had a hard time trying to put it all together.’ He looked at the gang around him from all walks of life.

Kitty nodded, proudly. ‘I sure do.’

‘Well then, you’ve nothing to worry about,’ he said encouragingly.

‘Apart from our driver,’ she said, her voice low.

When Eva finally joined them on the bus, her face was white as though she’d seen a ghost. It didn’t go unnoticed by the others but they gave her time to herself as she sat by the window alone in a row.

Shortly after they’d set off Kitty left Steve’s side and went over to Eva. ‘Mind if I join you?’

‘Sure.’ Eva gave her a quick smile, but one that didn’t reach her eyes.

‘Congratulations, you should be really proud about how today went. The gift for Seamus was so beautiful, you even managed to touch an old cynic like me,’ Kitty joked.

‘Hmm? Oh, yes, that was great. A success,’ she smiled.

‘Are you okay?’

‘Me? Yes, of course, why?’ She gave that big pretty smile that did manage to reach her eyes but which Kitty was no longer believing.

‘Because you look like you’ve seen a ghost and you seem… down. Did something happen with George?’

‘You’re ever the romantic, aren’t you?’ Eva smiled. ‘Archie and Regina, Ambrose and Eugene, Mary-Rose and Sam, Molly and Edward – has this just been one big ploy to get everyone together?’

Kitty laughed. ‘No, not at all. They all did that by themselves, I assure you, though Sam and Mary-Rose is a work in progress, I think.’ They both looked to the two best friends lost in deep serious conversation. ‘I think you could give them a gift to help move that along.’

Eva smiled and fingered the bag in her hand. She looked at Kitty and then sighed. ‘God, you’re impossible.’

Kitty laughed. ‘Good.’

‘George gave me a gift.’

‘Oh? A gift for the giver – I wouldn’t be brave enough to pull that one off.’

‘This trip has been one of the best, you know,’ she said, and Kitty believed her.

‘Thank you. What did he give you?’

‘A box.’ She opened the bag and retrieved a small Chinese lacquered box. Her eyes filled just looking at it.

‘I take it that box means something to you.’

‘Yes.’ She wiped her eyes before her tears fell. ‘He remembered me telling him about a gift that I’d received, a gift that meant something to me. And he found quite the imitation.’

‘Has anyone ever given you something that’s moved you so much?’

‘Not really,’ she said, and the tears fell steadily now. ‘Not since I received the original version.’

Aha, she was getting somewhere.

‘So you weren’t exactly telling the truth about the My Little Pony being the best gift you’d ever received,’ Kitty said gently.

Eva laughed and shook her head. ‘Sorry. But I think we both knew that.’ She sniffed and looked at her intently. ‘You can’t write all of this, Kitty, because there are other people involved.’

Kitty nodded. ‘You have my word.’

‘Just write whatever you have to write for it to mean something.’

Kitty completely understood.

‘It was Christmas Day and my mother and I were waiting. The food was ready on the table, I can remember the smell, it was so delicious. My mother insisted on traditional Christmas meals. Her traditional meals. My father is from Shanghai. He owns a Chinese takeaway in Galway. Wu’s Chinese Takeaway. He was two hours late and, well, we were hungry and I remember my mother looking at me and not saying it out loud, but almost asking me what do I think we should do. You have to be a certain way with my mother, or at least I had to be then. I couldn’t tell her exactly what I thought because then she would do the opposite. It was like reverse psychology: you had to make her think it was her decision and therefore the right one. So she started to cut into the turkey and it smelled so good, even though it was overcooked and had been sitting there too long. I spooned the vegetables onto my plate and I couldn’t wait, I just couldn’t wait, I had to eat it. I had taken the first mouthful when I heard the key in the door and I wanted to just die. I couldn’t swallow it, I couldn’t spit it out. Mother was still carving the turkey for her plate. My dad walked in – I could smell him before I saw him – and he saw us starting dinner without him, which made him angry.

‘“Just in time,” I remember my mom saying perkily. Too perkily. He knew that we weren’t going to wait for him. So he left the dining room. He trampled on all of the presents, smashed a china doll that was for me, pulled down the Christmas tree, pulled down the lights from the ceiling so that they crashed on to the dining table, scratching the beautiful wood. He cleared every surface, the fine china from the display cupboard, everything was in pieces.’

She swallowed.

‘Then he went at my mother. Not for the first time either. She still had the carving knife in her hand. It ended up in her arm.’

‘Eva,’ Kitty breathed, ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘I’m not telling you this so you’ll be sorry.’ Eva looked at Kitty. ‘You want to understand, I’m trying to help you to understand.’

Kitty nodded.

‘I ended up across the road with an old neighbour. We sat in front of her television for four hours before my aunt came to take me home. She only had black-and-white TV and all I remember watching is I Love Lucy over and over again. I swear I can’t watch that woman to this day, being so stupid and everybody laughing every time she tripped or fell, or did something ridiculous, and all the time my head was rerunning everything that had happened. The old woman, I can’t even remember her name, didn’t say one word to me for the whole time. She gave me milk and a plate of biscuits and she sat in an armchair beside me and we watched the television in silence. She didn’t even laugh, which made the show seem even more pathetic. But before I left, she gave me a gift. It was a small box, a Chinese lacquered box, with a lock and key. She said it was for all my secrets, that every little girl needed a box for all her secrets. I don’t know why but it was the most perfect, perfect thing that anybody had ever given me. It was so appropriate. She hadn’t said one word about what had happened but she seemed to encompass everything in this one gift.’

‘So that’s the gift that started you thinking the way you do, that made you want to help people by giving the perfect thing.’

‘Yes.’ Eva ran her fingers over the box George had given her.

‘Did you tell George that story?’

‘No, I just told him about the box. I’ve never told anyone about it. I lost it, though, years ago, when we were moving house.’

‘He must have known it was important to you.’

‘Yes,’ she said curiously.

‘Eva, do you mind me asking, how old were you when… when you received the box?’

‘Five,’ she said quietly, and her eyes filled again.

Kitty made a mental note in her mind.

Name Number Three: Eva Wu

Story Title: Pandora’s Box

‘But anyway,’ Eva cleared her throat, her face almost immediately lost the emotion and her beautiful mask was back on, ‘I have a present for you.’

‘For me? Eva, you didn’t have to do that. Don’t tell me it’s the old men from the wedding,’ she joked, looking around.

Eva laughed. ‘It’s really very small. I wasn’t looking for something, I just came across it, and bearing in mind what you’ve been through lately, it reminded me of you.’ She reached into her small bag and retrieved a potted plant. It didn’t make any sense to Kitty at all until she read the label at the side.

‘Grow your own luck,’ Kitty read aloud, and started laughing. It was a pot filled with soil with a small pouch of shamrock seeds attached.

Eva smiled. ‘I hope it works.’

‘I hope so too.’ Kitty swallowed hard, thinking of the road ahead of her. ‘Thank you, Eva.’

‘I know someone who can help you plant it, anyway,’ Eva added, raising her eyebrows, and the two girls laughed.

Raised voices coming from the front of the bus averted everyone’s attention. Molly and Edward were at each other’s throats again about a turn that Molly should or should not have taken.

‘Oh shit,’ Molly said loudly, looking in her rearview mirror.

Everyone turned round to see that Molly’s comment had been entirely justified. Coming up the hard shoulder of the motorway was a garda car.

‘Maybe it’s not for me,’ Molly said.

‘Of course it’s for you,’ Edward snapped. ‘Did you see what you just did?’

‘Oh, shut up,’ she hissed back.

‘Well, slow down, will you?’ he said. ‘They’re getting you to pull in.’

‘Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,’ Molly said to herself, slowing the bus and pulling in.

The garda came round to Molly’s side of the bus.

‘You trying to kill someone back there?’ he asked.

‘No of course not,’ she said, her voice gentle. ‘I just got confused which way to go.’

‘Driver’s licence, please,’ he said, and Molly rooted in her handbag.

Please let her have her driver’s licence, Kitty thought to herself, watching the clock. She had to get back to Dublin for her meeting with Pete. She had put it off for long enough, the feature was due to go to print on Monday, which meant she had only the weekend to write it, but not if it couldn’t be approved today. Pete would kill her if she didn’t make this evening. She couldn’t use the guilt he felt against him any longer; it was wearing off.

The garda disappeared to check Molly’s licence and Edward was back to being Mr Nice Guy with an anxious-looking Molly.

The officer returned five minutes later. ‘Where’s this vehicle from?’

‘St Margaret’s Nursing Home, in Oldtown, Dublin,’ she said, her voice like a child’s. ‘I work there. We’re going back there now.’

‘Open up the door, will you?’

She pulled the lever, not seeming so excited by the idea now, and he climbed on board and took a look at everyone. Everybody was silent.

‘Doesn’t look like the regular nursing home clientele,’ he said.

‘Ah, yes, well, Birdie here is my patient. I was taking her and her friends on a trip for her birthday. We’re going back there now. We have to get the bus back for the Pink Ladies’ bridge evening so…’

He looked at her long and hard. ‘This bus was reported stolen yesterday.’

Molly’s face went white.

‘Pardon?’

‘You heard me. Know anything about that?’

‘No, I mean, yes, I mean, no, we borrowed it for a trip for my patient. We didn’t steal it. I mean, we’re going right back there now.’

The garda stared at her a little longer in a tense silence.

‘Could you step out of the vehicle, please, Ms McGrath?’

Molly let out a small squeak before Edward stood up to help her off the bus, whispering in her ear something that Kitty couldn’t hear.

‘Oh my God.’ Kitty looked at Steve wide-eyed.

‘What’s the problem?’ Steve said, unimpressed by the entire thing. ‘He’s obviously just trying to scare her. Obviously she didn’t steal the bus. Kitty, why are you looking at me like that? Tell me Molly didn’t steal this bus?’

All Kitty could do was smile at him weakly. She and he had been doing so well.