The Gift. Cecelia Ahern

to look out at the city below. Gigantic Christmas decorations adorned the quays and bridges; giant mistletoe and bells that swayed from one side to the other thanks to the festive magic of neon. The river Liffey was at full capacity and gushed by his window and out to Dublin Bay. The pavements were aflow with people charging to work, keeping in time with the currents, following the same direction as the tide. They pounded the pavement as they powerwalked by the gaunt copper figures dressed in rags, which had been constructed to commemorate those during the famine forced to walk these very quays to emigrate. Instead of small parcels of belongings in their hands, the Irish people of this district now carried Starbucks coffee in one hand, briefcases in the other. Women walked to the office wearing trainers with their skirts, their high heels tucked away in their bags. A whole different destiny and endless opportunities awaiting them.

      The only thing that was static was Gabe, tucked away in a doorway, near the entrance, wrapped up on the ground and watching the shoes march by, the opportunities for him still not quite as equal as for those that trampled by. Though only slightly bigger than a dot on the pavement thirteen floors down, Lou could see Gabe’s arm rise and fall as he sipped on his coffee, making every mouthful last, even if by now it was surely cold. Gabe intrigued him. Not least because of his talent for recalling every pair of shoes that belonged in the building as though they were a maths timetable, but, more alarmingly, because the person behind those crystal-blue eyes was remarkably familiar. In fact, Gabe reminded Lou of himself. The two men were similar in age and, given the right grooming, Gabe could very easily have been mistaken for Lou. He seemed a personable, friendly, capable man. It could so easily be Lou sitting on the pavement outside, watching the world go by, yet how different their lives were.

      At that very instant, as though feeling Lou’s eyes on him, Gabe looked up. Thirteen floors up and Lou felt like Gabe was staring straight at his soul, his eyes searing into him.

      This confused Lou. His involvement in the development of this building entitled him to the knowledge that, beyond any reasonable doubt, from the outside the glass was reflective. Gabe couldn’t possibly have been able to see him as he stared up, his chin to the air, with a hand across his forehead to block out the light, almost in salute. He could only have been looking at a reflection of some kind, Lou reasoned, a bird perhaps had swooped and caught his eye. That’s right, a reflection was all it could be. But so intent was Gabe’s gaze, which reached up the full thirteen floors to Lou’s office window and all the way into Lou’s eyes, that it caused Lou to put aside his water-tight belief. He lifted up his hand, smiled tightly and gave a small salute. Before he could wait for a reaction from Gabe, he wheeled his chair away from the window and spun around, his pulse rate quickening, as though he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t.

      The phone rang. It was Alison and she didn’t sound happy.

      ‘Before I tell you what I’m about to tell you, I just want to let you know that I qualified from UCD with a business degree.’

      ‘Congratulations,’ Lou said.

      She cleared her throat. ‘Here you go. Alfred wears size eight brown loafers. Apparently he’s got ten pairs of the same shoes and he wears them every day, so I don’t think the idea of another pair as a Christmas gift would go down too well. I don’t know what make they are but the sad thing is I can find out for you.’ She took a breath. ‘As for the shoes with the red soles, Louise bought a new pair and wore them last week but they cut the ankle off her so she took them back, but the shop wouldn’t take them back because it was obvious she’d worn them because the red sole had begun to wear off.’

      ‘Who’s Louise?’

      ‘Mr Patterson’s secretary.’

      ‘I’ll need you to find out from her who she left work with every day last week.’

      ‘No way, that’s not in my job description!’

      ‘You can leave work early if you find out for me.’

      ‘Okay.’

      ‘Thank you for cracking under such pressure.’

      ‘No problem, I can get started on my Christmas shopping.’

      ‘Don’t forget my list.’

      So, despite Lou learning very little, the same odd feeling rushed into his heart, something others would identify as panic. But Gabe had been right about the shoes and so wasn’t a lunatic, as Lou had secretly suspected. Earlier, Gabe had asked if Lou needed an observant eye around the building, and so, picking up the phone, Lou rethought his earlier decision.

      ‘Can you get me Harry from the mailroom on the phone, and then get one of my spare shirts, a tie and trousers from the closet and take them downstairs to the guy sitting at the door. Take him to the men’s room first, make sure he’s tidied up, and then take him down to the mailroom. His name is Gabe and Harry will be expecting him. I’m going to cure his little short-staffing problem.’

      ‘What?’

      ‘Gabe. It’s short for Gabriel. But call him Gabe.’

      ‘No, I meant –’

      ‘Just do it. Oh, and Alison?’

      ‘What?’

      ‘I really enjoyed our kiss last week and I look forward to screwing your brains out in the future.’

      He heard a light laugh slip from her throat before the phone went dead.

      He’d done it again. While in the process of telling the truth, he had the almost admirable quality of telling a total and utter lie. And through helping somebody else – Gabe – Lou was also helping himself; a good deed was indeed a triumph for the soul. Despite that, Lou knew that somewhere beneath his plotting and soul-saving there lay another plot, which was the beginning of a saving of a very different kind. That of his own skin. And even deeper in this onion man’s complexities, he knew that this outreach was prompted by fear. Not just by the very fear that – had all reason and luck failed him – Lou could so easily be in Gabe’s position at this very moment, but in a layer so deeply buried from the surface that it almost wasn’t felt and certainly wasn’t seen, there lay the fear of a reported crack – a blip in Lou’s engineering of his own career. As much as he wanted to ignore it, it niggled. The fear was there, it was there all the time, but it was merely disguised as something else for others to see.

      Just like the thirteenth floor.

       6.

       A Deal Sealed

      While Lou’s meeting with Mr Brennan about the – thankfully not rare but still problematic – slugs on the development site in County Cork was close to being wrapped up, Alison appeared at his office door, looking anxious, and with the pile of clothes for Gabe still draped in her outstretched arms.

      ‘Sorry, Barry, we’ll have to wrap it up now,’ Lou rushed. ‘I have to run, I’ve two places to be right now, both of them across town, and you know what the traffic is like.’ And just like that, with a porcelain smile and a firm warm handshake, Mr Brennan found himself back in the elevator descending to the ground floor, with his winter coat draped over one arm and his paperwork stuffed into his briefcase and tucked under the other. Yet, at the same time, it had been a pleasant meeting.

      ‘Did he say no?’ Lou asked Alison.

      ‘Who?’

      ‘Gabe? Did he not want the job?’

      ‘There was no one there.’ She looked confused. ‘I stood at reception calling and calling his name – God it was so embarrassing – and nobody came. Was this part of a joke, Lou? I can’t believe that after you made me