Thanks for the Memories (37 page)
“Oh, wow . . .” Lump to throat, wobble of knees again, please let this moment be over quickly, please make them look away from me. They have tact, and so they do. “That’s fantastic, congratulations,” my voice says cheerily, and even I can hear how hollow it is, so devoid of sincerity, the empty words almost echoing within themselves.
“So that room upstairs would be perfect.” Joe nods to the nursery.
“Oh, of course, that’s just wonderful.” The 1950s surbuban housewife is back as I gosh, gee-whiz, and shucks my way through the rest of the conversation.
“I can’t believe they don’t want any of the furniture,” Linda says, looking around.
“Well, they’re both moving to smaller properties, where their belongings just won’t fit.”
“But they’re not taking anything?”
“No,” I say, looking around. “Nothing but the rosebush in the back garden.”
And a suitcase of memories.
Justin falls into the car with a giant sigh.
“What happened to you?”
“Nothing. Could you just drive directly to the airport now, please? I’m a little behind schedule.” Justin places his elbow on the window ledge and covers his face with his hand, hating himself, hating the selfish, miserable man he has become. He and Sarah weren’t right for each other, but what right had he to use her like that, to bring her down into his pit of desperation and selfishness?
“I’ve got something that will cheer you up,” Thomas says, reaching for the glove compartment.
“No, I’m really not in the—” Justin stops, seeing Thomas retrieve a familiar envelope from the compartment. Thomas hands it over to him.
3 2 0 / C e c e l i a A h e r n
“Where did you get this?”
“My boss called me, told me to give it to you before you got to the airport.”
“Your boss.” Justin narrows his eyes. “What’s his name?”
Thomas is silent for a while. “John,” he finally replies.
“John Smith?” Justin says, his voice thick with sarcasm.
“The very man.”
Knowing he’ll squeeze no information from Thomas, he turns his attention back to the envelope. He circles it slowly in his hand, trying to decide whether to open it or not. He could leave it unopened and end all of this now, get his life back in order, stop using people, taking advantage. Meet a nice woman, treat her well.
“Well? Aren’t you going to open it?” Thomas asks. Justin continues to circle it in his hand.
“Maybe.”
Dad opens the door to me, earphones in his ears, iPod in his hand. He looks my outfit up and down.
“
Ooh, you looking very nice today, Gracie,
” he shouts at the top of his voice, and a man walking his dog across the road turns to stare. “
Were you out somewhere special?
”
I smile. Relief at last. I put my finger on my lips and take the earphones out of his ears.
“I was showing the house to some clients of mine.”
“Did they like it?”
“They’re going to come back in a few days to measure. So that’s a good sign. But being back over there, I realized there are so many things that I have to go through.”
“Haven’t you been through enough? You don’t need to sob for weeks just to make yourself feel okay about all this.”
I smile. “I mean that I have to go through possessions. Things t h a n k s f o r t h e m e m o r i e s
/ 3 2 1
I’ve left behind. I don’t think they want a lot of the furniture. Would it be okay if I stored it in your garage?”
“My woodwork studio?”
“That you haven’t been in for ten years.”
“I’ve been in there,” he says defensively. “All right, then, you can use it. Will I ever be rid of you?” he says with a slight smile. I sit at the kitchen table, and Dad immediately busies himself, filling the kettle as he does for everyone who enters his domain.
“So how did the Monday Club go last night? I bet Donal McCarthy couldn’t believe your story. What was his face like?” I lean in, excited to hear and to change the topic.
“He wasn’t there,” Dad says, turning his back to me as he takes out a cup and saucer for himself and a mug for me.
“What? Why not? And you with your big story to tell him!
The cheek of him. Well, you’ll have next week, won’t you?”
He turns around slowly. “He died over the weekend. His funeral’s tomorrow. Instead we spent the night talking about him and all the old stories that he told a hundred times.”
“Oh, Dad, I’m so sorry.”
“Ah, well. If he hadn’t have gone over the weekend, he would have dropped dead when he’d heard I met Michael Aspel. Maybe it was just as well.” He smiles sadly. “Ah, he wasn’t such a bad man. We had a good laugh even if we did enjoy getting a rise out of each other.”
I feel for Dad. It is such a trivial thing compared to the loss of a friend, but he had been so excited to share his stories with his great rival.
We both sit in silence.
“You’ll keep the rosebush, won’t you?” Dad asks finally. I know immediately what he’s talking about. “Of course I will. I thought that it’d look good in your garden.”
He looks out the window and studies his garden, most likely deciding where he’ll plant it.
3 2 2 / C e c e l i a A h e r n
“You have to be careful moving it, Gracie. Too much shock causes a serious, possibly a grave, decline.”
I smile sadly. “That’s a bit dramatic, but I’ll be fine, Dad. Thanks for caring.”
He turns his back again. “I was talking about the roses.”
My phone rings at that moment, vibrates along the table and almost hops off the edge.
“Hello?”
“Joyce, it’s Thomas. I just saw your young man off at the airport.”
“Oh, thank you so much. Did he get the envelope?”
“Uh, yeah. About that: I gave it to him all right, but I’ve just looked in the backseat of the car, and it’s still there.”
“What?” I jump up from the kitchen chair. “Go back, go back! Turn the car around! You have to give it to him. He’s forgotten it!”
“Thing is, he wasn’t too sure on whether he wanted to open it or not.”
“What? Why?”
“I don’t know, love! I gave it to him when he got back into the car and before we got to the airport, just like you asked. He seemed very down, and so I thought it’d cheer him up a bit.”
“Down? Why? What was wrong with him?”
“Joyce, love, I don’t know. All I know is he got into the car a bit upset, so I gave him the envelope and he sat there looking at it and I asked him if he was going to open it and he said maybe.”
“Maybe,” I repeat. Had I done something to upset him? Had Kate said something? “He was upset when he came out of the gallery?”
“No, not the gallery. We stopped off at the blood donor clinic on D’Olier Street before heading to the airport.”
“He was donating blood?”
“No, he said he had to meet somebody.”
t h a n k s f o r t h e m e m o r i e s
/ 3 2 3
Oh, my God, maybe he’d discovered it was me who’d received his blood and he wasn’t interested.
“Thomas, do you know if he opened it?”
“Did you seal it?”
“No.”
“Then there’s no way of my knowing. I didn’t see him open it. I’m sorry. Do you want me to drop it at your house on the way back from the airport?”
“Please.”
An hour later I meet Thomas at the door, and he gives me the envelope. I can feel the contents still inside, and my heart falls. Why didn’t Justin open it and take it with him?
“Here, Dad.” I slide the envelope across the kitchen table. “A present for you.”
“What’s in it?”
“Front-row seats to the opera for next weekend,” I say sadly, leaning my chin on my hand. “It was a gift for somebody else, but he clearly doesn’t want to go.”
“The opera.” Dad makes a funny face. “It’s far from operas I was raised.” He opens the envelope anyway as I get up to make some more coffee.
“Oh, I think I’ll pass on this opera thing, love, but thanks anyway.”
I spin round. “Oh, Dad, why? You liked the ballet, and you didn’t think that you would.”
“Yes, but I went to that with you. I wouldn’t go to this on my own.”
“You don’t have to. There are two tickets.”
“No, there aren’t.”
“Yes, there definitely are. Look again.”
He turns the envelope upside down and shakes it. A loose piece of paper falls out and flutters to the table. My heart skips a beat.
3 2 4 / C e c e l i a A h e r n
Dad props his glasses on the tip of his nose and peers down at the note. “ ‘Accompany me,’ ” he says slowly. “Ah, love, that’s awful nice of you—”
“Show me that.” I grab it from his hands disbelievingly and read it for myself. Then I read it again. And again and again.
Accompany me? Justin.
e wa n t s t o m e e t m e , ” I tell Kate nervously as I twirl a H string from my shirt around my finger.
“You’re going to cut off your circulation, be careful,” Kate responds in a motherly fashion.
“Kate! Did you not hear me? I said he wants to meet me!”
“And so he should. Did you not think that this would eventually happen? Really, Joyce, you’ve been taunting the man for weeks. And if he did save your life, as you’re insisting he did, wouldn’t he want to meet the person whose life he saved? Boost his male ego? Come on, it’s the equivalent to a white horse and a shiny suit of armor.”
“No, it’s not.”
“It is in his male eyes. His male wandering eyes,” she spits out aggressively.
My eyes narrow as I study her closely. “Is everything okay?
You’re beginning to sound like Frankie.”
“Stop biting your lip, it’s starting to bleed. Yes, everything’s great. Just hunky-dory.”
“Okay, here I am.” Frankie breezes through the door and joins us on the bleachers.
3 2 6 / C e c e l i a A h e r n
We are seated on a split-level viewing balcony at Kate’s local swimming pool. Below us Eric and Jayda splash noisily in their swimming class. Sam sits beside us in his stroller, looking around.
“Does this one do anything?” Frankie watches him suspiciously. Kate ignores her.
“Issue number one for discussion today: Why do we have to constantly meet in these places with all these
things
crawling around?” She looks around at all the toddlers. “What happened to cool bars, new restaurants, and shop openings? Remember how we used to go out and have fun?”
“I have plenty of fucking fun,” Kate says a little too defensively. “I’m just one great big ball of fucking fun,” she repeats and looks away.
Frankie doesn’t hear the unusual tone in Kate’s voice, or hears it and decides to push anyway. “Yes, at dinner parties for other couples who also haven’t been out for months. That’s not so fun.”
“You’ll understand when you have kids.”
“I don’t plan to have any.” She pauses. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes, she’s ‘hunky-dory,’ ” I say to Frankie, using my fingers as quotation marks.
“Oh, I see,” Frankie says slowly and mouths “Christian” at me. I shrug.
“Is there anything you want to get off your chest, Kate?”
Frankie asks.
“Actually, yes.” Kate turns to her with fire in her eyes. “I’m tired of your little comments about my life. If you’re not happy here or in my company, then piss off somewhere else, but just know that it’ll be without me.” She turns away then, her cheeks flushed with anger.
Frankie is silent for a moment as she observes her friend.
“Okay,” she says perkily and turns to me. “My car is parked outside; we can check out the new bar down the road.”
t h a n k s f o r t h e m e m o r i e s
/ 3 2 7
“We’re not going anywhere,” I protest.
“Ever since you left your husband and your life has fallen apart, you’ve been no fun,” she says to me sulkily. “And as for you, Kate, ever since you got that new Swedish nanny and your husband’s been eyeing her up, you’ve been absolutely miserable. As for me, I’m tired of hopping from one night of meaningless sex with handsome strangers to another, and having to eat microwave dinners alone every evening. There, I’ve said it.”
My mouth falls open. So does Kate’s. I can tell we are both trying our best to be angry with Frankie, but her comments are so spot-on, it’s actually quite humorous. She nudges me with her elbow and chuckles mischievously in my ear. The corners of Kate’s lips begin to twitch too.
“I should have got a manny,” Kate finally says.
“Nah, I still wouldn’t trust Christian,” Frankie responds.
“You’re being paranoid, Kate,” she assures her seriously. “I’ve been around you guys, I’ve seen him. He adores you, and she is not attractive at all.”
“You think?”
“Uh-huh.” She nods, but when Kate looks away, she mouths
“Gorgeous” to me.
“Did you mean all that stuff you said about your life?” Kate says, brightening up now.
“No.” Frankie throws her head back and laughs. “I love meaningless sex. I need to do something about the microwave dinners, though. My doctor says I need more iron. Okay”—she claps her hands, causing Sam to jump with fright—“what’s on the agenda for this meeting?”
“Justin wants to meet Joyce,” Kate explains, then snaps at me,
“Stop biting your lip.”
I stop.
“Ooh, great,” Frankie says excitedly. “So what’s the problem?”
She sees my look of terror.
3 2 8 / C e c e l i a A h e r n
“He’s going to realize that I’m me.”
“As opposed to you being . . . ?”
“Someone else.” I bite my lip again.
“This is really reminding me of the old days. You are thirty-three years old, Joyce, why are you acting like a teenager?”
“Because she’s in love,” Kate says, bored, turning to face the swimming pool and clapping for her coughing daughter, Jayda, whose face is half underwater.
“She can’t be in love.” Frankie rolls her nose up in disgust.
“Is that normal, what’s she doing out there, you think?” Kate, beginning to get worried about Jayda, tries to get our attention.
“Of course it’s not normal,” Frankie responds. “She hardly knows the guy.”
“Girls, um, stop for a minute,” Kate tries to butt in.
