“Which table do we go to for Michael Aspel?” Dad asks eagerly.
“Unfortunately Michael Aspel isn’t actually an expert, he is the host, so he doesn’t have a table of his own. But we do have twenty other experts that will be available to answer your questions.”
Dad looks devastated.
“There is the chance that your item may be chosen for television,” she adds quickly, sensing Dad’s disappointment. “The expert shows the object to the television team, and a decision is made whether to record it, depending on rarity, quality, what the expert can say about the object, and, of course, value. If your object is chosen, you’ll be taken to our waiting room and made up before talking to the expert about your object in front of the camera for about five minutes. You would meet Michael Aspel under those circumstances. And the exciting news is that for the first time, we are broadcasting the show live in…ooh, let’s see”—she examines her watch—“in one hour.”
Dad’s eyes widen.
“Do bear in mind that we have to choose from two thousand people’s items before the show,” she says to me with a knowing look.
“We understand. We’re just here to enjoy the day, isn’t that right, Dad?”
He doesn’t hear me; he’s busy looking around for Michael Aspel. “Enjoy your day,” the woman says finally, calling the next person in line forward.
As soon as we enter the busy hall, I immediately look up at the ceiling of the double-cubed room, already knowing what to expect: nine huge canvases commissioned by Charles I to fill the paneled ceiling.
“Here you go, Dad.” I hand him the wastebasket. “I’m going to take a look around this beautiful building while you look at the junk people are putting inside it.”
“It’s not junk, Gracie. I once saw a show where a man’s collection of walking sticks went for sixty thousand pounds sterling.”
“Wow, in that case you should show them your shoe.”
He seems to consider it for a moment.
“Off you go to have a look around, and I’ll meet you back here.” He starts to wander away before he even finishes the sentence. Dying to get rid of me.
“Have fun.” I wink.
He smiles broadly and looks around the hall with such happiness, my mind takes another photograph.
As I wander the rooms of the only part of the former Whitehall Palace to survive a fire, the feeling that I’ve been here before comes over me in a giant wave. I find a quiet corner and secretly produce my cell phone.
“Manager, deputy head corporate treasury and investor solutions desk, Frankie speaking.”
“My God, you weren’t lying. That’s a ridiculous amount of words.”
“Joyce! Hi!” Her voice is hushed but still audible over the manic sounds of the stock-trading in the Irish Financial Services Centre offices, behind her.
“Can you talk?”
“For a little bit, yeah. How are you?”
“I’m fine. I’m in London. With Dad.”
“What? With your dad? Joyce, I’ve told you before it’s not polite to bind and gag your father. What are you doing there?”
“I just decided to come over last minute.” For what, I have no idea. “We’re currently at the Antiques Roadshow. Don’t ask.”
I leave the quiet rooms behind me and enter the gallery of the main hall. Below me I can see Dad wandering around the crowds with the bin in his hands. I smile as I watch him.
“Frankie, have we ever been to Banqueting House together?”
“Refresh my memory: where is it, what is it, and what does it look like?”
“It’s at the Trafalgar Square end of Whitehall. It’s a former royal palace designed by Inigo Jones in 1619. Charles I was executed on a scaffold in front of the building. I’m in a room now with nine canvases covering the paneled ceiling.” What does it look like? I close my eyes. “The roofline is balustrade. The street facade has two orders of engaged columns, Corinthian over Ionic, above a rusticated basement, which lock together in a harmonious whole.”
“Joyce?”
“Yes?” I snap out of it.
“Are you reading from a tourist guide?”
“No.”
“Our last trip to London consisted of Madame Tussaud’s, a night at G-A-Y, and a party at a flat owned by a man named Gloria. It’s happening again, isn’t it? That thing you were talking about?”
“Yes.” I slump into a chair in the corner, feel a rope beneath me, and jump back up. I quickly move away from the antique chair, looking around for security cameras.
“Has your being in London got anything to do with the American man?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
“Oh, Joyce—”
“No, Frankie, listen. Listen, and you’ll understand. I hope. Yesterday I panicked about something and called Dad’s doctor, a number that is practically engraved in my head, as it should be. I couldn’t possibly get it wrong, right?”
“Right.”
“Wrong. I ended up dialing a UK number, and a girl named Bea answered the phone. So from our short conversation I figured out that her dad is American but was in Dublin and was traveling to London last night to see her in a show today. And she has blond hair. I think Bea is the little girl I keep dreaming about at different ages.”
Frankie is quiet.
“I know I sound insane, Frankie, but this is what’s happening. I have no explanation for it.”
“I know, I know,” she says quickly. “I’ve known you practically all my life, so I know this is not something you’d be inclined to make up. But even as I take you seriously, please keep in consideration the fact that you’ve had a traumatic time, and what you’re currently experiencing could be due to high levels of stress.”
“I’ve already considered that.” I groan and hold my head in my hands. “I need help.”
“We’ll only consider insanity as a last resort. Let me think for a second.” She sounds as though she’s writing it all down. “So basically, you have seen this girl, Bea—”
“Maybe Bea.”
“Okay, okay, let’s just say it’s Bea. You’ve seen her grow up?”
“Yes.”
“To what age?”
“From birth to, I don’t know…”
“Teenager, twenties, thirties?”
“Teenager.”
“Okay, so who else is in the scenes with Bea?”
“Another woman. With a camera.”
“But never your American man?”
“No. So he probably has nothing to do with this at all.”
“Let’s not rule anything out. So when you view Bea and the lady with the camera, are you part of the scene or viewing them as an outsider?”
I close my eyes and think hard, see my hands pushing the swing, taking a photograph of the girl and her mother in the park, feeling the water from the sprinklers spray and tickle my skin…“No, I’m part of it. They can see me.”
“Okay.” She is silent.
“What, Frankie, what?”
“I’m figuring it out. Hold on. Okay. So you see a child, a mother, and they both see you?”
“Yes.”
“Would you say that in your dreams you’re viewing this girl grow up through the eyes of a father?”
Goose bumps form on my skin.
“Oh, my God,” I whisper. The American man?
“I take it that’s a yes,” Frankie says. “Okay, we’re onto something here. I don’t know what, but it’s something very weird, and I can’t believe I’m even entertaining these thoughts. But what the hell, I only have a million other things to do. What else do you dream about?”
“It’s all very fast, images just flashing by.”
“Try and remember.”
“Sprinklers in a garden. A chubby young boy. A woman with long red hair. I hear bells. See old buildings with shop fronts. A church. A beach. I’m at a funeral. Then at college. Then with the woman and the young girl. Sometimes the woman’s smiling and holding my hand, sometimes she’s sh
outing and slamming doors.”
“Hmm…she must be your wife.”
I bury my head in my hands again. “Frankie, this sounds so ridiculous.”
“Who cares? When has life ever made sense? Let’s keep going.”
“I don’t know, the images are all so abstract. I can’t make any sense of it.”
“What you should do this: every time you get a flash of something or suddenly know something you never knew, write it down and tell me. I’ll help you figure this out.”
“Thank you.”
“So apart from the place you’re in now, what kinds of things do you suddenly just know about?”
“Em…mostly buildings.” I look around and then up at the ceiling. “And art. I spoke Italian to a man at the airport. And Latin, I spoke Latin to Conor the other day.”
“Oh, God.”
“I know. I think he wants to have me sent away.”
“Well, we won’t let him do that. Yet. Okay, so, buildings, art, languages. Wow, Joyce, it’s like you’ve gotten a crash course in an entire college education you never had. Where is the culturally ignorant girl I once knew and loved?”
I smile. “She’s still here.”
“One more thing. My boss has called me for a meeting this afternoon. What is it about?”
“Frankie, I don’t have psychic powers!”
The door to the gallery opens, and a flustered-looking young girl wearing a headset rushes in. She approaches almost every woman on her way in, and I can hear her asking for me.
“Joyce Conway?” she asks when she finally reaches me, out of breath.
“Yes.” My heat beats a mile a minute. Please let Dad be okay. Please, God.
“Is your father Henry?”
“Yes.”
“He wants you to join him in the green room.”
“He what? In the what?”
“He’s in the green room. He’s going live with Michael Aspel in just a few minutes with his item, and he wants you to join him because he says you know more about it. We really have to move now, there’s very little time, and we need to get you made up.”
“Live with Michael Aspel…” I trail off. I realize I’m still holding the phone. “Frankie,” I say, dazed, “put on BBC, quick. You’re about to witness me getting into very big trouble.”
Chapter 21
I HALF WALK, HALF RUN behind the girl with the headset and reach the green room, panting and nervous, to see Dad sitting on a makeup chair facing a mirror lit up by bulbs, tissue tucked into his collar, a cup and saucer in his hand, his bulbous nose being powdered for his close-up.
“Ah, there you are, love,” Dad says grandly. “Everybody, this is my daughter, and she’ll be the one to tell us all about my lovely piece here that caught the eye of Michael Aspel.” This is followed by a chuckle and a sip of tea. “There’s Jaffa Cakes over there if you want them, Gracie.”
Evil little man.
I look around the room at all the interested nodding heads and force a smile onto my face.
Justin squirms uncomfortably in his chair at the dentist’s waiting room, his swollen cheek throbbing, sandwiched between two old dears carrying on about someone they know called Rebecca, who should leave a man named Timothy.
Shut up, shut up, shut up!
The 1970s television in the corner, which is covered by a lace cloth and fake flowers, announces that the Antiques Roadshow is about to begin.
Justin groans. “Does anybody mind if I change the channel?”
“I’m watching it,” says a young boy no older than seven years old.
Justin smiles at him with loathing, then looks to his mother for backup.
Instead she shrugs. “He’s watching it.”
“Charming,” Justin grunts in frustration.
“Excuse me.” Justin finally interrupts the women to his right and left. “Would one of you ladies like to swap places with me, so that you can continue this conversation more privately?”
“No, don’t worry, love, there’s nothing private about this conversation, believe you me. Eavesdrop all you like.”
The smell of her breath silently tiptoes under his nostrils again, tickles them with a feather duster, and runs off with an evil giggle.
“I wasn’t eavesdropping. Your lips were quite literally in my ear, and I’m not sure if Charlie or Graham or Rebecca would appreciate that.” He turns his nose away.
“Oh, Ethel”—the other laughs—“he thinks we’re talking about real people.”
With that, Justin turns his attention back to the television in the corner, which the other six people in the room are now glued to.
“…And welcome to our first live Antiques Roadshow special…”
Justin sighs loudly again.
The little boy narrows his eyes at him and raises the volume with the remote control that is firmly in his grasp.
“…coming to you from Banqueting House, London.”
Oh, I’ve been there. A nice example of Corinthian and Ionic locked together in a harmonious whole.
“We have had over two thousand people spilling through our doors since nine thirty this morning, and only moments ago those doors have closed, leaving us to display the best pieces for you to view at home. Our first guests come from—”
Ethel leans across Justin and rests her elbow on his thigh. “So anyway, Margaret—”
He zones in on the television so as not to grab both their heads and smash them together.
“So what do we have here?” the host asks his two guests. “Looks like a designer wastebasket to me.” The camera takes a close-up of the piece propped on the table.
Justin’s heart begins to palpitate.
“Bo-ring. Do you want me to change it now, mister?” The boy flicks through the channels at top speed.
“No!” he shouts, breaking through Margaret and Ethel’s conversation and reaching out rather dramatically. He falls to the carpet on his knees, in front of the television. Margaret and Ethel both jump and go silent. “Go back, go back, go back!” he shouts at the boy.
The boy’s lower lip begins to tremble as he looks to his mother.
“There’s no need to shout at him.” She pulls his head to her chest protectively.
Justin grabs the remote control from the boy and flicks back through the channels. He stops when he comes upon a close-up of Joyce, whose eyes are looking uncertainly to the left and right, as though she has just landed in the cage of a Bengal tiger at feeding time.
At the Irish Financial Services Centre, Frankie is racing through the offices searching for a television. She finally finds one surrounded by dozens of suits studying the figures that are racing by on the screen.
“Excuse me! Coming through!” she shouts, pushing her way through. She rushes to the TV and starts fiddling with the buttons to cries of abuse from the men and women around her.
“I’ll be quick, the market won’t crash in all of the two minutes this will take.” She flicks around and finds Joyce and her dad live on BBC.
She gasps and holds her hands up to her mouth. And then she laughs and throws her fist at the screen. “You go, Joyce!”
The team quickly shuffles off to find another screen, apart from one man, who seems pleased by the change in programming and decides to stay and watch.
“Oh, that’s a nice piece,” he comments, leaning back against the desk and folding his arms.
“Em…” Joyce is saying, “well, we found it…I mean we put it, put this beautiful…extraordinary…eh, wooden…bucket outside of our house. Well, not outside—” She quickly withdraws upon seeing the appraiser’s reaction. “Inside. We put it inside our front porch so that it’s protected from the weather, you see. For umbrellas.”
“Yes, and it may have been originally used for that too,” the appraiser says. “Where did you get it from?”
Joyce’s mouth opens and closes for a few seconds, and Henry jumps in. He is standing upright with his hands clasped over his belly. His chin is raised, there
is a glint in his eye, and he ignores the expert and takes on a posh accent to direct his answer at Michael Aspel, whom he addresses as though he’s the pope.
“Well, Michael, I was given this by my great-great-grandfather Joseph Conway, who was a farmer in Tipperary. He gave it to my grandfather Shay, who was also a farmer. My grandfather gave it to my father, Paddy-Joe, who was also a farmer in Cavan, and then when he died, I took it.”
“I see, and do you have any idea where your great-great-grandfather may have got this?”
“He probably stole it from the Brits,” Henry jokes, and is the only one to laugh. Joyce elbows him, Frankie snorts, and on the floor before the television in a dentist’s waiting room in London, Justin throws his head back and laughs loudly.
“Well, the reason I ask is because this is a fabulous item you have here. It’s a rare nineteenth-century English Victorian era upright jardinière planter—”
“I love gardening, Michael,” Henry interrupts the expert, “do you?”
Michael smiles at him politely, and the expert continues, “It has wonderful hand-carved Black Forest–style plaques set in the Victorian ebonized wood framing on all four sides.”
“Country English or French decor, what do you think?” Frankie’s work colleague asks her.
She ignores him, concentrating on Joyce.
“Inside it has what looks like an original tole painted tin liner. Superb condition, ornate patterns carved into the solid wood panels. We can see here that two of the sides have a floral motif, and the other two sides are figural, one with the center lion’s head and the other with griffin figures. Very striking indeed, and an absolutely wonderful piece to have by your front door.”
“Worth a few quid, is it?” Henry asks, dropping the posh accent.
“We’ll get to that part,” the expert says. “While it is in good condition, it appears there would have been feet, quite likely wooden. There are no splits or warping in the sides, and the finger ring handles on the sides are intact. So bearing all that in mind, how much do you think it’s worth?”
Thanks for the Memories Page 17
