‘The only moving I’ll be doing is this.’ He picks up his pint and moves it to his lips. He takes a gulp of Guinness, closes his eyes and savours the taste, leaving a white moustache around his lips.
I hurry out of the bar and wander around the huge theatre, not sure where to start looking. I stand outside the nearby gents’ toilets for a few moments but he doesn’t appear. I look over at the balcony he was seated in but it’s empty.
Justin gives up standing by the exit door as the last few people trickle by him. He must have missed her and he was stupid to think there was only one exit. He sighs with frustration. He wishes he could transport himself back in time to the day in the salon and relive the moment properly this time. His pocket vibrates, snapping him out of his daydream.
‘Bro, where the heck are you?’
‘Hi, Al. I saw the woman again.’
‘The Sky News woman?’
‘Yeah!’
‘The Viking woman?’
‘Yeah, yeah, her.’
‘The Antiques Roadshow wo—’
‘YES! For Christsake, do we have to go through this again?’
‘Hey, did you ever think that maybe she’s a stalker?’
‘If she’s a stalker, then why am I always chasing her?’
‘Oh, yeah. Well, maybe you’re the stalker and you don’t know it.’
‘Al …’ Justin grits his teeth.
‘Whatever, hurry back up here before Jennifer has a conniption fit. Another one.’
Justin sighs. ‘I’m coming.’
He snaps his phone shut and takes one last look down the street. Among the crowd something catches his eye, a red coat. Adrenalin surges. He races outside, pushes past the slowly filtering crowd, his heart pounding, his eyes not budging from the coat.
‘Joyce!’ he calls. ‘Joyce, wait!’ he shouts louder.
She keeps walking, unable to hear him.
He bumps and pushes, getting cursed at and prodded by people he pushes by until finally she’s just inches from him.
‘Joyce,’ he says breathlessly, reaching out and grabbing her arm. She spins around, a face twisted in surprise and fright. A face of a stranger.
She hits him over the head with her leather bag.
‘Ow! Hey! Jesus!’
Apologising, he slowly makes his way back to the theatre, trying to catch his breath, rubbing his sore head, cursing and grumbling to himself with frustration. He reaches for the main door. It doesn’t open. He tries it again gently, then rattles it slightly a few times. Within seconds, he pulls and pushes the door with full force, kicking at the door with frustration.
‘Hey, hey, hey! We’re closed! Theatre’s closed!’ a member of staff informs him from behind the glass.
When I return to the bar, I thankfully find Dad sitting in the corner where I’d left him. Only this time he’s not alone. Perched on the chair beside him, her head close to his as though in deep conversation, is Bea. I panic and rush over to them.
‘Hi.’ I approach them, terrified by what verbal diarrhoea may have slipped out of his mouth already.
‘Ah, there you are, love. Thought you’d abandoned me. This nice girl came to see if I was OK, seeing as someone tried to throw me out again.’
‘I’m Bea,’ she smiles, and I can’t help but notice how grownup she has become. How self-assured and confident she is. I almost feel like telling her that the last time I’d seen her she was ‘yay high’, but I stop myself from gushing at her extraordinary transformation into adulthood.
‘Hello, Bea.’
‘Do I know you?’ Frown lines appear on her porcelain forehead.
‘Em …’
‘This is my daughter, Gracie,’ Dad butts in, and for once I don’t correct him.
‘Oh, Gracie,’ Bea shakes her head. ‘No. I was thinking of someone else. Nice to meet you.’
We shake hands and I hold on for a little too long perhaps, entranced by the feel of her real skin, not just a memory. I quickly let go.
‘You were wonderful tonight. I was so proud,’ I say breathily.
‘Proud? Oh, yes, your father told me you designed the costumes,’ she smiles. ‘They were beautiful. I’m surprised I hadn’t met you until now, we had been dealing with Linda for all the fittings.’
My mouth drops, Dad shrugs nervously and sips on what looks to be a new pint. A fresh lie for a fresh pint. The price of his soul.
‘Oh, I didn’t design them … I just …’ You just what, Joyce? ‘I just supervised,’ I say dumbly. ‘What else has he been telling you?’ I nervously sit down and look around for her father, hoping this isn’t the moment he chooses to enter and greet me in the midst of this ridiculous lie.
‘Well, just as you arrived he was telling me about how he’d saved a swan’s life,’ she smiles.
‘Single-handedly,’ they both add in unison and laugh.
‘Ha ha,’ I force out and it sounds fake. ‘Is that true?’ I ask him doubtfully.
‘Oh, ye of little faith.’ Dad takes another gulp of Guinness. Seventy-five years old and he’s already had a brandy and a pint: he’ll be on his ear in no time. God knows what he’d be saying then. We’ll have to leave soon.
‘Well, you know what, girls, it’s great to save a life, it really, really is,’ Dad says from his high horse. ‘Unless you’ve done it, you have no idea.’
‘My father, the hero,’ I smile.
Bea laughs at Dad. ‘You sound exactly like my father.’
My ears perk up. ‘Is he here?’
She looks around. ‘No, not yet. I don’t know where he is. Probably hiding from my mom and her new boyfriend, not to mention my boyfriend,’ she laughs. ‘But that’s another story. Anyway he considers himself Superman—’
‘Why?’ I interrupt and try to rein myself in.
‘About a month ago, he donated blood,’ she smiles and holds her hands up. ‘Ta-da! That’s it!’ She laughs. ‘But he thinks he’s some kind of hero that’s saved somebody’s life. I mean, I don’t know, maybe he has. It’s all he talks about. He donated it at a mobile unit at the college where he was giving a seminar – you guys probably know it, it’s in Dublin. Trinity College? Anyway, I wouldn’t mind, but he only did it because the doctor was cute and for that Chinese thing, what do you call it? The thing where you save someone’s life and they’re forever indebted to you or something like that?’
Dad shrugs. ‘I don’t speak Chinese. Or know any. She eats the food all the time, though.’ He nods his head at me. ‘Rice with eggs, or something.’ He ruffles his nose.
Bea laughs. ‘Anyway, he figured if he was going to save someone’s life he deserved to be thanked every day for the rest of his life by the person he saved.’
‘How would they do that, then?’ Dad leans in.
‘By delivering a muffin basket, do his dry cleaning, a newspaper and coffee delivered to his door every morning, a chauffeur-driven car, front-row tickets to the opera …’ She rolls her eyes and then frowns. ‘I can’t remember what else but they were ridiculous things. Anyway, I told him he may as well have a slave if he wants that kind of treatment, not save someone’s life.’ She laughs and Dad does too.
I make an oh shape with my mouth but nothing comes out.
‘Don’t get me wrong, he’s a really thoughtful guy,’ she adds quickly, misunderstanding my silence. ‘And I was proud of him for donating blood as he’s absolutely terrified by needles. He has a huge phobia,’ she explains to Dad, who nods along in agreement. ‘That’s him there.’ She opens her locket around her neck and if I have regained my power of speech, it is quickly lost again.
On one side of the locket is a photograph of Bea and her mother, and on the other side is the photograph of her and her father when she was a little girl, in the park on that summer day that is clearly imbedded in my memory. I remember how she jumped up and down with excitement and how it had taken us so long to get her to sit still. I remember the smell of her hair as she sat on my lap and pushed her head up against mine and shou
ted ‘Cheeeeese!’ so loudly she’d almost deafened me. She hadn’t done that to me at all, of course, but I remember it with equal fondness as a day spent fishing with my father when I was a child, feel all the sensations of the day as clearly as the drink I now taste in my mouth and feel flowing down my throat. The cold of the ice, the sweetness of the mineral. It’s all as real to me as the moments spent with Bea in the park.
‘I’ll have to put my glasses on to see this,’ Dad says, moving closer and taking the gold locket in his old fingers. ‘Where was this?’
‘The park near where we used to live. In Chicago. I’m five years old there, with my dad, but I love this photograph. It was such a special day.’ She looks at it fondly. ‘One of the best.’
I smile too, remembering it.
‘Photograph!’ somebody in the bar calls out.
‘Dad, let’s get out of here,’ I whisper while Bea is distracted by the commotion.
‘OK, love, just after this pint—’
‘No! Now!’ I hiss.
‘Group photo! Come on!’ Bea says, grabbing Dad’s arm.
‘Oh!’ Dad looks pleased.
‘No, no no no no no.’ I try to smile to hide my panic. ‘We really must go now.’
‘Just one photo, Gracie,’ she smiles. ‘We have to get the lady who’s responsible for all these beautiful costumes.’
‘No, I’m not—’
‘Costume supervisor,’ Bea corrects herself apologetically.
A woman on the other side of the group throws me a look of horror, on hearing this. Dad laughs. I’m stiff beside Bea, who throws one arm around me and the other arm around her mother.
‘Everyone say Tchaikovsky!’ Dad shouts.
‘Tchaikovsky!’ They all cheer and laugh.
I roll my eyes.
The camera flashes.
Justin enters the room.
The crowd breaks up.
I grab Dad, and run.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Back in our hotel room it’s lights out for Dad, who climbs into bed in his brown paisley pyjamas, and for me, who is wearing more clothes in bed than I’ve worn for a long time.
The room is black, thick with shadows and still, apart from the flashing red digits in the time display panel at the bottom of the television. Laying flat and still on my back, I attempt to process the day’s events. My body once again becomes the subject of much Zulu drumming as my heartbeat intensifies. I feel its pounding rebound against the springs in the mattress beneath me. Then the pulse in my neck vibrates so wildly it causes my ear drums to join in. Beneath my ribcage, it feels like two fists hammering to get out, and I watch the bedroom door and anticipate the arrival of an African tribe, ready to participate in the synchronised stamping of feet, at the end of my bed.
The reason for these internal war drums? Over and over again, my mind runs through the clanger Bea dropped only hours ago. The words fell from her mouth just like a cymbal falling from its drum set. Since then it has rolled around the floor and only now lands face down on the ground with a crash, ending my African orchestra. The revelation that Bea’s dad, Justin, donated blood a month ago in Dublin, the same month I fell down the stairs and changed my life for ever, plays over and over in my mind. Coincidence? A resounding yes. Something more? A shaky possibility. A hopeful possibility.
When is a coincidence just a coincidence, though? And when, if at all, should it be seen as something more? At a time like this? When I am lost and desperate, grieving for a child that was never born, and tending to my wounds after a defeated marriage? This, I have found, is the time when what was once clear has instead become cloudy, and what was once considered bizarre has now become a possibility.
It is during troubled times like these that people see straight, though others watch with concern and try to convince them that they can’t. Weighted minds are just so because of all of their new thoughts. When those who have passed through their troubles and come out the other side suddenly embrace their new beliefs wholeheartedly, it is viewed with cynicism by others. Why? Because when you’re in trouble you look harder for answers than those who aren’t, and it’s those answers that help you through.
This blood transfusion – is it the answer or merely an answer I’m looking for? I find that, usually, answers present themselves. They are not hidden under rocks or camouflaged among trees. Answers are right there, in front of our eyes. But if you haven’t cause to look, then of course you will probably never find them.
So, the explanation for the sudden arrival of alien memories, the reason for such a deep connection to Justin – I feel it running through my very veins. Is this the answer that my heart is currently raging within me to realise? It hops up and down now, like Skippy, trying to get my attention, trying to alert me to a problem. I breathe in slowly through my nose and exhale, I close my eyes gently and place my hands over my chest, feeling the thump-thump, thump-thump that is raging within me. Time to slow everything down now, time to get answers.
Taking the bizarre as a given for just one moment, as people in trouble do: if I did indeed receive Justin’s blood during my transfusion, then my heart is now sending his blood around my body. Some of the blood that once flowed through his veins, keeping him alive, now rushes through mine, helping to keep me alive. Something that came from his heart, that beat within him, that made him who he is, is now a part of me.
At first I shiver at the thought, goose bumps rising on my skin, but on further thought, I snuggle down into the bed and hug my body. I suddenly don’t feel so lonely, feel glad of the company within me. Is this the reason for the connection I feel with him? That in flowing from his channels to mine, it enabled me to tune into his frequency and experience his personal memories and passions?
I sigh wearily, knowing nothing in my life makes sense any more, and not just since the day I fell down the stairs. I had been falling for quite some time before that. That day … that was the day I’d landed. The first day of the rest of my life, and quite possibly, thanks to Justin Hitchcock.
It has been a long day. The business at the airport, the Antiques Roadshow, then finally the clanger at the Royal Opera House. A tsunami of emotions has come crashing down upon me all in twenty-four hours, pulled me under and overwhelmed me. I smile now, remembering the events, the precious moments with Dad, from tea at his kitchen table to a mini-adventure in London. I offer a wide toothy grin to the ceiling above me and a thanks to beyond the ceiling.
From the darkness I hear a wheezing, short rasps drifting into the atmosphere.
‘Dad?’ I whisper. ‘Are you OK?’
The wheezing gets louder and my body freezes.
‘Dad?’
Then it’s followed by a snort. And a loud guffaw.
‘Michael Aspel,’ he splutters through his laughter. ‘Christ Almighty, Gracie.’
I smile with relief as his laughter intensifies, becomes so much bigger than him that he almost can’t bear it. I giggle at the sound of his laughter. He laughs harder on hearing me, and I at him. Our sounds fuel each other. The springs of the mattress beneath me squeak as my body shakes, causing us to roar even more. Thoughts of the umbrella stand, going live with Michael Aspel, the group cheering ‘Tchaikovsky!’ at the camera, the hilarity grows with each flickering scene.
‘Oh, my stomach,’ he howls.
I roll onto my side, hands on my belly.
Dad continues to wheeze and bangs his hand repeatedly on the side cabinet that separates us. I try to stop, the panic of a stiffening stomach sore but hilarious at the same time. I can’t stop and Dad’s high-pitched wheezing sets me off even more. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him laugh so much and so heartily. From the pale light seeping through the window beside Dad, I see his legs rise in the air and kick around with glee.
‘Oh. My. I. Can’t. Stop.’
We wheeze and roar and laugh, sit up, lie down, roll around and try to catch our breaths. We stop momentarily and try to compose ourselves but it takes over our bodies again, l
aughing, laughing, laughing in the darkness, at nothing and everything.
Then we calm down and there is silence. Dad farts and we are off again.
Hot tears roll from the sides of my eyes and down my plumped cheeks, which ache from smiling and I squeeze them with my hands to stop. It occurs to me how close happiness and sadness are. So closely knitted together. Such a thin line, a thread-like divide that in the midst of emotions, it trembles, blurring the territory of exact opposites. The movement is minute, like the thin thread of a spider’s web that quivers under a raindrop. Here in my moment of unstoppable cheek-and stomach-aching laughter, as my body rolls around, my stomach clenched, all the muscles taut, my body jumps about, is racked by emotion and therefore steps ever so slightly over the mark, and into sadness. Tears of sadness gush down my cheeks as my stomach continues to shake and ache with happiness.
I think of Conor and me; how quickly a moment of love was snapped away to a moment of hate. One comment to steal it all away. Of how love and war stand upon the very same foundations. How, in my darkest moments, my most fearful times, when faced, became my bravest. When feeling at your weakest you end up showing more strength, when at your lowest are suddenly lifted above higher than you’ve ever been. They all border one another, those opposites, and how quickly we can be altered. Despair can be altered by one simple smile offered by a stranger; confidence can become fear by the arrival of one uneasy presence. Just as Kate’s son had wavered on the balance beam and in an instant his excitement had turned to pain. Everything is on the verge, always brimming the surface, a slight shake, a tremble sends things toppling. How similar emotions are.
Dad stops his laughter so abruptly it concerns me and I reach for the light.
Pitch-black so quickly becomes light.
He looks at me as though he’s done something wrong, but is afraid to admit it. He throws the covers off his body and shuffles into the bathroom, grabbing his travel bag and hitting off everything in his path, refusing to meet my eyes. I look away. How quickly such comfort with someone can shift to awkwardness. How in the very second you reach a dead-end, moments when you are convinced you know exactly where you’re going are altered. A realisation in less than a second. A flicker.
Cecelia Ahern 2-book Bundle Page 45
