The House of Memories

by Monica McInerney

  ‘Poor Aunty Ella’s a bit shy,’ he said into the camera. ‘You need to coax her to you, as if she’s a wild animal that needs to be tamed.’

  I could hear their different voices. ‘Come here, Ella!’ ‘Don’t be shy, Aunty Ella!’ ‘We won’t bite, Aunty Ella!’ ‘Ed might bite, Sophie. Put your hand over his mouth in case.’

  Charlie turned the laptop around so the camera was pointing at me, not him. I appeared in a small box in the right-hand corner. The rest of the screen was like an aquarium filled with Charlie’s children: Sophie, Ed, Reilly and Tim, smiling and waving out at me.

  They were even more beautiful than I remembered. Reilly and Ed were like mini Lucys, blond and blue-eyed. Sophie was the image of her mother, too, but with Charlie’s black hair. Tim was like Charlie shrunk to miniature size – cheeky grin, chubby cheeks and all.

  Before Felix died, I’d talked to them at least once a week. I’d listened to their tales from school, heard songs they were learning for concerts, praised paintings they held up to the camera for me to see. They’d met and got to know Felix over Skype. They’d seen him the day he was born. They’d seen his first tooth, in close-up. They’d watched him crawl across our apartment floor. They’d watched him eat, and laughed as he ended up with most of the food on his face. They’d seen him take his earliest steps. They’d sent clothes and cheered to see him on the screen wearing them. They’d sung songs to him. They’d laughed and laughed one afternoon when Felix stood in front of my laptop camera and shouted, five times in a row, at the top of his voice, ‘I’m Felix O’Hanlon!’

  They waved at me now, as if it had been just last week we had spoken to each other.

  I came closer. ‘Hi, kids,’ I called.

  ‘Look at this, Ella!’ It was Ed. He leaned right into the camera so his face filled the screen and then smiled. He was missing the two front teeth. ‘One was coming out anyway but I pulled the other one out. It really hurt.’

  ‘Ouch,’ I said. ‘Did you tell the Tooth Fairy? You might get paid danger money.’

  Ed sat back. Beside him, Sophie gave me a big wink. ‘That’s a great idea, Ella. I’ll help him write to the Tooth Fairy tonight.’ She put a lot of emphasis on the words tooth and fairy.

  Reilly held up a book. ‘I’m reading this, Ella. Back to front. It’s harder but it means I know what’s going to happen.’

  ‘That’s a great approach, Reilly. No surprises that way. How are you, Tim?’ I asked. I steeled myself as I looked at him. Tim, the youngest, the closest in age to Felix.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Look.’ He bared his teeth at me. He wasn’t missing any. They were all there, like a little row of dolphin teeth, sharp and pointy.

  I laughed. ‘Wow. What fantastic teeth. You must really look after them, do you?’

  He nodded.

  He’d been a toddler last time I saw him. He was four now. I had missed nearly two years of his childhood. Of all their childhoods.

  I needed to leave now. I said goodnight to each of them by name. There was a chorus of goodbyes in return. ‘Bye, Ella!’ ‘Talk to you soon, Ella!’ ‘Bye, Ella!’ ‘So long, Ella!’

  ‘Do you want to wait?’ Charlie said to me. ‘I’ll only be a few minutes. Did you need to talk?’

  I shook my head. ‘I’m fine. Don’t worry. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  I called out good night to the kids again. Four cheery American-accented good nights sounded behind me as I carefully shut Charlie’s door.

  Chapter Forty-two

  Dear Diary,

  Hi, it’s Jess!

  Everything’s okay again!!!!! I’ve got two places to stay and I’ve even got a job offer! Thank God, thank God, thank God for that Australian waitress. I know I said she was horrible before but she isn’t. She was just having a bad day. Let me start at the beginning, back to yesterday morning.

  After I’d spoken to Ben while he was at work and he wasn’t that nice, I got very upset and I came really close to hurting myself again. It all just rushed at me again, like a wave, and I was even looking for something to do it with. But then something stopped me. I don’t know what it was. Suddenly I just thought, no, I don’t want to start doing that again. And the more I thought about it, the more I knew I wouldn’t. I made myself remember things the counsellor said to me. ‘You will get through this, Jess, because you are special and wonderful and you have to keep telling yourself that. You loved Felix. You would never have hurt him deliberately.’ The more I said that, the more I reminded myself that Felix wouldn’t have liked me hurting myself either. And that’s what really stopped me. The thought of him seeing me do it. I’ve always secretly hoped he is an angel somewhere, watching all of us (but I hope he wasn’t watching while I was in bed with Zach). I wouldn’t want to make him unhappy.

  The counsellor always said to me, ‘You can control your thoughts, Jess. You can’t change what happened, but you can change the way you think about things.’ And so I kept saying that to myself, especially after I had my shower and came out into Ben’s filthy living room again. At first, seeing the mess only reminded me that one of the horrible guys who’d been there had taken my phone and purse. But then I looked around and I just decided, ‘I’m not going to let them or this beat me. I’m not.’ And I know it sounds so corny and stupid but I made myself imagine I was playing a role in a musical, that all of this was just a part I was playing. And I realised I needed to actually do something if I was playing a part, so I decided to do a big clean-up. The place was a pigsty and that was making me feel worse, so I thought, I’ll fix it up and that will make me feel better and it will also be a way of paying my way because Ben has been nice to me and it wasn’t his fault his friends were thieving creeps.

  So I just got really stuck in and I decided to sing as I worked. I sang and I sang and this time there was no porter to come and tell me to shut up. I sang all the big cheery songs we always keep for the finales, ‘There’s No Business Like Show Business’ from Annie Get Your Gun and ‘Don’t Rain on My Parade’ from Funny Girl and ‘I Feel Pretty’ from West Side Story and then most of the Abba songs from Mamma Mia! as well. I cleaned the whole place up, every room except for Ben’s, and I bet it has never been cleaned so well. The furniture was still pretty battered but it all looked so much better than it had. And then I felt so good I didn’t want to sit in and spend the day waiting for Ben to come home. He’d told me there was a spare key in the teapot, so I got it and I kept talking to myself. ‘Treat this like a day off, Jess. Go exploring. You’re in London, after all. Pretend you’re in a film now and just ACT as if you’re carefree.’

  So I did and that REALLY helped too. It kind of made it fun – whatever I did, I just imagined there was a camera crew following me. So I did things like swing around a lamppost and sniff flowers outside florists and all the stuff people do in films when they are exploring a city, and even though it was freezing cold I walked alongside the Thames for a bit, with my collar up and smiling at complete strangers, because you always see people in films doing that too. Unfortunately I didn’t have any money apart from a few coins leftover from Ben’s spare change, I’d used most of it on my phone call to him at the hotel, so that was a big drawback, but I kept telling myself not to worry about that yet either, something would turn up. I even kept looking down at the ground as I walked along because in a film the girl would probably find a twenty-pound note or something. I’d also taken the precaution of bringing a packed lunch. I didn’t think Ben would mind. It was all stuff he’d stolen from the hotel anyway so strictly speaking it didn’t belong to him either. And it was really nice, like a picnic! I sat on a bench and I had peanuts and then biscuits, and then for dessert three chocolates, really nice ones, the ones that maids put on the pillow when they turn down your bed at night-time. I recognised them from when I was staying in the hotel myself.

  After lunch I still had a whole afternoon to fill, but the sun was actually out – there was even a bit of blue sky, enough to make a sailor a pair of pants, as my m
um would say. So I went walking all the way to Oxford Street and Regent Street again to look at the shops. On the way, I saw a bus going to Paddington. I got a bit sad then, thinking about Ella and Felix, but I kept reminding myself of what the counsellor used to say to me, ‘You will get through this, Jess. It has been a terrible tragedy for you and your family, but you will all come through it if you let it happen, if you all allow yourselves to grieve and be kind to yourselves, because none of you wanted that terrible and sad thing to happen to Felix.’ And I also remembered something else the counsellor said: ‘You’ll never get over it, Jess. You won’t. You’ll learn to live with it. That’s a very different thing.’ I hope I will learn that one day.

  I did a bit of window-shopping and even tried on a few out-fits, but then as I was walking down some back streets I saw the cafe where I’d spent that hour and I don’t know what, but something made me go in there. I checked my coins first and decided I had enough money for a cup of tea, at least. So I went into the cafe and the Australian lady was there on her own behind the counter.

  She wasn’t very friendly at first to me this time either. She must have remembered I’d been there for ages the other day but I just took a deep breath and before I knew what I was saying, I basically threw myself on her mercy and begged her for some work, peeling potatoes or cleaning the toilets, anything she could offer me for even a few pounds. I said that basically I didn’t have any money and I wasn’t a druggie or anything, I promised, I was just a young Australian like she must have been once too, needing some assistance from a Good Samaritan. It really helped that I kept thinking I was in a film. It made everything less scary because I just told myself I was playing a role, that it wasn’t really me, Jessica Baum, saying all this stuff.

  And she said, ‘What, no money at all?’ And I said I’d had some but it had been stolen. And she said, ‘Were you mugged?’ and before I knew it, I’d told her EVERYTHING that had happened, about staying in a hotel when I first got here (I didn’t say which one) but then having a fight with my mum and dad (though I didn’t tell her what the fight was about) and being stupid and cutting up the credit card and Ben taking pity and letting me stay in his flat and then his friend being there too (though I didn’t tell her I’d had sex with him) and then waking up and hearing Ben with his friends from the club and then waking up again and my bag being there but my phone and my purse gone.

  ‘You didn’t know any of these guys? You’d just met one of them in the hostel you were staying in?’

  I didn’t correct her that it was a hotel, not a hostel. I just nodded. And she lost it! She said, ‘You’re bloody lucky you weren’t raped and murdered. What a stupid thing to do, to go and stay with a bunch of strange men. Bloody hell. Didn’t your mother teach you anything?’

  And I suddenly wanted to cry then, because of COURSE my mum wouldn’t have wanted me to get into a mess like this but I made myself NOT cry and made myself try to joke about it instead. I said, ‘All she’s taught me is how to cook. And she’s a useless cook.’

  And then, I couldn’t believe it, the lady kind of took a step back and said, ‘I know you, don’t I? You’re from that TV show, that ridiculous cooking one with the mother and the daughter. Mad Mary or something.’

  ‘MerryMakers.’

  ‘MerryMakers, that’s it! Am I right? Is Merry your mum?’

  I have never ever EVER been so grateful for the fact that Mum is a cult TV star! It turns out the lady – her name is Angela – had been home to visit her family in Sydney for Christmas and had stumbled across MerryMakers on the cable network one afternoon and got hooked and had watched loads of episodes, even the reruns. She changed completely towards me after that. She called out to the guy in the kitchen. He was Iranian or Russian or something. It turns out he’s her husband, not her boss. His name is Victor, and she said, ‘Can we give this kid a job for the afternoon? She’s in a bit of trouble.’

  He came out and said, ‘Why don’t your family help you?’

  ‘I’m trying to stand on my own two feet,’ I said. I didn’t want to go into all the details again.

  I started work there and then! I was only there for three hours, but I worked really hard. I washed dishes and peeled potatoes and filled up about a hundred plastic bottles with tomato sauce and mustard. They got really busy in the late afternoon, when the workers at a construction site down the road finished for the day and they all came in, and they knew Angela and Victor’s names and they all ordered huge plates of basically breakfast food in the middle of the afternoon! Sausages and beans and eggs and – worst of all – liver. I’ve never seen or smelt anything more disgusting. How can anyone eat liver?? I even had to cook some of it when it got really busy and Victor had to run out and get more eggs and I nearly threw up in the pan at the smell. Then I did all the washing up again, and there was a lot of it and not even a dishwasher, but one thing I am really good at is washing up. I decided to keep pretending I was in a film so I sang loads of songs too until Angela asked me to shut up. She said the customers preferred the radio.

  The other kitchenhand is back tomorrow. I was just lucky he was off sick today, so that was it for me employment-wise there but they still paid me TWENTY POUNDS!! I felt really rich when they gave it to me. Not that it’s that much really and it wouldn’t pay for a hotel room or anything, but luckily I had Ben’s place anyway.

  Angela asked me all about his flat. I think she had it in her head that it was like a crack den or something with needles on the floor and boards on the windows, but I explained that it was actually pretty nice, and smelt like washing powder, but that I didn’t plan to be there forever, because I didn’t want to overstay my welcome. And she said that if things got really hairy for me at Ben’s, I could sleep on their floor (as in her and Victor’s flat, not in the cafe!!!) and I thought that was really nice of her because she had only just met me, and I said that to her and she said I reminded her a bit of her little sister and then she said, had I ever heard the saying ‘a babe in the woods’ because I reminded her of that too. And I said, well, I’d heard of that musical Babes in the Wood, of course, but I’m not sure what that had to do with me right there at the moment. I’m nearly twenty-two, not a baby, and in London, not a forest.

  But then Angela also said – actually she INSISTED – that I ring Mum. I thought at first it was because she wanted to talk to her herself, Mum being a celebrity, but then she went on and on and said, ‘Mothers really worry about their kids. Have you talked to her since that fight?’ and I said ‘No’ and then I confessed I hadn’t emailed her or Dad either. And she said, ‘So how long since your mother has heard from you?’ And I said, ‘Five days, I think,’ and she said, ‘She must be worried sick. You need to send her a message right NOW.’ She got really bossy, as if SHE was my mother, and I said, ‘But my phone was stolen,’ and she said, ‘Here, use my phone. Do it now. Your mum won’t mind being woken up, I can assure you.’ But then, it was really embarrassing, I had a complete blank about our home number and Mum and Dad’s mobile numbers too. They were all just stored in my contacts list, who ever needs to memorise anything any more? So then Angela said, ‘What about email? Can you remember her email address?’ and I could. It’s Merry@MerryMakers.com.au. So I sent a quick note. ‘Hi Mum and Dad, Jess here, sorry for hanging up on you, everything’s great, I’ll ring soon, love Jess xxoo. P.S. Have lost my phone and am borrowing a friend’s to send this so please don’t worry about trying my old number. And I did feel a lot better afterwards. I’d been feeling a bit guilty that I hadn’t been in touch with them. I’m still upset that they didn’t tell me about my being offered my own show but they did fly me here and put me up in the lovely hotel and I’m not being avaricious (right spelling?) or anything, but the truth is if I want to stay on here in London, and I think I do, I probably will need to get financial assistance from them because it doesn’t sound like kitchen work pays very much and also, how will I get time to go to auditions if I’m working all the time?? Zach is right. Maybe I
am a bit of a princess but I’m just lucky to have parents that support me and my dreams.

  So I will definitely ring her and Dad tomorrow (just quickly, I don’t want to use up all my twenty pounds on a phone call!!). I would have rung home soon anyway. I know Mum will be thinking about Felix’s anniversary.

  I didn’t tell Angela about that part of things. I was going to, but I remembered what happened with Ben and Zach, and I realised I wanted to keep it to myself. I’d been drunk when I told them everything, and afterwards I’d wished I hadn’t. I want to do some private thinking about Felix, and if I told Angela, it would feel like I’d shared him again and I didn’t really want to do that.

  As I was leaving, Angela even gave me a hug and told me to come back again if I wanted, and then her husband said his cousin has a restaurant and the chef was so horrible they are always going through staff but if I was prepared to work hard I could probably get a job there. He told me the chef would shout at me a lot, but it would be in Russian and he could teach me some stuff to shout back if I wanted. I said I’d think about it. And maybe I will. But the more I thought about it as I was in the Tube going back to Ben’s, the more I realised I really just wanted to talk to Mum and Dad again and say sorry and get things back to the way they were before, with them helping me, not just financially, but giving me lots of encouragement and kind of protecting me, even from the other side of the world.

  I think I might put the auditions on hold for a while too. I haven’t given up on that yet, but I just wonder if I maybe threw myself into it all a bit too quickly, before I was ready, which might have been why I didn’t get through to the next stage. I might sign up for a few dance and singing classes here, just to keep everything in proper working order. And also maybe look around London a bit more too. I can hear Ben coming up the stairs so I’d better go!! I hope he notices how clean the flat is!!!!