Cecelia Ahern - The Gift & Thanks for the Memories

Dad elbows me. ‘Would you stop looking around you, and keep your eye on the stage. He’s about to kill her.’

I turn to face the stage and try to hold my eyes on the prince leaping about with his crossbow, but I can’t. A magnetic pull turns my face back down to the box, anxious to see who Mr Hitchcock is sitting with. My heart is drumming so loudly I only realise now it’s not part of Tchaikovsky’s score. Beside him is the woman with long red hair and lightly freckled face, who holds the camera in my dreams. Beside her is a sweet-looking gentleman and behind them, squashed together are a young man pulling uncomfortably at his tie, a woman with big curly red hair and a large round man. I flick through my memory files like I’m going through Polaroids. The chubby boy from the sprinkler scene and seesaw? Perhaps. But the other two, I don’t know. I move my eyes back to Justin Hitchcock and smile, finding his face more entertaining than the action on stage.

Suddenly the music changes, the light reflecting on his face flickers and his expression changes. I know instantly that Bea is on stage, and I turn to watch. There she is among the flock of swans, moving about so gracefully in perfect unison, dressed in a white fitted corset dress with raggedy long white tutu, similar to feathers. Her long blonde hair is tied up in a bun, covered by a neat headdress. I recall the image of her in the park as a little girl, twirling and twirling in her tutu and I’m filled with pride. How far she has come. How grown up she is now. My eyes fill.

‘Oh, look, Justin,’ Jennifer says breathily beside him.

He is looking. He can’t take his eyes off his daughter, a vision in white, dancing in perfect unison with the flock of swans, not a movement out of place. She looks so grown up, so … how did that happen? It seems like only yesterday she was twirling for him and Jennifer in the park across from their house, a little girl with a tutu and dreams and now … His eyes fill and he looks beside him to Jennifer, to share a look, share the moment but at the same time, she reaches for Laurence’s hand. He looks away quickly, back to his daughter. A tear falls and he reaches into his front pocket for his handkerchief.

A handkerchief is raised to my face, catches my tear before it drips from my chin.

‘What are you crying for?’ Dad says loudly, dabbing at my chin roughly, as the curtain lowers for the interval.

‘I’m just so proud of Bea.’

‘Who?’

‘Oh, nothing … I just think it’s a beautiful story. What do you think?’

‘I think those lads have definitely got socks down their tights.’

I laugh and wipe my eyes. ‘Do you think Mum’s enjoying it?’

He smiles and stares at the photo. ‘She must be, she hasn’t turned round once since it started. Unlike you, who’s got ants in her pants. If I’d known you were so keen on binoculars I’d have taken you out bird-watching long ago.’ He sighs and looks around. ‘The lads at the Monday Club won’t believe this at all. Donal McCarthy, you better watch out,’ he chuckles.

‘Do you miss her?’

‘It’s been ten years, love.’

It stings that he can be so dismissive. I fold my arms and look away, silently fuming.

Dad leans closer and nudges me. ‘And everyday, I miss her more than I did the day before.’

Oh. I immediately feel guilty for wishing that on him.

‘It’s like my garden, love. Everything grows. Including love. And with that growing everyday how can you expect missing her to ever fade away? Everything builds, including our ability to cope with it. That’s how we keep going.’

I shake my head, in awe of some of the things he comes out with. Philosophical and otherwise. And this from a man who’s been calling me his teapot (lid, kid ) since we landed.

‘And I just thought you liked pottering,’ I smile.

‘Ah, there’s a lot to be said for pottering. You know Thomas Berry said that gardening is an active participation in the deepest mysteries of the universe? There are lessons in pottering.’

‘Like what?’ I try not to smile.

‘Well, even a garden grows stranglers, love. It grows them naturally, all by itself. They creep up and choke the plants that are growing from the very same soil as they are. We each have our demons, our self-destruct button. Even in gardens. Pretty as they may be. If you don’t potter, you don’t notice them.’

He eyes me and I look away, choosing to clear my already-clear throat.

Sometimes I wish he’d just stick to laughing at men in tights.

‘Justin, we’re going to the bar, are you coming?’ Doris asks.

‘No,’ he says, in a huff like a child, folding his arms.

‘Why not?’ Al squeezes further into the box to sit beside him.

‘I just don’t want to.’ He picks up the opera glasses and starts fiddling with them.

‘But you’ll be here on your own.’

‘So?’

‘Mr Hitchcock, would you like me to get you a drink?’ Bea’s boyfriend, Peter, asks.

‘Mr Hitchcock was my father, you can call me Al. Like the song.’ He punches him playfully on the shoulder but it knocks him back a few steps.

‘OK, Al, but I actually meant Justin.’

‘ You can call me Mr Hitchcock.’ Justin looks at him like there’s a bad smell in the room.

‘We don’t have to sit with Laurence and Jennifer, you know.’

Laurence. Laurence of Ahernia who has elephantitis of the —

‘Yes we do, Al, don’t be ridiculous,’ Doris interrupts.

Al sighs. ‘Well, give Petey an answer, do you want us to bring you back a drink?’

Yes . But Justin can’t bring himself to say it and instead shakes his head sulkily.

‘OK, we’ll be back in fifteen.’

Al gives him a comforting brotherly pat on his shoulder before they all leave him alone in the box to stew over Laurence and Jennifer and Bea and Chicago and London and Dublin and now Peter, and how exactly his life has ended up.

Two minutes later and already tired of feeling sorry for himself, he looks through the opera glasses and begins spying on the trickles of people seated below him who’d stayed in their seats for the interval. He spots a couple fighting, snapping at one another. Another couple kissing, reaching for their coats and then disappearing quickly to the exits. He spies a mother giving out to her son. A group of women laughing together. A couple saying nothing to one another or who have nothing to say to one another. He’d prefer the former. Nothing exciting. He moves to the boxes opposite. They are empty, everyone choosing to have their pre-ordered drinks in the nearby bar. He cranes his neck up higher.

How on earth can anyone see anything from there?

Here, there are a small number of people, like everyone else, just chatting. He moves along from right to left. Then stops. Rubs his eyes. Sure he is imagining it. He squints back through the opera glasses again and sure enough, there she is. With the old man. Every scene in his life was beginning to be like a page from Where’s Wally?

She is looking through her opera glasses too, scanning the crowd below them both. Then she raises her opera glasses, moves slowly to the right and … they both freeze, staring at one another through the lenses. He slowly lifts his arm. Waves.

She slowly does the same. The old man beside her puts his glasses on and squints in his direction, mouth opening and closing the entire time.

Justin holds his hand up, intends to make a ‘wait’ sign. Hold on, I’m coming up to you . He holds his forefinger up, as though he’s just thought of an idea. One minute. Hold on, I’ll be one minute , he tries to signal.

She gives him the thumbs-up and he breaks into a smile.