Cecelia Ahern - The Gift & Thanks for the Memories

We all go quiet.

Kate breaks the silence. ‘OK, so, I still don’t get it. Somebody explain.’

‘Well, it’s practically the same thing, isn’t it?’ I say. ‘Blood comes from the heart.’

Kate gasps. ‘It came straight from his heart,’ she says dreamily.

‘Oh, so now blood transfusions are romantic to you,’ Frankie comments. ‘Let me tell you about what I got from the Net. Due to reports from several heart transplant recipients claiming experiences of unexpected side effects, Channel Four made a documentary about whether it’s possible that in receiving a transplanted organ, a patient could inherit some of their donor’s memories, tastes, desires and habits as well. The documentary follows these people making contact with the donor families in the recipients’ efforts to understand the new life within them. It questions science’s understanding of how the memory works, featuring scientists who are pioneering research into the intelligence of the heart and the biochemical basis for memory in our cells.’

‘So if they think that the heart holds more intelligence than we think, then the blood which is pumped from someone’s heart could carry that intelligence. So in transfusing his blood, he transfused his memories too?’ Kate asks. ‘And his love of meat and languages,’ she adds a little tartly.

Nobody wants to say yes to that question. Everybody wants to say no. Apart from me, who’s had a night to warm to the idea already.

‘Did Star Trek have an episode of this one time?’ Frankie asks. ‘Because if they didn’t, they should have.’

‘This can easily be solved,’ Kate says excitedly. ‘You can just find out who your blood donor was.’

‘She can’t.’ Frankie, as usual, dampens her spirits. ‘That kind of information is confidential. Besides, it’s not as though she received all of his blood. He could only have donated less than a pint in one go. Then it’s separated into white blood cells, red blood cells, plasma and platelets. What Joyce would have got, if Joyce received it at all, is only a part of his blood. It could even have been mixed with somebody else’s.’

‘His blood is still running through my body,’ I add. ‘It doesn’t matter how much of it there is. And I remember feeling distinctly odd as soon as I opened my eyes in the hospital.’

A silence answers my ridiculous statement, as we all consider the fact that my feeling ‘distinctly odd’ had nothing to do with my transfusion and all to do with the unspeakable tragedy of losing my baby.

‘We’ve got a Google hit for Mr Justin Hitchcock,’ Kate fills the silence.

My heart beats rapidly. Please tell me I’m not making it all up, that he exists, that he’s not a figment of my delusional mind. That the plans I’ve put in place already are not going to scare away some random person.

‘OK, Justin Hitchcock was a hatmaker in Massachusetts. Hmm. Well, at least he’s American. You have any knowledge of hats, Joyce?’

I think hard. ‘Berets, bucket hats, fedoras, fishermen hats, ball caps, pork-pie hats, tweed caps.’

Dad stops licking his Pringle again and looks at me. ‘Panama hat.’

‘Panama hat,’ I repeat to the girls.

‘Newsboy caps, skull caps,’ Kate adds.

‘Top hat,’ Dad says, and I pass this down the phone once again.

‘Cowboy hat,’ Frankie says, sounding deep in thought. She snaps out of it. ‘Wait a minute, what are we doing? Anybody can name hats.’

‘You’re right, it doesn’t feel right. Keep reading,’ I urge.

‘Justin Hitchcock moved to Deerfield in 1774 where he served as a soldier and fifer in the Revolution … I should probably stop reading this. Over two hundred years old is probably too much of a sugar daddy for you.’

‘Hold on,’ Frankie takes over, not wanting me to lose hope. ‘There’s another Justin Hitchcock below that. New York sanitation department—’

‘No,’ I say with frustration. ‘I already know he exists. This is ridiculous. Add Trinity College to the search; he did a seminar there.’

Tap-tap-tap.

‘No. Nothing for Trinity College.’

‘Are you sure you spoke to his daughter?’ Kate asks.

‘Yes,’ I say through gritted teeth.

‘And did anybody see you talking to this girl?’ she says sweetly.

I ignore her.

‘I’m adding the words, art, architecture, French, Latin, Italian to the search,’ Frankie says over the tap-tap-tap sound.

‘Aha! Gotcha, Justin Hitchcock! Guest lecturer at Trinity College, Dublin. The Faculty of Arts and Humanities. Department of Art and Architecture. Bachelor’s degree, Chicago, Master’s degree, Chicago, Ph. D. Sorbonne University. Special interests are History of Italian Renaissance and Baroque Sculpture, Painting in Europe in 1600–1900. External responsibilities include founder and editor of the Art and Architectural Review . He is the co-author of The Golden Age of Dutch Painting: Vermeer, Metsu and Terborch , author of Copper as Canvas: Paintings on Copper 1575–1775 . He has written over fifty articles in books, journals, dictionaries and conference proceedings.’

‘So he exists,’ Kate says, as though she’s just found the Holy Grail.

Feeling more confident now I say, ‘Try his name with the London National Gallery.’

‘Why?’

‘I have a hunch.’

‘You and your hunches.’ Kate continues reading, ‘He is a curator of European Art at the National Gallery, London. Oh my God, Joyce, he works in London. You should go see him.’

‘Hold your horses, Kate. She might freak him out and end up in a padded cell. He might not even be the donor,’ Frankie objects. ‘And even if he is, it doesn’t explain anything.’

‘It’s him,’ I say confidently. ‘And if he was my donor, then it means something to me.’

‘We’ll have to figure out a way to find out,’ Kate offers.

‘It’s him,’ I repeat.

‘So what are you going to do about it?’ Kate asks.

I smile lightly and glance at the clock again. ‘What makes you think I haven’t done something already?’

* * *

Justin holds the phone to his ear and paces the small office in the National Gallery as much as he can, stretching the phone cord as far as it will go on each pace, which is not far. Three and a half steps up, five steps down.

‘No, no, Simon, I said Dutch Portraits, though you’re correct as there certainly will be much Dutch portraits,’ he laughs. ‘The Age of Rembrandt and Frans Hals,’ he continues. ‘I’ve written a book about that subject so it’s something I’m more than familiar with.’ A half-written book you stopped working on two years ago, liar .

‘The exhibition will include sixty works, all painted between 1600 and 1680.’

There is a knock on the door.

‘Just a minute,’ he calls out.

The door opens anyway and his colleague, Roberta, enters. Though young, in her thirties, her back is hunched, her chin pressed to her chest as though she is decades older. Her eyes, mostly cast downward, occasionally flicker upwards to meet his before falling again. She is apologetic for everything, as always, constantly saying sorry to the world, as though her very presence offends. She tries to manoeuvre her way through the obstacle course that is his cluttered office to reach his desk. This she does the same way as she does through her life, as quietly and as invisibly as possible, which Justin would find admirable if it weren’t quite so sad.

‘Sorry, Justin,’ she whispers, carrying a small basket in her hand. ‘I didn’t know you were on the phone, sorry. This was at reception for you. I’ll just put it here. Sorry.’ She backs away, barely making a sound as she tiptoes out of the room and closes the door silently behind her. A silent whirlwind that spins so gracefully and slowly it hardly appears to move at all, failing to uproot anything that lies around it.