Cecelia Ahern - The Gift & Thanks for the Memories

It’s eleven p. m., dark, windy and cold outside as the winter months are fighting their way through, when the phone rings. Thinking it’s Dad I hurry downstairs, grab the phone and sit on the bottom stair.

‘Hello?’

‘It was you all along.’

I freeze. My heart thuds. I move the phone from my ear and take a deep breath.

‘Justin?’

‘It was you all along, wasn’t it?’

I’m silent.

‘I saw the photograph of you and your father with Bea. That’s the night she told you about my donation. About wanting thank yous.’ He sneezes.

‘Bless you.’

‘Why didn’t you say anything to me? All those times I saw you? Did you follow me or … or, what’s going on, Joyce?’

‘Are you angry with me?’

‘No! I mean, I don’t know. I don’t understand. I’m so confused.’

‘Let me explain.’ I take a deep breath and try to steady my voice, try to speak through the heartbeat that is currently at the base of my throat. ‘I didn’t follow you to any of the places we met so please don’t be concerned. I’m not a stalker. Something happened, Justin. Something happened when I received my transfusion and whatever that was, when your blood was transfused into mine, I suddenly felt connected to you. I kept turning up at places you were at, like the hair salon, the ballet. It was all a coincidence.’ I’m speaking too fast now but I can’t slow down. ‘And then Bea told me you’d donated blood around the same time that I’d received it and …’

‘What?’

I’m not sure what he means.

‘You mean, you don’t know for sure if it is my blood that you received? Because I couldn’t find out, nobody would tell me. Did somebody tell you?’

‘No. Nobody told me. They didn’t need to. I—’

‘Joyce.’ He stops me and I’m immediately worried by his tone.

‘I’m not some weird person, Justin. Trust me. I have never experienced what I have over the past few weeks.’ I tell him the story. Of experiencing his skills, his knowledge, of sharing his tastes.

He is quiet.

‘Say something, Justin.’

‘I don’t know what to say. It sounds … odd.’

‘It is odd, but it’s the truth. This will sound even worse but I feel like I’ve gained some of your memories too.’

‘Really?’ His voice is cold, far away. I’m losing him.

‘Memories of the park in Chicago, Bea dancing in her tutu on the red chequered cloth, the picnic basket, the bottle of red wine. The cathedral bells, the ice-cream parlour, the seesaw with Al, the sprinklers, the—’

‘Whoa, whoa, whoa. Stop now. Who are you?’

‘Justin, it’s me!’

‘Who’s told you these things?’

‘Nobody, I just know them!’ I rub my eyes tiredly. ‘I know it sounds bizarre, Justin, I really do. I am a normal decent human being who is as cynical as they come but this is my life and these are the things that are happening to me. If you don’t believe me then I’m sorry and I’ll hang up and go back to my life, but please know that this is not a joke or a hoax or any kind of set-up.’

He is quiet for a while. And then, ‘I want to believe you.’

‘You feel something between us?’

‘I feel that.’ He speaks very slowly as though pondering every letter of every word. ‘The memories, tastes and hobbies and whatever else of mine that you mentioned, are things that you could have seen me do or heard me say. I’m not saying you’re doing this on purpose, maybe you don’t even know it, but you’ve read my books; I mention many personal things in my books. You saw the photo in Bea’s locket, you’ve been to my talks, you’ve read my articles. I may have revealed things about myself in them, in fact I know I have. How can I know that you knowing these things is through a transfusion? How do I know that – no offence – but that you’re not some lunatic young woman who’s convinced herself of some crazy story she read in a book or saw in a movie? How am I supposed to know?’

I sigh. I have no way of convincing him. ‘Justin, I don’t believe in anything right now, but I believe in this.’

‘I’m sorry, Joyce,’ he begins to end the conversation.

‘No, wait,’ I stop him. ‘Is this it?’

Silence.

‘Aren’t you going to even try to believe me?’

He sighs deeply. ‘I thought you were somebody else, Joyce. I don’t know why because I’d never even met you, but I thought you were a different kind of person. This … this I don’t understand. This, I find … it’s not right, Joyce.’

Each sentence is a stab through my heart and a punch in my stomach. I could stand hearing this from anyone else in the world but not him. Anyone but him.

‘You’ve been through a lot, by the sound of it, perhaps you should … talk to someone.’

‘Why don’t you believe me? Please, Justin. There must be something I can say to convince you. Something I know that you haven’t written in an article or a book or told anyone in a lecture …’ I trail off, thinking of something. No, I can’t use that.

‘Goodbye, Joyce. I hope everything works out for you, really I do.’

‘Hold on! Wait! There is one thing. One thing that only you could know.’

He pauses. ‘What?’

I squeeze my eyes shut and take a deep breath. Do it or don’t do it. Do it or don’t. I open my eyes and blurt it out, ‘Your father.’

There’s silence.

‘Justin?’

‘What about him?’ His voice is ice cold.

‘I know what you saw,’ I say softly. ‘How you could never tell anyone.’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘I know about you being on the stairs, seeing him through the banisters. I see him too. I see him with the bottle and the pills closing the door. Then I see the green feet on the floor—’

‘STOP IT!’ he yells, and I’m shocked to silence.

But I must keep trying or I’ll never have the opportunity to say these words again.

‘I know how hard it must have been for you as a child. How hard it was to keep it to yourself—’

‘You know nothing,’ he says coldly. ‘Absolutely nothing. Please stay away from me. I don’t ever wish to hear from you again.’

‘OK.’ My voice is a whisper but it is to myself as he has already hung up.

I sit on the steps of the dark empty house and listen as the cold October wind rattles the building.

So that’s that.

One Month Later

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

‘Next time we should take the car, Gracie,’ Dad says as we make our way down the road back from our walk in the Botanics. I link his arm and I’m lifted up and down with him as he sways. Up and down, down and up. The motion is soothing.

‘No, you need the exercise, Dad.’

‘Speak for yourself,’ he mutters. ‘Howya, Sean? Miserable day isn’t it?’ he calls across the street to the old man on his Zimmer frame.

‘Terrible,’ Sean shouts back.

‘So what did you think of the apartment?’ I broach the subject for the third time in the last few minutes. ‘You can’t dodge it this time.’

‘I’m dodging nothing, love. Howya, Patsy? Howya, Suki?’ He stops and bends down to pat the sausage dog. ‘Aren’t you a cute little thing,’ he says, and we continue on. ‘I hate that little runt. Barks all bloody night when she’s away,’ he mutters, pushing his cap down further over his eyes as a great big gust blows. ‘Christ Almighty, are we gettin’ anywhere at all, I feel like we’re on one of those milltreads with this wind.’

‘Treadmills,’ I laugh. ‘So come on, do you like the apartment or not?’

‘I’m not sure. It seemed awful small and there was a funny man that went into the flat next door. Don’t think I liked the look of him.’