Cecelia Ahern - The Gift & Thanks for the Memories

‘He seemed very friendly to me.’

‘Ah, he would to you, and all.’ He rolls his eyes and shakes his head. ‘Any man would do for you now, I’d say.’

‘Dad!’ I laugh.

‘Good afternoon, Graham. Miserable day, isn’t it?’ he says to the neighbour passing.

‘Awful day, Henry,’ Graham responds, shoving his hands in his pockets.

‘Anyway, I don’t think you should take that apartment, Gracie. Hang on here a little longer until something more appropriate pops up. There’s no point in taking the first thing you see.’

‘Dad, we’ve seen ten apartments and you don’t like any of them.’

‘Is it for me to live in or for you?’ he asks. Up and down. Down and up.

‘For me.’

‘Well, then, what do you care?’

‘I value your opinion.’

‘You do in your—Hello there, Kathleen!’

‘You can’t keep me at home for ever, you know.’

‘For ever’s been and gone, my love. There’s no budging you. You’re the Stonehenge of grown-up children living at home.’

‘Can I go to the Monday Club tonight?’

‘Again?’

‘I’ve to finish off the game of chess I started with Larry.’

‘Larry just keeps positioning his pawns so that you’ll lean over and he can see down your top. That game will never end.’ Dad rolls his eyes.

‘Dad!’

‘What? Well, you need to get more of a social life than hanging around with the likes of Larry and me.’

‘I like hanging around with you.’

He smiles to himself, pleased to hear that.

We turn into Dad’s house and sway up the small garden path to the front door.

The sight of what’s on the doorstop stops me in my tracks.

A small hamper of muffins, covered in plastic wrapper and tied with a pink bow. I look at Dad, who steps right over them and unlocks the front door. His movement makes me question my eyesight. Have I imagined them?

‘Dad! What are you doing?’ Shocked, I look around behind me but nobody’s there.

Dad winks at me, looks sad for a moment and then gives me a great big smile before closing the door in my face.

I reach for the envelope that is taped to the plastic and with trembling fingers slide the card out.

Thank you …

‘I’m sorry, Joyce.’ I hear a voice behind me that almost stops my heart and I twirl round.

There he is, standing at the garden gate, a bouquet of flowers in his gloved hands, the sorriest look on his face. He is wrapped up in a scarf and winter coat, the tip of his nose and cheeks red from the cold, his green eyes twinkling in the grey day. He is a vision; he takes my breath away with one look, his proximity to me almost too much to bear.

‘Justin …’ Then I’m utterly speechless.

‘Do you think,’ he takes a step forward, ‘you could find it in your heart to forgive a fool like me?’ He stands at the end of the garden, beside the gate.

I’m unsure what to say. It’s been a month. Why now?

‘On the phone, you hit a sore point,’ he says, clearing his throat. ‘Nobody knows that about my dad. Or knew that. I don’t know how you did.’

‘I told you how.’

‘I don’t understand it.’

‘Neither do I.’

‘But then I don’t understand most ordinary things that happen everyday. I don’t understand what my daughter sees in her boyfriend. I don’t understand how my brother has defied the laws of science by not turning into an actual potato chip. I don’t know how Doris can open the milk carton with such long nails. I don’t understand why I didn’t beat down your door a month ago and tell you how I felt … I don’t understand so many simple things, I don’t know why this should be any different.’

I take in the sight of his face, his curly hair covered by a woolly hat, his small nervous smile. He studies me back and I shiver, but not from the cold. I don’t feel it now. The world has been heated up entirely for me. How kind. I thank beyond the clouds.

Frown lines appear on his forehead as he looks at me.

‘What?’

‘Nothing. You just remind me so much of somebody right now. It’s not important.’ He clears his throat, smiles, trying to pick up where he left off.

‘Eloise Parker,’ I guess, and his grin fades.

‘How the hell do you know that?’

‘She was your next-door neighbour who you had a crush on for years. When you were five years old you decided to do something about it and so you picked flowers from your front yard and brought them to her house. She opened the door before you got up the path and stepped outside wearing a blue coat and a black scarf,’ I say, pulling my blue coat around me tighter.

‘Then what?’ he asks, shocked.

‘Then nothing.’ I shrug. ‘You dropped them on the ground and chickened out.’

He shakes his head softly and smiles. ‘How on earth … ?’

I shrug.

‘What else do you know about Eloise Parker?’ He narrows his eyes.

I smile and look away. ‘You lost your virginity to her when you were sixteen, in her bedroom when her mom and dad were away on a cruise.’

He rolls his eyes and lowers the bouquet so that it faces the ground. ‘Now you see, that is not fair. You are not allowed to know stuff like that about me.’

I laugh.

‘You were christened Joyce Bridget Conway but you tell everyone your middle name is Angeline,’ he retaliates.

My mouth falls open.

‘You had a dog called Bunny when you were a kid.’ He lifts an eyebrow, cockily.

I narrow my eyes.

‘You got drunk on poteen when you were,’ he closes his eyes and thinks hard, ‘fifteen. With your friends Kate and Frankie.’

He takes a step closer to me with each piece of knowledge and that smell, the smell of him I’ve dreamed to be near gets closer and closer.

‘Your first French kiss was with Jason Hardy when you were ten, who everyone used to call Jason Hard-On.’

I laugh.

‘You’re not the only one who’s allowed to know stuff.’ He takes a step closer and can’t move any nearer now. His shoes, the fabric of his thick coat, every part of him touches me.

My heart takes out a trampoline and enrols in a marathon session of leaping. I hope Justin doesn’t hear it whooping with joy.

‘Who told you all of that?’ My words touch his face in a breath of cold smoke.

‘Getting me here was a big operation,’ he smiles. ‘ Big . Your friends had me run through a series of tests to prove I was sorry enough to be deemed worthy of coming here.’

I laugh, shocked Frankie and Kate could finally agree on something, never mind keeping anything of this magnitude a secret.

Silence. We are so close, if I look up at him my nose will touch his chin. I keep looking down.

‘You’re still afraid to sleep in the dark,’ he whispers, taking my chin in his hand and lifting it so that I can look nowhere else but at him. ‘Unless somebody’s with you,’ he adds with a small smile.

‘You cheated on your first college paper,’ I whisper.

‘You used to hate art.’ He kisses my forehead.

‘You lie when you say you’re a fan of the Mona Lisa .’ I close my eyes.

‘You had an invisible friend named Horatio until you were five.’ He kisses my nose and I’m about to retaliate but his lips touch mine so softly, the words give up, fainting before they reach my voice box and sliding back to the memory bank where they came from.

I am faintly aware of Fran exiting her house and saying something to me, of a car driving by with a beep, but everything is blurred in the distance as I get lost in the moment with Justin, as I create a new memory for him, for me.

‘Forgive me?’ he says as he pulls away.

‘I have no choice but to. It’s in my blood,’ I smile, and he laughs. I look down at the flowers in his hands, which have been crushed between us. ‘Are you going to drop these on the ground too and chicken out?’