Cecelia Ahern - The Gift & Thanks for the Memories

‘If you think your mother and I had a perfect marriage then you’re wrong because there’s no such thing. No one’s happy all the time, love.’

‘I understand that, but what if you’re never happy. Ever.’

He thinks about that for what looks like the first time and I hold my breath until he finally speaks. ‘I’m going to have a HobNob.’

Halfway down the stairs he shouts back rebelliously, ‘A chocolate one.’

CHAPTER TWELVE

‘I’m on a vacation, bro, why are you dragging me to a gym?’ Al half-walks half-skips alongside Justin in an effort to keep up with his lean brother’s long strides.

‘I have a date with Sarah next week,’ Justin power-walks from the tube station, ‘and I need to get back into shape.’

‘I didn’t realise you were out of shape,’ Al pants, and wipes trickles of sweat from his brow.

‘The divorce cloud was preventing me from working out.’

‘The divorce cloud?’

‘Never heard of it?’

Al, unable to speak, shakes his head and wobbles his chins like a turkey.

‘The cloud moves to take the shape of your body, wraps itself nice and tight around you so that you can barely move. Or breathe. Or exercise. Or even date , let alone sleep with other women.’

‘Your divorce cloud sounds like my marriage cloud.’

‘Yeah, well, that cloud has moved on now.’ Justin looks up at the grey London sky, closes his eyes for a brief moment and breathes in deeply. ‘It’s time for me to get back into action.’ He opens his eyes and walks straight into a lamppost. ‘Jesus, Al!’ He doubles over, head in his hands. ‘Thanks for the warning.’

Al’s beetroot face wheezes back at him, words not coming easily. Or at all.

‘Never mind my having to work out, look at yourself. Your doctor’s already told you to drop a few hundred pounds.’

‘Fifty pounds …’ gasp, ‘aren’t exactly …’ gasp, ‘a few hundred , and don’t start on me too.’ Gasp. ‘Doris is bad enough.’ Wheeze. Cough. ‘What she knows about dieting is beyond me. The woman doesn’t eat. She’s afraid to bite a nail in case they’ve too many calories.’

‘Doris’s nails are real?’

‘Them and her hair is about all. I gotta hold on to something.’ Al looks around, flustered.

‘Too much information,’ Justin says, misunderstanding. ‘I can’t believe Doris’s hair is real too.’

‘All but the colour. She’s a brunette. Italian, of course. Dizzy.’

‘Yeah, she is a bit dizzy. All that past-life talk about the woman at the hair salon,’ Justin laughs. So how do you explain it?

‘I meant I’m dizzy.’ Al glares at him and reaches out to hold on to the nearby railing.

‘Oh … I knew that, I was kidding. It looks like we’re almost here. Think you can make it another hundred yards or so?’

‘Depends on the “ or so”,’ Al snaps.

‘It’s about the same as the week or so vacation that you and Doris were planning on taking. Looks like that’s turning into a month.’

‘Well, we wanted to surprise you, and Doug is well able to take care of the shop while I’m gone. The doc advised me to take it easy, Justin. With heart conditions being in the family history, I really need to rest up.’

‘You told the doctor there’s a history of heart conditions in the family?’ Justin asks.

‘Yeah, Dad died of a heart attack. Who else would I be talkin’ about?’

Justin is silent.

‘Besides, you won’t be sorry, Doris will have your apartment done up so nice that you’ll be glad we stayed. You know she did the doggie parlour all by herself?’

Justin’s eyes widen.

‘I know,’ Al beams proudly. ‘So, how many of these seminars will you be doing in Dublin? Me and Doris might accompany you on one of your trips over there, you know, see the place Dad was from.’

‘Dad was from Cork.’

‘Oh. Does he still have family there? We could go and trace our roots, what do you think?’

‘That’s not such a bad idea.’ Justin thinks of his schedule. ‘I have a few more seminars ahead. You probably won’t be here that long, though.’ He eyes Al sideways, testing him. ‘And you can’t come next week because I’m mixing that trip with a date with Sarah.’

‘You’re really hot on this girl?’

His almost forty-year-old brother’s vocabulary never ceases to amaze Justin. ‘Am I hot on this girl?’ he repeats, amused and confused all at the same time. Good question. Not really, but she’s company. Is that an acceptable answer?

‘Did she have you at “I vant your blood”?’ Al chuckles.

‘Wow, that was uncanny,’ Justin says. ‘Sarah, too, is a vampire from Transylvania. Let’s do an hour at the gym.’ He changes the subject. ‘I don’t think “resting up” is going to make you any better. That’s what got you into this state in the first place.’

‘ One hour? ’ Al almost explodes. ‘What are you planning on doing on the date, rock-climbing?’

‘It’s just lunch.’

Al rolls his eyes. ‘What, you have to chase and kill your food? Anyway, you wake up tomorrow morning after your first work-out for a whole year, you won’t be able to walk , never mind screw.’

* * *

I wake up to the sound of banging pots and pans coming from downstairs. I expect to be in my own bedroom at home and it takes me a moment to remember. And then I remember everything, all over again. My daily morning pill as usual, hard to swallow. One of these days I’ll wake up and I’ll just know. I’m not sure which scenario I prefer; the moments of forgetfulness are such bliss.

I didn’t sleep well last night between the thoughts in my head and the sound of the cistern flushing every hour after Dad’s toilet breaks. When he was asleep, his snores rattled through the walls of the house.

Despite the interruptions, my dreams during my rare moments of sleep are still vivid in my mind. They almost feel real, like memories, though who’s to know how real even they are, with all the altering our minds do? I remember being in a park, though I don’t think I was me. I twirled a young girl with white-blonde hair around in my arms while a woman with red hair looked on smiling, with a camera in her hand. The park was colourful with lots of flowers and we had a picnic … I try to remember the song I’d been hearing all night but it fails me. Instead I hear Dad downstairs singing ‘The Auld Triangle’, an old Irish song he has sung at parties all of my life and probably most of his too. He’d stand there, eyes closed, pint in hand, a picture of bliss as he sang his story of how ‘the auld triangle went jingle jangle’.

I swing my legs out of the bed and groan with pain, suddenly feeling an ache in both legs from my hips, right down my thighs, all the way down to my calf muscles. I try to move the rest of my body and feel paralysed with the pain too; my shoulders, biceps, triceps, back muscles and torso. I massage my muscles with complete confusion and make a note in my head to go to the doctor, just in case it’s something to be worried about. I’m sure it’s my heart, either looking for more attention, or so full of pain it has needed to ooze its ache around the rest of my body just to relieve itself. Each throbbing muscle is an extension of the pain I feel inside, though a doctor will tell me it’s due to the thirty-year-old bed I slept on, manufactured before the time people claimed nightly back support as their God-given right. Potayto, potato.

I throw a dressing gown around me and slowly, as stiff as a board, make my way downstairs, trying my best not to bend my legs.

The smell of smoke is in the air again and I notice as I’m passing the hall table that Mum’s photograph once again isn’t there. Something urges me to slide open the drawer beneath the table and there she is, lying face down in the drawer. Tears spring in my eyes, angry that something so precious has been hidden away. It has always meant more than a photograph to the both of us; it represents her presence in the house, pride of place to greet us whenever we come in the front door or down the stairs. I take deep breaths and decide to say nothing for now, assuming Dad has his reasons, though I can’t think of any acceptable examples at this point. I slide the drawer closed and leave her where Dad has placed her, feeling like I’m burying her all over again.