Cecelia Ahern - The Gift & Thanks for the Memories

He softens a bit but sticks the knife in regardless. ‘I thought that’s what you wanted.’

‘Yes, Dad, you’re absolutely right, the past few weeks have been every girl’s dream.’

He moves up and down, down and up to the kitchen table, takes his usual seat in the path of the sun’s beam, props his glasses on the base of his nose and continues his Sudoku. I watch him for a while, feeling mesmerised by his simplicity and then continue my sniffing mission.

‘Did you burn toast again?’ He doesn’t hear me and keeps scribbling away. I check the toaster. ‘It’s on the right setting, I don’t understand how it’s still burning.’ I look inside. No crumbs. I check the bin, no toast thrown out. I sniff the air again, grow suspicious and watch Dad from the corner of my eye. He fidgets.

‘You’re like that Fletcher woman or that Monk man, snooping around. You’ll find no corpses here,’ he says without looking up from his puzzle.

‘Yes, but I’ll find something , won’t I?’

His head jerks up, quickly. Nervously. Aha. I narrow my eyes.

‘What’s up with you at all, at all?’

I ignore him, and race around the kitchen, opening presses, searching inside each of them.

He looks worried. ‘Have you lost your mind? What are you doing?’

‘Did you take your pills?’ I ask, coming across the medicine cabinet.

‘What pills?’

With a response like that, there’s definitely something up.

‘Your heart pills, memory pills, vitamin pills.’

‘No, no and …’ he thinks for a while, ‘no.’

I bring them over to him, line them up on the table. He relaxes a little. Then I continue searching the cupboards and I feel him tense. I pull on the cereal cupboard knob—

‘Water!’ he shouts, and I jump and bang the door closed.

‘Are you OK?’

‘Yes,’ he says calmly. ‘I just need a glass of water for my pills. Glasses are in that cupboard over there.’ He points to the other end of the kitchen.

Suspiciously, I fill a glass with water and deliver it to him. I return to the cereal cupboard.

‘Tea!’ he shouts. ‘Sure, we’ll have a cup of tea. Sit down there and I’ll make it for you. You’ve been through such a tough time and you’ve been great about it all. So brave. Trophy brave, as a man says. Now sit down there and I’ll fetch you a cuppa. A nice bit of cake as well. Battenburg – you liked that as a wee one. Always tried to take the marzipan off when no one was lookin’, the greedy goat that you were.’ He tries to steer me away.

‘Dad,’ I warn. He stops dithering and sighs in surrender.

I open the cupboard door and look inside. Nothing odd, or out of place, just the porridge I eat every morning and Sugar Puffs that I never touch. Dad looks satisfied, lets out a hearty harrumph-ing sound and makes his way back to the table. Hold on a minute. I open the press again and reach for the Sugar Puffs that I never eat and never see Dad eat. As soon as I lift it I know that it’s empty of cereal. I look inside.

‘Dad!’

‘Ah what, love?’

‘Dad, you promised me!’ I hold the packet of cigarettes in front of his face.

‘I only had one, love.’

‘You have not had only one. That smell of smoke every morning is not burned toast. You lied to me!’

‘One a day is hardly going to kill me.’

‘That’s exactly what it’s going to do. You’ve had bypass surgery, you’re not supposed to smoke at all! I turn a blind eye to your morning fry-ups but this, this is unacceptable,’ I tell him.

Dad rolls his eyes and he holds his hand up like a puppet’s mouth, mimicking me as he snaps it open and closed in my face.

‘That’s it, I’m calling your doctor.’

His mouth drops, he jumps out of his chair. ‘No, love, don’t do that.’

I march out to the hall and he chases after me. Up, down, down, up, up, down. Goes down on his right, bends his left.

‘Ah, you wouldn’t do that to me. If the cigarettes don’t kill me, she will. She’s a battleaxe, that woman.’

I pick up the phone that’s beside Mum’s photograph and dial the emergency number I’ve memorised. The first number that comes to my mind when I need to help the most import ant person in my life.

‘If Mum knew what you were doing she would go berserk – oh.’ I stall. ‘That’s why you hide the photograph?’

Dad looks down at his hands and nods sadly. ‘She made me promise I’d stop. If not for me, for her. I didn’t want her to see,’ he adds in a whisper as though she can hear us.

‘Hello?’ There’s a response on the other end of the phone. ‘Hello? Is that you, Dad?’ a young girl with an American accent says.

‘Oh,’ I snap out of it and Dad looks pleading at me. ‘Pardon me,’ I speak into the phone. ‘Hello?’

‘Oh, I’m sorry, I saw an Irish number and thought you were my dad,’ the voice on the other end explains.

‘That’s OK,’ I say, confused.

Dad is standing before me with his hands together in prayer.

‘I was looking for …’ Dad shakes his head wildly and I stall.

‘Tickets to the show?’ the girl asks.

I frown. ‘To what show?’

‘The Royal Opera House.’

‘Sorry, who is this? I’m confused.’

Dad rolls his eyes and sits on the bottom stair.

‘I’m Bea.’

‘Bea.’ I look at Dad questioningly and he shrugs. ‘Bea who?’

‘Well, who is this?’ Her tone is harder.

‘My name is Joyce. I’m sorry, Bea, I think I’ve dialled the wrong number. You said you saw an Irish number? Have I called America?’

‘No, don’t worry.’ Happy there isn’t a stalker at the other end, her tone is friendly again. ‘You’ve called London,’ she explains. ‘I saw the Irish number and thought you were my dad. He’s flying back tonight to make it to my show tomorrow and I was worried because I’m still a student and it’s such a huge deal and I thought he was … sorry, I have absolutely no idea why I’m explaining this to you but I’m so nervous,’ she laughs and takes a deep breath. ‘Technically, this is his emergency number.’

‘Funny, I dialled my emergency number too,’ I say faintly.

We both laugh.

‘Oh, weird,’ she says.

‘Your voice is familiar, Bea. Do I know you?’

‘I don’t think so. Don’t know anyone in Ireland apart from my dad, who is a man and American, so unless you’re my dad trying to be funny …’

‘No, no, I’m not trying to be …’ I feel weak at the knees. ‘This may sound like a stupid question but, are you blonde?’

Dad holds his head in his hands and I hear him groan.

‘Yeah! Why, do I sound blonde? Maybe that’s not such a good thing,’ she laughs.

I have a lump in my throat and must stop speaking. ‘Just a silly guess,’ I force out.

‘Good guess,’ she says curiously. ‘Well, I hope everything’s OK. You said you dialled your emergency number?’

‘Yes, thanks, everything’s fine.’

Dad looks relieved.

She laughs. ‘Well, this is weird. I better go. Nice talking to you, Joyce.’

‘Nice talking to you too, Bea. Best of luck with your ballet show.’

‘Oh, sweet, thank you.’

We say our goodbyes and with a shaking hand I replace the handset.

‘You silly dope, did you just dial the Americas?’ Dad says, putting his glasses on and pressing a button on the phone. ‘Joseph down the road showed me how to do this when I was getting the cranky calls. You can see who’s called you and who you’ve called too. Turns out it was Fran bumping off her hand phone. The grandchildren got it for her last Christmas and she’s done nothing with it but wake me up at all hours. Anyway, there it is. First few numbers are 0044. Where’s that?’