Cecelia Ahern - The Gift & Thanks for the Memories

What does it mean to dream about somebody you’ve never met, almost every night, and then have a chance encounter with them over the phone? I had called my dad’s emergency number; she had answered her dad’s emergency phone number. What message is in that? What am I supposed to learn? Is it a mere coincidence that an ordinary right-thinking person would ignore or am I right to think and feel that something more lies beneath this? My hope is that this trip will have some answers for me. Panic begins to build as I watch Dad reading a poster on the far side of the room. I have no idea what to do with him.

Suddenly Dad’s hand flies to his head and then his chest and he darts towards me with a manic look in his eyes. I make a grab for his pills.

‘Gracie,’ he gasps.

‘Here, quickly, take these.’ My hand trembles as I hold out the pills and bottle of water.

‘What on earth are you doing?’

‘Well, you looked …’

‘I looked what?’

‘Like you were going to have a heart attack!’

‘That’s because I bloody well will, if we don’t get out of here quick.’ He grabs my arm and starts to pull me along.

‘What’s wrong? Where are we going?’

‘We’re going to Westminster.’

‘What? Why? No! Dad, we have to go to the hotel to leave our bags.’

He stops walking and whips around, pushes his face close to mine, almost aggressively. His voice shakes with the adrenalin. ‘The Antiques Roadshow are having a valuation day today from nine thirty to four thirty in the afternoon in a place called Banqueting House. If we leave now we can start queuing. I’m not going to miss seeing it on the telly and then come all the way to London just to miss seeing it in the flesh. Sure we might even get to see Michael Aspel. Michael Aspel , Gracie. Christ Almighty, let’s get out of here.’

His pupils are dilated, he’s all fired up. He shoots off through the sliding doors, with nothing to declare but tempor ary insanity, and takes a confident left.

I stand in the arrivals hall, while men in suits approach me with placards from all sides. I sigh and wait. Dad appears from the direction he went in, seesawing and pulling his bag behind him at top speed.

‘You could have told me that was the wrong way,’ he says, passing me and heading in the opposite direction.

Dad rushes through Trafalgar Square, pulling his suitcase behind him and scattering a flock of pigeons into the sky. He’s not interested in acquainting himself with London any more; he has only Michael Aspel and the treasures of the blue-rinse brigade in sight. Finally, after we’ve taken a few wrong turns since surfacing from the tube station, Banqueting House is eventually in view, a seventeenth-century former royal palace, and though I am sure I have never visited it before, it stands before me, a familiar sight.

Once deep in the queue, I study the single drawer that is in the hands of the old man in front of us. Behind us, a woman is rolling out a tea cup from a pile of newspapers to show somebody else in the queue. All around me there is excited and rather innocent and polite chatter, and the sun is shining as we wait outside to enter the reception area of Banqueting House. There are TV vans, camera and sound people going in and out of the building, and cameras filming the long queue while a woman with a microphone picks people out of the crowd to interview. Many people in the queue have brought deck chairs, picnic baskets of scones and finger sandwiches, and canteens of tea and coffee, and as Dad looks around with a grumbling stomach I feel like a guilty mother who hasn’t properly equipped her child. I’m also concerned for Dad that we won’t make it past the front door.

‘Dad, I don’t want to worry you but I really think that we’re supposed to have something with us.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Like an object. Everybody else has things with them to be valued.’

Dad looks around and notices for the first time. His face falls.

‘Maybe they’ll make an exception for us,’ I add quickly but I doubt it.

‘What about these cases?’ He looks down at our bags.

I try not to laugh. ‘I got them in TK Maxx; I don’t think they’ll be interested in valuing them.’

Dad laughs. ‘Maybe I’ll give them my undies, Gracie, what you think? There’s a fine bit of history in them.’

I make a face and he waves his hand dismissively.

We shuffle along slowly in the queue and Dad has a great time chatting to everybody about his life and his exciting trip with his daughter. After queuing for an hour and a half, we have been invited to two houses for afternoon tea and Dad has taken note from the gentleman behind us on how to stop the mint in his garden from taking over his rosemary. Up ahead, just beyond the doors, I see an elderly couple being turned away due to having no items with them. Dad sees this too and looks at me, his eyes worried. It will be us next.

‘Eh …’ I look around quickly for something.

Both entrance doors have been held open for the flowing crowd. Just inside the main entrance, behind the opened door is a wooden waste basket posing as an umbrella stand, holding a few forgotten and broken umbrellas. While no one is looking I turn it upside down, emptying the few scrunched balls of paper and broken umbrellas out. I kick them behind the door just in time to hear, ‘Next.’

I carry it up to the reception desk and Dad’s eyes almost pop out of his head at the sight of me.

‘Welcome to Banqueting House,’ the young woman greets us.

‘Thank you,’ I smile innocently.

‘How many objects have you brought today?’ she asks.

‘Oh, just the one.’ I raise the bin onto the table.

‘Oh, wow, fantastic.’ She runs her fingers along it and Dad gives me a look, that if for any second I had forgotten which of us was the parent, I am quickly reminded. ‘Have you been to a valuation day before?’

‘No.’ Dad shakes his head wildly. ‘But I see it on the telly all the time. Big fan, I am. Even when Hugh Scully was host.’

‘Wonderful,’ she smiles. ‘Once you enter the hall you’ll see there are many queues. Please join the queue for the appropriate discipline.’

‘What queue should we join for this thing?’ Dad looks at the item as though there’s a bad smell.

‘Well, what is it?’ she smiles.

Dad looks at me baffled.

‘We were hoping you’d tell us that,’ I say politely.

‘I’d suggest miscellaneous, and though that is the busiest table, we try to move it along as quickly as possible for you by having four experts. Once you reach the expert’s table, simply show your item and he or she will tell you all about it.’

‘Which table do we go to for Michael Aspel?’

‘Unfortunately Michael Aspel isn’t actually an expert, he is the host, so he doesn’t have a table of his own, but we do have twenty other experts that will be available to answer your questions.’

Dad looks devastated.

‘There is the chance that your item may be chosen for television,’ she adds quickly, sensing Dad’s disappointment. ‘The expert shows the object to the television team and a decision is made whether to record it, depending on rarity, quality, what the expert can say about the object and, of course, value. If your object is chosen, you’ll be taken to our waiting room and made up before talking to the expert about your object in front of the camera for about five minutes. You would meet Michael Aspel under those circumstances. And the exciting news is that for the first time, we are broadcasting the show live, in, ooh let’s see,’ she examines her watch, ‘in one hour.’

Dad’s eyes widen. ‘But five minutes ? To talk about that thing?’ Dad explodes and she laughs.