Cecelia Ahern - The Gift & Thanks for the Memories

‘Do bear in mind that we have to see two thousand people’s items before the show,’ she says to me with a knowing look.

‘We understand. We’re just here to enjoy the day, isn’t that right, Dad?’

He doesn’t hear; he’s busy looking around for Michael Aspel.

‘Do enjoy your day,’ the woman says finally, calling the next person in line forward.

As soon as we enter the busy hall, I immediately look up at the ceiling of the double-cubed room, already knowing what to expect: nine huge canvases commissioned by Charles I, to fill the panelled ceiling.

‘Here you go, Dad.’ I hand him the waste basket. ‘I’m going to take a look around this beautiful building while you look at the junk people are putting inside it.’

‘It’s not junk, Gracie. I once saw the show where a man’s collection of walking sticks went for sixty thousand sterling pounds.’

‘Wow, in that case you should show them your shoe.’

He tries not to laugh.

‘Off you go to have a look around and I’ll meet you back here.’ He starts to wander away before he even finishes the sentence. Dying to get rid of me.

‘Have fun,’ I wink.

He smiles broadly and looks around the hall with such happiness, my mind takes another photograph.

As I wander the rooms of the only part of Whitehall Palace to survive a fire, the feeling that I’ve been here before comes over me in a giant wave and I find a quiet corner and secretly produce my mobile.

‘Manager, deputy head corporate treasury and investor solutions desk, Frankie speaking.’

‘My God, you weren’t lying. That’s a ridiculous amount of words.’

‘Joyce! Hi!’ Her voice is hushed and behind her, the stock-trading in the Irish Financial Services Centre offices, sounds manic.

‘Can you talk?’

‘For a little bit, yeah. How are you?’

‘I’m fine. I’m in London. With Dad.’

‘What? With your dad? Joyce, I’ve told you before it’s not polite to bind and gag your father. What are you doing there?’

‘I just decided to come over last minute.’ For what, I have no idea. ‘We’re currently at the Antiques Roadshow . Don’t ask.’

I leave the quiet rooms behind me and enter the gallery of the main hall. Below me I can see Dad wandering around the crowded hall with the bin in his hands. I smile as I watch him.

‘Have we ever been to Banqueting House together?’

‘Refresh my memory, where is it, what is it and what does it look like?’

‘It’s at the Trafalgar Square end of Whitehall. It’s a seventeenth-century former royal palace designed by Inigo Jones in 1619. Charles I was executed on a scaffold in front of the building. I’m in a room now, with nine canvases covering the panelled ceiling.’ What does it look like? I close my eyes. ‘From memory, the roofline is balustrade. The street façade has two orders of engaged columns, Corinthian over Ionic, above a rusticated basement, which lock together in a harmonious whole.’

‘Joyce?’

‘Yes?’ I snap out of it.

‘Are you reading from a tourist guide?’

‘No.’

‘Our last trip to London consisted of Madame Tussaud’s, a night in G-A-Y and a party back in a man named Gloria’s flat. It’s happening again, isn’t it? That thing you were talking about?’

‘Yes.’ I slump into a chair in the corner, feel a rope beneath me and jump back up. I quickly move away from the antique chair, looking around for security cameras.

‘Has your being in London got anything to do with the American man?’

‘Yes,’ I whisper.

‘Oh, Joyce—’

‘No, Frankie, listen. Listen and you’ll understand. I hope. Yesterday I panicked about something and called Dad’s doctor, a number that is practically engraved in my head, as it should be. I couldn’t possibly get it wrong, right?’

‘Right.’

‘Wrong. I ended up dialling a UK number and a girl named Bea answered the phone. She’d seen an Irish number and thought it was her dad calling. So from our short conversation I figure out that her dad is American but was in Dublin and was travelling to London last night to see her in a show today. And she has blonde hair. I think Bea is the little girl I keep dreaming about seeing on the swings and playing in the sand, all at different ages.’

Frankie is quiet.

‘I know I sound insane, Frankie, but this is what’s happening. I have no explanation for it.’

‘I know, I know,’ she says quickly. ‘I’ve known you practi c ally all my life – this is not something you’d be inclined to make up – but even as I take you seriously please do keep in consideration the fact that you’ve had a traumatic time and what you’re currently experiencing could be due to high levels of stress.’

‘I’ve already considered that.’ I groan and hold my head in my hands. ‘I need help.’

‘We’ll only consider insanity as a last resort. Let me think for a second.’ She sounds as though she’s writing it down. ‘So basically, you have seen this girl, Bea—’

‘Maybe Bea.’

‘OK, OK, let’s just say it is Bea. You’ve seen her grow up?’

‘Yes.’

‘To what age?’

‘From birth to I don’t know …’

‘Teenager, twenties, thirties?’

‘Teenager.’

‘OK, so who else is in the scenes with Bea?’

‘Another woman. With a camera.’

‘But never your American man?’

‘No. So he probably has nothing to do with this at all.’

‘Let’s not rule anything out. So when you view Bea and the lady with the camera, are you part of the scene or viewing them as an outsider?’

I close my eyes and think hard, see my hands pushing the swing, holding hands, taking a photograph of the girl and her mother in the park, feeling the water from the sprinklers spray and tickle my skin … ‘No, I’m part of it. They can see me.’

‘OK.’ She is silent.

‘What, Frankie, what?’

‘I’m figuring it out. Hold on. OK. So you see a child, a mother and they both see you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Would you say that in your dreams you’re viewing this girl grow up through the eyes of a father?’

Goose bumps form on my skin.

‘Oh my God,’ I whisper. The American man?

‘I take it that’s a yes,’ Frankie says. ‘OK, we’re on to something here. I don’t know what, but it’s something very weird and I can’t believe I’m even entertaining these thoughts. But what the hell, I only have a million other things to do. What else do you dream about?’

‘It’s all very fast, images just flashing by.’

‘Try and remember.’

‘Sprinklers in a garden. A chubby young boy. A woman with long red hair. I hear bells. See old buildings with shop fronts. A church. A beach. I’m at a funeral. Then at college. Then with the woman and young girl. Sometimes she’s smiling and holding my hand, sometimes she’s shouting and slamming doors.’

‘Hmm … she must be your wife.’

I bury my head in my hands. ‘Frankie, this sounds so ridiculous.’

‘Who cares? When has life ever made sense? Let’s keep going.’

‘I don’t know, the images are all so abstract. I can’t make any sense of it.’

‘What you should do is, every time you get a flash of something, or suddenly know something you never knew, then write it down and tell me. I’ll help you figure this out.’

‘Thank you.’

‘So apart from the place you’re in now, what kinds of things do you suddenly just know about?’

‘Em … mostly buildings.’ I look around and then up at the ceiling. ‘And art. I spoke Italian to a man at the airport. And Latin, I spoke Latin to Conor the other day.’

‘Oh God.’

‘I know. I think he wants to have me sent away.’