Cecelia Ahern - The Gift & Thanks for the Memories

‘Well, we won’t let him do that. Yet. OK so, buildings, art, languages. Wow, Joyce, it’s like you’ve gotten a crash course in an entire college education you never had. Where is the culturally ignorant girl I once knew and loved?’

I smile. ‘She’s still here.’

‘OK, one more thing. My boss has called me for a meeting this afternoon. What is it about?’

‘Frankie, I don’t have psychic powers!’

The door to the gallery opens and a flustered-looking young girl with a headset over her head rushes in. She approaches almost every woman on her way in, asking for me.

‘Joyce Conway?’ she asks me, out of breath.

‘Yes.’ My heat beats a mile a minute. Please let Dad be OK. Please, God.

‘Is your father Henry?’

‘Yes.’

‘He wants you to join him in the green room.’

‘He what ? In the what ?’

‘He’s in the green room. He’s going live with Michael Aspel in just a few minutes with his item and he wants you to join him because he says you know more about it. We really have to move now, there’s very little time and we need to get you made up.’

‘Live with Michael Aspel …’ I trail off. I realise I’m still holding the phone. ‘Frankie,’ I say, dazed, ‘put on BBC, quick. You’re about to witness me getting into very big trouble.’



CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

I half-walk, half-run behind the girl with the headset, to get to the green room, and arrive panting and nervous to see Dad sitting on a make-up chair facing a mirror lit up by bulbs, tissue tucked into his collar, a cup and saucer in his hand, his bulbous nose being powdered for his close-up.

‘Ah, there you are, love,’ Dad says grandly. ‘Everybody, this is my daughter and she’ll be the one to tell us all about my lovely piece here that caught the eye of Michael Aspel.’ This is followed by a chuckle and he sips on his tea. ‘There’s Jaffa Cakes over there if you want them.’

Evil little man.

I look around the room at all the interested, nodding heads, and force a smile onto my face.

Justin squirms uncomfortably in his chair in the dentist’s waiting room, with his throbbing swollen cheek, sandwiched between two old dears carrying on a conversation about someone they know called Rebecca, who should leave a man called Timothy.

Shut up, shut up, shut up!

The 1970s television in the corner, which is covered by a lace cloth and fake flowers, announces that the Antiques Roadshow is about to begin.

Justin groans. ‘Does anybody mind if I change the channel?’

‘I’m watching it,’ says a young boy no older than seven years old.

‘Charming,’ Justin smiles at him with loathing, then looks to his mother for backup.

Instead she shrugs. ‘He’s watching it.’

Justin grunts in frustration.

‘Excuse me.’ Justin finally interrupts the women to his right and left. ‘Would one of you ladies like to swap places with me, so that you can continue this conversation more privately?’

‘No, don’t worry, love, there’s nothing private about this conversation, believe you me. Eavesdrop all you like.’

The smell of her breath silently tiptoes under his nostrils again, tickles them with a feather duster and runs off with an evil giggle.

‘I wasn’t eavesdropping. Your lips were quite literally in my ear , and I’m not sure if Charlie or Graham or Rebecca would appreciate that.’ He turns his nose away.

‘Oh, Ethel,’ one laughs, ‘he thinks we’re talking about real people.’

How foolish I am .

Justin turns his attention back to the television in the corner, which the other six people in the room are glued to.

‘… And welcome to our first live Antiques Roadshow special …’

Justin sighs loudly again.

The little boy narrows his eyes at him and raises the volume with the remote control that is firmly within his grasp.

‘… coming to you from Banqueting House, London.’

Oh, I’ve been there. A nice example of Corinthian and Ionic locked together in a harmonious whole .

‘We have had over two thousand people spilling through our doors since nine thirty this morning, and only moments ago those doors have closed, leaving us to display the best pieces for you to view at home. Our first guests come from—’

Ethel leans across Justin and rests her elbow on his thigh. ‘So anyway, Margaret—’

He zones in on the television so as not to grab both their heads and smash them together.

‘So what do we have here?’ Michael Aspel asks. ‘Looks like a designer waste basket to me,’ he says as the camera takes a close-up on the piece propped on the table.

Justin’s heart begins to palpitate.

‘Do you want me to change it now, mister?’ The boy flicks through the channels at top speed.

‘No!’ he shouts, breaking through Margaret and Ethel’s conversation and reaching out dramatically into thin air as though he can stop the waves from changing the channel. He falls to the carpet on his knees, before the television. Margaret and Ethel jump and go silent. ‘Go back, go back, go back!’ he shouts at the boy.

The boy’s lower lip begins to tremble as he looks to his mother.

‘There’s no need to shout at him.’ She holds his head to her chest, protectively.

He grabs the remote control from the boy and flicks through the channels at top speed. He stops when he comes upon the close-up of Joyce, whose eyes are looking uncertainly to the left and right, as though she has just landed in the cage of a Bengal tiger at feeding time.

In the Irish Financial Services Centre, Frankie is racing through the offices searching for a television. She finds one, surrounded by dozens of suits studying the figures that are racing by on the screen.

‘Excuse me! Coming through!’ she shouts, pushing her way through. She rushes to the TV and starts fiddling with the buttons to cries of abuse from the men and women around her.

‘I’ll just be one minute, the market won’t crash in all of the two minutes this will take.’ She flicks around and finds Joyce and Henry live on BBC.

She gasps and holds her hands up to her mouth. And then she laughs and throws her fist at the screen. ‘You go, Joyce!’

The team around her quickly shuffles off to find another screen, apart from one man who seems pleased by the change in channel and decides to stay and watch.

‘Oh, that’s a nice piece,’ he comments, leaning back against the desk and folding his arms.

‘ Em …’ Joyce is saying, ‘well, we found it … I mean we put it, put this beautiful … extraordinarily … eh, wooden … bucket, outside of our house. Well, not outside ,’ she quickly withdraws that statement on seeing the appraiser’s reaction. ‘ Inside . We put it inside our front porch so that it’s protected from the weather, you see. For umbrellas.’

‘Yes, and it may have been used for that too,’ he says. ‘Where did you get it from?’

Joyce’s mouth opens and closes for a few seconds and Henry jumps in. He is standing upright with his hands clasped over his belly. His chin is raised, there is a glint in his eye and he ignores the expert and takes on a posh accent to direct his answer at Michael Aspel, whom he addresses as though he’s the Pope.

‘Well, Michael, I was given this by my great-great-grandfather Joseph Conway, who was a farmer in Tipperary. He gave it to my grandfather Shay, who was also a farmer. My grandfather gave it to my father, Paddy-Joe, who was also a farmer in Cavan and then when he died, I took it.’

‘I see, and do you have any idea where your great-great-grandfather may have got this?’