Cecelia Ahern - The Gift & Thanks for the Memories

‘I’m bloody Joyce,’ I hiss.

‘All right, bloody Joyce, no need to get your bloody knickers in a twist.’

‘I don’t think you understand the seriousness of our situation. We have just stolen a seventeen-hundred-pound Victorian waste basket from a once-upon-a-time royal palace and talked about it live on air.’

Dad looks at me quickly, his bushy eyebrows raised halfway up his forehead. For the first time in a long time I can see his eyes. They look alarmed. And rather watery and yellow at the corners, and I make a note to ask him about that later, when we are not running from the law. Or the BBC.

The production girl I chased in order to find Dad gives me wide eyes from across the room. My heart beats in panic and I look around quickly. Heads are turning to stare at us. They know.

‘OK, we have to go now. I think they know.’

‘It’s no big deal. We’ll put it back.’ He speaks as though it is a big deal. ‘We haven’t even taken it off the premises – that’s no crime.’

‘OK, it’s now or never. Grab it quick, so we can put it back and get out of here.’

I scan the crowd to make sure nobody big and burly is coming towards us, cracking their knuckles and swinging a baseball bat. Just the young girl with the headset, and I’m sure I can take her on, and if not, Dad can hit her on the head with his clunky corrective shoe.

Dad grabs the waste basket from the table and tries to hide it in the inside of his coat. The coat barely makes it a third of the way around and I look at him bizarrely and he removes it. We make our way through the crowd, ignoring congrats and well-wishes from those who seem to think we’ve won the lottery. I see the young girl with the headset pushing her way through the crowd too.

‘Quick, Dad, quick.’

‘I’m going as fast as I can.’

We make it to the door of the hall, leaving the crowd behind, and start towards the main entrance. I look back before closing it behind me, and catch the girl with the headset, talking into her mike, urgently. She starts to run but gets caught behind two men in brown overalls carrying a wardrobe across the floor. I grab the wooden bin from Dad’s hands and immediately we speed up. Down the stairs, we grab our bags from the cloakroom and then up and down, down and up, all the way along the marble-floored hallway.

Dad reaches for the gold oversized handle on the main door and we hear, ‘Stop! Wait!’

We stop abruptly and slowly turn to look at one another, fearfully. I mouth ‘Run’ at Dad. He sighs dramatically, rolls his eyes and steps down on his right leg, bending his left as a way of reminding me of his struggles with walking, let alone running.

‘Where are you two going in such a hurry?’ the man asks, making his way towards us.

We slowly turn round, and I prepare to defend our honour.

‘It was her,’ Dad says straight away, thumb pointed at me.

My mouth falls open.

‘It was both of you, I’m afraid,’ he smiles. ‘You left your microphone and packs on. Worth a bit, these are.’ He fiddles around the back of Dad’s trousers and unclips his battery pack. ‘Could have gotten into a bit of trouble if you’d escaped with this,’ he laughs.

Dad looks relieved until I ask nervously, ‘Were these turned on, the entire time?’

‘Eh,’ he studies the pack and flicks the switch to the ‘off’ position. ‘They were.’

‘Who would have heard us?’

‘Don’t worry, they wouldn’t have broadcasted your sound while they went to the next item.’

I breath a sigh of relief.

‘But internally, whoever was wearing headphones on the floor would have heard,’ he explains, removing Dad’s mike. ‘Oh, and the control room too,’ he adds.

He turns to me next and I get into an embarrassing muddle as he pulls the pack from the waistband of my trousers and in doing so tugs the string of my thong, which it’s mistakenly attached to.

‘Ooowwwwww!’ I yelp, and it echoes around the corridor.

‘Sorry.’ The sound man’s face reddens while I fix myself. ‘Pitfall of the job.’

‘Perk, my friend, perk,’ Dad smiles.

After he shuffles back to the fair, we place the umbrella stand back by the entrance door while no one is looking, fill it with the broken umbrellas and exit the scene of the crime.

‘So, Justin, any news?’ Dr Montgomery asks.

Justin, who is reclined in the chair, with two surgically gloved hands and apparatus shoved in his mouth, is unsure of how to answer, and decides to blink once having seen that on television. Then unsure of what exactly that signal means, he blinks twice to confuse matters.

Dr Montgomery misses his code and chuckles, ‘Cat got your tongue?’

Justin rolls his eyes.

‘I might start getting offended one of these days, if people continue to ignore me when I ask questions.’ He chuckles again and leans in over Justin, giving him a good view up his nostrils.

‘Arrrgggh,’ he flinches as the cool prong hits his sore point.

‘Hate to say I told you so,’ Dr Montgomery continues, ‘but that would be a lie. The cavity that you wouldn’t let me look at during your last visit has become infected and now the tissue is inflamed.’

He taps around some more.

‘Aaaahh.’ Justin makes some gurgling sounds from the back of his throat.

‘I should write a book on dentistry language. Everybody makes all sorts of sounds that only I can understand. What do you think, Rita?’

Rita with the glossy lips doesn’t care much.

Justin gurgles some expletives.

‘Now, now,’ Dr Montgomery’s smile fades for a moment. ‘Don’t be rude.’

Startled, Justin concentrates on the television suspended from the wall in the corner of the room. Sky News’s red banner at the bottom of the screen screams it’s breaking news again and though it’s muted and too far away for him to read what exactly it is that they are breaking, it provides a welcome distraction from Dr Montgomery’s dismal jokes and calms his urge to jump out of the chair and grab the first taxi he can find, straight to Banqueting House.

The broadcaster is currently standing outside Westminster, but as Justin can’t hear a thing he has no idea what it’s related to. He studies the man’s face and tries to lip-read while Dr Montgomery comes at him with what looks like a needle. His eyes widen as he catches sight of something on the television. His pupils melt into his eyes, blackening them.

Dr Montgomery smiles as he holds it before Justin’s face. ‘Don’t worry, Justin. I know how much you hate needles but it’s necessary for a numbing effect. You need a filling in another tooth before that gets an abscess as well. It won’t hurt, it will just feel slightly odd.’

Justin’s eyes grow wider as he watches the television and he tries to sit up. For once, Justin doesn’t care about the needle. He must try to communicate this as best as possible. Unable to move or close his mouth, he begins to make deep noises from the back of his throat.

‘OK, don’t panic. Just one more minute. I’m nearly there.’

He leans over Justin again, blocking his view of the television, and Justin squirms in his seat, trying to see the screen.

‘My goodness, Justin, please stop it. The needle won’t kill you, but I might if you don’t stop wriggling.’ Chuckle, chuckle.

‘Ted, I think maybe we should stop,’ his assistant says, and Justin looks at her with grateful eyes.

‘Is he having a fit of some sort?’ Dr Montgomery asks her and then raises his voice at Justin as though he has suddenly become hearing-impaired. ‘I say, are you having a fit of some sort?’

Justin rolls his eyes and makes more noises from the back of his throat.