Thanks for the Memories (15 page)
“There’s a word I hate.”
“Unfortunately for you, you can’t know who received your donation.”
“But you just said that it’s documented.”
“That information can’t be released. Though all our records
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are kept in a secure computerized database where your donor details are kept. Under the Data Protection Act, you have the right to access your donor records.”
“Will those records tell me who received my blood?”
“Justin, the blood you donated was not transfused directly into someone else’s body exactly as it came from your vein. It was broken up and separated into red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets—”
“I know, I know.”
“Why are you so keen to know?”
He thinks about it for a while, drops a brown sugar cube into his second coffee, and stirs it around. “I’m just interested to know who I helped, if I helped anyone at all, and if I did, how they are. I feel like . . . no, it sounds stupid, you’ll think I’m insane. It doesn’t matter.”
“Hey, don’t be silly,” she says soothingly. “I already think you’re insane.”
“I hope that’s not your medical opinion.”
“Tell me.” Her piercing blue eyes watch him over the brim of her coffee cup as she sips.
“This is the first time I’ve said this aloud, so forgive me for speaking while I think.” He sighs. “At first, it was a ridiculous macho ego trip. I wanted to know whose life I saved. Which lucky person I’d sacrificed my blood for.”
Sarah smiles.
“But then, over the last few days, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. I feel different. Genuinely different. Like I’ve given something away. Something precious.”
“It
is
precious, Justin. We need more donors all the time.”
“I know, but not—I don’t mean that. I just feel like there’s someone out there walking around with something inside them that I gave them, and now I’m missing something—”
“Your body replaces the liquid part of your donation within twenty-four hours.”
t h a n k s f o r t h e m e m o r i e s
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“No, I mean, I feel like I’ve given something away, a part of me, and that somebody else has been completed because of that part of me and . . . my God, this sounds crazy. I just want to know who that person is.”
“You can’t get your blood back, you know,” Sarah jokes weakly, and they both fall into deep thought; Sarah looking sadly into her coffee, Justin trying to make sense of his jumbled words.
“I suppose I should never try to discuss something so illogical with a doctor,” he says.
“You sound like a lot of people I know, Justin. You’re just the first person I’ve heard blame it on a blood donation.”
Silence.
“Well,” Sarah says as she reaches behind her chair to get her coat, “you’re in a rush, so we should really get going now.”
They make their way down Grafton Street in a not uncomfortable silence that’s occasionally dotted with small talk. They automatically stop walking at the Molly Malone statue, across the road from Trinity College.
“You’re late for your class.”
“No, I’ve got a little while before I—” He looks at his watch and then remembers his earlier excuse. He feels his face redden.
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she repeats.
“I feel like this whole lunch date has been me saying sorry, and you saying that it’s okay.”
“It really is okay.” She laughs.
“And I really am—”
“Stop!” She holds her hand to hush him. “Enough.”
“I really had a lovely time,” he says awkwardly. “Should we . . . you know, I’m feeling really uncomfortable right now with her watching us.”
They look to their right where Molly stares down at them with her bronze eyes.
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Sarah laughs. “You know, maybe we could make arrangements to—”
“Roooooaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrr!!”
Justin almost leaps up from where he’s standing, startled by the intense screaming coming from the bus stopped at the traffic light beside them. Sarah yelps with fright, and her hand flies to her chest. Beside them more than a dozen men, women, and children, all wearing Viking helmets, are waving their fists in the air and roaring at passersby. Sarah and the dozens of others on the pavement start laughing, some of them even roaring. Justin, whose breath has caught in his throat, is silent. He can’t take his eyes off the woman on the bus laughing uproariously with an old man next to her. Even with a helmet on her head, long blond plaits flowing on each side, he knows it’s her.
“We certainly got them, Joyce,” the old man says loudly, roaring lightly in her face and waving his fist. She looks surprised at first, then hands him a five-euro note, much to his delight, and they both continue laughing. Look at me, Justin wills her. Her eyes stay on the old man as he holds the note up to the light to check its authenticity. Justin looks to the traffic lights, which are still red. He has time yet for her to see him. Turn around! Look at me just once! Then the pedestrian lights flash to amber. Her head remains turned, completely lost in conversation. The lights turn green, and the bus slowly moves off up Nassau Street. He starts to walk alongside it, willing her with everything he has to look at him.
“Justin!” Sarah calls. “What are you doing?”
He keeps on walking alongside the bus, quickening his pace and finally breaking out into a jog. He can hear Sarah calling after him but he can’t stop.
“Hey!” he calls.
Not loud enough; she doesn’t hear him. The bus picks up t h a n k s f o r t h e m e m o r i e s
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speed, and Justin’s jog turns into a run, the adrenaline surging through his body. The bus is beating him, speeding up. He’s losing her.
“Joyce!” he blurts out. The surprising sound of his own yell is enough to stop him in his tracks. What on earth is he doing? He doubles over to rest his hands on his knees and tries to catch his breath, tries to center himself in the whirlwind he feels caught up in. He looks back at the bus one last time. A Viking helmet appears from the window, blond plaits moving from side to side like a pendulum. He can’t make out the face, but with just that head looking back at him, he knows it has to be her.
The whirlwind stops momentarily while he holds up a hand in salute.
A hand appears out the window and the bus rounds the corner onto Kildare Street, leaving Justin to, once again, watch her disappear from sight, his heart beating wildly. He may not have the slightest clue what is going on, but there is one thing he knows now for sure.
Joyce. Her name is Joyce.
He looks down the empty street.
But who are you, Joyce?
“Why are you hanging your head out of the window?” Dad pulls me in, wild with worry. “You might not have much to live for, but for Christ’s sake you owe it to yourself to live it.”
“Did you hear somebody calling my name?” I whisper to Dad, my mind a whirl.
“Oh, she’s hearing voices now,” he grumbles. “I said your bloody name, and you gave me a fiver for it, don’t you remember?”
He snaps it before her face, and turns his attention back to Olaf.
“On your left is Leinster House, the building that now houses the National Parliament of Ireland.”
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Snappety-snap, clickety-click, flash-flash, record.
“Leinster House was originally known as Kildare House after the Earl of Kildare commissioned it to be built. It was renamed on his becoming the Duke of Leinster. Parts of the building, which was formerly the Royal College of Surgeons—”
“Science,” I say loudly, though still largely lost in thought.
“Pardon me?” Olaf stops talking and heads turn once again.
“I was just saying that”—my face flushes—“it was the Royal College of
Science
.”
“Yes, that’s what I said.”
“No, you said ‘surgeons,’ ” the American woman in front of us speaks out.
“Oh,” Olaf says, flustered. “Excuse me, I’m mistaken. Parts of the building, which was formerly the Royal College of ”—he looks pointedly at me—“Science, have served as the seat of the Irish government since 1922 . . .”
I tune out.
“Remember I told you about the guy who designed the Rotunda Hospital?” I whisper to Dad.
“I do. Dick somebody.”
“Richard Cassells. He designed this too. It’s been claimed that it formed a model for the design of the White House.”
“Is that so?” Dad says.
“Really?” The American woman twists around in her seat to face me. She speaks loudly. Very loudly. Too loudly. “Honey, did you hear that? This lady says the guy who designed this designed the White House.”
“No, I didn’t actually—”
Suddenly I notice Olaf has stopped talking and is currently glaring at me with as much love as a Viking Dragon for a Sea Cat. All eyes, ears, and horns are on us.
“Well, I said it’s been claimed that it formed a model for the t h a n k s f o r t h e m e m o r i e s
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design of the White House. There aren’t any certainties as such,” I say quietly, not wanting to be dragged into this. “It’s just that James Hoban, who won the competition for the design of the White House in 1792, was an Irishman.”
Everyone stares expectantly at me.
“Well, he studied architecture in Dublin and would have more than likely studied the design of Leinster House,” I finish off quickly.
The people around me ooh, aah, and talk among themselves about that tidbit of information.
“We can’t hear you!” someone at the front of the bus shouts out.
“Stand up.” Dad pushes me up.
“Dad . . .” I slap him away.
“Hey, Olaf, give her the microphone!” a woman shouts. He grudgingly hands it over and folds his arms.
“Eh, hello.” I tap it with my finger and blow into the mike.
“You have to say, ‘Testing one, two, three,’ Gracie.”
“Eh, testing one, two—”
“We can hear you,” Olaf snaps.
“Okay, well . . .” I repeat my comments, and the people up front nod with interest.
“And these are part of your government’s buildings too?” the American woman points to the buildings we’re passing on either side.
I look uncertainly at Dad, and he nods at me with encouragement. “Well, actually no. The building to the left is the National Library, and the National Museum is on the right.” I go to sit down again, and Dad whooshes my backside back up. Everyone is still looking at me for more. Olaf now looks sheepish.
“Well, a bit of interesting information may be that the National Library and the National Museum were originally home to
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the Dublin Museum of Science and Art, which opened in 1890. Both were designed by Thomas Newenham Deane and his son Thomas Manly Deane after a competition held in 1885 and were constructed by the Dublin contractors J. and W. Beckett, who demonstrated the best of Irish craftsmanship in their construction. The museum is one of the best surviving examples of Irish decorative stonework, woodcarving, and ceramic tiling. The National Library’s most impressive feature is the entrance rotunda. Internally this space leads up an impressive staircase to the magnificent reading room, with its vast vaulted ceiling. As you can see for yourselves, the exterior of the building is characterized by its array of columns and pilasters in the Corinthian order and by the rotunda with its open veranda and corner pavilions framing the composition. In the—”
Loud clapping interrupts my talk—single sharp claps coming from only one person: Dad. The rest of the bus sits in silence. A child breaks it by asking her mother if they can roar again. An imaginary piece of tumbleweed blows down the aisle, landing at the feet of a grinning Olaf the White.
“I, em, I wasn’t finished,” I say quietly.
Dad claps louder in response, and a man sitting alone in the back row joins in nervously.
“And . . . that’s all I know,” I say quickly, sitting down. The American in front of us turns around. “How do you know all that?” she asks.
“She’s a real estate agent,” Dad says proudly.
The woman makes an “oh” shape with her mouth and turns around again to face an extremely satisfied-looking Olaf, who has grabbed the microphone from me.
“Now everybody, let’s roooooooaaaaaar!”
Everybody comes to life again, while each muscle and organ in my body cringes into a fetal position.
Dad leans into me and crushes me against the window. He t h a n k s f o r t h e m e m o r i e s
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moves his head close to whisper in my ear and our helmets knock against each other.
“How
did
you know all that, love?”
As though I’d used up all of my words in that tirade, my mouth opens and closes, but nothing comes out. How on earth did I know all of that?
y e a r s i m m e d i at e ly s i z z l e a s soon as I enter the M school gymnasium that same evening and spy Kate and Frankie huddled together on the bleachers, looking deep in conversation with concern etch-a-sketched across their faces. Kate looks as though Frankie’s just told her that her father’s passed away, a face I’m familiar with, as I was the one to give her that very news five years ago at the Dublin airport when she’d cut short her holiday to rush to his side. Now Kate is talking, and Frankie looks as though her dog’s been hit by a car, a face I’m also familiar with, as I was once again the one to deliver the news, and the blow, that broke three of her sausage dog’s legs. Kate glances in my direction and looks as though she’s been caught in the act. Frankie freezes too. Looks of surprise, then guilt, and then smiles to make me think they’ve just been discussing the weather rather than the recent events in my life, which have been as changeable. I wait for the usual Lady of Trauma to fill my shoes. To give me a little break while she offers the usual insightful comments that keep inquisitors at bay; explaining my recent loss as more of a continuous journey rather than a dead end, giving me the invalu-t h a n k s f o r t h e m e m o r i e s
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