Thanks for the Memories (25 page)
Dad says, leaning farther over the counter. “It’s more trouble that the youth of today are getting themselves into, debt after debt because they want this, they want that, but they don’t want to work for it, so they use those plastic thingies. Well, that’s not free money, I can tell you that.” He nods his head with finality. “You’ll only ever lose with one of those.”
The receptionist smiles at him politely and taps away at her computer. “You’re sharing a room?” she asks.
“Yes,” I respond with dread.
“Two Uncle Teds, I hope?” Dad says.
She frowns.
“Beds,” I say quietly. “He means beds.”
“Yes, they’re twin beds.”
“Is it an en suite?” He leans in again, trying to see her name badge. “Breda, is it?” he asks.
“Aakaanksha. And, yes, sir, all our rooms are en suite,” she says politely.
“Oh.” He looks impressed. “Well, I hope your lifts are working, because I can’t take the apples, my Cadbury’s playin’ up.”
I squeeze my eyes together tightly.
“Apples and pears, stairs. Cadbury snack, back,” he says.
“I see. Very good, Mr. Conway.”
I take the key and head toward the elevator, hearing him muttering phrases over and over as he follows me through the foyer. I hit the button for the third floor, and the doors close. The room is standard, and it’s clean, and that’s good enough for me. Our beds are far enough apart for my liking, and there’s a television and a minibar, which hold Dad’s attention while I run a bath.
“I wouldn’t mind a drop of fine,” he says, his head disappearing into the minibar.
“You mean wine.”
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“Fine and dandy, brandy.”
When I finally slide down into the hot soothing bathwater, the suds rise like the foam atop an ice-cream float. They tickle my nose and cover my body, overflow and float to the ground, where they slowly fade with a crackling sound. I lie back and close my eyes, feeling tiny bubbles all over my body pop as soon as they touch my skin. I’m relaxing for the first time in ages . . . Then there’s a knock at the door.
I ignore it.
Then it goes again, a little more loudly this time. Still I don’t answer.
Bang! Bang!
“What?” I shout.
“Oh, sorry, thought you’d fallen asleep or something, love.”
“I’m in the bath.”
“I know that. You have to be careful in those things. Could nod off and slip under the water and drown. Happened to one of Amelia’s cousins. You know Amelia. Visits Joseph sometimes, down the road. But she doesn’t drop by as much as before on account of the bath accident.”
“Dad, I appreciate your concern, but I’m fine.”
“Okay.”
Silence.
“Actually, it’s not that, Gracie. I’m just wonderin’ how long you’ll be in there for?”
I grab the yellow rubber duck sitting at the side of the bath, and I strangle it.
“Love?” he asks in a little voice.
I hold the duck under the water, trying to drown it. Then I let go, and it bobs to the top again, the same silly eyes staring back at me. I take a deep breath, breathe out slowly.
“About twenty minutes, Dad, is that okay?”
Silence. I close my eyes again.
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“Eh, love. It’s just that you’ve been in there twenty minutes already, and you know how my prostate is—”
I don’t hear any more, because I’m climbing out of the bath with all the gracefulness of a piranha at feeding time. My feet squeak on the bathroom floor, splashing water in all directions.
“Everything okay in there, Shamu?” Dad laughs uproariously at his own joke.
I throw a towel around me and open the door.
“Ah, Willy’s been freed.” He smiles.
I bow and hold my arm out to the toilet. “Your chariot awaits you, sir.”
Embarrassed, he shuffles inside and closes the door behind him. It locks.
Wet and shivering, I browse through the half bottles of red wine in the minibar. I pick one up and study the label. Immediately an image flashes through my mind, so vivid, I feel like my body has been transported.
A picnic basket with a bottle inside, with this identical label, a red-and-white-checked cloth laid out on the grass, a little girl with blond hair twirling, twirling in a pink tutu. The wine swirling, swirling in a glass. The sound of laughter. Birds twittering. Children’s laughter far off, a dog barking. I am lying on the checked cloth, barefoot, trousers rolled above my ankles. Hairy ankles. I feel heat beating down on my skin. The little girl dances and twirls before the sun, sometimes blocking the harshness of light, other times spinning in the other direction to send the glare into my eyes. A hand appears before me, a glass of red wine in it. I look to her face. Red hair, lightly freckled, smiling adoringly. At me.
“Justin,” she’s singing. “Earth to Justin!”
The little girl is laughing and twirling, the wine is swirling, the long red hair is blowing in the light breeze . . . Then it’s gone. I’m back in the hotel room, standing before the minibar, my hair dripping bathwater onto the carpet. Dad is
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now out and watching me curiously, hand suspended in the air as though he’s not sure whether to touch me or not.
“Earth to Joyce,” he’s singing.
I clear my throat. “You’re done?”
Dad nods, and his eyes follow me to the bathroom. On the way there, I stop and turn. “By the way, I’ve booked a ballet show for tonight if you’d like to come. We need to leave in an hour.”
“Okay, love.” He nods softly, and watches after me with a familiar look of worry in his eyes. I’ve seen that look as a child, and I’ve seen it as an adult—and a million times in between. It’s as though I’ve taken the training wheels off my bicycle for the very first time, and he’s running along beside me, holding on tight, afraid to let me go.
a d b r e at h e s h e a v i ly b e s i d e m e and links my arm D tightly as we make our way to Covent Garden. Using my other hand I pat down my pockets, feeling for his heart pills.
“Dad, we’re definitely getting a taxi back to the hotel. And I’m not taking no for an answer.”
Dad stops and stares ahead.
“Are you okay? Is it your heart? Should we sit down? Stop and take a rest? Go back to the hotel?”
“Shut up and turn round, Gracie. It’s not just my heart that takes my breath away, you know.”
I spin round, and there it is, the Royal Opera House, its columns illuminated for the evening performance, a red carpet lining the pavement outside and crowds filing through the doors.
“You have to take your moments, love,” Dad says, soaking in the sight before him. “Don’t just go headfirst into everything like a bull seeing red.”
Having booked our tickets so late, we are seated almost at the top of the tremendous theater. The position is unlucky, yet we are fortunate to have gotten tickets at all. And while the view
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of the stage is restricted, the view of the boxes opposite is perfect. Squinting through the binoculars situated beside my seat, I spy on the people filling the boxes. No sign of my American man. Earth to Justin? I hear the woman’s voice in my head and wonder again if Frankie’s theory about seeing the world from his eyes is correct. Dad is enthralled by our view. “We’ve got the best seats in the house, love, look.” He leans over the balcony, and his tweed cap almost falls off his head. I grab his arm and pull him back. He takes the photograph of Mum from his pocket and places her on the velvet balcony ledge. “Best seat in the house, indeed,” he says, his eyes filling.
The voice over the intercom system signals that the ballet is about to begin, prompting the cacophony of the tuning orchestra to die down. The lights dim, and there is silence before the magic begins. The conductor taps, and the orchestra plays the opening bars of Tchaikovsky’s ballet. Apart from Dad snorting when the male principal dancer appears onstage wearing tights, it runs smoothly, and we are both entranced by the story of
Swan Lake
. I look away from the prince’s coming-of-age party and again study those sitting in the boxes. Their faces are lit, their eyes dancing along with the dancers they follow. It’s as though a music box has been opened, spilling music and light, and all those watching have been enchanted, captured by its magic. I continue to spy through my opera glasses, moving from left to right, seeing a row of strange faces until . . . My eyes widen as I reach the familiar face, the man from the hair salon I now know from Bea’s biography in the program to be Mr. Hitchcock. Justin Hitchcock? He watches the stage, entranced, leaning so far over the ledge it looks as though he’ll topple over. I can’t stop watching him; I study his face, his eyes, his lips. He’s so close in my view that I feel like I can reach out to touch him. The excitement rushes through me at just seeing him, the feeling of a childhood crush suddenly alive inside me. Dad elbows me. “Would you stop looking around you, and t h a n k s f o r t h e m e m o r i e s
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keep your eye on the stage? He’s about to kill her.” He knocks the binoculars away from my hand, and the man is once again far from my reach.
I turn to face the stage and try to hold my eyes on the prince leaping about with his crossbow, but I can’t. A magnetic pull turns my face back down to the box, anxious to see who Mr. Hitchcock is sitting with. My heart is drumming loudly, and I secretly raise the binoculars to my eyes again. Beside him is the woman with long red hair, the one who holds the camera in my dreams. Beside her is a sweet-looking man, and squashed together behind them are a young man pulling uncomfortably at his tie, a woman with big curly red hair, and a large round man. I flick through my memory files like I’m going through Polaroids. The chubby boy from the sprinkler scene and seesaw? Perhaps. But the other two, I don’t know. I move my eyes back to Justin Hitchcock and smile, finding his face more entertaining than the action onstage. Suddenly the music changes, the light reflecting on his face flickers, and his expression shifts. I know instantly that Bea is onstage, and I turn to watch. Somehow I’m able to pick her out among the flock of swans moving about so gracefully in perfect unison, dressed in a white fitted corset dress with a raggedy long white tutu, similar to feathers. Her long blond hair is tied up in a bun, covered by a neat headdress. I recall the image of her in the park as a little girl, twirling and twirling in her tutu, and I’m filled with pride. How far she has come. How grown-up she is now. My eyes fill.
“Oh, look, Justin,” Jennifer says breathily beside him. He is looking. He can’t take his eyes off his daughter, a vision in white, dancing in perfect unison with the flock of swans, not a movement out of place. She looks so grown-up. How did that happen? It seems like only yesterday she was twirling for him and
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Jennifer in the park across from their house, a little girl with a tutu and dreams and now . . . His eyes fill, and he looks beside him to Jennifer, to share a look, to share the moment, but at the same time she reaches for Laurence’s hand. He looks away quickly, back to his daughter. A tear falls, and he reaches into his front pocket for his handkerchief.
A handkerchief is raised to my face, catches my tear before it drips from my chin.
“What are you crying for?” Dad says loudly, dabbing at my chin roughly as the curtain lowers for the intermission.
“I’m just so proud of Bea.”
“Who?”
“Oh, nothing . . . I just think it’s a beautiful story. What do you think?”
“I think those lads have definitely got socks down their tights.”
I laugh and wipe my eyes. “Do you think Mum’s enjoying it?”
He smiles and stares at the photo. “She must be, she hasn’t turned round once since it started. Unlike you, who’s got ants in her pants. If I’d known you were so keen on binoculars, I’d have taken you out bird-watching long ago.” He sighs and looks around.
“The lads at the Monday Club won’t believe this at all. Donal McCarthy, you better watch out.”
“Do you miss her?”
“It’s been ten years, love.”
It stings that he can be so dismissive. I fold my arms and look away, silently fuming.
Dad leans closer and nudges me. “And every day I miss her more than I did the day before.”
Oh. I immediately feel guilty for wishing that on him. t h a n k s f o r t h e m e m o r i e s
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“It’s like my garden, love. Everything grows. Including love. And with that growing every day, how can you expect the missing part to ever fade away? Everything builds, including our ability to cope with it. That’s how we keep going.”
I shake my head, in awe of some of the things he comes out with, philosophical and otherwise. And this from a man who’s been calling me his teapot (lid, kid) ever since we landed.
“And I just thought you liked pottering.” I smile.
“Ah, there’s a lot to be said for pottering. You know Thomas Berry said that gardening is an active participation in the deepest mysteries of the universe? There are lessons in pottering.”
“Like what?”
“Well, even a garden grows stranglers, love. It grows them naturally, all by itself. They creep up and choke the plants that are growing from the very same soil as they are. We each have our demons, our self-destruct button. Even in gardens. Pretty as they may be. If you don’t potter, you don’t notice them.”
He eyes me, and I look away, choosing to clear my alreadyclear throat. Sometimes I wish he’d just stick to laughing at men in tights.
“Justin, we’re going to the bar, are you coming?” Doris asks.
“No,” he says, in a huff like a child.
“Why not?” Al squeezes farther into the box to sit beside him.
“I just don’t want to.” He picks up his opera glasses and starts fiddling with them.
“But you’ll be here on your own.”
“So?”
“Mr. Hitchcock, would you like me to get you a drink?” Bea’s boyfriend, Peter, asks.
“Mr. Hitchcock was my father, you can call me Al. Like the
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