Thanks for the Memories (29 page)
“So if they think that the heart holds more intelligence than we think, then the blood that is pumped from someone’s heart could carry that intelligence. So in transfusing his blood, he transfused his memories too?” Kate asks. “And his love of meat and languages,” she adds a little tartly. Nobody wants to say yes to that question. Everybody wants to say no. Apart from me, who’s had a night to warm to the idea already.
“Did
Star Trek
have an episode of this one time?” Frankie asks.
“Because if they didn’t, they should have.”
“This can easily be solved,” Kate says excitedly. “You can just find out who your blood donor was.”
“She can’t.” Frankie, as usual, dampens the mood. “That kind of information is confidential. Besides, it’s not as though she received all of his blood. He could only have donated less than a pint in one go. Then it’s separated into white blood cells, red blood cells, plasma, and platelets. What Joyce would have got, if Joyce received it at all, is only a part of his blood. It could even have been mixed with somebody else’s.”
“His blood is still running through my body,” I add. “It doesn’t matter how much of it there is. And I remember feeling distinctly odd as soon as I opened my eyes in the hospital.”
A silence answers my ridiculous statement, as we all consider the fact that my feeling “distinctly odd” had nothing to do with my transfusion and all to do with the unspeakable tragedy of losing my baby.
“We’ve got a Google hit for Mr. Justin Hitchcock,” Kate fills the silence.
My heart beats rapidly. Please tell me I’m not making it all up, t h a n k s f o r t h e m e m o r i e s
/ 2 5 1
that he exists, that he’s not a figment of my delusional mind. That the plans I’ve already put in place are not going to scare him away.
“Okay, this Justin Hitchcock is a hatmaker in Massachusetts. Hmm. Well, at least he’s American. You have any sudden knowledge of hats, Joyce?”
I think hard. “Berets, bucket hats, fedoras, fisherman hats, ball caps, porkpie hats, tweed caps.”
Dad stops licking his Pringle again and looks at me. “Panama hat.”
“Panama hat,” I repeat to the girls.
“Newsboy caps, skullcaps,” Kate adds.
“Top hat,” Dad says, and I repeat this into the phone.
“Cowboy hat,” Frankie says, sounding deep in thought. She snaps out of it. “Wait a minute, what are we doing? Anybody can name hats.”
“You’re right, it doesn’t feel right. Keep reading,” I urge.
“Justin Hitchcock moved to Deerfield in 1774, where he served as a soldier and fifer in the Revolution . . . I should probably stop reading this. Over two hundred years old is probably too much of a sugar daddy for you.”
“Hold on,” Frankie takes over, not wanting me to lose hope.
“There’s another Justin Hitchcock below that. New York Sanitation Department—”
“No,” I say with frustration. “I already know he exists. This is ridiculous. Add Trinity College to the search; he did a seminar there.”
Tap-tap-tap
.
“No. Nothing for Trinity College.”
“Are you sure you spoke to his daughter?” Kate asks.
“Yes,” I say through gritted teeth.
“And did anybody see you talking to this girl?” she says sweetly.
I ignore her.
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“I’m trying the words
art
,
architecture
,
French
,
Latin
,
Italian
. . .”
Frankie says over the
tap-tap-tap
sound.
“Aha! Gotcha, Justin Hitchcock! Guest lecturer at Trinity College, Dublin. The Faculty of Arts and Humanities. Department of Art and Architecture. Bachelor’s degree, Chicago; master’s degree, Chicago; Ph.D., Sorbonne University. Special interests are history of Italian Renaissance and Baroque sculpture, painting in Europe in 1600–1900. External responsibilities include founder and editor of the
Art and Architectural Review
. Coauthor of
The
Golden Age of Dutch Painting: Vermeer, Metsu and Terborch
, author of
Copper as Canvas: Paintings on Copper, 1575–1775
. He’s written over fifty articles in books, journals, dictionaries, and conference proceedings.”
“So he exists,” Kate says, excited now.
Feeling more confident now, I say, “Try his name with the London National Gallery.”
“Why?”
“I have a hunch.”
“You and your hunches.” Kate continues reading, “He is a curator of European art at the National Gallery, London. Oh, my God, Joyce, he works in London. You should go see him.”
“Hold your horses, Kate. She might freak him out and end up in a padded cell. He might not even be the donor,” Frankie objects.
“And even if he is, it doesn’t explain anything.”
“It’s him,” I say confidently. “And if he was my donor, then it means something to me.”
“We’ll have to figure out a way to find out,” Kate offers.
“It’s him,” I repeat.
“So what are you going to do about it?” Kate asks. I smile lightly and glance at the clock again. “What makes you think I haven’t done something already?”
t h a n k s f o r t h e m e m o r i e s
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�
u s t i n h o l d s t h e p h o n e t o his ear and paces the small J office in the National Gallery as much as he can, stretching the phone cord as far as it will go on each pace, which is not far. Three and a half steps up, five steps down.
“No, no, Simon, I said ‘Dutch portraits,’ though you’re correct, as there certainly will be ‘much portraits.’ ” He laughs. “The age of Rembrandt and Frans Hals,” he continues. “I’ve written a book about that subject, so it’s something I’m more than familiar with.” A half-written book you stopped working on two years ago, liar.
“The exhibition will include sixty works, all painted between 1600 and 1680.”
There is a knock on the door.
“Just a minute,” he calls out.
The door opens anyway, and his colleague Roberta enters. Though she’s only in her thirties, her back is hunched and her chin pressed to her chest as though she is decades older. Her eyes, mostly cast downward, occasionally flicker up to meet his before falling again. She is apologetic for everything, as always, constantly saying sorry to the world, as though her very presence offends. She tries to maneuver her way through the obstacle course that is Justin’s cluttered office to reach his desk. This she does the same way she lives her life, as quietly and as invisibly as possible, which Justin would find admirable if it weren’t quite so sad.
“Sorry, Justin,” she whispers, carrying a small basket in her hand. “I didn’t know you were on the phone, sorry. This was at reception for you. I’ll just put it here. Sorry.” She backs away, barely making a sound as she tiptoes out of the room and closes the door silently behind her.
He simply nods at her and then tries to concentrate on the conversation again, picking up where he left off.
2 5 4 / C e c e l i a A h e r n
“It will range from small individual portraits meant for the private home to large-scale group portraits of members of charitable institutions and civic guards.”
He stops pacing and eyes the basket suspiciously, feeling as though something inside is about to jump out at him.
“Yes, Simon, in the Sainsbury Wing. If there’s anything else you need to know, please do contact me here at the office.”
He hurries his colleague off the phone and hangs up. His hand pauses on the receiver, half tempted to call for security. The small basket seems alien and sweet in his musty office, like a newborn baby in a cradle left on the dirty steps of an orphanage. Underneath the wicker handle, the contents are covered by a checked cloth. He stands back and lifts it slowly, preparing to jump away at any moment.
A dozen or so muffins stare back at him.
His heart thumps, and he quickly looks around his box-sized office; he knows nobody is with him, but his discomfort at receiving this surprise gift adds an eerie presence. He searches the basket for a card. Taped to the other side is a small white envelope. With what he realizes now are shaking hands, he rips it rather clumsily from the basket and slides the card out. In the center of the card, in neat handwritten script, it simply says:
Thank you . . .
u s t i n p o w e r - wa l k s t h r o u g h t h e h a l l s of the National J Gallery, part of him obeying and the other part disobeying the no-running-in-the-halls rule as he jogs three steps then walks three steps, jogs three steps and slows to a walk again. Goody Two-shoes and the daredevil within him battling it out.
He spots Roberta tiptoeing through the hallway, making her way like a shadow to the private library where she has worked for the past five years.
“Roberta!” His daredevil is unleashed, disobeying the noshouting-in-the-halls rule, and his voice echoes and rebounds off the walls and the high ceilings.
It’s enough for Roberta to freeze and turn slowly, her eyes wide and terrified like a deer caught in the headlights. She blushes as the half-dozen others in the hall turn to stare at her. Her gulp is visible from where he stands, and Justin’s immediately sorry for breaking her code, for pointing her out when she wants to be invisible. He stops his power-walking and tries to walk quietly along the floors, to glide as she does, in an attempt to retract the noise he has made. She stands, stiff as a board and as close to the wall as possible.
2 5 6 / C e c e l i a A h e r n
Justin wonders if her behavior is a consequence of her career, or if being a librarian in the National Gallery seemed attractive to her because of her natural way. He thinks the latter.
“Yes,” she whispers, wide-eyed and frightened.
“Sorry for shouting your name,” he says as quietly as he can. Her face softens, and her shoulders relax a little.
“Where did you get this basket?” He holds it out to her.
“At reception. I was returning from my break when Charlie asked me to give it to you. Is there something wrong?”
“Charlie.” He thinks hard. “He’s at the Sir Paul Getty entrance?”
She nods.
“Okay, thank you, Roberta. I apologize again for shouting.”
He dashes off to the East Wing, his daredevil and good side clashing again in a remarkably confused half-run, half-walk combination, while the basket swings from his hand.
“Finished for the day, Little Red Riding Hood?” He hears a croaky chuckle as he nears his destination.
Justin, noticing he has been skipping along with the basket, stops abruptly and spins around to face Charlie, the gallery’s sixfoot-tall security guard.
“My, Grandmother, what an ugly head you have.”
“What do you want?”
“I was wondering who gave you this basket?”
“A delivery guy from . . .” Charlie moves over to behind his small desk and riffles through some papers. He retrieves a clipboard. “Harrods. Zhang Wei,” he reads. “Why? Something wrong with the muffins?” He runs his tongue over his teeth and clears his throat.
Justin’s eyes narrow. “How did you know they were muffins?”
Charlie refuses to meet his stare. “Had to check, didn’t I? This is the National Gallery. You can’t expect me to accept a package without knowing what’s in it.”
t h a n k s f o r t h e m e m o r i e s
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Justin studies Charlie, whose face has pinked. He spies crumbs stuck to the corners of his mouth; there are slight traces down his uniform. He removes the checked cloth from his hamper and counts. Eleven muffins.
“Don’t you think it’s odd to send a person eleven muffins?”
“Odd?” Eyes wander, shoulders fidget. “Dunno, mate. Never sent muffins to anyone in my life.”
“Wouldn’t it seem more obvious to send a dozen muffins?”
Shoulders shrug. Fingers fidget. Charlie’s eyes now turn to study everybody that enters the gallery, far more intently than usual. His body language tells Justin that he’s finished with the conversation.
Justin whips out his cell phone as he exits to Trafalgar Square.
“Hello?”
“Bea, it’s Dad.”
“I’m not talking to you.”
“Why not?”
“Peter told me what you said to him at the ballet last night,”
she snaps.
“What did I do?”
“You interrogated him about his intentions all night.”
“I’m your father, that’s my job.”
“No, what you did is the job of the Gestapo,” she fumes. “I swear, I’m not speaking to you until you apologize to him.”
“Apologize?” He laughs. “What for? I merely made a few inquiries into his past, in order to ascertain his agenda.”
“Agenda? He doesn’t have an agenda!”
“So I asked him a few questions, so what? Bea, he’s not good enough for you.”
“No, he’s not good enough for you. Anyway, I don’t care what you think of him, it’s me that’s supposed to be happy.”
“He picks strawberries for a living.”
2 5 8 / C e c e l i a A h e r n
“He is an IT consultant!”
“Then who picks strawberries?” Somebody picks strawberries. “Well, honey, you know how I feel about consultants. If they are so amazing at something, why don’t they do it themselves, instead of just making money telling people how to do it?”
“You’re a lecturer, curator, reviewer, whatever. If you know so much, why don’t you just build a building or paint a damn picture yourself ?” she shouts. “Instead of just bragging to everybody about how much you know about them!”
Hmm.
“Sweetheart, let’s not get out of control now.”
“No, you are the one out of control. You will apologize to Peter, and if you don’t, I will not answer your phone calls, and you can deal with your little dramas all by yourself.”
“Wait, wait, wait. Just one question.”
“Dad, I—”
“Did-you-send-me-a-hamper-of-a-dozen-cinnamon-muffins?”
he rushes out.
“What? No!”
“No?”
“No muffins! No conversations, no nothing—”
“Now, now, sweetheart, there’s no need for double negatives.”
“I’ll have no more contact with you until you apologize,” she finishes.
