He’d greeted her that morning, dressed in his best suit, as his mother had requested in her new quiet voice, which Justin had to put his ear to her lips to hear. Aunt Emelda had pretended to be psychic just as she always did when they met one another after their long stints apart.
‘I know just what you want, little soldier,’ she’d said in her strong Cork accent, which Justin could barely understand and was never sure whether she’d just broken into a song or was speaking to him. She’d rummaged in her oversized handbag and dug out a soldier with a plastic smile and a plastic salute, quickly peeling off the price, and with it ripping off the soldier’s name before handing it to him. Justin stared down at Colonel Blank, who saluted him with one hand and held a plastic gun in the other, and immediately mistrusted him. The blank-shooting plastic gun got lost in the heavy pile of black coats by the front door as soon as he’d pulled open the packet. As usual, Aunt Emelda’s psychic powers had been tuned into the desires of the wrong nine-year-old boy, for Justin had not wanted this plastic soldier on this day of all days, and he couldn’t help but imagine a young boy across town waiting for a plastic soldier for his birthday and instead being handed Justin’s father by the tuft of his jet-black hair. However, he accepted her thoughtful gift with a smile as big and sincere as Colonel Blank’s. Later that day, as he stood beside the hole in the ground, maybe for once Aunt Emelda could read his mind as her hand gripped him tighter and her nails dug into his bony shoulders as though holding him back. For Justin had thought about jumping into that damp dark hole.
He thought about what it would be like in the world down there. If he could escape the strong hand of his Corkonian aunt and leap into the hole before anybody could catch him, maybe when the ground was closed over on top of them, like a grass carpet being rolled over, they would both be together. He wondered if they would have their own cosy world under the ground. He could have him all to himself, without having to share him with Mom or Al, and there they could play and laugh together, where it was darker. Maybe Dad just didn’t like the light; maybe all he wanted was for the light to go away so that it wouldn’t make his eyes squint and his fair skin burn and freckle and itch, as it always did when the sun came out. When that hot sun was in the sky it annoyed his dad, and he would have to sit in the shade while he and his mom and Al would play outside, Mom getting browner and browner by the day, his dad getting paler and more irritated by the heat. Maybe a break from the summer was all he wanted; for the itch and the frustration of light to go away.
As his casket was lowered into the hole, his mother let out howls that made Al cry too. Justin knew that Al wasn’t crying because he missed his dad, he was crying because he was scared of Mom’s reaction. She started crying when his grandma, his father’s mother’s sniffles became loud wails, and when Al started crying it broke the hearts of the entire congregation to see the young child left behind in tears. Even Dad’s brother, Seamus, who always looked like he wanted to laugh, had a trembling lip and a vein that jutted out of his neck like a body-builder, which made Justin think there was another person inside Uncle Seamus, just bursting to get out if Uncle Seamus would let him.
People should never start crying. Because if they start … Justin felt like shouting out for them all to stop being so stupid; that Al wasn’t crying because of his dad. He wanted to tell them that Al had little idea of what was really going on. He’d been concentrating on his fire engine all day and occasionally looking to Justin with a face so full of questions that he had to keep turning away.
There were men in suits that carried his dad’s casket to this place. Men that weren’t his uncles or his dad’s friends. They weren’t crying like everyone else, but they weren’t smiling either. They didn’t look bored but they didn’t look interested. They looked as though they had been to Dad’s funeral a hundred times already and they didn’t care so much that he had died again but also didn’t mind having to make another hole, carry him again and bury him again. He watched as the men with no smiles threw handfuls of soil onto the coffin, making drumming sounds against the wood. He wondered if that would wake his dad up from his summer slumber. He didn’t cry like everyone else because he felt assured that Dad had finally escaped the light. His dad would no longer have to sit alone in the shade.
Justin realises the driver is staring at him intently. His head moves in close as though he’s awaiting the answer to a very personal question concerning a rash and whether Justin has ever had one too.
‘No,’ Justin says quietly, clearing his throat and adjusting his eyes to the world of thirty-five years later. Time travel of the mind; a powerful thing.
‘That’s us over there.’ The driver presses the button on his keys and the lights of an S-class Mercedes light up.
Justin’s mouth drops. ‘Do you know who organised this?’
‘No idea.’ The driver holds the door open for him. ‘I just take the orders from my boss. Thought it was unusual having to write “Thank You” on the sign. Does that make sense to you?’
‘Yes, it does but … it’s complicated. Could you find out from your boss who’s paying for this?’ Justin sits into the back seat of the car, places his briefcase on the floor beside him.
‘I could try.’
‘That would be great.’ I’ll have gotcha then! Justin relaxes into the leather chair, stretches his legs out fully and closes his eyes, barely able to hold back his smile.
‘I’m Thomas, by the way,’ the driver introduces himself. ‘I’m here for you all day so wherever you want to go after this, just let me know.’
‘For the entire day?’ Justin almost chokes on his free bottle of chilled water, which was waiting for him in the hand rest. He saved a rich person’s life. Yes! He should have mentioned more to Bea than muffins and daily newspapers. A villa in the South of France. What an idiot he was not to have thought more quickly.
‘Would your company not have organised this for you?’ Thomas asks.
‘No.’ Justin shakes his head. ‘Definitely not.’
‘Maybe you’ve a fairy godmother you don’t know about,’ Thomas says, deadpan.
‘Well, let’s see what this pumpkin’s made of,’ Justin laughs.
‘Won’t get to test it in this traffic,’ Thomas says, braking as they enter Dublin traffic, worsened by the grey rainy morning.
Justin presses the button on the door for heated seats and reclines as he feels his back and behind warming. He kicks off his shoes, reclines his chair and relaxes in comfort as he watches the miserable faces of those in buses glaring sleepily out of the fogged-up windows.
‘After the Gallery, do you mind bringing me to Street? I need to visit somebody in the blood donor clinic.’
‘No problem, boss.’
The October gust huffs and puffs and attempts to blow the last of the leaves off the nearby trees. They hang on tight, like the nannies in Mary Poppins, who cling to the lampposts of Cherry Tree Lane in a desperate attempt to prevent their airborne competition from blowing them away from the big Banks job interview. The leaves, like many people this autumn, are not yet ready to let go. They cling on tight to yesterday, unable to have controlled their change in colour but, by God, putting up a fight before giving up the place that has been their home for two seasons. I watch as one leaf lets go, dances around in the air before falling to the ground. I pick it up and slowly twirl it around by its stalk in my hand. I’m not fond of autumn. Not fond of watching things so sturdy wither as they lose against nature, the higher power they can’t control.
‘Here comes the car,’ I comment to Kate.
We’re standing across the main road from the National Gallery, behind the parked cars, shaded by the trees rising above and over the gates of Merrion Square.
‘You paid for that?’ Kate says. ‘You really are nuts.’
‘Tell me something I don’t know. Actually, I paid half. That’s Frankie’s uncle driving – he runs the company. Pretend you don’t know him if he looks over.’
‘I do
n’t know him.’
‘Good, that’s convincing.’
‘Joyce, I have never seen that man in my life.’
‘Wow, that’s really good.’
‘How long are you going to keep this up, Joyce? The London thing sounded fun but really, all we know is that he donated blood.’
‘To me.’
‘We don’t know that.’
‘I know that.’
‘You can’t know that.’
‘I can. That’s the funny thing.’
She looks doubtful and stares at me with such a look of pity, it makes my blood boil.
‘Kate, yesterday I had carpaccio and fennel for my dinner, and I spent the evening singing along to practically all the words of Pavarotti’s Ultimate Collection.’
‘I still don’t understand how you think that it’s this Justin Hitchcock man that’s responsible for it. Remember that film Phenomenon? John Travolta just suddenly became a genius overnight.’
‘He had a brain tumour that somehow increased his ability to learn,’ I snap.
The Mercedes pulls up by the gates of the Gallery. The driver gets out of the car to open the door for Justin and he emerges, briefcase in hand, a beam from ear to ear, and I’m happy to see that next month’s mortgage payment has gone to good use. I shall worry about that, and everything else in my life, when the time comes.
He still has the aura I felt from the day I first laid my eyes on him in the hair salon – a presence that makes my stomach walk a few flights of stairs and then climb the final ladder to the ten-metre diving platform at the Olympics final. He looks up at the Gallery, around at the park, and with that strong jawline he smiles, a smile that causes my stomach to do one bounce, two bounce, three bounce, before attempting the toughest dive of all, a reverse one-point-five somersault and then one, two, three and a half twists before entering the water, with a belly flop. My unsophisticated entry into the water shows I am not a seasoned nervous wreck. The dive, while terrifying, was quite pleasant and I’m open to taking those steps again.
The leaves around me rustle as another soft breeze blows and I’m not sure if I imagine that it carries to me the smell of his aftershave, the same scent as from the hair salon. I have a brief flash of him picking up a parcel wrapped in emerald-green paper, which sparkles under Christmas tree lights and surrounding candles. It’s tied with a large red bow and my hands are momentarily his as he unties it slowly, carefully peels back the tape from the paper, taking care not to rip it. I am struck by his tenderness for the package, which has been lovingly wrapped, until his thoughts are momentarily mine and I am in on his plans to pocket the paper and use it on the unwrapped presents he has sitting out in the car. Inside is a bottle of aftershave and a shaving set. A Christmas gift from Bea.
‘He’s handsome,’ Kate whispers. ‘I support your stalking campaign one hundred per cent, Joyce.’
‘It’s not a stalking campaign,’ I hiss, ‘and I’d have done this if he was ugly.’
‘Can I go in and listen to his talk?’ Kate asks.
‘No!’
‘Why not? He’s never seen me; he won’t recognise me. Please, Joyce, my best friend believes she is connected to a complete stranger. At least I can go and listen to him to see what he’s like.’
‘What about Sam?’
‘Do you want to mind him for a little while?’
I freeze.
‘Oh, forget that,’ she says quickly. ‘I’ll bring him in with me. I’ll stay down the back and leave if he disturbs anyone.’
‘No, no, it’s OK. I can mind him.’ I swallow and paste a smile on my face.
‘Are you sure?’ She looks unconvinced. ‘I won’t stay for the entire thing. I just want to see what he’s like.’
‘I’ll be fine. Go.’ I push her away gently. ‘Go in and enjoy yourself. We’ll be fine here, won’t we?’
Sam puts his socked toe in his mouth in response.
‘I promise I won’t be long.’ Kate leans into the stroller, gives her son a kiss and dashes across the road and into the Gallery.
‘So …’ I look around nervously. ‘It’s just you and me, Sean.’
He looks at me with his big blue eyes and mine instantly fill.
I look around to make sure nobody has heard me. I mean Sam.
Justin takes his place at the podium in the lecture hall in the basement of the National Gallery. A packed room of faces stares back at him and he is in his element. A late arrival, a young woman, enters the room, apologises and quickly takes a place among the crowd.
‘Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you so much for making it here on this rainy morning. I am here to talk about this painting. Woman Writing a Letter, by Terborch, a Dutch Baroque artist from the seventeenth century who was largely responsible for the popularisation of the letter theme. This painting – well, not this painting alone – this genre of letter-writing is a personal favourite of mine, particularly when in this current age it seems a personal letter has almost become extinct.’ He stops.
Almost but not quite, for there’s somebody sending me notes.
He steps away from the podium, takes one step towards the audience and looks at the crowd, suspicion written upon his face. His eyes narrow as he studies his audience. He scans the rows, knowing that somebody here could be the mystery note-writer.
Somebody coughs, snapping him out of his trance, and he is back with them again. He is mildly flustered but continues where he left off.
‘In an age when a personal letter has almost become extinct, this is a reminder of how the great masters of the Golden Age depicted the subtle range of human emotions affected by such a seemingly simple aspect of daily life. Terborch was not the only artist responsible for these images. I cannot go further on this subject without paying lip-service to Vermeer, Metsu and de Hooch, who all produced paintings of people reading, writing, receiving and dispatching letters, which I have written about in my book The Golden Age of Dutch Painting: Vermeer, Metsu and Terborch. Terborch’s paintings use letter-writing as a pivot on which to turn complex psychological dramas and his are among the first works to link lovers through the theme of a letter.’
He studies the woman who arrived a little late as he says half of this and another young woman behind her for the second half, wondering if they are reading deeper into his words. He almost laughs aloud at himself at his assumption that, first, the person whose life he saved would be in this room; secondly, that it would be a young woman; and thirdly, attractive. Which makes him ask himself what exactly was he hoping to come out of this current drama?
I push Sam’s stroller into Merrion Square, and we’re instantly transported from the Georgian centre of the city to another world, shaded by mature trees and surrounded by colour. Burned oranges, reds and yellows of the autumn foliage litter the ground and, with each gentle breeze, hop alongside us like inquisitive robin redbreasts. I choose a bench along the quiet walk and turn Sam’s stroller around so that he faces me. In the trees bordering the walk I hear twigs snapping as homes are being constructed and lunch prepared.
I watch Sam for a while, as he strains his neck to see the remaining leaves that refuse to surrender their branch, far above him. He points a tiny finger up at the sky and makes sounds.
‘Tree,’ I tell him, which makes him smile, and his mother is instantly recognisable.
The vision has the same effect as a boot hitting my stomach. I take a moment to catch my breath.
‘Sam, while we’re here we should really discuss something,’ I say.
His smile widens.
‘I have to apologise for something,’ I clear my throat. ‘I haven’t been paying much attention to you lately, have I? The thing is …’ I trail off and wait until a man has passed us by to continue. ‘The thing is,’ I lower my voice, ‘I couldn’t bear to look at you …’ I trail off as his grin widens.
‘Oh, here.’ I lean over, remove his blanket and press the button to release his safety straps. ‘Come up here to me.�
�� I lift him out of the buggy and sit him on my lap. His body is warm and I hug him close. I breathe in the top of his head, candy, his wispy hairs so silky like velvet, his body so chubby and soft in my arms, I want to squeeze him tighter. ‘The thing is,’ I say quietly to the top of his head, ‘it broke my heart to look at you, to cuddle you like I used to, because each time I saw you, I remembered what I’d lost.’ He looks up at me and babbles in response. ‘Though how could I ever be afraid to look at you?’ I kiss his nose. ‘I shouldn’t have taken it out on you but you’re not mine, and that’s so hard.’ My eyes fill and I let the tears fall. ‘I wanted to have a little boy or girl so that just like when you smile, people could say, oh look, you’re the picture of your mummy, or maybe that the baby would have my nose or my eyes because that’s what people say to me. They say I look like my mum. And I love hearing that, Sam, I really do, because I miss her and I want to be reminded of her every single day. But looking at you was different. I didn’t want to be reminded I’d lost my baby every single day.’
‘Ba-ba,’ he says.
I sniffle. ‘Ba-ba gone, Sam. Sean for a boy, Grace for a girl.’ I wipe my nose.
Sam, uninterested in my tears, looks away and studies a bird. He points a chubby finger again.
‘Bird,’ I say through my tears.
‘Ba-ba,’ he responds.
I smile and wipe my eyes as yet more stream down.
‘But there’s no Sean or Grace now.’ I hug him tighter and let my tears fall, knowing that Sam won’t be able to report my weeping to anybody.
The bird hops a few inches and then takes off, disappearing into the sky.
‘Ba-ba gone,’ Sam says, holding his hands out, palms up.
I watch it fly into the distance, still visible like a speck of dust against the pale blue sky. My tears stop. ‘Ba-ba gone,’ I repeat.
‘What do we see in this painting?’ Justin asks.
Cecelia Ahern 2-book Bundle Page 51