The House of Memories

by Monica McInerney

  ‘More likely bought on the black market, or undeclared tax-wise. I didn’t ask for more details. Where they’d come from didn’t change the fact they’d all gone missing.’

  ‘And you seriously think it’s one of your tutors?’

  ‘I wanted to think it was impossible. I’ve been sending tutors into houses all around London for more than twenty years. Apart from one or two inappropriate love affairs, there’s never been any trouble. But the more I thought about it, the more I realised the thief could be one of them. That’s what I want you to find out. That’s the job I’m offering you.’

  I still thought he was joking. ‘Of course, Lucas. Shall I start now? Search their rooms?’

  ‘I’ve already tried that. I didn’t find anything.’

  ‘You searched their rooms? Seriously? Lucas!’

  ‘Not very seriously.’ A pause. ‘I opened their bedroom doors and looked in. Do you see my dilemma, Ella? I can’t suddenly turn into a detective. Start asking them loaded questions, asking what they do in their spare time, whether they have any contacts on the black market. I’ve always left my tutors alone and they leave me alone. That’s why it works so well. I can’t call in the police myself either. If one hint gets out that my tutors are unreliable, or, worse, that they are thieves, I’ll never get another client again. Which means the renovations stop before they’ve started, my own research finishes, the tutors’ work finishes —’

  ‘If you’re sure it’s one of these four, couldn’t you just cancel their contracts? Get new tutors in?’

  He shook his head. ‘We’re approaching exams, a crucial time for everyone. And I don’t want to cancel their contracts. These four are quite brilliant – brilliant minds and brilliant teachers. Before all this arose, I was getting only positive feedback about them from my clients.’

  ‘But if it is one of them, you need to know.’

  ‘Of course I do. But I can’t solve it myself, Ella. Frankly, I’m too busy with my own work. I don’t have time for this. I asked Henrietta if she would help but she said no. She’s too busy, with her own studies, her own life —’

  Her own husband, I thought.

  ‘But you, Ella —’

  We both knew what he meant. I had all the time in the world.

  He placed both hands on the table, all business now. ‘On the surface, I’d be hiring you as my cook and housekeeper again. But mostly I want you to talk to the tutors, get to know them, ask all the questions you can. Is one of them having financial problems? Or had a sudden windfall? I need you to find out whatever you can.’

  ‘But where do I start? Mention it casually over breakfast? “Good morning. Do any of you happen to know where I could get a cheap diamond necklace?”’

  Lucas didn’t even smile. ‘Please, Ella. You know what this house means to me.’

  I did know. More especially, I knew how much his research and his students meant to him. I promised I’d sleep on it. He told me he’d leave information about the four tutors in the attic. He used it as his archive room these days. I could ‘review their files’ as a starting point, he said.

  I decided to look at the files now. I needed something to do. It had started to rain outside, the dry weather short-lived. I took the five flights of stairs up to the attic. I had to hold on tight to the banister rail, the final stairs were so steep. I wondered whether Lucas’s renovations would mean changes up here. I hoped not. I’d always thought it was the most magical part of the house.

  It was still a mess, of course. There were still foxes, books and paperwork everywhere. All that was missing was the bed. Lucas now slept in one of the downstairs bedrooms. I wondered whether Henrietta had insisted.

  The four files were on top of a pile of folders on the desk. Before I sat down to read them, I opened the skylight window and poked my head out, breathing in the cool London air, enjoying the feel of the light mist of rain on my face. I loved the view. It was nothing spectacular, but it was so typically London: rooftops, tips of trees, brickwork and chimneys. If I leaned out as far as possible, I could even get a glimpse of Hyde Park.

  ‘Hello, little fellow,’ I said to the stuffed baby fox as I took a seat at the desk. He looked even worse for wear than he had all those years ago. I gave him a gentle pat. All the fox memorabilia I remembered from my first visit was still here – the paintings, the lampshade, the candlestick. I noticed two new items – an embroidered fox-design cushion and a small porcelain fox striking an enquiring pose. Gifts from Henrietta, I presumed. Lucas had told me she was the reason the baby fox I’d tried to liberate was so precious. It was the first gift she’d given him.

  I opened the files and started to read. All the information was perfectly ordered – photograph, brief biography, academic record. I shouldn’t have been surprised. Young academics applying for a position like this would be sure to present themselves as impressively as possible.

  I made notes as I read through the files. Forty minutes later, I was finished. I’d written four lines.

  Mark, 27, maths, Brighton

  Harry, 28, science, Liverpool

  Peggy, 28, English literature, Newcastle

  Darin, 29, languages, born Iran, raised Devon

  That was it. Some detective I was. I’d gleaned basic facts and nothing more. I may as well have gone ‘eenymeenymineymo’ to pick my thief.

  I had a moment of feeling as though I was outside myself, looking down. What was I doing, sitting up here in Lucas’s attic, reading private information about four strangers, seriously considering a job like this? I could say no, of course. I knew that. I could say, I’m very sorry, Lucas, thank you for the job offer but I need to leave again.

  But where would I go next? What could I do? Lucas’s invitation to visit him had come at exactly the right time. I had started to feel unsettled in Western Australia. The long hours and hard work there were all I’d needed in the beginning, but recently something had changed. I’d felt a restlessness. A yearning. A subtle shift in how I was feeling.

  I thought, as I had many times, of the counsellor explaining the stages of grief to me. I’d had to leave, midway through our second session. I couldn’t believe she was telling me that what I was feeling was something ordinary. That every single person who lost someone they loved, after an illness, in an accident, or to old age, went through exactly the same phases. It seemed impossible, I’d said to her. How could she compare what I was experiencing, this chasm, this ache, this roaring pain, to the grief someone might feel after their elderly father died, or their grandmother, after long lives, after the privilege of years with their families?

  She kept her voice calm.

  ‘It’s not a grief contest, Ella. I’m not saying one is worse than the other. You’ve misunderstood me. What I’m saying is you all go through similar feelings, of shock and denial and —’

  ‘Who died for you?’ Afterwards, I’d felt ashamed of my rudeness.

  ‘This isn’t about me, Ella. I haven’t been in your situation, but —’

  ‘Then you can’t know how I feel. You can’t help me. I’m sorry, but you can’t.’ I picked up my bag.

  ‘Ella, please —’

  The words burst out of me. ‘My son Felix was just twenty months old. His whole life was ahead of him. He could have been anything, done everything. He would have had the most wonderful, joyful, action-packed, glorious life, if my half-sister, if my husband hadn’t —’

  ‘Ella, sit down again, please. You must move beyond the blame. You’re not only hurting yourself through your anger, you’re hurting —’

  I didn’t hear the rest. I left and I didn’t return. She was wrong, I knew that. There are no stages to grief. It’s just an all-encompassing, constant, complete, irreversible feeling. It’s there the moment you wake and there, right beside you, as you try to sleep. It’s like being soaked in hurt and pain and sorrow, as if you have been steeped in it for days, weeks and months, so that it has infiltrated every inch of your skin, into your bones, your blood. Grief
becomes you. You become the grief. That’s what the counsellor didn’t know. I couldn’t move beyond it because I had become it. All I could do now, all I had been trying to do since that day, was live with it. Live without Felix.

  I don’t know how much time passed, whether I sat crying at Lucas’s desk for minutes or closer to an hour. I began to notice the scratching of birds’ feet on the roof above me. I heard the faint sound of traffic through the open window. I felt exhausted, as I always did after tears, my chest aching, my heart aching, but even as I sat there, at Lucas’s desk, trying to breathe properly, focusing on my inhalation, my exhalation, trying all the tricks I’d learned, I slowly became aware of a new feeling somewhere deep inside me. An unaccustomed one.

  I felt safe.

  Safer than I had felt for months. As if perhaps I could let my guard down in this house, in London, with Lucas. As if I could breathe more freely here. As if I could stay here, even for a little while.

  ‘Stay for as long as you need, Ella,’ Lucas had said. ‘Whether you take the job or not.’

  If I did say yes, the job would take up thinking time. It would give me something to do. That’s what I needed more than anything, every minute of every day and every night. Something to do. Something to stop me dwelling on things I couldn’t bear to think about.

  I opened the folders again, leafing through the pages on the tutors, trying to make a decision. If I didn’t take the job, what would I do? Stay in London for a week or two? Or go back home to Australia? I imagined being back in Melbourne. I pictured visiting Mum and Walter in their new, large South Yarra house, hearing about their busy lives, the TV show, the interviews, the media attention. Mum pretending it drove her crazy, when she adored every minute of it. And before long, I knew, they’d talk about Jess, how well she was doing, what a big star she was becoming —

  I couldn’t hear about Jess.

  Could I go somewhere else in Australia? Back to Canberra? Never. Sydney? No. Aidan was in Sydney now. He’d moved there from Canberra, after getting a job as a translator with SBS, the multicultural TV station. Charlie had told me. Charlie had sent me regular updates on him, and on Jess, until I’d asked him to stop. He hadn’t been happy about it, even when I did my best to explain why. I couldn’t hear about either of them. I couldn’t hear that they were back at work again, leading normal lives. In Jess’s case, getting more and more famous every week. I couldn’t hear that they had somehow managed to piece their lives back together, rebuild, reinvent themselves. I couldn’t understand how it was possible.

  ‘Just talk to them,’ Charlie had begged once during one of our phone calls. In the early days, after he’d returned home from Felix’s funeral, he’d rung from Boston nearly every day. I couldn’t have done without his calls, but I didn’t always like what he had to say. ‘Please, Ella. Even just speak to Jess on the phone, if it’s too much to see her. She needs to talk to you.’

  ‘I can’t, Charlie. I’m sorry, but I can’t.’

  ‘Is this to punish her even more? You don’t think she’s punishing herself already?’

  I didn’t reply. I heard him sigh down the phone. A moment’s pause, then he tried again.

  ‘Then you have to talk to Aidan at least. You can’t just leave it with him the way you did, walking out on him like that, out of the blue. You’re torturing him.’

  ‘I didn’t walk out. I had to leave, Charlie. He knows why. You know why.’

  ‘He was Felix’s father. He loved him as much as you did. Please, just see him, talk to him —’

  I couldn’t. I couldn’t see him or talk to him again. The more time passed, the more sure of that fact I was. ‘Has he asked you to call me?’

  ‘Yes, of course he has. He’s tried every way he can to get in touch with you. Because you’ve refused to answer any of his phone calls or letters or emails.’

  I stayed quiet again.

  ‘Ella, please, for my sake if not his. He’s not just your husband. He’s my friend. It’s killing me to see what’s happened to you both.’

  His poor choice of word hung between us. I let it go. ‘I can’t, Charlie. I’m sorry.’

  Over the following months, Charlie kept trying. Eventually, he stopped. He told me he wasn’t happy about it, but that he wouldn’t let me lock him out as well as everyone else. That hurt. I wasn’t deliberately locking anyone out. I had no choice. Surely he could see that.

  Charlie stopped mentioning Aidan but the emails kept coming. So did his letters. I didn’t open them. I didn’t need to. I knew what they said. Please, Ella, talk to me. But I couldn’t.

  Before it happened, Aidan and I could talk for hours. We did talk for hours. After it happened, after the first few days, after the shock and the tears, after the funeral, I made him tell me, again and again, in minute detail, over and over, exactly what had happened. I had to hear it until it felt as though I’d been there myself.

  With every cell in my body, I wanted to have been there myself. All I wanted, all I craved, was to somehow change the ending to the story, to stop it happening, to be there close enough to call out at the split second that Felix started to fall, ‘Jess, catch him!’ And she would somehow hear me and she would turn in time, drop the phone and with lightning speed reach out with both hands to grab hold of Felix. ‘Got you!’ she’d say, and he would give that little gasp he gave when he’d had a bit of a fright. Jess’s eyes would open wide and she’d hold him tight and give a shaky laugh and say, ‘Wow, that was close!’ And she’d put him carefully, gently onto the ground, and lean and kiss his forehead or the top of his glossy black head. Or ruffle his hair, like I loved to do. Then they would walk home to the apartment, hand in hand, and she would make him a drink. Less than an hour later, Walter and Mum would get there too, and shower him with presents, and exclaim how big he’d grown in just a month or two, and wasn’t his voice beautiful. Were they imagining it or did he have a bit of an Irish accent? And then Aidan would arrive back from the trade talks, and be just changing out of his suit and pouring a drink for everyone when I got home from my day in town, so relaxed, my face shining from the unexpected, wonderful facial, my body supple from the massage. As soon as he heard the door open, Felix would run to me, his arms up in the air, urging me to pick him up, shouting ‘I’m Felix O’Hanlon!’ in toddler-speak. We’d all laugh. I’d look around the crowded living room. ‘What a surprise. I thought we were meeting at the hotel!’ I’d be so relaxed that Jess and I would quickly forget the argument we’d had last time she’d visited and then the six of us would go on to have a great night out together for Walter’s birthday, before Aidan and I brought Felix home, still awake but falling asleep in our arms, and we’d put him to bed and then pour ourselves a drink, and talk about his work and my day and how lucky it was that Jess was able to step in to babysit, and we’d discuss the night we’d had and marvel again at Mum’s growing fame, perhaps even laugh that she’d been asked for autographs twice that night in the restaurant – who would ever have believed it – and then we’d check that Felix was fast asleep and go to bed ourselves and we would all live happily ever after.

  But that’s not what happened. There was no happy ending. No matter how many times I collected the details from Aidan, in fragments, tiny pieces of the puzzle, putting them together until I could replay the whole scene in the park as though I had been there, watching it unfold, I could never change it. I could never prevent it happening.

  ‘It was instant, Ella. He died instantly.’

  Aidan was wrong. The coroner’s report gave me all the detail I would ever want, detail I never wanted to read again. I learned terms I still wish I didn’t know. Medical names for the delicate bones in a twenty-month-old boy’s skull. The injuries caused when stone meets twenty-month-old bone and skin and blood vessels and nerve endings. It wasn’t instant. It took several minutes.

  What did my baby feel during those minutes? Agony? Shock? Fear? Were my Felix’s last moments on earth filled with the worst pain he’d ever felt? Did hi
s life flash past him? How could it? How could it, when he’d only had such a short life, had only started his life? And I wasn’t there. My baby was dying, there in the sun, on the ground, and I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there.

  It’s not just Jess and Aidan I can’t forgive. I can’t forgive myself.

  Aidan knows how I feel. In the days before I left, I said it to him. I’m sure I said it to him. All we did was say the same things over and again, relive what had happened. It was all there was to talk about and we talked about it until we were hollowed by the words, until our apartment felt full of our own grief, the blame, the guilt, as if our pain had pushed out all the air.

  I said it all to him in my note. We can’t stay together after what’s happened. Goodbye. They were the hardest and the easiest words I had ever written. They were the truth. I couldn’t help him any more than he could help me.

  He wouldn’t accept it, though. After I left Canberra, I moved to Melbourne for a few months and then up to Sydney. It was before he moved there. I picked up any work I could, cleaning, waitressing. I didn’t care what I did. I just had to keep moving. One Saturday, about four months after we had last spoken, after I’d done all I could to ignore the letters and emails from him, I had what I can only describe as a premonition. A feeling that Aidan was near.

  I was living and working in Banksia, an outer suburb, beyond the airport, far from the harbour or the fashionable inner-city suburbs. I barely noticed my surroundings. All I did was work, walk and sleep, moving between the restaurant I worked in and my cheap flat. I’d asked Charlie not to give Aidan my new address. He didn’t. He gave him the address of the restaurant instead.

  That Saturday, one of the other waitresses and I were setting the tables for a birthday lunch when I suddenly felt that Aidan was nearby. I still can’t explain how I knew. I put down the tray of cutlery, walked across to the large front window and peered through the wooden blinds. He was standing across the street, looking down at his phone. He was re-reading the message from Charlie, I guessed afterwards. The message with the address. I felt a rush of anger at Charlie, panic about seeing Aidan, then sudden anger at him too for finding me. As I watched, he put his phone into his pocket and started to cross the road.