The House of Memories

by Monica McInerney

  I ran away. I’m not proud of it, but I had to. I didn’t want there to be a scene. I didn’t want my employers and colleagues to know anything about me, or my life before I’d started working there. I went out through the kitchen, out the back door, through the yard past the rubbish bins, out the creaking gate and I ran, down the alleys, down the suburban streets and past a football oval. I didn’t stop until I was more than a kilometre away. I wasn’t sure where I was but it didn’t matter. After catching my breath, after making sure my voice sounded as normal as possible, I took out my phone and dialled the restaurant. The other waitress answered. I got in first. ‘Mandy, it’s Ella. Don’t say my name. He can’t know it’s me. Is he still there?’

  There was a cautious ‘Yes.’

  ‘Please, Mandy, help me. Can you talk without him hearing?’

  There was a pause before she spoke in a formal voice. ‘I think so. I’ll check in the kitchen for you.’ A moment later she spoke again in her normal tone. ‘Ella, what’s going on? Who is he? He said he’s not leaving until he talks to you. He says he’s your husband.’

  I thought quickly. ‘Of course he’s not my husband. He’s an ex-boyfriend. I broke up with him a year ago and he’s been stalking me ever since. Mandy, please tell him I’ve gone home sick. Tell him I’ve left for the day and you don’t know how long I’ll be off work.’

  ‘He doesn’t seem like a stalker. He just seems very upset.’

  ‘Please, Mandy. I’ll owe you.’

  She sighed and then told me she’d ring me back once he’d left.

  Nearly an hour passed before she rang. I waited another hour before I returned to the restaurant. The birthday lunch was in full swing. Mandy wasn’t happy. While we were cleaning up afterwards, I invented an elaborate story. Aidan hadn’t said much to her, thankfully. I told her that I’d broken up with him but he wouldn’t accept it. I’d moved three times, and he’d managed to find me every time.

  ‘You should call the police, Ella. If it’s been that bad, you really should report him.’

  ‘I will when I get home,’ I said. Then I couldn’t help myself. ‘How was he?’

  ‘How was he?’ She stared at me.

  ‘I just meant, how did he seem to you?’

  ‘Honestly?’ she asked.

  I nodded.

  ‘Gorgeous,’ she said with a sudden grin. ‘Great accent. Beautiful eyes. If you don’t want him, can I have him? He can stalk me any time he wants.’

  I resigned the next day. Two weeks later I heard about the winery job in Western Australia. I was there a month before I told Charlie I’d left Sydney. I made him promise not to give Aidan the name of the winery, or even tell him I was now in Western Australia. Reluctantly, eventually, and only after another spirited exchange of emails, Charlie agreed. But he wasn’t happy with me.

  Neither was my mother. ‘You have to help us to help you, Ella, please,’ she’d said during one phone call. ‘You can’t keep running away from everyone, not just Aidan and Jess, but the whole situation.’

  The whole ‘situation’? It wasn’t a ‘situation’. It was my life now. She didn’t understand, I realised. I wasn’t running away from anything. Everywhere I went, my pain came too.

  Her voice softened. ‘Darling, please, talk to us. We have to get through this together. I was talking to Dr Rob today. You know, the TV psychiatrist. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen him. He has a slot on the network’s chat show. People ring in with their problems and he’s so lovely and so knowledgeable … anyway, I told him all about what had happened and he was so sad for us, and so sympathetic, and he said that what you need to do is —’

  I didn’t hear the rest. I said I was sorry, that I had to go. I said goodbye and I hung up.

  Mum didn’t leave it at that. She wrote to me, on her personalised MerryMakers: Eat, drink and be merry! letterhead.

  Dear Ella,

  I’m so sad that you won’t answer my calls at the moment. I know you don’t want to hear what I need to say, and I also don’t know how much of this you will read, so I’ll get to the point quickly. You are not alone. We all loved Felix so much. You lost your darling son but we lost our beautiful grandson, Jess lost her beloved nephew. I can’t even begin to imagine the pain Aidan is feeling too. We could all see how much he adored Felix and how much he adored you as well. I know how you must be feeling, Ella. But we saw Aidan last week and I am not exaggerating when I say that all that has happened, not to mention all that has happened since with you and him, is destroying him.

  My editor’s trained eye wanted to underline or delete the word destroying. I imagined my comment beside it. Too dramatic? As for her phrase: ‘I am not exaggerating …’ My mother loved to exaggerate. It was part of her lively personality, but also what made her so difficult sometimes. It was no coincidence that Jess was theatrical, attention-seeking – the apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree. Lucas had always said, with some relief I thought, that I was made up of more Fox genes than Mum’s genes, that I reminded him very much of my father. I loved – I love – my mother. I do. But I’ve learned that loving someone doesn’t mean always liking them.

  I stopped reading her letter at that point. I kept thinking about it afterwards, though. About being a mother, about being her daughter. I didn’t want to cause her any more pain. So even when it was hard, I stayed in touch with her and Walter. I emailed rather than phoned. She’d have preferred long chatty phone calls, I know, but I needed some distance. I received long chatty emails in return from her, full of every detail of her home and working life and links to all the MerryMakers programs.

  Sometimes, when I can’t sleep, I watch them. Mum is great on-camera, natural and funny. The talent scouts in the shopping centre unearthed a rough diamond and polished her until she shone. As she cooks, she jokes and flirts down the camera lens. She cracks the corniest of food puns, laughs more than the canned laughter, sings when the mood takes her, teases Walter – who never appears on-camera but is always just off-set, a character on the show himself. She cooks three dishes per show. They mostly work but sometimes don’t, adding to the comedy. ‘Whoops!’ she’ll laugh. ‘Looks like it’s takeaway pizza again tonight, Walter! Good thing I have other charms!’ Cue more canned laughter. Each show runs for thirty minutes, but I never watch to the end. Jess always appears in the final five minutes.

  As I sat there in the attic, three storeys above a London street, the skylight now dotted with raindrops, the sound of sirens mingling with the birdsong, I realised something. My relationship with my family – with Mum, Walter and Charlie, at least – was now a virtual one, conducted via email, text messages and the internet. That wouldn’t change, whether I lived in Australia or London. I no longer had any close friends back home. My former colleagues in publishing had tried their best, but one by one they’d faded away. I couldn’t blame them. I hadn’t made friends in any of my new workplaces. Again, no one’s fault but mine.

  I closed the four files and only then noticed a note from Lucas on the top one. Dear E, Please file back in the drawer when you’ve read. L

  I was surprised once again by his sense of order. The true academic in him, I suppose. On the surface all mess and chaos, but underneath, a mind so sharp, able to sift through historical facts, make connections between the past and the present, make sense of the world.

  There were four filing cabinets pushed against the sloping wall of the attic, each with four drawers. It took me three attempts to find the right one. Lucas’s sense of order hadn’t gone so far as to writing ‘Tutors’ Records’ on a label on the front. It was more organised inside, the sections divided neatly into years. I slipped my four into the front section. I’d just pushed the drawer shut when something made me open it again, and flick through the yearly sections, going back in time. 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007…

  2007. The year Aidan applied to be one of Lucas’s tutors.

  Don’t look.

  Over the past year or more, I’d become skilled at block
ing voices from my head. I did it now. I took out the folder from 2007 and returned to the desk. I leafed through the files, recognising the names of the other tutors, until there it was. A file marked Aidan O’Hanlon.

  Don’t.

  I justified it by saying there’d be nothing in there I didn’t already know. I’d already seen what Lucas kept in these files – basic information, an academic record, a photograph. It was hardly worth reading, probably. I already knew Aidan’s academic record, knew where he was from. I’d stayed in his family home, met his parents, his brother. I already knew that he could speak six languages, that he held three degrees —

  His photograph was clipped to the front page. Aidan five years earlier, aged thirty-one. His hair was jet-black. His eyes that unusual blue-green, blue in sunlight, green in winter. He wasn’t smiling in the photo. He never smiled in photos, not even in our wedding photo. He had a gap in his bottom teeth, a gap I’d loved, but he was self-conscious about. His older brother had teased him about it, he’d told me. I had loved the way lines appeared around his eyes when he was amused by something, the way his eyes lit up, but he only smiled properly when his guard was down. It meant people thought he was a solemn, serious person when he was far from it.

  I moved the photo to one side. Underneath was his application letter to Lucas, outlining why he needed the year’s free accommodation, what skill he would bring to the team of tutors, what he planned to research in the time there.

  I knew it all already. Aidan hadn’t come from a wealthy background. He’d got a scholarship to Trinity College, Dublin, and then worked to support himself during his subsequent language studies in London. He’d been a barman, a cleaner, a hospital orderly, a car-park attendant, all sorts of jobs that bought him more study time. He hadn’t hated or resented any of them. He’d gathered stories from each position – of funny colleagues, customers, patients. Even after four years together, he’d still sometimes surprise me with an anecdote from one of his jobs.

  I kept reading, ignoring the voice inside my mind telling me to stop. I came to the section where he summarised his skills and suitability for a place in Lucas’s house, with Lucas’s tutors.

  Language is everything, to us all. Our emotions, our thoughts, our hopes, our dreams, our worries all need words to become real. I come from a country with two languages, but that isn’t enough for me. I wish I’d lived in Babel and could speak all the tongues in the world. If ever I couldn’t find the exact word I needed in English, I could pause, think and find it, in Italian, French, Spanish, Arabic … I already speak four languages fluently (Irish, English, French, Italian) and am learning two more (Spanish, German) but they will never be enough. I want to keep learning. I want to share all I’ve learned, inspire others as my own teachers inspired me, teach as I’ve been taught, with passion, enthusiasm, humour and love for my subject. I want to make connections through words and language. Without communication, we all fall silent. With it, there are no limits to what we can express or what we can achieve.

  It took me a moment to realise my eyes had filled with tears again. As I’d read his words, I’d heard Aidan’s voice, his soft accent, his passion for languages. He’d told the truth in his letter to Lucas. English hadn’t been enough for him. He admired foreign words like other men admired cars, watches. Even in Canberra, where his work often revolved around long-winded diplomatic or trade discussions where the aim was to not say very much at all while appearing to say a lot, he’d return home each night with a new jewel to share with me. A word he’d heard that day for the first time, or a piece of slang or an unusual colloquial phrase. He wasn’t just a translator and interpreter. He was a word collector.

  I turned the page. His academic record was listed, his many years of study reduced to one page. The paper he’d researched while he was living at Lucas’s house was a study of the English language during wartime. He wanted to find out if language changed under times of great stress, during war and depression. He focused on Britain during WWII, watching hours of news footage, listening to radio recordings of interviews with soldiers, bystanders to bombings, families in London and families in the rural, safer areas. His bedroom was his study, and resembled a war museum when I first met him. Before I’d learned what the subject of his study was, I was worried he was a military buff, the kind of man who spent his weekends building model aircraft. He’d laughed when I admitted my fears, months later.

  It fascinated me that he’d chosen to study something so British. I knew some of Ireland’s past when we met, courtesy of a book I’d edited on Irish–Australian history. The author was a fervent republican and spent many of our meetings trying to persuade me to his way of thinking. I had to become an expert on both sides of the Troubles to hold my own and bring balance to his book.

  ‘It’s the first step in bringing down the enemy,’ Aidan had said when I asked him about it. ‘Learn everything you can about them. Then infiltrate. I’m at the infiltration stage.’

  I hadn’t been sure if he was joking. Especially after I met his father for the first time and put my foot in it politically. It wasn’t just my first time meeting his family, but my first time in Ireland. It couldn’t have gone worse, from the moment we arrived and I made the mistake of asking —

  Clang.

  It was the front door. The fox door knocker was loose and banged when the door opened, like a special fox bell. I wondered which of the tutors I was about to meet. I moved quietly down the stairs, listening, then relaxed. It was Lucas. I knew his footsteps. He’d have been out for his post-lunch walk in Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. It was his thinking time, he’d told me years earlier. He’d walk briskly for an hour, mulling over his latest research, then come home, go straight into his withdrawing room and make notes of everything that had occurred to him. Then he’d brew a large pot of coffee, gather a handful of biscuits and return to his room to spend the rest of the day writing.

  When he appeared in the kitchen twenty minutes later, I had the tray of coffee and biscuits ready.

  ‘Ella! I’d almost forgotten you were here.’

  I smiled. ‘No, you hadn’t.’

  ‘Well?’

  We both knew what he was asking. Would I accept his job offer?

  ‘Yes please,’ I said.

  Chapter Eight

  From: Charlie Baum

  To: undisclosed recipients

  Subject: It’s Been a Noisy Week in Boston

  The weekly report from the Baum trenches is as follows:

  Sophie (now 11): Gala birthday party ended in tears. Mine. Don’t children realise how long it takes to get food-colouring stains out of a carpet??

  Ed (8): This morning he asked Lucy and me if we thought he should grow a beard. Not just yet, we advised.

  Reilly (6): Battle continues to get him to eat anything but sausages. (It’s his unhealthy German blood, I tell Lucy. What can we do? Lucy not amused. That’s her healthy American blood.) In attempt to smuggle vitamins into him, I bought dried fruit biscuits. Looked like birdfood, had to be good for him, surely? He had a tiny bite of one, then offered it back to me. My face crumpled in defeat (and fear. Lucy was due home soon – I needed to hide the biscuits and the sausages). He gave me a loving yet pitying smile. ‘They’re nice, Dad. Really nice. I just NEVER want to have them EVER again, okay?’

  Tim (4): Accompanied me on late-night car trip to supermarket. On way back, coming down a hill, the city spread out before us, lights on buildings, roadways, signs, etc. From his chair in the backseat, I heard a sigh.

  ‘Okay, Timmy?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s all so beautiful,’ he said.

  He was right. It was.

  Lucy (36): Still juggling work, overtime and study. Still tired but still happy. I hope. Constantly.

  Charlie (36): Current weight ninety-five kilos plus a bit more. I blame the birthday cake. Not the one from the party, the trial one I made the day before. A disaster. I had to eat the evidence. All of it. On my own. At midnight. Delicious. Appear
ances aren’t everything.

  Snip the cat (kitten age): Sulking. I wouldn’t give her any of the cake.

  Until next week, everyone please stay sane.

  Charlie xx

  From: Charlie Baum

  To: Lucy Baum

  Subject: You

  Here are five things I have noticed this week:

  1. You are working too hard.

  2. You are doing too much overtime.

  3. You are studying too much.

  4. You’re not getting enough sleep.

  5. I am missing you.

  Forget the mortgage, the school fees, the medical bills. Let’s take the kids out of school, you out of work. Let’s go on the run, all six of us (okay, and Snip too). Let’s forage for food and busk for cash. (I can see it now, the Family von Baum.) I’m only half joking.

  Can you come home early tonight? Why, you ask?

  6. We’re all missing you.

  Cxx

  From: Charlie Baum

  To: Ella O’Hanlon

  Subject: re: You and flight

  Dear Ellaborate,

  Congratulations to you and Lucas on this crime-fighting partnership. Forget the Secret Seven and the Famous Five, here come the, um, Terrible Two? Please send updates. Write in code if needs be. W-ll th-y g- t- ja-l i- y-u c-tch th-m?

  So good to know you’re only across the pond now. Australia was too far away.

  Charleston xx

  From: Charlie Baum

  To: Lucas Fox

  Subject: A.O’H

  Great news. Yes, meeting A on Tuesday. Will call or email you asap afterwards. Thanks again for all you’re doing. C.

  Chapter Nine

  Dear Diary,

  Hi, it’s Jess!

  I’m all set! I’m leaving in three days!