The House of Memories

by Monica McInerney

  He wrote about how much he loved being with me. Talking to me. How clever I was. How kind I was. How patient and loving I was with Felix. How beautiful he thought I was. How much he loved me in a particular red dress I had found in an op shop in Canberra. How much he loved the perfume I wore. The way I could twist my hair up into all sorts of styles, but how most of all he loved it when it was down.

  He wrote about our families. About how much he enjoyed hearing me and Charlie talking on the phone, how much he enjoyed watching me Skype Charlie’s kids in Boston. The presents I would send them, not just for birthdays or Christmas, but parcels at all times of the year, filled with clothes and books and toys, that the kids wouldn’t open until they were Skyping me, so I could watch them unwrap everything.

  I’d forgotten they used to do that.

  He wrote about our plan for a big family. About the night we decided to try for another baby. How hopeful we were it would happen again quickly. How great Felix would be as a big brother. How we’d just have to convince him to put the broom down for long enough to play with his little brother or sister.

  He wrote about the day Felix died.

  It was all there, all the detail I had made him tell me again and again. He wrote about trying to call me as soon as Jess had called him. He wrote about me arriving at the hospital in the taxi. He wrote about the meetings with the priest, the funeral director. About the funeral being delayed while a coroner’s report was carried out, how it had to happen after an accidental death. He wrote about going to collect Charlie from the airport. The funeral. The cemetery. About how it felt to watch that tiny white coffin go into the ground. How everyone had left us alone, left the two of us there on our own with our Felix, at his grave, for nearly an hour afterwards, while we stood there, holding each other and crying.

  I had blocked that out of my memory.

  He wrote about the days afterwards, after Mum and Walter and Jess went back to Melbourne. When it was just us. When all we seemed to be able to do was cry. When all I could ask him was for the details of that day, again and again. He wrote about me shouting at him when I found him trying to put Felix’s toys into a box.

  He wrote about the day I left him, five weeks after the funeral. He wrote about coming home from work and knowing the moment he turned the key in the door that I had gone, even before he saw the note lying next to the keys on the kitchen bench.

  He wrote about the following weeks and months. About Mum coming to Canberra to help him pack up not just Felix’s room but all the rooms. He wrote about going to Sydney. About going to the restaurant to try to talk to me.

  He wrote about his own move to Sydney. His job there. He’d hated it. He wrote about visiting Mum and Walter in Melbourne. About seeing Jess. How bad she was. He wrote about Mum telling him she’d discovered Jess was hurting herself. That it had started after she’d had Felix’s name tattooed on her leg, at the exact spot his head reached when she measured him against her.

  I remembered her measuring him. She did it every time she saw him.

  I hadn’t known about the tattoo.

  He wrote about sending me letters, emailing me, leaving phone messages. Hearing nothing back.

  He wrote about the first anniversary of Felix’s death. He spent it with Mum and Walter and Jess.

  I hadn’t known that.

  I’d been in Western Australia by then. I didn’t talk to anyone in my family that day, not even Charlie. I’d thought it would make it worse.

  He wrote about his friend from college days contacting him, offering him a job in Washington.

  He wrote about Washington. About his new apartment. About his work.

  He wrote about me.

  How much he missed me. How he talked to me, every night. How he talked to me about Felix. How each night he wished I was in bed beside him.

  He wrote about how guilty he felt, every day, every night. How all he wanted to do was change everything that had happened. How he knew he couldn’t. How he knew he could never fix it. How that made him sad, every moment of every day.

  He wrote about Charlie getting in touch with him. Lucas ringing to let him know I was in London. About Charlie and Lucas wanting to convince him to come over and see me.

  He wrote that he had cancelled the meeting with Charlie. That this was between him and me, not Charlie and Lucas and everyone else. It was our marriage.

  He wrote that he had asked his boss, his friend, to send him to this London conference, even though one of his colleagues had already been given the job. That after his boss said yes, he used the conference date as his writing deadline, so he could leave this manuscript in London for me.

  He wrote about our wedding day again. How, on the morning of our wedding, he had gone for a walk on his own. We hadn’t slept apart the night before our wedding. We’d wanted to be together. Our apartment had been full of people that morning: Mum, Jess, friends of mine from Canberra and Melbourne, the hairdresser, even the florist and the caterer at one stage. It was a gorgeous blue Canberra day. He went for a walk around the lake. He thought about meeting me, falling in love with me, asking me to marry him. About how sure he was that he wanted to be with me for the rest of his life, to make a family with me, our own family. He described coming back and everyone saying, ‘He’s back! Call off the search party!’ He wrote that I’d looked up from where the hairdresser was finishing styling my hair into a retro-style bun. I’d caught his eye in the mirror. I’d mouthed the words, ‘Are you okay?’

  He said yes. He smiled and said yes. Twice.

  I remembered that.

  There was just one more page of his manuscript to read.

  It wasn’t about Felix. It wasn’t about London, or Washington, about his work or my work, his family or my family. It was a story from our wedding day. Something that happened at the end of our wedding day.

  I remembered every minute of it.

  It was after midnight. We’d finally farewelled everyone and gone back home, to our own bedroom. We’d fallen onto the bed, holding hands, me still in my cream silk dress, him in his dark suit. We’d been so exhausted and so happy. It had been a day of talking, laughing and dancing. It had been perfect.

  As we lay there, Aidan started to recite one of the readings we’d chosen for the ceremony. Charlie had read them so well that afternoon. I sat up, amazed. I stopped him.

  ‘Did you learn that off by heart?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘So you could prompt Charlie if he lost his place?’

  He smiled and shook his head. ‘Because I loved it.’

  We’d each chosen a reading. Aidan’s was a poem by W.B. Yeats, ‘Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven’, with its beautiful final line, Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. I surprised myself with my choice. I’d heard it so many times before at friends’ weddings. One year, I’d heard it five times. I’d said to myself that if I ever got married, I wouldn’t have it. It was too commonplace. It was from the Bible and I wasn’t that religious. But as the day grew nearer, I kept returning to it. It seemed to say everything I hoped for the two of us.

  I showed the reading to Charlie when he flew in the night before the wedding. We’d wanted him to bring his whole family, but he said he wanted to keep saving, that he’d bring them all for a long holiday one day soon, that they were even thinking about coming to Australia to live one day.

  As he read it, I waited for him to say something about my choice being corny, overused. He looked up and smiled. ‘Great choice. Lucy and I had it at our wedding too.’

  I’d forgotten. Their wedding had been twelve years earlier. That sealed it for me.

  Charlie read it beautifully the next day. I was watching him, but as he came to the last line, I turned to look at Aidan. He was looking at me.

  That night, in our bedroom, he recited it to me from memory.

  It was on the page in front of me now. It wasn’t typed, like the rest of it had been. He had written it out by hand.

  Love is alwa
ys patient and kind; it is never jealous, love is never boastful or conceited; it is never rude or selfish; it does not take offence, and is not resentful. Love takes no pleasure in other people’s sins but delights in the truth; it is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes. Love does not come to an end.

  Chapter Forty-six

  I didn’t cry. Not then. Not yet.

  I put the manuscript back together neatly, securing the pages with the rubber bands again. I put it back in the envelope and the envelope into my bag. I left the hotel and I walked until I reached Hyde Park. I started running then. I ran until I was deep in the park, on my own, surrounded by nothing but trees. There was a bench, on its own.

  I sat down. I held my bag against my body and I cried like I hadn’t cried since the day Felix died. I saw someone in the distance, saw walkers heading in my direction, but I couldn’t stop. I cried until I had no tears left.

  Afterwards, I was spent. I could have lain down and slept, there on the grass. I made myself sit still, as alone as it was possible to be in the middle of London. I made myself breathe properly. I made myself notice everything around me, the shafts of light through the trees, the sky with its shimmer of blue, the faint green haze of buds on the branches.

  I made myself acknowledge what I had known in my heart for months.

  I still loved Aidan.

  I had never stopped loving him.

  Felix was dead. Our beautiful Felix had gone. But Aidan and I were still here.

  He’d written me a love letter. A one-hundred-page love letter. Not about the future. He’d shown me the past. The story of us. All that we had shared. The promises we’d made to each other. Not just on our wedding day but in different ways, every day we’d been together. To enjoy one another. To look out for each other. Make each other laugh. Understand each other. Make love to each other. Keep loving each other. Whatever happened.

  Endure whatever comes. Love does not come to an end.

  I sat there, thinking. I don’t know how much time passed. Perhaps an hour.

  I came out of the park, onto Bayswater Road. If I turned left, I would be on my way to Lucas’s house. If I turned right, back to the hotel.

  I turned right. I didn’t check my appearance. I walked into the foyer, straight across to the desk. There was no queue now.

  I asked the young receptionist if I could speak to a guest, Mr Aidan O’Hanlon.

  There was a click of computer keys. ‘I’m sorry, ma’am,’ she said. ‘He’s checked out.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Another click. ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘But I saw him here today. This morning.’

  She looked at her screen again, clicked some more keys. ‘He checked out at eleven forty-five a.m. It was a group booking. They all checked out at the same time.’

  Something must have happened. Something to make them leave early. My hands were trembling as I reached into my bag. I took out his letter. His dates were there in black and white. I showed the receptionist. ‘He was supposed to be here for three nights.’

  ‘He was, ma’am.’

  She showed me a newspaper with today’s date.

  I hadn’t only lost track of the time, I’d lost track of the date. I’d been like this for months. I didn’t work in an office. I didn’t read the newspapers any more. I never needed to know what date it was.

  I apologised to the young woman, thanked her and went outside. I thought about going straight across to Paddington Station, getting immediately on the train to Heathrow. I began walking in that direction and then stopped. How could I find him there? His flight might have departed already, or he could have left from another airport.

  I didn’t know what to do. I simply didn’t know.

  Then I remembered. I had his American cell-phone number. It was on the front of the manuscript. I took it out. I dialled the number. I’d wanted to see him face to face, to say what needed to be said in person, but it was my own fault. I’d left it too late to come to his hotel. He would have been told that I had collected the envelope. But then he’d heard nothing from me. He would think I either hadn’t read it or that I didn’t care.

  His phone rang once, twice, a third time. It went to voice-mail. I hung up. I couldn’t say what I wanted to say in a voice-mail message. I did the only thing I could think of next. I went back to Lucas’s.

  I didn’t know if Jess would be there, or if she had been and gone or if Charlie and Lucas would be with her in town. I couldn’t think about that. Not now. Not yet.

  As I let myself in, Charlie was coming down the stairs.

  ‘Ella, we’ve been worried. Did you see him?’ He stopped and looked at me. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘He’s gone, Charlie. I missed him.’

  ‘He’s gone?’

  ‘He checked out today.’ I told him what had happened. ‘I was too late.’

  ‘He might still be in London. Maybe he’s not flying out until later.’

  ‘I tried his phone. I just got his voicemail. Would you try him, Charlie? Please?’

  Charlie took out his phone, scrolled through his contacts and pressed call. After a second he whispered to me. ‘Voicemail again. Do you want me to leave a message?’

  ‘No. Yes. Yes.’

  ‘Aidan, hi, it’s Charlie. Can you call me when you get this?’ He hung up.

  ‘He must be on a plane,’ I said. ‘He must be on his way back to Washington.’

  ‘Maybe he’s gone to Ireland to see his family. Maybe he’s in London for a few more days, staying somewhere else and he’s in a meeting at the moment, not taking calls. Do you want me to find out?’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I’ll call his office in Washington. I’ve rung him there before. The receptionist is German. She might help me.’

  It took him only a minute at his laptop to get the Washington number. He dialled. He gave me the thumbs up as it was answered. ‘Carla, wie gehts? Ja, hier ist Charlie. Gut, danke. Und Dir? Sehr gut!’ He switched to English. ‘Aidan and I were supposed to meet up in London today and I got held up. Is he still here or have I missed him? Thanks, yes, happy to hold.’ Four minutes later he had the answer. ‘He’s left London. He was booked on the two-thirty flight from Heathrow. He’s got another conference tomorrow morning in Washington.’

  I must have been sitting in the foyer reading for hours. I must have been there reading when Aidan returned to the hotel and checked out. I hadn’t seen him. Had he seen me?

  Lucas appeared. Charlie told him what had happened.

  ‘You didn’t speak to him at all?’ Lucas asked.

  I shook my head.

  ‘Do you want to?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Go and get your passport, Ella,’ he said. ‘Bring it down to Charlie and then start packing. Pack lots of warm clothes. It’s freezing there this time of year.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Aidan’s gone to Washington, Ella, not Mars. You’re going to Washington too.’

  An hour later, it was organised. Charlie had done it all online, from his laptop on Lucas’s kitchen table. Flight, train ticket, hotels, even a US travel authorisation. That had given us the most concern.

  ‘Keep your fingers crossed,’ he said, as he filled out the details. ‘Sometimes you get it automatically, sometimes you have to wait a day or two.’ We sat, staring at the screen. The message appeared. I’d been approved.

  My journey had taken him some juggling. He couldn’t get me a direct flight to Washington. They were all full. He got me a seat on the last flight to New York instead. He booked me into an airport hotel at JFK, and reserved a train ticket from Penn Station in Manhattan to Washington D.C., leaving at nine in the morning. I’d be in Washington by lunchtime.

  I’d needed a return ticket to get my travel authorisation. Charlie chose a date in three days’ time. I packed for a week.

  Lucas insisted on booking a taxi to take me to Heathrow. They both insisted on coming with me. We had
just reached Marble Arch when I remembered.

  ‘Charlie, did you see Jess?’

  He nodded. ‘She came over to the house.’

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘She’ll be okay.’

  ‘Did you see her flat?’

  ‘She’s moved out. She’s back in her very nice Covent Garden hotel.’

  My flight left in three hours. I had time. I told them what I wanted to do.

  Lucas was concerned. ‘Ella, are you sure? Today?’

  ‘Why don’t you wait until you get back?’ Charlie said.

  It felt important to see her now. Before I left. Before I saw Aidan.

  It took us twenty minutes to get to Covent Garden. The taxi driver double-parked in front of the hotel. I went in on my own. Charlie knew her room number. I walked in past reception as if I was a guest. I took the stairs up to the fourth floor. The hotel was luxurious, with original paintings on the walls, thick carpet on the floor. I walked down a long corridor, counting down the numbers, until I was there, in front of her door.

  I knocked.

  I heard her voice. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘It’s Ella,’ I said.

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Dear Diary,

  Hi, it’s Jess!

  Something wonderful happened. Ella came to see me.

  I was lying on the bed, and I’m not making this up, I was lying there thinking about Felix. And I felt so sad, the way I always do whenever I think about him, but then I also thought about this morning, when Charlie and Lucas and I had stood looking at the wall of photos and talking about him and remembering him. And I remembered that feeling I’d had, that warm, good feeling; even though our Felix wasn’t with us any more, we could still think about him and remember how much we’d all loved him.

  I got up then and went into the bathroom. I was wearing the hotel’s cotton robe and I stood in front of the mirror and moved the robe out of the way so I could see the tattoo of his name on the top of my leg and I held my hand beside it, remembering how tall he’d been. And then I got so sad because it made me wonder how tall he would have got. We’d all been waiting for him to turn two so we could measure him. Mum had heard that if you measure a little kid when they are two, they’re exactly half the height they’ll be when they are a fully grown adult. It’s been proven thousands of times apparently. Dr Rob told her about it. But we didn’t get to find out.