Thanks for the Memories

‘Which one?’

Justin sighs. ‘Trinity.’

‘You the janitor?’ Those green eyes twinkle playfully at him in the mirror.

‘I’m a lecturer on Art and Architecture,’ he says defensively, folding his arms and blowing his floppy fringe from his eyes.

‘Architecture, huh? I used to be a builder.’

Justin doesn’t respond and hopes the conversation will end there.

‘So where are ye off to? Off on holiday?’

‘Nope.’

‘What is it then?

‘I live in London.’ And my US social security number is …

‘And you work here?’

‘Yep.’

‘Would you not just live here?’

‘Nope.’

‘Why’s that then?’

‘Because I’m a guest lecturer here. A previous colleague of mine invited me to give a seminar once a month.’

‘Ah.’ The driver smiles at him in the mirror as though he’d been trying to fool him. ‘So what do you do in London?’ His eyes interrogate him.

I’m a serial killer who preys on inquisitive cab drivers.

‘Lots of different things.’ Justin sighs and caves in as the driver waits for more. ‘I’m the editor of the Art and ArchitecturalReview, the only truly international art and architectural publication,’ he says proudly. ‘I started it ten years ago and still we’re unrivalled. Highest selling magazine of its kind.’ Twenty thousand subscribers, you liar.

There’s no reaction.

‘I’m also a curator.’

The driver winces. ‘You’ve to touch dead bodies?’

Justin scrunches his face in confusion. ‘What? No.’ Then adds unnecessarily, ‘I’m also a regular panelist on a BBC art and culture show.’

Twice in five years doesn’t quite constitute regular, Justin. Oh, shut up.

The driver studies Justin now, in the rearview mirror. ‘You’re on TV?’ He narrows his eyes. ‘I don’t recognise you.’

‘Well, do you watch the show?’

‘No.’

Well, then.

Justin rolls his eyes. He throws off his suit jacket, opens another of his shirt buttons and lowers the window. His hair sticks to his forehead. Still. A few weeks have gone by and he still hasn’t been to the barber. He blows his fringe out of his eyes.

They stop at a red light and Justin looks to his left. A hair salon.

‘Hey, would you mind pulling over on the left just for a few minutes?’

‘Look, Conor, don’t worry about it. Stop apologising,’ I say into the phone tiredly. He exhausts me. Every little word with him drains me. ‘Dad is here with me now and we’re going to get a taxi to the house together, even though I’m perfectly capable of sitting in a car by myself.’

Outside the hospital, Dad holds the door open for me and I climb into the taxi. Finally I’m going home but I don’t feel the relief I was hoping for. There’s nothing but dread. I dread meeting people I know and having to explain what has happened, over and over again. I dread walking into my house and having to face the half-decorated nursery. I dread having to get rid of the nursery, having to replace it with a spare bed and filling the wardrobes with my own overflow of shoes and bags I’ll never wear. As though a bedroom for them alone is as good a replacement as a child. I dread having to go to work instead of taking the leave I had planned. I dread seeing Conor. I dread going back to a loveless marriage with no baby to distract us. I dread living every day of the rest of my life while Conor drones on and on down the phone about wanting to be here for me, when it seems my telling him not to come home has been my mantra for the past few days. I know it would be common sense for me to want my husband to come rushing home to me – in fact, for my husband to want to come rushing home to me – but there are many buts in our marriage and this incident is not a regular normal occurrence. It deserves outlandish behaviour. To behave the right way, to do the adult thing feels wrong to me because I don’t want anybody around me. I’ve been poked and prodded psychologically and physically. I want to be on my own to grieve. I want to feel sorry for myself without sympathetic words and clinical explanations. I want to be illogical, self-pitying, self-examining, bitter and lost for just a few more days, please, world, and I want to do it alone.

Though that is not unusual in our marriage.

Conor’s an engineer. He travels abroad to work for months before coming home for one month and going off again. I used to get so used to my own company and routine that for the first week of him being home I’d be irritable and wish he’d go back. That changed over time, of course. Now that irritability stretches to the entire month of him being home. And it’s become glaringly obvious I’m not alone in that feeling.

When Conor took the job all those years ago, it was difficult being away from one another for so long. I used to visit him as much as I could but it was difficult to keep taking time off work. The visits got shorter, rarer, then stopped.

I always thought our marriage could survive anything as long as we both tried. But then I found myself having to try to try. I dug beneath the new layers of complexities we’d created over the years to get to the beginning of the relationship. What was it, I wondered, that we had then that we could revive? What was the thing that could make two people want to promise one another to spend every day of the rest of their lives together? Ah, I found it. It was a thing called love. A small simple word. If only it didn’t mean so much, our marriage would be flawless.

My mind has wandered much while lying in that hospital bed. At times it has stalled in its wandering, like when entering a room and then forgetting what for. It stands alone dumbstruck. At those times it has been numb, and when staring at the pink walls I have thought of nothing but of the fact that I am staring at pink walls.

My mind has bounced from numbness to feeling too much, but on an occasion while wandering far, I dug deep to find a memory of when I was six years old and I had a favourite tea set given to me by my grandmother Betty. She kept it in her house for me to play with when I called over on Saturdays, and during the afternoons when my grandmother was ‘taking tea’ with her friends I would dress in one of my mother’s pretty dresses from when she was a child and have afternoon tea with Aunt Jemima, the cat. The dresses never quite fit but I wore them all the same, and Aunt Jemima and I never did take to tea but we were both polite enough to keep up the pretence until my parents came to collect me at the end of the day. I told this story to Conor a few years ago and he laughed, missing the point.

It was an easy point to miss – I won’t hold him accountable for that – but what my mind was shouting at him to understand was that I’ve increasingly found that people never truly tire of playing games and dressing up, no matter how many years pass. Our lies now are just more sophisticated; our words to deceive, more eloquent. From cowboys and Indians, doctors and nurses, to husband and wife, we’ve never stopped pretending. Sitting in the taxi beside Dad, while listening to Conor over the phone, I realise I’ve stopped pretending.

‘Where is Conor?’ Dad asks as soon as I’ve hung up.

He opens the top button of his shirt and loosens his tie. He dresses in a shirt and tie every time he leaves his house, never forgets his cap. He looks for the handle on the car door, to roll the window down.

‘It’s electronic, Dad. There’s the button. He’s still in Japan. He’ll be home in a few days.’

‘I thought he was coming back yesterday.’ He puts the window all the way down and is almost blown away. His cap topples off his head and the few strands of hair left on his head stick up. He fixes the cap back on his head, has a mini battle with the button before finally figuring out how to leave a small gap at the top for air to enter the stuffy taxi.

‘Ha! Gotcha,’ he smiles victoriously, thumping his fist at the window.

I wait until he’s finished fighting with the window to answer. ‘I told him not to.’

‘You told who what, love?’

‘Conor. You were asking about Conor, Dad.’

‘Ah, that’s right, I was. Home soon, is he?’

I nod.