The House of Memories (11 page)

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

Mum didn’t leave it at that. She wrote to me, on her personalized
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 afterward, 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 e-mailed rather than phoned. She’d have preferred long chatty phone calls, I know, but I needed some distance. I received long chatty e-mail 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 center 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 stories above a London street, the skylight now dotted with raindrops, the sound of sirens mingling with the birdsong, I realized something. My relationship with my family—with Mum, Walter and Charlie, at least—was now a virtual one, conducted via e-mail, 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 organized 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. . . .

I stopped there: 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 blocking 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, recognizing 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 it. 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 smiled properly only 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 summarized 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, humor 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 realize 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 postlunch 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.

From: Charlie Baum
To: undisclosed recipients
Subject: It’s Been a Noisy Week in Boston

The latest report from the Baum trenches is as follows:

Sophie (now 11): Gala birthday party ended in tears. Mine. Don’t children realize how long it takes to get food-coloring 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 bird food, 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. Appearances aren’t everything.

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

Until next time, 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 e-mail you asap afterward. Thanks again for all you’re doing. C.