Amelia winced.
‘Your parents were into S&M and this is their secret lair,’ I said.
‘Nice,’ Adam complimented me.
‘Thanks.’
‘Your parents embezzled millions and stored it here,’ Adam said.
‘I wish,’ Amelia muttered.
‘Your mother stole Shergar,’ I said, and Adam cracked up.
Amelia stopped abruptly in front of a luminous pink door, and we walked into the back of her. She composed herself, glanced at me and then placed the key in the door, slowly turned it and pushed the door open, leaning as far away from the room as possible in case something leapt out at her. We were greeted with musty darkness.
Adam fumbled with the wall and switched the light on.
‘Whoa.’
We stepped inside and looked around.
‘Your mother was Imelda Marcos,’ I said.
Each wall of the ten-by-ten-foot room was lined with shelving units crammed with shoeboxes. Each shoebox was labelled with a year, starting from the bottom left-hand corner with 1954 and ending on the opposite wall with a box dated ten years ago.
‘That’s the year they married,’ Amelia said, going to the box and opening it. Inside was a photograph of her parents on their wedding day, along with a dried flower from the bride’s bouquet. There was a wedding invitation, the prayer manual from the ceremony, photos from their honeymoon, a train ticket, boat ticket, cinema stub from their first date, a receipt from the restaurant, a shoelace, a fully completed Irish Times crossword – all neatly filed away. Forget a memory box, it was a memory room.
‘My God, they kept everything!’ Amelia ran her fingers delicately along the row of shoeboxes, stopping at the final year. ‘The year Dad died. He must have done all of this.’ She swallowed hard, smiling at the thought of him curating this collection, then frowning, hurt by the fact they’d kept it from her.
She reached for another box at random and searched inside, then pulled out another and another. One by one she searched each box, exclaiming with delight as she found item after item representing a memory in their lives, and a memory in hers. Old school reports of hers, the ribbon she wore on the first day of school, her first tooth, a lock of hair from her first visit to the hairdresser, a letter she’d written to her father when she was eight years old apologising after they’d quarrelled. I began to wonder whether we should leave her alone in the room, sure she would want to spend endless hours poring through each box, reliving each year of her parents’ married life and her life. But she needed someone to share her memories with and Adam was patient enough to stay alongside me so we could do that for her. Even he seemed touched by what he saw and I hoped it would be a good form of therapy for him to witness this love captured in a room.
She held up a photo of her parents in the Austrian mountains. ‘That was at my uncle’s holiday chalet,’ she said, smiling as she studied the photo, running her fingers over their faces. ‘They used to go there every year before I was born. I saw the photos and begged them to bring me, but Mum couldn’t go.’
‘She’s been sick since you were a child?’ Adam asked.
‘Not at the beginning. She had her first stroke when I was twelve, but before that she was too afraid. She became very nervous about travel after she had me. I suppose it’s a mother thing …’
She looked at us for confirmation, but neither of us could answer, having grown up without a mother.
‘I had no idea they’d hung on to all this stuff.’
‘I wonder why they kept it from you,’ Adam said, more to himself than Amelia, too engrossed in browsing the shelves to register what he was saying.
It was the elephant in the room and he’d pointed at it and shouted. He realised that as soon as he’d said it and he quickly tried to cover his tracks. ‘How amazing that they kept all of this.’
It was too late. Amelia had an odd expression on her face. He had reminded her that this room was a secret that they hadn’t wanted to share with her. Why?
‘Amelia?’ I asked, concerned. ‘Are you okay? What is it?’
As if snapping out of a trance, Amelia leapt into action and began scouring the shelves as though she knew what she was looking for and hadn’t a second to lose. She ran her finger along the dates on the boxes.
‘What are you looking for?’ I asked. ‘Can we help?’
‘The year I was born,’ she said, standing on tiptoes to read the dates on the upper shelves.
‘Seventy-eight,’ I told Adam. At six feet tall, he could reach more easily than we could.
‘Got it,’ he said, retrieving a dusty box.
He was just bringing it down to Amelia’s level when she reached up and accidentally punched the box, and sending it flying across the unit. The lid popped open and the contents cascaded through the air and scattered all over the floor. We got down on our hands and knees to retrieve as many bits as possible. Adam and I bumped heads.
‘Ow,’ I laughed and Adam reached out to rub my head.
‘Sorry,’ he winced, feeling my pain. He looked at me with those big blue icy eyes and I melted. I would gladly have stayed in that little room of love with him for ever. The thought excited me, gave me a glow; it was nice to have a crush again. It had been so long, and after Barry I’d begun to worry that I’d never feel that way about anybody ever again, but there it was, alive inside of me, this ball of nerves and anxiety and excitement every time he looked at me. But then as soon as it happened, the reality of my situation hit me and it slithered away to the corner again.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked gently.
I nodded.
‘Good,’ he said with a small smile and I felt like I was buzzing from head to toe, just zinging.
I became paranoid then and realised Amelia, who was standing beside me, had gone very quiet. Assuming she was witnessing our moment, I looked up and saw tears rolling down her cheeks as she read a piece of paper in her hand. I sprang to my feet.
‘Amelia, what’s wrong?’
‘My mother –’ she handed me the handwritten note – ‘was not my mother.’
My dear baby Amelia,
I’m sorry I am not able to care for you as I should. When you are older I hope you understand that this decision was made purely with love and nothing else. I trust you are in safe and loving arms with Magda and Len. I will think of you always.
Love and forever,
Your mummy
Back in Amelia’s kitchen I was reading the note aloud to Amelia and Elaine. Amelia was pacing the floor, having moved from shock to grief, and now to an uncomfortable snappy anger, which made Elaine and I wary of what to say. Elaine was fingering the items in the shoebox: baby booties, a cardigan, a hat, a dress, a rattle, among other things.
‘These were all handmade,’ she said, interrupting Amelia’s rant.
‘So?’ Amelia snapped. ‘That’s hardly the issue here.’
‘Well, this is Kenmare lace.’
‘Who cares what lace it is?’ Amelia snapped again.
‘It’s just that it’s not made by many people, not even now, so in the seventies there’s only one place that would have made it.’
Amelia stopped pacing and looked at Elaine, realisation growing on her face.
‘Now, now,’ I had to stop the silliness. ‘Let’s not go there. I’m sure this could have been made by anyone in the world, Elaine. We mustn’t go getting Amelia’s hopes up about finding her parents.’
‘Finding my parents?’ Amelia whispered, stunned. It was as if the thought hadn’t yet occurred to her. She had been so wrapped up in wondering why her adoptive parents had kept this from her and how they could have lied to her for so long, that she hadn’t yet come round to thinking about the possibility of finding her real parents.
‘All I’m saying is, this is Kenmare lace, made with love and care. I know, because I started a lace-making class to meet men. Every single item in this box points to Kenmare. The lace is Kenmare lace and the sweaters are from Quill
s, which is Kenmare.’
‘There’s no way you could recognise the knitting is from Quills,’ I said, in a rush to derail this ridiculous train of thought.
‘The label is on it,’ Elaine said, showing it to me. She looked up at Amelia. ‘Amelia, I think your biological mother is in Kenmare.’
‘Jesus,’ I rubbed my face wearily. We were in for a long night.
Adam had gone back to my flat under strict instructions to complete the fifteen-hundred-piece jigsaw puzzle I’d bought for him. He had been unimpressed and unmotivated by the oil painting of a stormy sea puzzle that I’d been doing with him for an hour every day, so I’d purchased a topless babe on the beach jigsaw online, which had arrived that morning. I guessed he wouldn’t be starting at the border for that puzzle.
I arrived back in the early hours of the morning, exhausted from going round in circles with Amelia. If Elaine hadn’t been there it would have been easier to talk sense into her, but despite all my efforts, when I left late that night, Amelia was dead set on going to Kenmare.
‘How is she?’ Adam asked, bent over the coffee table with a piece in his hand. His forehead was furrowed, his lips pouted in concentration. It was sweet and it made me smile.
‘What?’ He looked up and caught me gazing at him.
‘Nothing. You just answered my queries on whether you were a bum or a boob man.’
‘Boob man all the way.’ He had successfully completed one boob. As I had predicted, not one piece of the frame had been put together. ‘This puzzle is much better than the last one, thank you.’
‘I aim to please.’ I got down on my knees and joined him in his quest.
I felt him watching me. He studied me for a bit and when I didn’t meet his gaze he continued: ‘I’m currently looking for a right nipple.’
We examined the glass table, our heads together. ‘There.’ I handed him a piece.
‘That’s not a nipple.’
‘It is – it’s a bit of the nipple and a bit of her armpit, and a bit of the sea. Look at the box: her nipple is hard and it’s about to knock that surfer in the background right off his board. See, that’s the board there.’ I pointed at the piece.
‘Oh yeah,’ he laughed. ‘You know, the way you talk, you turn me on like Irma.’
‘Irma,’ I snorted. ‘I can’t believe she asked for your number.’
‘And I can’t believe I gave her yours.’
‘You what?’ I shoved him. He shoved me back. It was all childish flirting and deliciously fun at the same time.
‘So what’s Amelia going to do?’
‘She’s a bit all over the place. It’s a huge shock, obviously. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if I heard I was adopted. Might even be a bit glad.’
‘Hear, hear,’ he concurred.
‘That’s from her thong.’ I handed him a piece.
We sat in a comfortable silence.
‘Amelia didn’t seem all that shocked, considering,’ he said suddenly. ‘Did you notice the way she rushed to find the year she was born? She was frantic.’
‘She said she hadn’t a clue,’ I protested, though deep down I agreed with Adam’s instincts.
‘And I say she knew. Sometimes you can know a thing even when you don’t know,’ he said, looking at me.
And there it was again. That sentence. I was looking at him in surprise.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing.’ I swallowed. ‘Just …’ I changed the subject. ‘Elaine is trying to convince Amelia that she needs to go to Kenmare to find her biological parents.’
‘Elaine needs her head checked.’
I was silent.
He looked up at me. ‘You do know it’s a ridiculous idea, don’t you?’
‘I do. But Amelia wants to do it.’
‘Of course she wants to do it. In the space of a week her entire world has toppled on her head. She’s not thinking properly. She’d agree to go to the moon if someone suggested it.’
What he said hammered home. Not about Amelia, but about him. His world had almost ended on Sunday night, he wasn’t thinking properly; he would do anything to make it right. I happened to be that anything. I swallowed hard, knowing that this experience was for him, not for me. I needed to extricate myself from the situation, I needed to stop feeling for him. I needed to get him out of Dublin, out of my life, and I needed to start fixing his life, laying the groundwork so that it would be comfortable enough to slip into, then I’d tuck him in and say goodnight and goodbye.
‘I’ve never known Amelia to want to go anywhere in all the time we’ve been friends. She wouldn’t go away for a weekend, or if she did it was under protest. She could never go anywhere, she’s never even been out of the country. Her wanting to do this trip is a really big deal, regardless of whether she finds her biological parents or not. I told her I’d bring her to a private detective tomorrow to see if he can help.’ I sighed. I was going to have to put Amelia to one side. ‘Adam, we need to go to Tipperary. We need to fix things there. We’ve done what we can with Maria for now, it’s time to leave Dublin for a few days. I’ll have you back in time for your birthday, all set to announce that you’re not taking over Basil’s. You’ll get your Maria back, your coast guard job back, Basil’s will be rescued and I’ll be out of your hair for ever.’ I smiled tightly.
He didn’t look too happy about it.
‘Don’t look so miserable. We’ve one more thing to do tomorrow before we leave Maria for a few days.’
I picked up the box beside the door; another delivery that morning. Insomnia was good for some things. Online shopping.
‘What’s in that box?’ He eyed it suspiciously.
‘Maria said she wants to see you. Well, tomorrow, she is going to see you. A lot.’ I opened the box and revealed its contents. ‘Ta-da!’
His beautiful face lit up as he looked at me in amazement. ‘Christine, I wish the world was filled with people like you, do you know that?’ he laughed.
So fill your world with me! I shouted at him in my head.
17
How to Stand Out from the Crowd
The following morning the jigsaw had been abandoned. Eager for his next project, Adam was standing in the centre of Dublin wearing a white-and-red woolly hat with a red bobble, a black wig peeking out beneath it, round black glasses, a red-and-white striped jumper, his own blue jeans and a walking stick. One look at him kitted out as Where’s Wally and I’d started laughing and hadn’t been able to stop. Even dressed as Wally, he was beautiful.
Maria was going up the escalator in Marks and Spencer’s when she saw, directly beside her but going down, a man who looked remarkably like Adam dressed as Where’s Wally. He didn’t look in her direction once, his head was held high and his eyes looked straight ahead. The expression on his face never changed, leading her to question whether it was an act carried out for her or merely a coincidence. But it was when she was putting broccoli into her basket and Where’s Wally walked past her pushing an empty shopping trolley, disappearing round a corner as soon as she tried to follow him down the aisle, that she began to suspect it might be for her. When she was sitting on the fourth floor of Brown Thomas department store having a manicure and the same man walked by, weaving in and out of the clothes rails and eventually disappearing, she was sure it was him. Catching sight of him from the corner of her eye as she was buying flowers on Grafton Street confirmed it, and when she was buying a coffee in Butler’s and he walked by the window before ducking out of view, she was laughing out loud. As she walked across the bridge in Stephen’s Green, she was scanning the park for a sight of him. A flash of red caught her eye and she saw him on the path beneath the bridge. She watched him enter on one side, and she ran to the other side of the bridge to catch him exit. From that moment, every time she saw a flash of red she found herself stopping and staring, anticipation fluttering in her stomach that he would appear again.
‘Adam!’ she called from the bridge, but he didn’t look up at her. Ignorin
g her, he stayed in character and continued his jovial Where’s Wally jaunt, goofy and geeky with his funny walk, swinging his cane cheerily, his oversized rucksack on his back.
She roared with laughter. Passersby gave her strange looks, but she didn’t care. If she’d been able to stretch her vision to see beyond the trees he disappeared behind, she would have stopped laughing. She would have seen the couple who’d been in the dark street near the restaurant the previous night, again breaking into laughter when he felt it was safe to abandon the Wally persona. Everywhere she saw that one man, she didn’t see the woman behind him, with him, beside him, urging him on, supporting him. If she had, she might have wondered then who the display was really for.
‘Come on, you crazy man.’ I pulled Adam’s Wally hat off and threw it in his face. ‘Let’s get out of here, I’m hungry.’
‘Hungry?’ he asked in mock surprise. ‘I can’t believe it, we’re healed.’
We sat together, me eating salad, but a little more elaborate than usual with walnuts in it, and he with his hot chicken dish. In no time at all we’d both cleared our plates.
I burped under my breath and Adam laughed. ‘Look how far we’ve come,’ he said.
He gave me a look that made my stomach flip. Then the knowledge of how this was to end made me lose my appetite all over again. Thankfully I was distracted by a phone call from Oscar, who needed to chat to me while he sat on the bus. Afterwards, reminded of my role at quite the perfect time, I got back to business.
‘Today I’m feeling …’ I looked at him for more.
‘Today I’m feeling … stuffed?’
‘It’s not a quiz, you know, you can’t get the answer wrong.’
He thought about it. ‘Today I’m feeling … happy. Restored. No not restored, renewed. Like I’m me, but a better version of me.’ He looked at me intently. ‘Does that make sense?’
I couldn’t help it, I had to look away otherwise my eyes would reveal too much to him. Instead of meeting his gaze I focused on the salt and pepper canisters that I was idly pushing around the table. ‘Good. I take it this is because you believe you have won Maria over again?’