Page 9 of One Day and Forever
She didn’t have to explain what she meant. His mum, his dad and his Aunt Audrey were a formidable team. Audrey had divorced her husband back in the nineties, and since then the three of them had stuck together, even though they were separated by a few hundred miles and a small stretch of sea. The Corlans would come here for New Year, and then Zac and his mum would come back for a month in the summer too. TheBennings would come to Ireland for Easter and then the second half of the school summer holidays. And the three adults would make sure the kids enjoyed every second of it.
Zac returned the smile. ‘They were.’ He pulled out a chair and sat opposite Jill, still savouring the peace. Since he’d got here, the house had been full of visitors paying respects, neighbours handing in more food than they could eat, and officials planning the ins and outs of today’s funeral. Neither his mum nor Aunt Audrey had been religious, so the service was going to be at the crematorium, with a Humanist celebrant, who also happened to be one of Aunt Audrey’s lifelong friends, so she could speak from a place of true affection and personal experience. Afterwards, there would be tea and sandwiches at the only hotel in the village, The Georgian House, up on the Main Street. That had been the venue for every celebration and Hogmanay party in his memory, and they all knew it was Aunt Audrey’s choice because it had been written into her letter of wishes, the one they’d found after she died. Apparently, she’d written it after his mum had passed, and the loss had given her a sense of her own mortality.
Zac hadn’t read all of it, just the parts that Jill had recounted to him detailing her plan for today: the ceremony, the venue, even the music – Blondie’s ‘Call Me’, ‘Love Is All Around’ by Wet Wet Wet, and ‘My Heart Will Go On’ by Celine Dion – all chosen because they were, in rotation, her favourite songs to belt out after a few Proseccos in a karaoke bar.
Jill’s gaze went to the sunburst clock on the wall. ‘The cars are coming at 10.30, so we’ve got a couple of hours of the calm before the storm. Are you sure you don’t mind that we’re deserting you and your dad this afternoon?’
Zac shook his head. ‘Of course not. I’d choose a week in Center Parcs over another day with me too,’ he teased. It had been Aunt Audrey’s Christmas gift to Jill and her husband, Archie, and Hamish and his wife, Mandy – a long weekendfor both their families in Center Parcs, leaving today. Audrey could never have known that it would coincide with the day of her funeral. Jill and Hamish had considered cancelling, but she’d been so happy to treat them and their children that they’d decided it was the perfect way to honour her. Besides, their kids had just experienced their first heartbreak, losing the gran they adored, and a sad Christmas, so Jill knew her mum would have wanted to cheer them up before they went back to school next week. The cars were packed, and the plan was for them to set off after the wake. Zac and his dad were already booked on a flight back to Dublin tonight too.
‘Listen, there’s no good time to do this and I don’t know if we’ll get a chance after the service, so I just wanted to give you this now.’ She slid the shoe box across the table towards him.
‘What is it?’ he asked, leaning forward to take it.
‘I think it’s a box of your mum’s things from when she was younger. It was in her old bedroom, and it’s probably been there since the eighties. We found it when we were looking for something of Aunt Morag’s to put in the coffin with Mum today. That was in Mum’s wishes too.’
Jill’s eyes filled when she said that, and he forgot about the box as he went round to her side of the table to give her a hug. She let him hold her for a few moments, then pulled her shoulders back and, forcing a smile, waved him away.
‘Argh, don’t let me start. We’ve still got the service to get through and she’d want me to hold it together. You know what she was like. She’ll be sitting on a cloud somewhere with your mum, looking down on me right now and telling everyone who’ll listen that I’ve always had a touch of the theatrics. Anyway, here you go. I think it’s just full of photos and cards, but I’m sure it’ll make you smile. I’m going to go and start getting ready and hunt down some waterproof mascara.’
When she got up from her chair, Zac gave her another hug before she went, then sat down in her seat, reaching over to pull his mug of coffee towards him. He thought about leaving the box until later, but curiosity got the better of him, and he’d already showered and shaved, so he still had well over an hour before he had to get his suit on.
The top of the shoe box had the letters C&A written across it, and Zac had a vague memory of that being a big store in the centre of Glasgow when he was a kid. He lifted the lid off, and saw immediately that Jill was right – inside was a pile of envelopes, letters, photos, cards, concert tickets… all of which looked decades old. He flicked through them and some dates jumped out at him. Postmarks from 1988. Scribbled dates on the back of photos of his mum and Aunt Audrey going back to childhood ones from the seventies. Pics of his parents, looking younger than he’d ever seen them. His job had long since trained him to keep it together in times of sadness, but Jill’s dose of the ‘theatrics’ had suddenly become contagious. He blinked until his eyes unblurred, and then carried on flicking through each gem of a gift from a bygone time. There were birthday cards to his mum from his grandparents. A letter offering his mum what he knew was her first job, as a typist at a legal firm in the city centre. She’d loved that job, and he’d always wondered if that was why she’d so fervently encouraged his interest in the law and been so incredibly proud when he’d qualified.
He pulled out another card, this time one with flowers on the front, but no greeting. Strange. His mother had never struck him as someone who would go for the floral vibe. Intrigued, he opened the card and received a full blow to the windpipe as he saw the loops and curves of his mum’s handwriting. Even now, he didn’t quite understand why some things hit harder than others, but these were the same shapes he’d seen on every cardand letter he’d ever received from his parents. The words were completely different though…
Dear Alice,
I’ve been trying to write this note to you for the longest time, but never seem to manage it. I don’t know where to start, so I’ll just begin by saying I’m so, so sorry. When I explain what happened, I’ll understand if you never forgive me. I didn’t mean?—
That was it. It stopped right there. No full stop. No other information, other than the obvious – it had never been sent.
Zac read it over a couple more times, his puzzlement increasing with every read. His mum wasn’t the kind of person who would ever deliberately hurt someone, so this must have been some kind of misunderstanding. Or an accident. Or… Nope, that was all he could come up with.
And who was Alice? He put it to one side, deciding to ask his dad about it later. He knew that after they met, his mum and dad had spent a couple of months here together before they’d moved back to Ireland, so his dad might have known this ‘Alice’ too.
Mystery parked for now, he went back to the box and continued to flick, until he reached a strip of photo booth pics of his mum and dad, both of them pulling faces into the camera. The frown of puzzlement was replaced by a beaming grin as he stared at the image, taking in every young, unlined, gleeful curve of their faces.
When every detail was imprinted on his mind, he turned the strip over, and there was that handwriting again:
9 March 1995 – Our first date!
That was one he’d treasure forever, he thought as he slipped it back in the box. One to frame. One he’d show his kids one day when he was telling them about their grandparents. One…
The thought was barrelled right out of the way by another one, a niggle that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He took the photo strip back out of the box. Stared at their faces. Then turned it over again.
9 March 1995 – Our first date!
The realisation of the problem came to him quickly, but it was so preposterous, so utterly baffling, that his legal brain questioned it a dozen times before even considering admitting it as evidence.
9 March 1995.
He’d been born on the 24thof October the same year.
Just over seven months after his parents’ first date in March. That couldn’t be right. He knew from photos and his mum’s stories about his birth that he’d been a strapping ten pound full-term baby. If that was the case… he did the calculations… he must have been conceived in January.
None of this made a shred of sense.
He jumped as the door opened behind him and his dad came in, yawning as he made a beeline for the coffee. ‘Morning, son. Jeez-oh, I slept like a log. How’s you? What’s that you’ve got there?’
