Dad elbows me. “Would you stop looking around you, and keep your eye on the stage? He’s about to kill her.” He knocks the binoculars away from my hand, and the man is once again far from my reach.
I turn to face the stage and try to hold my eyes on the prince leaping about with his crossbow, but I can’t. A magnetic pull turns my face back down to the box, anxious to see who Mr. Hitchcock is sitting with. My heart is drumming loudly, and I secretly raise the binoculars to my eyes again. Beside him is the woman with long red hair, the one who holds the camera in my dreams. Beside her is a sweet-looking man, and squashed together behind them are a young man pulling uncomfortably at his tie, a woman with big curly red hair, and a large round man. I flick through my memory files like I’m going through Polaroids. The chubby boy from the sprinkler scene and seesaw? Perhaps. But the other two, I don’t know. I move my eyes back to Justin Hitchcock and smile, finding his face more entertaining than the action onstage.
Suddenly the music changes, the light reflecting on his face flickers, and his expression shifts. I know instantly that Bea is onstage, and I turn to watch. Somehow I’m able to pick her out among the flock of swans moving about so gracefully in perfect unison, dressed in a white fitted corset dress with a raggedy long white tutu, similar to feathers. Her long blond hair is tied up in a bun, covered by a neat headdress. I recall the image of her in the park as a little girl, twirling and twirling in her tutu, and I’m filled with pride. How far she has come. How grown-up she is now. My eyes fill.
“Oh, look, Justin,” Jennifer says breathily beside him.
He is looking. He can’t take his eyes off his daughter, a vision in white, dancing in perfect unison with the flock of swans, not a movement out of place. She looks so grown-up. How did that happen? It seems like only yesterday she was twirling for him and Jennifer in the park across from their house, a little girl with a tutu and dreams and now…His eyes fill, and he looks beside him to Jennifer, to share a look, to share the moment, but at the same time she reaches for Laurence’s hand. He looks away quickly, back to his daughter. A tear falls, and he reaches into his front pocket for his handkerchief.
A handkerchief is raised to my face, catches my tear before it drips from my chin.
“What are you crying for?” Dad says loudly, dabbing at my chin roughly as the curtain lowers for the intermission.
“I’m just so proud of Bea.”
“Who?”
“Oh, nothing…I just think it’s a beautiful story. What do you think?”
“I think those lads have definitely got socks down their tights.”
I laugh and wipe my eyes. “Do you think Mum’s enjoying it?”
He smiles and stares at the photo. “She must be, she hasn’t turned round once since it started. Unlike you, who’s got ants in her pants. If I’d known you were so keen on binoculars, I’d have taken you out bird-watching long ago.” He sighs and looks around. “The lads at the Monday Club won’t believe this at all. Donal McCarthy, you better watch out.”
“Do you miss her?”
“It’s been ten years, love.”
It stings that he can be so dismissive. I fold my arms and look away, silently fuming.
Dad leans closer and nudges me. “And every day I miss her more than I did the day before.”
Oh. I immediately feel guilty for wishing that on him.
“It’s like my garden, love. Everything grows. Including love. And with that growing every day, how can you expect the missing part to ever fade away? Everything builds, including our ability to cope with it. That’s how we keep going.”
I shake my head, in awe of some of the things he comes out with, philosophical and otherwise. And this from a man who’s been calling me his teapot (lid, kid) ever since we landed.
“And I just thought you liked pottering.” I smile.
“Ah, there’s a lot to be said for pottering. You know Thomas Berry said that gardening is an active participation in the deepest mysteries of the universe? There are lessons in pottering.”
“Like what?”
“Well, even a garden grows stranglers, love. It grows them naturally, all by itself. They creep up and choke the plants that are growing from the very same soil as they are. We each have our demons, our self-destruct button. Even in gardens. Pretty as they may be. If you don’t potter, you don’t notice them.”
He eyes me, and I look away, choosing to clear my already-clear throat. Sometimes I wish he’d just stick to laughing at men in tights.
“Justin, we’re going to the bar, are you coming?” Doris asks.
“No,” he says, in a huff like a child.
“Why not?” Al squeezes farther into the box to sit beside him. “I just don’t want to.” He picks up his opera glasses and starts fiddling with them.
“But you’ll be here on your own.”
“So?”
“Mr. Hitchcock, would you like me to get you a drink?” Bea’s boyfriend, Peter, asks.
“Mr. Hitchcock was my father, you can call me Al. Like the song.” He punches him playfully on the shoulder, but it knocks him back a few steps.
“Okay, Al, but I actually meant Justin.”
“You can call me Mr. Hitchcock.” Justin looks at him like there’s a bad smell in the room.
“We don’t have to sit with Laurence and Jennifer, you know,” Al says.
Laurence. Laurence of Ahernia, who has elephantitis of the—
“Yes, we do, Al, don’t be ridiculous,” Doris interrupts.
Al sighs. “Well, give Petey an answer. Do you want us to bring you back a drink?”
Yes. But Justin can’t bring himself to say it and instead shakes his head sulkily.
“Okay, we’ll be back in fifteen.”
Al gives him a comforting brotherly pat on his shoulder before they all leave him alone in the box to stew over Laurence and Jennifer and Bea and Chicago and London and Dublin and now Peter. Over how exactly his life has ended up.
Two minutes later and already tired of feeling sorry for himself, he looks through the opera glasses and begins spying on the trickles of people below him who’d stayed seated for the intermission. He spots a couple fighting, snapping at each other. Another couple kissing, reaching for their coats, and then disappearing quickly to the exits. He spies a mother giving it to her son. A group of women laughing together. He moves to the boxes on the opposite side. They are empty, everyone choosing to have their preordered drinks in the nearby bar. He cranes his neck up higher. How on earth can anyone see anything from up there?
He doesn’t see anything unusual, just a small number of people, like everyone else, sitting and chatting. He moves along from right to left. Then stops. Rubs his eyes. Surely he is imagining it. He squints back through the opera glasses again, and sure enough, there she is. With the old man. Every scene in his life is beginning to seem like a page from Where’s Waldo?
She is looking through her opera glasses too, scanning the crowd below them both. Then she raises her opera glasses, moves slowly to the right, and…they both freeze, staring at each other through their respective lenses. He slowly lifts his arm. Waves.
She slowly does the same. The old man beside her puts his glasses on and squints in his direction, mouth opening and closing the entire time.
Justin holds his hand up, intends to make a “wait” sign. Hold on, I’m coming up to you. He holds his forefinger up, as though he’s just thought of an idea. One minute. Hold on, I’ll be one minute, he tries to signal.
She gives him the thumbs-up, and he breaks into a smile.
He drops the opera glasses and stands up immediately, taking note of where exactly she is sitting. Just then the door to the box opens, and in walks Laurence.
“Justin, I thought maybe we could have a word,” he says politely, drumming his fingers on the back of the chair that separates them.
“No, Laurence, not now, sorry.” He tries to move past him.
“I promise not to take up too much of your time.
Just a few minutes while we’re alone. To clear the air, you know?” He opens the button of his blazer, smooths down his tie, and closes his button again.
“Yeah, I appreciate that, buddy, I really do, but I’m in a really big hurry right now.” He tries to inch by him, but Laurence moves to block him.
“A hurry?” he says, raising his eyebrows. “But intermission is just about over and…ah.” He stops, realizing. “I see. Well, I just thought I’d give it a try. If you’re not ready to have the discussion yet, that’s understandable.”
“No, it’s not that.” Justin looks through his opera glasses and up at Joyce, feeling panicked. She’s still there. “It’s just that I really am in a hurry to get to somebody. I have to go, Laurence.”
Jennifer walks in just as he says that. Her face is stony.
“Honestly, Justin. Laurence just wanted to be a gentleman and talk to you like an adult. Something, it seems, you have forgotten how to be. Though I don’t know why I’m surprised about that.”
“No, no, look, Jennifer.” I used to call you Jen. So formal now, a lifetime away from that memorable day in the park when we were all so happy, so in love. “I really don’t have time for this right now. You don’t understand, I have to go.”
“You can’t go. The ballet is about to begin in a few minutes, and your daughter will be onstage. Don’t tell me you’re walking out on her, too, because of some ridiculous male pride.”
Doris and Al enter the box, Al’s size alone completely crowding the small space and blocking the path to the door. Al holds a pint of cola in his hand and an oversize bag of chips.
“Tell him, Justin.” Doris folds her arms and taps her long fake pink nails against her thin arms.
Justin groans. “Tell him what?”
“Remind him of the heart disease in your family so that he might think twice before eating and drinking that crap.”
“What heart disease?” Justin holds his hands to his head while on the other side of him, Jennifer drones on and on in what sounds like Charlie Brown’s teacher’s voice. Wah, wah, wah, is all he hears.
“Your father, dying of a heart attack,” Doris says impatiently.
Justin freezes.
“The doc didn’t say that it would necessarily happen to me,” Al moans to his wife.
“He said there was a good chance. If there’s a history in the family.”
Justin’s voice sounds to him as though it’s coming from somewhere else. “No, no, I really don’t think you have to worry about that, Al.”
“See?” He looks at Doris.
“That’s not what the doctor said, sweetheart. We have to be more careful if it runs in the family.”
“No, it doesn’t run in the—” Justin stalls. “Look, I really have to go now.” He tries to move in the crowded box.
“No, you will not,” Jennifer blocks him. “You are not going anywhere until you apologize to Laurence.”
“It’s really all right, Jen,” Laurence says awkwardly.
I call her Jen, not you!
“No, it’s not, sweetheart.”
I’m her sweetheart, not you!
Voices come at him from all sides, wah wah wah, until he is unable to make out any words. He feels hot and sweaty; dizziness grips him.
Suddenly the lights dim and the music begins and he has no choice but to take his seat again, beside a fuming Jennifer, an insulted Laurence, a silent Peter, a worried Doris, and a hungry Al, who decides to munch his chips loudly in his left ear.
He sighs and looks up at Joyce.
Help.
It seems the squabble in Justin Hitchcock’s box has ended, but as the lights are going down, they are all still standing. When the lights lift again, they are seated with stony faces, apart from the large man in the back, who is eating a large bag of chips. I have ignored Dad all throughout the last few moments, choosing instead to invest my time in a crash course in lipreading. If I have been successful, their conversation involved Carrot Top and barbecued bananas.
Deep inside, my heart drums like a djembe, its deep bass and slap reaching down into my chest. I feel it in the base of my throat, throbbing, and all because he saw me, he wanted to come to me. I feel relieved that following my instincts, however flighty, paid off. It takes me a few minutes to be able to focus on anything other than Justin, and when I calm my nerves, I turn my attention back to the stage, where Bea takes my breath away and causes me to sniffle through her performance like a proud aunt. It occurs to me so strongly right now that the only people privy to those wonderful memories in the park are Bea, her mother, her father…and me.
“Dad, can I ask you something?” I lean close to him and whisper. “He’s just after telling that girl that he loves her, but she’s the wrong girl.” He rolls his eyes. “Eejit. The swan girl was in white, and that one is in black. They don’t look alike at all.”
“She could have changed for the ball. No one wears the same thing every day.”
He looks me up and down. “You only took your bathrobe off one day last week. Anyway, what’s up with you?”
“Well, it’s that, I, em, something has happened and, well…”
“Spit it out, for Christ’s sake, before I miss anything else.”
I give up whispering in his ear and turn to face him. “I’ve been given something, or actually, something very special has been shared with me. It’s completely inexplicable, and it doesn’t make any sense at all, in an Our Lady of Knock kind of way, you know?” I laugh nervously and quickly stop, upon seeing his reaction.
No, he doesn’t know. Dad looks angry I’ve used Mary’s apparition in County Mayo during the 1870s as an example of nonsense.
“Okay, perhaps that was a bad example. What I mean is, it breaks every rule I’ve ever known. I just don’t understand why.”
“Gracie”—Dad lifts his chin—“Knock, like the rest of Ireland, suffered great distress over the centuries from invasion, evictions, and famines, and Our Lord sent His Mother, the Blessed Virgin, to visit with His oppressed children.”
“No—” I hold my hands over my face. “I don’t mean why did Mary appear, I mean why has this…this thing happened to me? This thing I’ve been given.”
“Oh. Well, is it hurting anyone? Because if it’s not, and if you’ve been given it, I’d as soon stop callin’ it a ‘thing’ and start referring to it as a ‘gift.’ Look at them dancing. He thinks she’s the swan girl. Surely he can see her face. Or is it like Superman when he takes the glasses off and suddenly he’s completely different, even though it’s as clear as day he’s the same person?”
A gift. I’d never thought of it like that. I look over at Bea’s parents, beaming with pride, and I think of Bea before the intermission, floating around with her flock of swans. I shake my head. No. No one is being hurt.
“Well, then.” Dad shrugs.
“But I don’t understand why and how and—”
“What is it with people these days?” he hisses, and the man beside me turns round. I whisper my apologies.
“In my day, something just was. None of this analysis a hundred times over. None of these college courses with people graduating with degrees in Whys and Hows and Becauses. Sometimes, love, you just need to forget all of those words and enroll in a little lesson called ‘Thank You.’ Look at this story here.” He points at the stage. “Do you hear anybody complaining about the fact that she, a woman, has been turned into a swan? Have you heard anything more ludicrous in your life?”
I shake my head, smiling.
“Have you met anyone lately who happens to have been turned into a swan?”
I laugh and whisper, “No.”
“Yet look at it. This bloody thing has been famous the world over for centuries. We have nonbelievers, atheists, intellects, cynicists, even him”—he nods at the man who shushed us—“all kinds of what-have-yous in here tonight, but all of them want to see that fella in the tights end up with that swan girl, so she’ll be able to get out of that lake. Only w
ith the love of one who has never loved before can the spell be broken. Why? Who the hell cares why? Do you think your woman with the feathers is going to ask why? No. She’s just going to say thank you because then she can move on and wear nice dresses and go for walks, instead of having to peck at soggy bread in a stinky lake every day for the rest of her life.”
I have been stunned to silence.
“Now, shhh, we’re missing the performance. She wants to kill herself now, look. Talk about being dramatic.” He places his elbows on the balcony and leans in closer to the stage, his left ear tilted more than his eyes, quite literally eavesdropping.
Chapter 25
DURING THE STANDING OVATION, JUSTIN spies Joyce’s father helping her into a red coat, the same one from their Grafton Street collision. Together they begin to move to their nearby exit.
“Justin—” Jennifer scowls at her ex-husband, who is more busy spying through his opera glasses up at the ceiling than at his daughter bowing onstage.
He puts the glasses down and claps loudly, cheering, then has an idea.
“Hey, guys, I’m going to go to the bar and save some good seats for us.” He starts moving toward the door.
“It’s already reserved,” Jennifer shouts after him, over the applause.
He holds his hand up to his ear and shakes his head. “Can’t hear you.”
He escapes and runs down the corridors, trying to find his way upstairs. The curtain must have fallen for the final time as people begin to exit their boxes, suddenly crowding the corridors and making it impossible for Justin to push past.