The Memory Box, written by Andrea Hornby
/Disposable Sick Bag
Unsoiled I should add.
I’m not quite sure what compelled me to keep it. Perhaps it was the pleasant drawing of the Mary Poppins-esque lady on the front smiling politely as though to say ’everything’s going to be alright dear.’
Everything was not alright though Mary when I was balking into the bloomin’ thing on the plane coming back from our honeymoon.
Two glorious weeks in Andalucía, only to be dampened by dodgy paella I’d eaten on our last night. Or so I thought.
‘I knew you shouldn’t have eaten that last prawn,’ said Ian whilst not-so- gently rubbing my back with his big clumsy hands, ‘the thing looked so raw it could have swam back into the sea.’
‘NOT-HELPING-IAN’ What also wasn’t helping was the smell of sour body odor coming from the row in front.
‘Everything ok Madam?’ I looked up to find one of the air hostesses hovering over me wearing a concerned look, along with makeup so thick I could have used it to plaster the hole in my kitchen ceiling at home.
‘Bad prawn,’ Ian mouthed on my behalf. She nodded and totted off, as though bad prawnitis was a common occurrence on the flight.
‘You bloody ate some, why are you ok?’
‘Stomach as strong as an ox me love, you know that.’ This coming from the man who only a few days prior had almost fainted at the sight of my bloody toe, which I’d scraped on some sea rocks. He’d blamed it on the heat of course.
It was only later on in the flight after the nausea had subsided that I realised my period was two weeks late.
Plastic piece of mistletoe
12 December 1999, another cost-saving work Christmas party at the office.
The date will forever be etched on my brain, along with Thomas’s birthday, our wedding anniversary and the date our local supermarket started selling my favourite bottle of prosecco.
The office Christmas party was always an occasion I dreaded, not just because of the cheap, luke warm booze and poor attempt at a Christmas themed buffet, mainly consisting of dry turkey sandwiches and cold pigs in blankets. It was also keeping up the pretense for a whole night that I liked my boss. Truth was, I could barely tolerate the man.
His name was Rodger, nickname randy Rodger to everyone else in the office due to his wandering eyes and love of anything in a skirt.
I carried out my usual façade of laughing at his vulgar sense of humor, and trying to ignore the fact he edged ever so closer into my personal space the more red wine he drank.
What I really wanted to do was tell the fat headed pervert to down a bottle of Listerine because his breath smelt of overdone eggs, and to tone down his guffaws, that were so loud they were making my insides rattle.
As he whittled on about Holly Willoughby’s cleavage and ‘that fit bird on the news’, I found myself staring longingly over at ‘bar’ – a trestle table that looked as old and worn down as my favourite pair of knickers - wondering whether anyone would notice if I slipped away.
That’s when I noticed him. He was standing near the bar with IT Steve, who must have been filling him in on all the latest in PC’s and printers from the vacant expression etched across his face.
I’d remembered seeing him around the office earlier that day, but had been on the cusp of breaking my solitaire record so didn’t have a proper look.
‘Who’s that?’ I whispered to a fellow suffering colleague standing next to me.
‘Oh he’s the new IT assistant, cute right?!’
‘You can say that again.’
We caught each other’s gaze and as I looked into his deep-set hazel eyes, something twinged inside my chest.
After finally escaping the clutches of dragon breath, I sidled up to the bar and waited for Steve to do one, which eventually he did after getting wind that one of the computers in the office hadn’t (god forbid) been switched off properly.
We got chatting and I found out his name was Ian, he’d recently moved house after going through a messy break up and liked to cook.
‘Well that’s good because I like to eat! I mean, not that I expect you to cook for me or anything, we’ve only just met! I just meant, erm, well you know.’
I took a gulp of my drink to try and dispel my awkward outburst, whilst willing my crimson cheeks to regain their normal colour. I’d always been fairly confident talking to men, yet with Ian I seemed to turn into a mumbling mess.
‘Mistletoe! Come on you’ve got to kiss!’ Janette from accounts suddenly appeared holding a piece of plastic mistletoe over our heads, which had seen better days.
The whole party stared at us expectantly. I wanted the ground to swallow me whole.
‘Oh come on!’ I pleaded ‘it’s not even rea—‘
Ian’s lips felt soft and warm against mine and for a moment, I forgot about the fifty or so faces gawping at us.
‘Oh get a room!’ someone shouted from the crowd after several seconds of lip locking.
So twelve months later we did. Five in fact, under a big roof and in a quaint little village on the outskirts of town.
Steel Stress Balls
An unusual item to find in a memory box I’ll admit, but these were not just any old stress balls. These were Ian’s new replacement balls.
He was reluctant to go the Doctors at first, male pride getting in the way.
‘Oh it’s probably just a cyst,’ he’d said one night at the dinner table over our spaghetti and meatballs (how fitting).
‘I don’t care Ian, just get it checked out,’ I said in agitation, ‘we need your testicles to be in tip top condition whilst we’re trying to conceive.’
‘Mummy what does testicles mean?’ Thomas piped up from the table, tomato sauce smothered all around his mouth like a clown.
‘It just means, er, it means-‘
‘It means bicycle!’ Ian butted in, ‘Mummy meant to say bicycle.’
I smiled at him gratefully.
Thomas was at an inquisitive age, wanting to know why the grass was green, why the sky was blue, why why why why why. ‘Because it just is Thomas’ being my usual impatient response after a day of never ending questions.
Ian however seemed to have the knack for coming up with weird and wonderful answers; ‘the clouds in the sky are gods pillows,’, ‘the grass is green because someone sneezed all over it,’ and my personal favorite, ‘mummy and daddy were just wrestling.’
My worry was that when Thomas started school and mixed with other kids he’d gradually realise that most of the stuff daddy told him was a load of old bull.
‘Mummy, when can we get my new brother or sister?’ he asked innocently whilst stuffing a forkful of spaghetti into his mouth, like we could just pop down to our local supermarket and pick one up.
He’d been asking the same question for months, right after he got bored of the idea of getting a rabbit. Luckily for him, mummy and daddy did want another, and were indeed trying.
‘Go the doctors,’ I pleaded to Ian later on that night in bed. ***
We hadn’t expected it to be cancer, but then again who would?
‘I’m afraid we’re going to have to remove both testicles,’ advised the Doctor after delivering the news, ‘but I’m confident that the operation will be successful with little or no need for chemotherapy.’
‘Well that’s great!’ I exclaimed, relief washing over me at the thought that Ian would be alive to see his son growing up. Although inside, the maternal part of me couldn’t help but feel a pang of longing.
Thankfully the operation was a success and after getting the call to say Ian was out of theatre, I dashed to the hospital shop in search of something that would cheer him up. That’s when I spotted them, in a red satin wooden box by the cash till.
‘Er thanks love,’ said Ian slightly bewildered as I presented him with the two shiny steel stress balls, ‘they’ll, er, come in handy.’
‘No these are your new balls see,’ I explained, taking them out the box and placing them in his hands, ‘and they’re better than the old ones because they’re made of steel!’
He laughed so hard I think he woke up the corpses in the morgue.
Laughter is the greatest therapy mum always used to say, and that day it most certainly was.
‘How are you getting on?’
I jolted at the sound of Ian’s voice, forcing the balls fall out of their box and to roll the length of the room.
‘My balls!’ he exclaimed, picking them up off the floor and caressing them in his hand like a long lost pet.
‘I didn’t realise I’d kept so much stuff!’ I let out an exasperated sigh as I found yet another box full of old cinema stubs.
‘Here, this will help.’ I smiled gratefully as Ian handed me a cup of steaming hot tea.
The spare bedroom, that we were hoping would be the new baby’s room, had gradually turned into a dumping ground for all our crap, including my mound of memory boxes that I’d collated since I was a teenager, and which mum kindly handed over following her annual spring clean.
Unfortunately I could no longer continue my ‘ignorance is bliss’ routine of keeping the door closed since the in-laws were coming to stay.
I took a sip of my tea and immediately spat it back into the mug. ‘Eugh the milks off,’ I said in disgust.
Ian stared at me with a puzzled expression. ‘It can’t be, I only bought it yesterday.’
Suddenly a sense of déjà-vu washed over me, and that’s when I remembered.
The last time I’d experienced a similar distaste towards tea I’d been pregnant with Thomas.
Hospital identity tag
The name on it reads ‘baby miracle’ since we hadn’t yet agreed on a name.
‘She’s beautiful,’ Ian whispers as he lay on the hospital bed next to me and baby miracle, who is soundly asleep in my arms. I stroke her tiny little hands as the last four hours of painful labor pail into insignificance.
‘Thank God for sperm freezing,’ says Ian, referring to the job lot of his little tadpoles we were able to store before he went in for his op. There was no guarantee they’d work, especially when you factored in my body clock, that had been edging ever so closely to the ‘danger zone.’
We continue staring at baby miracle in silence, scared that if we so much as blink, she’d disappear from us.
‘Mummy Mummy!’ Thomas comes bursting into the room, Nanny in tow, but stops halfway as he spots the little bundle in my arms. He stands with his hands behind his back, staring at the floor and shuffling his feet, unsure of this new little person taking up all of mummy and daddy’s attention.
‘Thomas would you like to come and meet your sister?’ I say encouragingly.
Hesitantly, Thomas walks towards the bed. Ian scoops him up and places him on the bed beside me. He peers into the bundle to take a peek at his new little sister.
I feel a warming in my chest as I take in the moment, almost bursting with pride at my, now complete, little family.
After a short silence, Thomas looks up at me innocently.
‘Mummy I don’t want a sister any more’ he says jumping off the bed ‘can I have a rabbit instead?’
Bio:
Andrea Hornby is thirty six years old and lives with her husband and two beautiful children, Rosie and Theo.
Aside from being a stay at home Mum, dog walker and doing the occasional tax returns, Andrea loves writing short stories, her target audience being other like-minded Mums looking for a bit of light relief over a cuppa.
Andrea has also written a childrens book, 'Rosie and the Magical Maraca' which is available to buy on Amazon, and was inspired by her four year old daughter, Rosie, who loves making lots of noise!
Andrea will also shortly be releasing her second childrens book, 'The Boy Who Lost His Bounce' and is also being represented by the Liverpool Literary Agency for the release of her first humorous fiction novel, 'It's All Greek To Me.'
See more of Andrea over at:
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