Page 1 of Lost Luggage
1
The shop’s doors swung open and a crowd jostled Dolly Bell into the small auction house and away from the scents of Manchester’s Christmas market. She stuffed a half-eaten white chocolate bar into her rucksack. She’d finish it on the train back to Knutsmere, a village thirty minutes away from the city centre.
The lost luggage auction took place on the tenth of every month. People were given an hour to inspect the locked cases going under the hammer. Every December Dolly and Greta attended and the two cases they went home with were gifts for each other, not to be opened until Christmas Day.
Unused to people after the last year, Dolly folded her arms and held her sides as if to stop herself falling apart. Regulars Ben and Joan made their way over to say hello. Joan’s charity store always needed clothes and eagle-eyed eBay seller Ben would bid high for the rarer designer luggage. Neither of them mentioned the obvious: how this time last year Dolly hadn’t been able to talk for tears because she’d visited the auction just ten days after one fateful afternoon – after five brief, tragic minutes that transformed her life for ever. Not even one of Joan’s toffees had been able to plug the flow as sobs had convulsed her body.
A sense of anticipation rose through Dolly’s chest and she loosened her scarf. On Christmas Day Greta would rub her hands together and circle the cases as if she and her sister were vultures. Dolly preferred to think of them as kinder birds who offered their nest to orphaned belongings. She hadn’t been sure about attending the auction this year and had asked her sister, who was better than her at making decisions. Living together for nigh on fifty years meant you could read each other’s faces, and just one look at Greta this morning had given Dolly her answer.
The airport held on to lost cases for six months or so before passing them on. Dolly inspected this December’s selection, laid out on white tables: a practical canvas one, a plastic pull-along covered with stickers, and on from that a bulging polyester holdall. One case decorated with a pink and pine botanical pattern caught her eye, with its smooth, plastic outer shell. The legs of the stool in front of her small dressing table had been coming loose for months. This pretty case, upturned, would provide the perfect replacement chair. Dolly and Greta always upcycled the cases where possible and had become experts at removing wheels and handles. Yet a bright yellow ribbon caught her attention, tied to a tan steamer trunk that was scratched, with a flat top and studded sides. She touched its strong leather straps. Its treasure chest vibe made her think of adventures and the stories behind those scratches. Yet its botanical neighbour was so pretty. Dolly examined both; she couldn’t decide.
Dolly found seats in the front row of the auction room – the best position for seventy-one-year-old eyes – and sat waiting, her hand on her purse, her open rucksack on her lap, turquoise tea flask in one of the side pockets. Underneath her seat lay detachable suitcase wheels. The two sisters always came well prepared. She murmured to Greta that she reckoned luck might be on her side today, although her stomach fluttered as it always did until it was the turn of the lot she was interested in. Bids started at eight pounds unless it was a designer suitcase. Ben had just snagged a Louis Vuitton for a hundred and ten. As the auctioneer brought forward one of the cases she’d shortlisted, Dolly accepted one of Joan’s toffees, struggling to unwrap it with fingers impatient to start bidding. Quickly the bids increased. Eight pounds. Fifteen. Twenty. Thirty. Sucking harder on the sweet, Dolly studied the other bidder, a woman with a short red bob and scarlet glasses.
Dolly’s eyes narrowed. Call your rival’s bluff. Stick to your budget. Quit now. ‘Forty pounds,’ she blurted out.
The other woman hesitated for a moment and then slouched back in her seat as the hammer sounded.
* * *
‘Isn’t it handsome, Greta?’ said Dolly, back in their bungalow, and she tilted her head, straining her ears, with a sense that the trunk had something to say. But she wouldn’t discover its secrets until she opened it. Dolly sat down on the sagging rose-pink sofa opposite the front window, a fresh cup of tea on the small table to her right. She’d changed into her favourite jogging bottoms, soft and creased, with fraying hems. Close to her chest she hugged a hot-water bottle – Greta only approved of turning up the thermostat if the temperature dropped below sixteen degrees. The leather trunk posed in the middle of the room, revelling in its air of mystery. Greta was now settled on the armchair to the left, underneath the shelving that housed her books and decorative Royal Family plates. She wore her usual no-nonsense expression, with her set hair, pleated skirt and string of pearls. ‘The yellow ribbon cinched it,’ Dolly said to her. ‘I can’t wait to find out what’s inside it at Christmas. Only fifteen days to wait.’
She let go of the hot-water bottle and dabbed her eyes. Stepping through discarded newspapers and sweet wrappers, she went over to the armchair. Dolly picked up the framed photo, smeared with white chocolate, and stared Greta straight in the face.
2
Avoiding the two identical circles of beige turkey, and tiny rock-hard peas, Dolly cautiously prodded a perfect sphere of stuffing. She hadn’t cooked much since Greta passed and missed the flavours of previous Christmases: spiced mince pies, smelly cheeses, packets of Rennies. Dolly sat in front of the television with the meal on her lap, still in its plastic container. Greta would have tutted. Whilst the Queen spoke of family and community, Dolly gazed at cards on the windowsill, from well-meaning villagers, and a handmade one of a female Santa wearing a superhero mask from little Flo next door. Most had fallen over now.
Unable to wait until Her Majesty stopped talking, the usual cue for present-opening, she laid her dinner on the floor and hoicked the steamer trunk case over. For many years she’d longed for laminate flooring, to get rid of the outdated patterned carpet, but it was only right that Greta had the last say, being more than a decade older than Dolly.
‘What do you think is in it this year, Maurice?’ He’d watched them open every single case since he’d moved in, in 2011.
Maurice carried on eating his peas. Greta had always thought him a moody bugger, as if a goldfish should provide smiles and conversation. Dolly stood up, turned off the television and went over to a black suitcase upturned and wedged into the front-right corner of the room; it made an excellent stand for the record player. A mahogany cabinet stood next to it for extra support, against the wall. Dolly moved a couple of dirty mugs off the record player, before lifting its lid, and opened the door of the cabinet. Grunting, she bent over and searched through her collection of old vinyls, until she came across the greatest hits of the Bee Gees. Appropriately, she lowered the needle on to ‘Saturday Night Fever’.
Through the wall of the tank she caught Maurice swaying in time to the beat. Unable to remember the last time she’d danced, Dolly ran a hand over the trunk’s studs before laying it on its side. The auction house removed electrical items and toiletries, selling them off to make extra money, and they shredded personal documents, before repacking the cases that people bid for. Every year she’d fantasise about the case’s contents. Perhaps they’d discover a really exciting object, like an exquisite antique, a pouch of diamonds or an unused coffee shop voucher. Yet the reality never disappointed, even when it was just well-worn items only suitable for doing DIY or gardening, or children’s and men’s wear they could pass on to neighbours Flo and Leroy. At best they’d find brand new clothes, in their own sizes, that the cases’ owners had bought for a holiday. Ben had taught Dolly and Greta that it was worth looking up coats and shoes online – designer items sold for a fortune second-hand.
She and Greta would try and guess what the owners were like before opening the cases. Dolly stared at the leather straps. This trunk looked masculine, as if it belonged to a traveller who had arms strong enough to carry it a distance when full; a person used to the way the world worked before expandable zippers and spinner wheels. Understated, functional – yet the studding and straps had been forged with style.
It felt like an old friend. She didn’t know why.
With fumbling hands, she undid the buckles. Heart thudding quicker than the LP’s disco beat, she lifted up the lid and gasped. Dolly had misinterpreted the outside of the case. How unusual. How luxurious. She lifted up the down-filled, quilted nylon material, a dusty-pink gilet with a maroon collar and hood – a lightweight coat. That made sense, seeing as this case would have been packed earlier in the year. The gilet had pockets and discreet, matching buttons down the front, along with a logo in the shape of a letter Z. Untidily, she draped it over the sofa’s arm, not noticing it fall on to the carpet. Her eyes darted to a small octopus plushie, bright orange with a smile on its face. The case’s owner might have a child. She turned the plushie inside out to a blue side that wore a sad frown, left it that way and turned her attention to a sports sweat top, with a hood, in a lovely shade of mint green. A graphic of a cat’s face poked out of a small pocket on the front. Dolly paused before tugging the top over her head. It clung to her body as if grateful to have a new home. Dolly ran a hand over the soft material, unused to the smell of clean laundry.
Next, she took out a pair of white trainers with shiny rose-gold heel caps. She held them in the air, marvelling as they shone, lending the lounge an unfamiliar sense of glamour. Like Cinderella, Dolly kicked off her holey slippers and pushed her feet into them. Up and down she paced, in time to the music’s beat, like eighteen-year-old Dolly who’d lived for nights out in town, dancing and stealing flowers from Piccadilly Gardens because the ones in her hair had wilted.
The remaining clothes were all sporty, like a pair of drawstring trousers tapered at the bottom. As decades had passed since the first auction they’d visited in 1985, it had become more difficult to guess the age of owners; gone were the days when people dressed their age. Dolly had never looked anything like her mum when she was young, but nowadays relatives from different generations could have shared the same fashionable wardrobe.
Dolly packed everything back into the case, apart from the sweat top and reversible octopus. She placed the plushie on top of the record player’s dusty glass top. Maurice might appreciate it. She kept the sweat top on and reached for a plain white notebook she’d fetched from her sister’s bedroom; tattered now with curled edges, it looked a little brown. In it, over the years, Greta had recorded the contents of every single case they’d brought home. It was time now for Dolly to pick up the mantle – or, at least, her biro. After scrawling the last item, she took her uneaten Christmas lunch into the kitchen and came back with a thick cheese sandwich and a tube of Pringles.
Greta loved notebooks and never threw them out. In her room they were stacked neatly in a corner. Around ten full of book reviews – she’d read at least four novels a month – others full of recipes, and a pile recording everything the two of them had done together on their holiday trips in the UK. Dolly didn’t pry, but Greta seemed happy to share the latter. They weren’t diaries of their breaks, as such, just lists of the restaurants or places of interest they’d seen.
‘What about “Jive Talkin’”?’ she asked Maurice, who was looking less perky now that he’d finished the peas, his favourite treat. She went to the record player, moved the plushie, dusted crisp crumbs from her fingers and lifted up the lid again to turn over the record. Then she knelt down and stared into Maurice’s eyes, as black as a mermaid’s purse, smiling as his tangerine dorsal fin shot back up at the sight of her face. His tank was to the right as you walked into the lounge, away from the window, the radiator; not too near the telly or next to the record player – she’d done her research when she’d agreed to take him off a colleague at work who was moving abroad. Greta would wrinkle her nose and say goldfish only had three seconds of memory, but Dolly had never needed Google to tell her this wasn’t true.
She went to close the trunk but couldn’t resist trying on the gilet, even though it was too small. In the hallway, she stood in front of the mirror. Dolly wiped the glass with the sleeve of the green sports hoodie. The dusty-pink colour softened the pinched look of her face, the maroon collar lifting her pasty cheeks. Over the last year, outside, buds had unfurled into green leaves that were outshone by flowers, until trees blazed with their autumn hues, the elements showing off their vibrancy. However, indoors, everything had become as grey as February rain, including Dolly’s reflection, the hair now more salt than pepper at the roots, the shadows under her eyes deeper.
The gilet’s buttons wouldn’t do up. She dug her hand into the pockets and turned from side to side.
Oh.
A sheet of paper.
