Page 18 of Lost Luggage
‘Oh, Leroy, I’m so glad.’
‘Now I understand why Tony got bored, so it’s time to move on from the old me…’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘I’m determined to win him back.’
For a moment Dolly forgot all about Dancing Daze.
‘I’ve already signed up to a gym. I need a new me. A Leroy who’s younger, more spontaneous –sexier.’
She rolled her lips together. ‘But the old you is more than fine.’ Charlie always thought so, but Dolly didn’t like to bring up his name and, with it, the pain.
‘Is it, though?’ he countered. ‘Tony was an excellent judge of character. Like when he had a sixth sense about that new window cleaner who turned out to be casing homes for potential burglaries.’
‘But—’
Leroy’s excitement didn’t let Dolly interrupt; instead, he talked about how he wanted her help to redecorate, to make his place more up-to-date. He’d looked online for ideas, furnishings that were less colourful, more classic. He needed Dolly to go with him to IKEA. Leroy had never been there before and she could help him tone everything down, including his clothes on a different shopping trip…
‘I need to tone downme,’ he said with certainty.
Dolly wasn’t sure how Leroy had managed it, but somehow, by the time he left, her own trauma after the speed-dating seemed almost insignificant. Leroy was about to totally re-design his home, along with his wardrobe, his diet. She sat on her hands, worried she’d throw the remote at the television thinking about how Tony had destroyed Leroy’s confidence. And another burning sensation grew in her chest every time she pictured those slimeballs at Dancing Daze.
Dolly stood up and surveyed the lounge. She picked up a polystyrene box from the Chinese delivery she’d had the night before and carried it into the kitchen. Gripping a dustbin bag, she went back and filled it with empty biscuit tubes and old newspapers, with screwed-up squares of kitchen roll and empty packets of Rennies. Afterwards, she took off her clothes and instead of letting them drop to the floor, she stuffed them into the dirty linen basket. With a warm, soapy flannel she gave her face a good scrub and generously squirted toothpaste on to her toothbrush. She hadn’t found Phoebe tonight, and had thrown the notebook out, but at least the balloon debate and speed-dating had sparked the idea, deep inside and tucked away, that the old Dolly might be ready to fight her own corner again.
14
Pancake Day, the first day of March and the first time Dolly would take Flo to Guides on her own. Before half-term, when she’d accompanied Flo with Mark or Kaz, Dolly had managed to avoid questioning eyes. Like those of church volunteer and former committee member, retired Edith, who was often found pottering, gleaning information about the village from the organisations that hired out that hall. She used to clash with fellow volunteer Greta, and every year they vied to see who could collect the most Christian Aid envelopes. They were part of a small team who tended to the building, weeding, cleaning windows, mending curtains, widowed Edith being one of the younger, more active members. Dolly was looking forward to seeing Flo, who had visited relatives in Wales with her parents, over half-term, but Dolly hadn’t told her yet that the quest to find Phoebe was over. The letterbox rapped and Dolly left the kitchen to let her young neighbour in.
It had been exactly one year and three months since Greta had died. Her sister had only got to open the first door of her last ever advent calendar. Dolly had opened all the others, even after the funeral, even after she’d braved the lost luggage auction and burst into tears, pretending Greta had eaten all the other little chocolates. As she’d pushed the last perforated square of card, a sense of closure, not opening, had stolen her appetite.
Here Dolly was, all these months later, still expecting Greta to check if she’d stocked up on sugar and lemon. Greta had always loved the structure special days gave the year – like Shrove Tuesday today, Good Friday, May Day, Remembrance Sunday. Together, through the decades, they’d made pancakes and Easter chocolate nests, pumpkin spice biscuits and mince pies. Until the latter years when Greta slowed down; she’d watch, then.
‘Are you sure you don’t want pancakes with your dad?’ asked Dolly as Flo sloped in.
‘We had savoury ones. Bacon and cheese. He said I could have sweet ones with you.’ As usual, she went into the lounge first, to call on Maurice. ‘Holy Moly. Whilst I’ve been away you tidied up? It’s always made me feel good that your room was as messy as mine. I don’t like it.’
Leroy had been more encouraging. He’d dropped by yesterday to arrange their trip to IKEA and given her a high five. Good thing he hadn’t seen the state of the other rooms. However, he was right: a tidier lounge brought calm to the bungalow, as if her brain were a computer that could finally process its surroundings without being bombarded with pop-ups about old light bulbs, dirty mugs and unopened junk mail.
On the kitchen unit stood a jar of chocolate spread, a tub of sprinkles and a packet of Haribos – Flo had been very specific with her instructions when she and Dolly had spoken briefly, out the front, yesterday. However, she wrinkled her freckled nose.
‘Strawberries and banana slices?’
Dolly had eaten an apple with breakfast. Until then, she’d forgotten how refreshing food tasted without the addition of preservatives, sugars and fats, all the ingredients she’d found such comfort in during recent months. She’d made a jug of batter earlier, and put on one of her favourite disco records in the lounge. She didn’t dance like she used to when cooking – her feet would step in time to chopping or whisking, until Greta came in and told her to turn that racket down. But this last year she had listened to the music that transported her to a different time and place, like a nightclub in the seventies – with Fred. He’d always got them seats in the VIP area with his velvet jacket and white shoes, the feathered Bowie cut and John Lennon round glasses. Other clubbers would have been surprised to see his small flat. Fred was saving hard for a bigger place.
‘Sorry one landed on the floor,’ said Flo twenty minutes later, and she took a big bite of rolled-up pancake, chocolate oozing like lava out of both ends. She’d wanted to eat on the sofa as she’d placed the octopus plushie on the arm nearest to Maurice and couldn’t wait to see if he spotted it. ‘Dad let me practise flipping pancakes but it’s still tricky.’ She sighed. ‘I keep sneaking into the kitchen to examine our flour bags, hoping flour beetles get in; that would be utterly brilliant. But Mum and Dad recently bought these fancy airtight storage jars, so I might read up on how to get bed bugs instead.’
One of Flo’s quirks, Dolly had learnt, was being serious about things that sounded like jokes.
‘I’m glad you’re going to Guides tonight. How did it all end before the half-term break? We haven’t had a chance to talk about that.’
‘What you really mean is, am I going to take my Promise after half a term of testing it out?’ Flo wagged her finger. ‘Don’t ask me questions in code, Dolly, like Mum and Dad. You and me, we don’t need to do that.’
Dolly swiped Flo’s finger and squeezed it playfully.
‘Gill says I must decide soon, as I’m taking up a place another girl could have. Doesn’t bother me but… Mum and Dad had a word and she’s agreed to let me have a few more weeks.’ Flo took another bite. ‘I’m not saying any more until you tell me about the dating night. You changed the subject when I asked, again, yesterday. It’s been two weeks now and you haven’t talked any more about the notebook either. We should read the March challenge. Are we still in this together? ’Cos if not, then I’m definitely not joining.’
Mark and Kaz would only worry if Flo refused to go, what with Mark’s comments about how they both used to be shy and didn’t want that for their daughter. Flo didn’t need to know, quite yet, that Dolly was never reading that year of firsts list again.
‘You only talk about Guides if I ask you. Isyourheart still in our deal?’
Chocolate gloop hung from the corners of Flo’s mouth. ‘Yes. But I still hate it, even though I’m in with the Bumble Bees patrol.’ Her face lit up for a second. ‘Did you know that as bees get older, they do jobs reserved for the young ones? This makes their brain age in reverse. Imagine if that happened in humans; you and me might play hopscotch.’
