Page 3 of Lost Luggage
Leather Steamer Trunk with hidden compartment – not sure yet how to upcycle.
Vintage ring necklace – return as a priority, sentimental value.
Bracelet – return, might be missed too.
Pink and maroon Zadorin gilet, the price of a week in Margate – return to owner.
Old T-shirt – the intriguing symbol is too pretty to throw it away, keep.
Baggy sports hoodie with peekaboo cat – feels like a second skin.
Temperamental octopus – the perfect friend for Maurice.
Mix of baggy casual wear – charity shop.
Rose gold and white trainers – KEEPING.
Underwear – bin.
Dolly placed the white notebook back on the green case and drummed her fingers. She moved it on to the top of Phoebe’s, but the edge of that one’s metallic-effect cover still temptingly glinted. Crossing her legs, she stared through a smear of dirt and spotted a blackbird outside listening for worms. Tea tonight – she should think about that… but she never planned these days. Freezer food was her staple.
The information in the notebook’s introduction wouldn’t be enough to trace Phoebe. She needed to read more, just a little bit. Anyone could justify that. Maurice need never know. Dolly flexed her hands.
May.
My Year of Firsts starts now. You know what they say, ‘Go big or go home,’ so I’m kicking off with a trip to Paris. There, I’ve said it. Me going to France is really going to happen. I’ve wanted to visit my whole life but haven’t considered myself sophisticated enough in case all French women looked like Coco Chanel. Well bugger that, as my grandfather would say. City of Lights prepare to meet one down-to-earth, born and bred Man City fan. Granddad would also say, ‘Well done, Phoebs! Fighting talk, lass.’ By the time I come home I hope to have visited all the obvious attractions – the Eiffel Tower, Louvre, Sacré-Cœur, the inside-out Pompidou Centre. I’ll have eaten croissants and snails, drunk wine and bought a beret, and sat for my caricature to be drawn in Montmartre, dreaming of Gene Kelly in the movieAn American in Paris.
All in one week.
Only joking.
For my first trip there, I really want to visit Père Lachaise Cemetery where so many literary greats are buried, and go into Les Deux Magots café that used to be frequented by Sartre, Hemingway and de Beauvoir.
Makes me sound pretentious? I’m not. It’ll just help me reconcile myself with flunking my French degree. It’s a lifetime ago I dropped out after the second year. This trip might diminish that sense that I’ve wasted what I learnt. That’s one reason I’ve really got to see this challenge through, even though going to Paris, for me, feels like visiting Timbuktu. Maisie suggested this would be the perfect first challenge for an avid reader like me. She’s been to the French capital and knows first-hand how fantastic it is for literary spots and fans of independent bookshops. My grandfather’s insisting on paying for this trip. He believed me when I said I’d found a half-price room right by the Seine.
Well, it wouldn’t be an adventure, would it, if I knew exactly where I’d be sleeping?
A trip to Paris. The glamour, the style, the magic and romance… Dolly pushed away that rippling ache and re-read the page, relieved to think about someone else for a change. This Phoebe sounded approachable, funny, and was no youngster if she knew of Gene Kelly. The year of firsts began last May? Unless the notebook referred to an earlier year and she’d already completed it. However, that seemed unlikely, given the map of the Paris underground in the gilet pocket and how new the notebook looked. She would have met half her challenges by now, if she’d continued without these notes. Dolly shivered, a familiar chill she always felt in the days after opening a lost case, a niggling sense that something might have happened to the owner and that was why they’d never claimed their luggage. She read the page again. Manchester airport served many customers local to the North West, and being a Man City fan too, Phoebe might well live in Manchester – she did say ‘born and bred’. What a great clue! Dolly’s quest to find her might really succeed. Odd that out of all the worries a trip abroad could raise, this Phoebe had been most concerned about looking chic enough, instead of losing her passport or phone or missing a flight – or not having any accommodation booked. Dolly thought croissants and the Eiffel Tower sounded about as exciting as life got. Whereas Phoebe was clearly an intellectual and nothing like Dolly. She deserved to have the notebook back and that would mean reading just a little more. Her hand went to turn the page when a frantic knocking at the door made her jump. Dolly snapped the notebook shut and shoved it behind the ornamental duck, hiding it from herself.
4
No one had ever rapped on the door like that. They didn’t dare when Greta was alive, not even when the new burglar alarm had kept going off. As Dolly was about to investigate, through the lounge window a voice she recognised rang out. Dolly went into the hallway and opened the door.
Leroy wrung his hands, as if trying to squeeze words out.
Dolly sighed. ‘I… suppose you’d better come in.’
He followed her into the lounge. Only six people had been allowed in this last year – Leroy, Flo and her parents, the doctor and the gasman. As Leroy did now, they always looked around for a few moments. Dolly didn’t know why. Junk mail, empty tissue boxes, squashed fizzy drink cans, used crockery; it was all so boring. Despite that, now and again, Leroy insisted on tidying. His place was vibrant, interesting – like him, his clothes always looked as if they were hoping for a night on the razz. The dark slacks fitted well around his bottom and complimented the candy-red shirt, and lemon cravat just above a patch of tantalising curls visible on his chest. Dolly never thought she’d notice such things once she’d retired. Certainly not on a sixty-six-year-old pensioner, not that she’d ever call Leroy the P word out loud. After a glass of something strong, they used to laugh together, say if things had been different they might have made the perfect couple.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘There’s the biggest spider on my kitchen wall.’ He lifted the palms of his hands in the air. ‘I won’t sleep tonight if I know it’s in the house. I thought about killing it with hairspray but I’m not sure that would have worked. You’re the only person I can ask, Dolly. Anyone else would laugh. Sorry for the ruckus but we’ll have to hurry before it disappears.’
Laughs had been few and far between this last year, and now she finally found something funny she felt duty bound not to show it.
‘Please, Dolly. I’ll sign you a blank cheque, do anything. Just get rid of it!’
Dolly hesitated, an ingrained habit, waiting for Greta to tell her what to do. Her older sister never thought twice about squashing spiders. Picturing the poor creature stuck to the wall with hairspray, Dolly hurried outside, grabbing her brown anorak from the rack on the wall. She followed Leroy to his place. It felt good to be needed. They lived in Pingate Loop, a small circle of three bungalows off Pingate Road: Dolly in the middle, Flo and her parents to the left and Leroy to the right. This last year she’d appreciated the privacy, away from the eyes of the village.
