Page 40 of Lost Luggage
‘This last year, talking’s really helped me, but I was ready. If you aren’t, Dolly, I wouldn’t blame you for leaving. I love Granddad, he’s held my family together during tough times. But you and him sorting out the past, you’ve both got to want it.’
Dolly stared out of the window, right into the field. Her heartbeat slowed. She left the kitchen and headed in the direction of the front door… stopping by the living room. She went in. Told him to keep it brief and perched on the edge of the sofa, as the sound of distant clattering plates and running water joined them. Fred closed the door and sat down again.
‘That afternoon, after you proposed…’ Her cheeks burned. ‘Why did Greta call on you?’
‘She said I mustn’t take you to Paris, with a vehemence that I didn’t think could simply be down to just a fear of flying. Greta hadn’t ever visited France, had she, not gone by ferry? There was no chance of her having… left a scandal behind in the capital?’
‘Are you for real? No, Fred. Firstly the word “scandal” would never appear in the same sentence as my sister. She’s never been abroad, not then, not ever.’
‘Well, she was adamant, looked as if she might lose it when I insisted the trip would do us both good. I’d never seen her like that. Yet she kept saying she didn’t want to interfere, didn’t want to hurt you…’
‘But?’
Fred put his elbows on his knees, leaning his chin on his hands. ‘She’d hired a private detective to follow me during previous months.’
‘Greta didn’t even like detective shows likeHarry OorThe Streets of San Francisco.’ Dolly jumped up. ‘I’m not staying to listen to this nonsense.’
‘She said it didn’t add up, that a young man like me had so much cash.’
‘But you worked long hours, evenings and weekends, at the cutting edge of technology.’
Silence filled the room, every corner and crack, urging Dolly to open the door to let it out.
‘At the cutting edge of the black market, more like,’ he mumbled.
Dolly dropped back down on to the sofa and listened. He had his nine-to-five jobs selling cameras, then in the field of early video technology, but the money wasn’t enough. Not for the lifestyle he wanted. So he went into a different kind of sales… Greta found out. Threatened to tell Dolly if he didn’t leave immediately.
‘And… quite rightly,’ he said. ‘I’d have done the same if a loser was dating a person I cared about.’
Loser? Not Fred. He was dynamic. Hardworking. Fred was going places.
‘You could have come clean to me,’ she stuttered. ‘We all make mistakes. We’d have worked it out.’
‘She said she’d go to the police as well.’
‘But it wasn’t her place… she should have told me.Youshould have.’
Fred had come back to Manchester two weeks later, but Dolly had gone from her flat. Greta had said if she ever saw Fred’s face again she’d dial 999, so he didn’t dare go to hers, or write. He wouldn’t have found Dolly there either. At that time she and Greta were away in Margate.
‘But we had lots of mutual friends. I could have tried them, or contacted you at work,’ he mumbled. ‘It’s no excuse but I was scared Greta would find out, scared of jail, so… I gave up.’ The door creaked open.
‘Everything all right?’ Phoebe came in and sat cross-legged on the floor, stroking the cat. ‘Have you told Dolly where you met Gran?’
Dolly bristled. ‘I don’t think that’s necessary.’
But Phoebe nodded at Fred encouragingly.
‘It was 1990. Angela and I were both taking part in a volunteering programme.’
What… wait… so Phoebe’s mother couldn’t have been his biological daughter? Fred took a deep breath and explained. He’d been in his early forties, settled in a job. He’d been in relationships from time to time and was earning good money, had a nice house, top-of-the-range car, he took trips around the world, but none of that satisfied him. Not in the way Fred thought it all would when he was a young man. Something was missing from his life. Angela had buried her first husband a couple of years earlier and felt the same.
‘We met at a charity that’ – his voice faltered – ‘helped ex-prisoners to read.’
‘You hate reading.’
‘I discovered a love of books when I was sent to prison.’
Dolly sat stock still. Fred, a convicted criminal?
