Page 41 of Lost Luggage
‘My petty crimes caught up with me in the end, a couple of years after I left Manchester, and resulted in a sentence longer than I’d hoped for. I did the time, hated every minute. Prison reform hadn’t come in back then, the lack of sanitation, the crowding… mentally, I was in a bad place. Then my cellmate lent meThe Great Gatsby. He was a lifer and said he’d have ended up in the psychiatric wing if it wasn’t for stories. He’d murdered his uncle and didn’t care what the other inmates said about him reading a “poncy” romance, he knew, deep down, they feared him. Jay Gatsby’s millionaire lifestyle whisked me away from my cell’s squalor.’
Fred, in a cell? Locked up with a murderer? Her hand covered her mouth and a sense of losing control transported her back to 1975 and the landlord telling her Fred had left, how everything had stopped for a few seconds, her surroundings had blurred, the landlord’s voice had become muffled. How everything she’d thought was real about her life disappeared in a puff of disbelief. She stared at Fred as he carried on talking, hearing nothing but blood whoosh between her ears.
‘…and a lot of the people inside re-offend because they can’t get a job afterwards,’ he said. ‘I wanted to make a difference.’
‘Why did Angela get involved?’ she muttered.
Angela. She sounded glamorous.
‘She had an uncle, knew him as a little girl, he was always kind to her but not a well man. He got thrown in prison for trying to take his own life. That’s how it was before the law changed in 1961. He managed to do it inside.’
‘Oh, how sad,’ said Dolly.
‘Yes and it always stayed with her, so she looked at volunteering and as she loved reading she chose the literacy programme. She was all for people having second chances. Like my best mate who had set up his own business, right at the forefront of the CD manufacturing industry. He offered me a job after I came out, when no one else would.’
Fred’s head dropped for a moment, and he stared at his lap, fastening and unfastening his watch strap.
‘You expect me to give you a second chance too?’
He shook his head. ‘Of course not, and all these years later I respect Greta for what she did. But I would never have chosen to leave you, Dolly. When I came back, I trekked around all our favourite haunts – Rafters nightclub on Oxford Street, and that café we loved with the lava lamps and lime linoleum floor.’
Dolly could still clearly picture that café and the coffee and walnut cake they often ate there.
‘I’ve only got your word for all this – you lied to me, easily enough, back then, and it still doesn’t make sense. Why would she care so much about us visiting France?’ She jabbed at him with her finger, in the air. ‘You risked everything for the sake of smarter clothes, trendier haircuts, for, what, the attention you got as we’d be whisked into clubs’ VIP areas?’ Her voice rose. ‘It’s all so shallow. And a private detective? Greta lived a simple life. I don’t understand why you’d make up this story.’
Phoebe looked from Dolly to her granddad. A tide of purple filled his cheeks and, arm shaking, Fred reached into the magazine rack by his side. He pulled out an envelope, faded brown and worn at the edges.
‘I don’t know why I kept this,’ he said, barely audible. He handed it over. Dolly turned it from side to side, before opening it. The envelope smelt musty. She looked inside and drew out two large black-and-white photos. One was Fred as she remembered him, with the John Lennon glasses and cigarette hanging out of the side of his mouth. He was surrounded by a crowd, selling watches off a trestle table. The other was of him accepting something in a paper bag from a man in a trench coat.
‘It wasn’t solid evidence,’ said Fred, ‘although that man in the photo was known to the police. He’d been inside several times for fraud and assault. But the note inside the envelope…’
Dolly looked again and pulled out a piece of paper, instantly recognising its Basildon Bond watermark. She placed it on her lap, reading the familiar, distinctive italic writing, the capital letter t that always leaned to the left at the top, the curly apostrophe and comma – Greta would always write those with a flourish.
‘There’s more photos where these came from, don’t ever forget that. Stay away from Dolly,’ she read out, and with those words, the straightforward line of the two sisters’ past snapped in half.
28
Dolly sat in her kitchen, still wearing her jacket, a bottle of wine on the table. The doorbell rang and she loped into the hallway. Leroy stood, blinking in the darkness, a bottle of rum tucked under his arm.
‘Saw you rush in. Figured you might still be up.’
‘You’re back early.’
‘So are you.’
‘Doritos?’ she asked.
‘Lumps of cheese mixed in?’ Leroy shot back, hopefully, as he stepped inside. ‘It’s like a hothouse in here.’ Leroy fanned his face as they walked past the lounge.
Stuff Greta’s policy of being frugal with the heating. As soon as Dolly had got back from Lymhall she’d gone straight for the thermostat dial and rammed it up, even though outside it was mild.
She prepared snacks, opened the back door and kicked it shut, before they settled at the oak loveseat, each with their own bottle.
‘I watched a programme about Ancient Egyptian gods once,’ said Dolly and tipped her head back, gazing at the oily night sky, thousands of stars transforming it into an old master’s painting. It reminded her of a pair of the sequinned black satin hot pants she’d owned, back in the 1970s. ‘The moon god was called… Khonsu. They believed he could aid healing.’
Dolly had often wished a god were on the internet and had a Frequently Asked Questions section. Does The One really exist? What was she supposed to do without her sister? Is a Jaffa Cake really a biscuit?
‘I’d better stay out here all night then.’ Leroy drained his tumbler and topped it up with rum again.
