Page 47 of Lost Luggage
‘I’m truly alive again Dolly, for the first time since Tony left. Work phoning me last night. I hardly slept afterwards. Their offer excited me – not the prospect of going back to them, but the idea of mucking in again, the buzz of serving customers, having a place to go where I’m valued…’ He ran a finger around the rim of his glass. ‘If I’m honest, I can see now that Tony and I were never a good fit. He’d call board games “bored games” and thought disco music naff. But when the initial physical attraction loosened its grip I held on tighter than ever because I was scared of… retiring. Of becoming irrelevant. Helping Steve tonight has confirmed what I figured out in the early hours of this morning. I’m not ready to retire. Steve jokingly offered me part-time hours and couldn’t have been more surprised when I accepted.’ His face shone. ‘It’ll mean I get to enjoy the aspects of work I used to love – chatting with customers, pulling pints, delivering food – without the managerial responsibilities. It’s made me realise… my personal brand… it’s not self-discovery, like yours, after all. I think my brand is that I’m a people person.’
A fizzing noise interrupted them. Steve appeared, carrying the cake that had a sparkler candle in the top. Phoebe carried plates, Flo forks and napkins. The other tables joined in with singing ‘Happy Birthday’.
‘Well done for having a slice,’ Dolly whispered to Phoebe.
‘Well done you for just having a small one,’ she replied.
They smiled at each other, a smile that acknowledged there were more layers to the sponge than simply the two stuck together with cream. Dolly took her last mouthful when fingers tapped on her shoulder. She turned around.
‘This is stupid, Dolly,’ said Fred.
‘What on earth are you doing here?’ He hadn’t even got a coat on; his wispy hair was tousled.
‘Us not talking. We’re acting like a pair of teenagers.’
‘I think you took the medal in that in 1975,’ she replied in a stiff voice.
‘Granddad. You promised,’ hissed Phoebe. She stood up. ‘I’m sorry, everyone. We’ll leave.’
Steve got up and came back with a box of dominoes. ‘Bet I can beat you two hands down,’ he said to Leroy and Flo. ‘The bar’s quiet for the moment. We can fit in one game if we’re quick.’
Flo stopped staring at Fred and she, Leroy and Steve busied themselves laying out pieces.
Dolly got to her feet and wiped her mouth with a napkin, folding it up neatly and placing it back on the table. Leroy wasn’t the only one who’d not slept well last night. With the prospect of potentially seeing Fred during the bake-off practice, thoughts had spun around and around in her head, like a washing machine that made its contents dirtier, not cleaner.
She stared at Fred. ‘I’m finally going to clear out Greta’s room. First thing tomorrow, I’ll get stuck in. I’ll be looking for anything that explains why she didn’t want me to go to Paris. Come around at three. We’ll discuss what I’ve found, if anything.’
He touched her shoulder but Dolly shook him off and crossed her arms.
‘You didn’t fight hard enough for what we had, Fred. For us, there’s no going back.’
31
Six o’clock. An early start, weighed down by a dark atmosphere and pummelling rain. Dolly opened the door to Greta’s room, opposite hers. Despite the dust and stuffiness, it still looked tidy. She stared without going in, at the shelves with books in alphabetical order, the dressing table with toiletries neatly aligned on its top. Greta bought the cheapest products, apart from when it came to perfume. On a shelf, above the dressing-table mirror, she’d placed a collection of beautiful bottles, different cut-glass shapes, oval, rectangular, tall and sleek, some with atomizer bulbs. The shelf was actually the shallow lid of the small case Greta had bid on in… 1997. Peach material lined the inside, a totally impractical colour but Greta always had loved pastels. Its gilt trim did look smart. With a deep breath, Dolly walked into the room, clutching a roll of black dustbin bags and a sheet of stickers. She wroteCharity Shopon several,Binon others, and stuck them on to bags. After a large mouthful of strong tea, she went over to the chest of drawers.
Underwear, petticoats, socks, tights, nightdresses, it was easy to stuff them into a bag for the tip. Her breath hitched as the smell from the scented paper drawer liners rose into the air. They still smelt of sandalwood. Still smelt of Greta. Fingers digging into the floral duvet cover, she took a moment on the bed. Pangs of emptiness seeped into her pores, deeper than any perfume could. Despite the decades spent in the bungalow, Greta’s room was new territory. Like a nosy child, Dolly lifted the lid on a small pot-pourri bowl, tried hand cream, examined jewellery. She stood in front of a framed black-and-white photo, the only one of the two sisters and their mother. Dolly had been around two years old and held their mother’s hand. Greta would have been eighteen. The snap was taken in front of deckchairs on a beach. Their mother had saved every penny for weeks and taken them to a boarding house in Lytham. Greta had been through several difficult months and needed a break. She’d been blamed for an incident at work that wasn’t her fault and had to leave, and on top of that had to see Mum through another break-up. The three of them looked happy enough in the photo, until you inspected it closely – Greta seemed strained.
Greta had had a few boyfriends when she was younger. Dolly had met one when she was five, an image in her head of a khaki uniform. His conscription had ended but he’d been bullied in the forces; Greta talked about how he’d go days without talking. Greta never dated as she got older – unlike Dolly, unlike their mother. Her sister’s reading choices were eclectic and included romances. Didn’t she crave a love story of her own, Dolly had once asked, or at least a few dates, to have a bit of fun? But Greta had rolled her eyes, said fiction was fiction, and in any case she had her job, her books, gardening was fun and, of course, she had Dolly.
Dolly took down the frame and stripped the walls, putting the pictures on the bed for the moment. In the corner, Greta’s notebooks caught her eye. She picked up a handful of the ones containing book reviews and sat on the bed again. The covers were pastel, no fancy patterns, and she flicked the top one open. The first review was fairly recent, from 2018, and aboutLess, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel focusing on a failed novelist. The review spoke solely of the character’s trips to Mexico, Italy, Japan, other places… the food, landscape, the weather. There was no comment on character development, nor plot twists, nor prose. She flicked forward several pages to one aboutCaptainCorelli’s Mandolin. Greta wrote only about the Greek Cephalonian island setting. Dolly picked up another notebook. Each one might have a different theme, the next could focus on historical eras, but yet again, foreign countries were the focus. The review ofThe Color Purplewas all about Georgia.The Little Paris Bookshopone, France,The Kite Runner, Afghanistan,The Girl with the Pearl Earringwas set in Holland,Loser Takes All, Monaco. Dolly threw that notebook to one side and picked up one more that began with a novel calledThe White Tiger– the review talked about the sights and way of life in India. Dolly turned to the pile of recipe notebooks and leafed through one before standing up. She flexed her fists in front of the wardrobe, and went to open the doors but her stomach rumbled. Breakfast first.
She drew open the curtains in the lounge. The room brightened enough for her to see Maurice and Fanny. She crouched by the tank and they swam over before darting to the top of the tank. She missed her close relationship with Maurice, the daily staring contests, but she wanted the best for him. Greta might have been afraid of losing her closeness to Dolly. Or was she genuinely afraid her younger sister might get hurt? Greta once read a book about penguins, the review of which had no doubt focused on Antarctica. She learnt that bird species were sixty to ninety per cent monogamous. Bald eagles wouldn’t look at another partner unless their mate died. But in mammals, Greta announced, the percentage was three to five.
After dropping a pinch of flakes into the tank, Dolly put on the kettle and reached for the Tupperware container of Easter biscuits, left over from last night. However, her mood, her aches and pains, her mobility, all had improved so much with her eating more healthily and getting out and about, swimming as well, and the chest pains had eased. Therefore, instead, she made a bowl of porridge, with berries on top and a modest squirt of honey. The meal filled her with reassuring warmth, and after washing up her bowl she returned to her sister’s bedroom.
The wardrobe’s doors swung open and a wave of nostalgia caught her by surprise as she touched Greta’s favourite tweed coat. It had always been so important to her sister to look respectable, with rigid lines down trousers, sparkling brooches and hats positioned at just the right angle. Dolly had thought Greta might relax once retired, but that gave her more time to focus on the appearance of herself and the bungalow. Dolly pulled out the tweed coat and slipped into it. She did it up. Right to the top. Then she filled dustbin bags with clothes until the rail was empty. She took off the coat and buried her head in the material for a moment, before putting it into the bottom of a charity shop bag. At the bottom of the empty wardrobe was a portable box file. Dolly would examine that later. Dolly lifted up a small wooden chest and sat down on the bed. Carefully she opened the lid.
Of course. Mum’s special things. Her favourite ivory pendant, the most expensive item she’d owned, a present from a boyfriend before he revealed he was married. Her decorative powder compact with flowers engraved on the top; a small pile of birthday cards. Dolly flicked through them. Her eyes pricked. They were all from Greta. She was about to close the lid when poking out from underneath a lace handkerchief was a yellow knitted bootie with a tiny orange bow. There were two of them. Their mum always did say that Greta looked good in sunshine colours. As the rain fell in torrents outside, Dolly sorted through her sister’s shoes, on a rack under the windowsill. She’d filled seven dustbin bags, two of them full of bedclothes. For the moment, she’d leave the perfume bottles where they were.
Fred used to buy her L’Air du Temps perfume by Nina Ricci, and if he went for a weekend away would ask her to spray it on his handkerchief, to have a bit of her by his side for those two days. Her jaw set. She stood on tiptoe and removed a bottle from the shelf. She loosened her grip and let it fall into a newly opened dustbin bag. The others followed, then toiletries, the creams and lotions, packets of unused tablets. The doorbell rang.
‘Shit.’
Swearing. In Greta’s room. The ultimate sacrilege.
Right at this moment, it felt brilliant.
She glanced in the mirror. Her hair was a mess, perspiration shone on her brow, dust covered her jumper. The woman in the reflection shrugged back at Dolly. She didn’t owe Fred anything, and that included a pristine appearance.
