Page 48 of Lost Luggage
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They sat at the kitchen table and the kettle whistled like a referee foreseeing a fallout.
‘Terrible weather,’ he said as Dolly got up.
‘But good for the garden,’ she replied.
She put his tea down in front of him, and sat with hers, accompanied by a late lunch – lightly buttered toast. The crunch as she bit down sounded magnified.
‘Phoebe’s really pushing herself doing this bake-off trip. Angela wouldn’t believe it,’ he finally burst out.
‘She’s a lovely girl.’
‘Yes. I’m very lucky.’ He held his mug with both hands. ‘So, did you find anything in Greta’s room that might help us?’
Us? He had no right to use a word that ignored the last four decades apart.
‘A box file I’m going to go through, but apart from that just clothes, personal items, all of her notebooks.’
‘Did she carry on writing book reviews? You said once how she always had her head in a novel and wrote up her thoughts afterwards.’
‘There are piles of them in her bedroom. The reviews are unusual, each one focusing on the story’s setting.’
Fred jigged his glasses from side to side. ‘May I see? Being a reader and all…’
Dolly brought in as many as she could carry and placed them in front of him higgledy piggledy. Fred opened one randomly and shook his head. ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude. A classic.’ He scanned the review. ‘I see what you mean – it focuses on Colombian life. This book was one of the first…’ Fred shifted. ‘I read it in prison. A bit of a challenge for a beginner but I became gripped by such a saga, a story about so many generations. Jealousy ran through me with every page. I never did find out anything about my biological parents.’
He always did loveThe Waltons, the ultimate telly show about generations of families living together. Dolly’s shoulders relaxed as he picked up another notebook.
‘Live and Let Die… Yes, Harlem… Jamaica… was she a fan of James Bond movies too?’
‘Goodness, no. They were far too commercial for her tastes. She found the books much more acceptable.’
A flame of humour flickered between them before loud knocking on the front door snuffed it out. Dolly returned a few moments later.
‘Do I want my drive resurfacing,’ she muttered and sat down. Fred didn’t reply; he was going through the notebooks, at speed, one by one.
‘The… love that comes across about the landscapes and cultures… It’s incredible that she never holidayed abroad.’
‘Not really. She was never interested in actually travelling the world, considered it a waste of money, said the UK had everything we needed. Greta did fill in notebooks after our breaks but only listing the places we visited.’
‘Could I see?’
Dolly fetched a couple.
He turned the pages. ‘York – she lists the Viking Centre, Moors Railway, a stately home, the… Angel on the Green?’
‘A pub. Lovely homemade pizza.’
‘Llandudno… the North Shore Beach Promenade, Happy Valley Botanical Gardens, the cable car… The Cottage Loaf.’
‘I’ve never forgotten their chocolate orange baked Alaska.’
Fred closed the notebook. ‘Such practical lists, nothing like the flowery, emotional reviews of places in the novels she’d enjoyed. Greta was clearly passionate about new sights and places, yet that doesn’t come out of the notebooks referencing UK holidays. It’s as if foreign climes excited her most. Surely she could have overcome her fear of flying. It doesn’t add up. She went on a cable car in Wales. Wasn’t she at all nervous?’
‘She loved it. Insisted on going up twice.’
‘That doesn’t strike me as a woman who’s scared of heights or vehicles she has no control over driving.’
