Page 58 of Lost Luggage
When the rain stopped, they headed back up Wellington Road to the train station. It was late afternoon. Fred held her arm as she climbed into the carriage. She didn’t pull away and they sat next to each other, arms through each other’s – arms that stayed that way until they walked past his car and stopped at the end of her driveway. His body went rigid as he stared at the For Sale sign.
‘I have to, Fred. I can’t live here. Not any more. I rang the estate agent before going out this morning.’
Phoebe appeared in the distance, waving, and bounded over. She’d styled her hair on top of her head, applied eye shadow and lip gloss, small touches that indicated a change that making a new friend might bring, not in appearance but self-confidence. She wore a wide smile on her face, news about her day pouring out.
‘Zoe and I found an amazing brunch place in the Northern Quarter. I had mashed avocado on toast, so did she. Then we shared a cake afterwards. We went to WHSmith and Waterstones. She got talking to one of the managers and he said to drop her CV in. Then she took me to Forbidden Planet on Oldham Street. I’ve seen it before but never been in. Zoe loves reading manga – they’re Japanese graphic novels – and showed me her favourite series calledFullmetal Alchemist. I bought the first one to try and…’ She caught her breath. ‘I decided not to get off the train at Lymhall but to come here and…’ Her mouth fell open. ‘You aren’t moving, are you?’
Dolly nodded.
‘But this is such a lovely loop,’ said Phoebe. ‘You’ve got friends either side and… you and me, we aren’t far from each other…’
‘I don’t want to,’ said Dolly, in a dull tone. ‘I can’t imagine not being within shouting distance of Leroy and Flo.’ She met Phoebe’s disbelieving gaze. ‘It means a lot having other friends close. But my life in Manchester has been based on lies.’
‘Did you find the frame, then?’ Phoebe’s voice had flatlined.
‘No,’ muttered Fred, still staring at the sign.
Dolly gave a big sigh. ‘I need a coffee and there’s a wedge of pineapple cake left.’
Phoebe sat in the lounge, staring out of the front window, whilst Fred and Dolly sipped their hot drinks. Maurice and Fanny were eating the peas Dolly had dropped into the tank – their afternoon tea. Phoebe went over to the record player and picked up the octopus plushie, turning it inside out, again and again, from the orange happy side and then to the sad blue.
‘I still can’t believe I’ll never see Maisie… Greta again,’ she said.
‘Are you angry that she deceived you about her true identity?’ asked Dolly.
Phoebe took a moment. ‘Perhaps I should be, but no. The friendship we had, that was honest; I could tell she really cared, the way she talked, asked me questions, listened. I’ve put up a facade in recent years, not let people see the real me. I can’t judge anyone else for doing the same. Greta must have had her reasons.’
Dolly wished she could be so generous.
Phoebe gazed at the opposite wall and the shelves of Greta’s books all colour coordinated. ‘What if Greta hadn’t been talking about the framed photo?’ She walked over and ran a finger over the novels. ‘I’ve been thinking about that manga I bought today. The last time Greta and I met, it was in the November before she stopped going to the library. I remember because she was cross how people were still letting off fireworks even though Bonfire Night had passed. We got talking about our most loved book ever.’ Phoebe nodded to herself, acknowledging the memory coming back. ‘We both choseThe Alchemistby Paulo Coelho and…’ Her voice wavered. ‘We laughed at how that confirmed our friendship was meant to be, even though it’s probably the favourite read of many people around the world.’ Her eyes glistened.
‘It’s a great story,’ said Fred gently, and he wiped his mouth.
‘What’s it about?’ The only Alchemist Dolly knew was the bar in Spinningfields that Leroy had talked about.
‘An Andalusian shepherd boy dreams of treasure and goes on a journey to find it, across Spain to Tangiers, on to the Egyptian desert… he follows his heart. Thinks big. That’s the message of the story,’ said Fred.
‘Agreed,’ said Phoebe, ‘but it’s stuck in my memory because Greta took another view. The treasure, in the end, turns out to be back home, where the shepherd boy first dreamt of it. The book summed up for Greta that however far she travelled, whatever sights she’d seen, what she really cared about was right back in England; that however happy globetrotting made her, there’d always be an underlying sadness until she was back where she belonged.’ Phoebe turned to the bookcase and scanned the shelves. ‘That would fit, wouldn’t it? With everything she said about where she’d hidden important things.’ She pulled out a slim, tangerine-coloured book with an image of the pyramids on the cover, and opened it. The three of them looked at each other as two documents fell on to the carpet. She gasped and scooped them up, gave them to Dolly and sat on the floor in front of her. Fred moved away a little so that Dolly could open the documents with privacy.
37
She unfolded one of the documents. The white paper had curdled to yellow.
Greta’s birth certificate.
Born in 1934 and the father, as Dolly already knew, had been their mother’s one and only husband. It was the Great Depression and he lost his job soon after Greta was born; they ended up queuing at soup kitchens and their marriage never recovered from the shame he’d felt. Dolly’s mother tried to be understanding but couldn’t ignore the temper he’d developed. She said it was a relief when he got called up at the beginning of the Second World War. He survived but never came back and she eventually got a divorce on the grounds of desertion.
Dolly folded the certificate and placed it on the sofa. She picked up the other; this had to be hers. She’d never even known her dad’s family name, her mother having given Dolly the marital name she’d never stopped using. Dolly unfolded it. She looked straight at the father’s details and… the box was blank.
No. This couldn’t be.
There’d been no internet back then; she couldn’t scroll back through social media, see if her mum had left any hints on private posts or messages. Fighting the temptation to screw the certificate into a tight ball, she folded it up, but not before her eye caught sight of her mother’s details. The room spun as if she’d drunk whisky, not coffee. The words loomed large as if the truth sinking in was enlarging the font. A spasm tore through her and, clutching the certificate, she ran into the hallway. Almost tripping, she reached the toilet moments before vomiting. Footsteps sounded and Phoebe appeared at the bathroom door. Dolly wiped her mouth and eyes with toilet paper and a second spasm sent her reeling, another attempt to rid her body of a sense of betrayal and lack of belonging.
‘I need to be alone. Please, Phoebe. I’ll text you both later. I promise.’
Dolly sat on the side of the bath, waiting until she heard the front door close. Leaving the certificate on the bathroom floor, she went into the kitchen, made herself a strong cup of tea and sat in the conservatory. She took the turquoise tea flask with her. When they went on holiday it accompanied Greta to every stately home, every beach, every botanical garden. Her sister felt the cold increasingly with age. A warm brew, on tap, kept her mobile.
Darkness fell but Dolly didn’t move. A bat swooped outside as moonlight streamed through the windows, on to the tea flask, on to Dolly’s mug full of undrunk tea. She finally moved into the lounge and in the shadows, knelt in front of the tank. Maurice and Fanny gently flapped their fins and the tension across her shoulders disappeared. Dolly pulled on a coat and went around to Leroy’s. She rang the doorbell. No reply. She tried again. She jumped as a hand shook her shoulder from behind.
