Читать книгу A Postcard from Italy - Alex Brown - Страница 9

‘There you are, my love.’ Larry’s homely wife, Betty, bustled out of the little kitchenette area and placed a mug of steaming tea down on Grace’s desk before popping a plate, with an enormous slice of still warm, traditional Jewish babka on, beside it. ‘I’ve put a smidge of sugar in your tea too … to keep your energy levels up. You look done in, dear, if you don’t mind me saying.’

‘Oh thank you, Betty.’ Grace put down her knitting; she was making a cable-stitch scarf for Jamie, and grinned up at the older woman, admiring the new lemon hand-crocheted waistcoat over her usual navy serge shift dress. Her black wig was coiffured into a wavy halo around her face.

‘Another late night?’ Betty asked, getting cosy in a brown leather bucket chair in the customer waiting area. Grace nodded hungrily through a mouthful of the chocolatey and cinnamon swirled bread that Betty frequently made from scratch and which she absolutely loved. She hadn’t had time to eat at lunchtime as the washing had taken longer to peg out than she had anticipated, and then Cora hadn’t liked the lasagne that Grace had cooked last night in an attempt to make life easier today. Instead, she had insisted on a time-consuming freshly made chicken salad with an oven-warmed baguette. And then the bus back to work had been stuck in traffic for what felt like ages.

‘Yes,’ Grace nodded, ‘and I’m sorry for being late again this morning …’ She turned away; there were only so many times one could apologise before it just felt embarrassingly superficial.

‘You do your best, my dear. That’s all any of us can do,’ Betty said kindly, rummaging in her crochet bag before pulling out a glorious candy-pink-coloured yarn. ‘It’s going to be a dolly blanket for our little Hannah in America,’ she chuckled, looping a length of the wool around her fingers as she worked the hook.

‘I think she’s going to treasure it,’ Grace smiled, remembering fondly when Betty and Larry’s granddaughter and her husband had visited from America to introduce their first great-grandchild, beautiful baby Hannah.

‘I hope so. It’s important to keep our family members happy. And how is your mother, dear?’

‘The same as always, Betty. Still refusing any outside help … but thank you for asking.’ Grace felt her cheeks flush on criticising Cora. Not being accustomed to doing so to anyone outside the family, it felt disloyal, and she had been brought up never to air her dirty laundry in public. Her mother had been fastidious about it, forever wagging a finger and shushing them as children in case the neighbours overheard their business as they walked to church on Sunday for Mass in their best coats and shoes. Appearances were everything, and nobody needed to know that the electric meter had run out again or the TV had been returned to the rental shop because Dad had lost his job at the printing factory and so hadn’t been paid in weeks.

‘Oh dear. Well, if there’s anything I can do to help … I’d be happy to call in some time with a pile of magazines or one of those Sudoku books. If only to give you a bit of a break. You do look a little peaky, my love, if you don’t mind me saying so,’ Betty smiled kindly, ‘although still beautiful with your gorgeous red curls and English rose complexion.’

Betty’s words hung in the air as Grace stirred her tea, knowing that she would never take Betty up on her kindness. She had been making the offer for nearly a year now, but Grace knew that her mother would never forgive her if she brought a stranger into the house, even if it was only to keep her company over a cup of tea. It was a shame, though, as it couldn’t be much fun lying in bed all day long watching the same daytime TV shows over and over, with only a word-search puzzle book to break the monotony. No wonder her mother was foul-tempered and ungrateful. Grace had tried getting Cora interested in reading, even borrowing a selection of books that she thought she’d like from the library, only to see them thrown aside with complaints that they were boring. The same had happened with Netflix. Cora had hated that too, berating Grace for ‘interfering with my telly’ and ‘wasting money on silly subscription services for rubbish box sets set in foreign places like Sweden or America’.

‘Thanks, Betty. I’d love to take you up on your offer, but …’ Grace let her voice fade away.

‘I know, my love.’ A short silence followed, broken only by the sound of Betty’s crochet hook as she looped the yarn around it and got to work on Hannah’s dolly blanket. ‘Now, Larry has something special for you to do this afternoon.’

‘Ooh, sounds intriguing.’ Grace finished the last of her tea and stood up as Larry walked through the door. A clipboard and a bunch of keys were pressed against his uniform of a black suit, including waistcoat and tie with a freshly laundered striped shirt. With his swept-back silver hair, he had been making an effort to look dapper since he was first introduced to Betty at a tea dance back in the day. They had both been nineteen and it had been a mutual love at first sight. Grace loved hearing all about it from Betty. It gave her hope, that there really was such a thing as ‘happy ever after’, where two kind souls could love and cherish and, most importantly, respect each other as they shared a life together.

‘That’s right, Grace. Your favourite job. Unit 28 needs opening and cataloguing for sale or disposal.’ Larry removed his bifocals and slipped them into his breast pocket before handing the clipboard to her, then started sorting out the key to the padlock on the door of number 28.

‘Thank you!’ Grace particularly loved this part of her job. Not that she was nosey – well, maybe a bit; her mother always said she was as a child – ‘with your constant questioning’. ‘Inquisitive’ was how Grace liked think of it, as she did get a thrill of anticipation when the door to an abandoned unit was first opened and she got to peep inside and then sort through the contents. Somebody else’s cast-off stuff was always another person’s treasure.

Mostly, it was the usual items of furniture stored after a house move, or sometimes catering equipment, packs of party blowers and joke hats belonging to event planners whose businesses had gone bust, that kind of thing. But every now and again there would be a veritable treasure trove of intrigue. She once found a pair of stuffed parrots. Another time a collection of fossils – she’d contacted the Natural History Museum in London on that occasion and they had sent a curator to collect them when numerous attempts to make contact with the owners had proven fruitless. And then there was the World War II medal collection a little while ago. Grace, Larry and Betty had all agreed that it just wouldn’t have been right to sell the medals to recover the rental arrears when they hadn’t been able to contact the owner. It had then turned out that the owner had died six months earlier. Luckily, Larry had managed to find a relative … the son of the deceased soldier, who had stored his medals at Cohen’s for over fifty years in one of the small safety deposit boxes, and that had been a happy day. The grateful son had travelled all the way from Scotland to collect the medals in person and to shake Larry’s hand. A reporter from the local newspaper had even come along too, and then written a lovely piece featuring a black-and-white photo of the man in his soldier’s uniform during the Second World War.

‘I can do that for you,’ Grace offered, indicating the bunch of keys that Larry was fiddling with. ‘They can be very tricky sometimes,’ she added tactfully, knowing how Larry struggled with arthritis in his age-gnarled fingers.

‘Thank you, Grace. You are kind.’ He smiled gratefully, handing the clipboard and the bunch of keys over.

Having found the right key, Grace had pushed an empty trolley along the length of the corridor on the ground floor and was now standing outside the door to unit 28. It was one of the oldest large walk-in units, occupying a corner space, and Grace wondered when it had last been opened as the key was stiff in the padlock, which had rust all around the edges. So after walking back along the corridor and locating a can of WD40 in the cleaning cupboard, she had returned and managed to spruce up the padlock and get the key to turn.

Gingerly, she pulled the metal door, which scraped across the floor as if it hadn’t been opened in years, and felt around for the light switch. Larry had first set up the storage company in the Fifties, and the older units didn’t have automatic motion-sensor lighting installed. She felt a whoosh of anticipation in the middle of her stomach as the old-fashioned strip light flickered into action before eventually settling to bathe the contents of the unit in a bright, wondrous light.

Grace stood in silence for a moment.

Blinked a few times.

Then gasped on registering the sight set out before her.

She took a few steps forward until she was standing in the centre of the storage unit.

It was incredible.

And breathtaking.

And on first glance it appeared to be the best unit she had ever had the pleasure of opening.

Right in front of her was a beautiful Aladdin’s cave full of ornate vintage items with a sumptuously soft, deep-piled dusty pink rug beneath her shoes. But the contents weren’t stacked higgledy-piggledy on top of each other to make best use of the space as was often the case. Not at all. Someone had taken a great deal of care to present everything in the best possible way. Someone with an eye for design and sumptuous living, because the unit was organised like a glamorous 1950s boudoir. It was just like stepping onto a Hollywood film set – Elizabeth Taylor’s bedroom would have looked like this for sure, Grace thought, as she folded her hands, one over the over, and tucked them up underneath her chin in glee.

Then, double-checking the paperwork on the clipboard, Grace saw that the unit belonged to a Mrs Constance di Donato and the last payment had been made by cheque over two years ago. The final cheque had been for a whole year’s rental payments, making Mrs di Donato now one year in arrears, which was far longer than they usually waited before opening an abandoned unit. Grace made a mental note to mention it to Larry, as she wondered if there was a special reason for letting the payments lapse for so long. She flicked on through the rest of the paperwork. There were copies of the three letters that Larry had sent to the address they had for Mrs Donato in London; all of them had been returned, unopened, with ‘Not known at this address’ handwritten on the envelopes in large, flamboyant letters. Grace had to be sure they could show they had tried to contact Mrs Donato several times before she touched anything and started sorting through the items.

She didn’t know anything about antiques, but even she could see that the ornate French Louis XV style dressing table with its carved cabriole legs and marble top was of significant value. Not to mention the large leather jewellery case on top of it. Moving further into the unit, Grace gasped again as she lifted a dust sheet to reveal an exquisite silk chaise longue with a petrol blue peacock-patterned fabric that had been placed at a jaunty angle over in a corner. A clothes rail ran the length of one wall with at least twenty, maybe thirty, sparkly evening gowns hanging neatly on satin padded hangers. Each gown was carefully tucked inside its own transparent plastic protective cover. A mink coat was draped around a mannequin, presumably to help keep the coat’s shape, Grace figured, remembering how the costume staff in the theatres where she had danced had used this trick too. Stacked in one of the other corners were four old-fashioned brown utility suitcases, and next to them were three expensive-looking leather handbags – Italian design by the looks of them, as one had the famous gold Gucci badge on the front. A selection of paintings had been carefully placed behind the chaise longue, with a large oval-shaped rose-print hatbox beside them on the carpet.

Grace lifted the lid of the hatbox and drew in the nostalgic aroma of musty paper as she peeped inside to see a collection of old magazines. Variety. Britannia and Eve. Dated 1938 and through to 1941, 1942, and so on, she noticed, carefully sorting through the pile. In jaunty, faded primary colours there were pictures of women wearing headscarves and dungarees like the Land Girls did during the Second World War. Another cover, dated 1950, was much more glamorous, with a woman wearing a ball gown and holding a champagne glass. A faded brown envelope was tucked down the side and contained a handful of dried pink rose petals. Grace turned the envelope over and saw Glorious day, Portofino – 1955 handwritten on the back.

Grace could feel her spirits rising, and couldn’t wait to get started on cataloguing the contents of storage unit number 28. But where to start? She felt like a child in a sweet shop, elated and overwhelmed by the mesmerising selection of goodies on display. Smiling to herself, she stepped towards the suitcases, figuring this would be the best place to begin as there might be some paperwork in one of them with an address of a relative or a friend they could contact – there was no way Larry could just dispose of these items without them trying hard to find Mrs Donato. But as Grace reached out her hands to release the two brass clasps of the suitcase that was sitting on top of the pile, her mobile rang in the back pocket of her jeans.

‘Where are you?’ her sister, Bernie, demanded on opening the conversation, and making Grace bristle.

‘At work,’ she stated, in an equally cursory tone.

‘Well, you need to get home right away. I’ve just had Mum on the phone. She was put through via the switchboard, so I had to come out early from eating my lunch in the staff restaurant especially to deal with her …’ Grace was sure she heard Bernie tut with frustration, which made her bristling intensify. She crossed her free arm across her body as if to soothe herself. ‘And she was crying—’

‘Crying?’ Grace interjected, panic starting to trickle through her, as it was unlike Cora to cry. In fact, Grace wasn’t sure she had ever seen her mother cry. Not even when their gentle, kind dad, had died. Cora had said, ‘It was your father’s time to pass.’ And that was that. No more emotion required.

‘Yes. That’s right,’ Bernie kept on. ‘Crying. Sobbing she was, so hard she could barely get her words out. Took me ages to calm her down. Apparently, you rushed off so quickly after your own lunch break that she didn’t even get a chance to use the commode. So now she’s had an accident and feels really dreadful about it.’

‘But—’

‘No buts, Grace. You can’t just leave her like that. She’ll get sore and then likely get an infection or whatever, and you’ll never forgive yourself if that happens.’ Grace swallowed hard as she tried to formulate a response. ‘Are you still there?’ Bernie barked a few seconds later, and Grace could hear office noise now in the background.

‘Yes,’ she managed in a dejected voice, her earlier elation on seeing Mrs Donato’s belongings having suddenly vanished, not to mention her feelings of guilt and confusion. She hadn’t rushed off, and she was sure she had asked Cora if she needed to use the commode, but had been told off for fussing …

‘Look, I have to go. But sort Mum out and let me know later, OK? Oh, hold on.’ The instruction was so swift and fleeting that Grace automatically acquiesced. ‘If you take a seat over there, someone will be with you shortly,’ she heard Bernie say in a far nicer voice, and then, ‘I really do need to go, Grace. I’m just so busy. I’ve a queue of people who all need my help and …’ Grace wasn’t listening any more; all she could think about was something she had read online last night at around midnight as she stood waiting for the microwave to ping time on Cora’s request for a mug of warm milk with a sprinkle of nutmeg on top. The article was about people being busy being busy and so somehow managing to fill their time, regardless of their actual workload, and thereby convincing themselves they were busier than everyone else … she figured that Bernie must be one of those ‘busy’ people.

‘I’m busy too,’ Grace uttered, but wasn’t heard as the line went dead. Seems Bernie had gone back to being too busy to be bothered by troublesome phone calls from their bedbound mother.

Grace turned and left Mrs Donato’s glorious unit 28 behind for another day. Monday to be exact, seeing as today was Friday! The disappointment of having to wait three days to go through the contents was crushing, but at least she had something nice to look forward to now … or maybe I could come into work tomorrow? Just to take a peek inside one of those suitcases? Or I could take the one on the top of the pile home to make a start? But Grace knew this could never happen as there was no way Larry would allow her to remove one of Mrs Donato’s suitcases from the storage company’s premises – he was very fastidious about things like that and rightly took pride in looking after his customer’s belongings as if they were his own. Plus Grace knew that her mother would never agree to her leaving her home alone over the weekend. And Bernie was right … she couldn’t leave Cora lying in a wet bed, so there was nothing for it, Grace would have to go home now. And strip and then remake her mother’s bed, for a second time today.

So after closing the door behind her and securing the padlock back in place, Grace put the clipboard on to the trolley and braced herself to face Larry and Betty to explain that, not only had she turned up late this morning … but that she was now going to have to let them down again and go home early.