A Postcard from Italy: The perfect summer beach read

by Alex Brown

  ‘Connie?’ Larry asked.

  ‘Yes, Mrs Donato. Connie is short for Constance. That’s her first name … well, the name her family and friends call her. It’s on a number of letters and cards in the first suitcase. From what I can make out, she grew up in London and then moved to Italy later. But I’d have to put it all together into a proper timeline to be sure …’

  ‘OK, Grace. But do we have a current address for her? Or a relative? A son or daughter perhaps? A bank statement? Anything to give us a clue as to her current whereabouts and why she hasn’t paid us? Or how about a first name for Mr Donato?’

  ‘Not yet. But I’m working on it. Please can I have a bit more time to go through and catalogue everything properly? There’s a lot of paperwork. But a week or two should do it.’

  ‘Hmm, I know I said there was no immediate rush, but we can’t afford to have units unpaid for, so we need to start getting an income for this space asap. I’ve already been a sentimental fool for far too long over this one. Perhaps we should make a start on getting it listed at auction and hopefully someone will buy the whole lot swiftly. Then we can recoup our losses and re-let the unit right away.’ He shook his head as if deep in thought as he tapped the tip of a biro on the doorframe.

  ‘I understand,’ Grace conceded, reluctantly, but then had an idea. ‘Some of these items are antiques and must be worth a fortune … much more than she owes us in missed storage payments, so we’ll easily recover our losses if we can’t find her and have to sell them. What do you reckon?’ She felt alive at the prospect of piecing together the life story of Connie Donato or, to use her gloriously glamorous full name, Mrs Constance di Donato. ‘And you did say that you have a soft spot for her …’ she added, hoping to appeal to his better nature. ‘It doesn’t feel fair to not even try to track her down.’ Grace inhaled, willing him to agree. ‘Surely, her belongings are as important as the old soldier’s medals? There’s a whole lifetime inside this unit waiting to be discovered …’

  A short silence followed as Larry creased his forehead and gazed around the unit, seeming to take it all in. Grace inwardly crossed her fingers, because if he let her have a week or two, she was quite certain she could unearth something in amongst Connie’s belongings that would give them a clue. If not to her whereabouts, then a relative, or even a friend who might be able to help. The items in the unit were unique and far too personal to be sold off at auction.

  ‘OK,’ he eventually agreed. ‘A week or so. Two tops! But only because I feel sorry for her.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she breathed out, only realising then that she had been holding her breath for too long making her feel dizzy. ‘But why do you feel sorry for her?’ she asked, blinking a few times to clear her head.

  ‘Because,’ he started and then paused. ‘I don’t really know, to be honest … I mean, it was donkey’s years ago, of course, yet feels like only yesterday, that’s how distinctive she was. But I still remember when she first came here to sign up for the unit. Mrs Donato stuck in my mind. You see, there was an aura about her.’

  ‘An aura?’ Grace felt intrigued and widened her eyes in anticipation of hearing more.

  ‘Yes. Imperious. Regal almost. But kind of sad and lonely too. She was smartly dressed, in a mink coat with leather gloves and a hat … it was still OK to wear real fur in those days,’ he quickly clarified. ‘And she was wearing this expensive scent … I don’t know what it was – not something our Betty would wear. Anyway, I remember it lingered in the office for ages afterwards. Betty and I joked about it for weeks, saying, “Mrs Donato is still here” every morning when we unlocked the office door and got a great big walloping whiff.’

  Grace immediately wondered which perfume it was, and from what she had already deduced about Connie, imagined it to be something romantic yet sophisticated, classic and expensive, like Cartier or Van Cleef and Arpels. Grace had been walking through Selfridges’ beauty hall one time on a shopping trip with Matthew, and the sales assistant had spritzed her with both of these fragrances and then given her some small sample sprays. She had treasured those tiny phials, eking them out as a way to hold on to that moment in time with her own truelove, as it was later that very day, over lunch, that Matthew had proposed.

  Perfume was such a powerful evocation of memories: one whiff and Grace was back there with Matthew by her side, oohing and aahing over the dazzling display counters in Selfridges. Then, after the shopping trip, they had found an authentic Italian café in a quiet back street with round tables covered in red gingham tablecloths and candles in wine bottles with wax trickling down the sides. They had sipped limoncello cocktails and tucked into big bowls of buttery soft ravioli stuffed with shrimp and drizzled with pesto and pecorino shavings. Creamy raspberry gelato was for pudding, followed by mugs of hot chocolate so deliciously thick they had been able to stand their teaspoons up in it and take bets to see whose spoon would topple over first.

  Matthew had joked about the leaning tower of Pisa being right there inside his mug and how they should book a holiday to Tuscany to see the tower and all the other glorious Italian sights for themselves. He had then pushed back his chair and actually performed the whole chivalrous ceremony of asking her to marry him amidst much whooping and cheering from all the other diners. ‘Of course I will marry you,’ she had laughed, ‘but only if you get up off the floor at once.’ She had never been one for showy displays of affection. The way everyone had stared and then come over to shake Matthew’s hand and tell him how marvellous he was. She remembered his smile, like he was the happiest man alive. And it had felt right. A perfect day.

  ‘But her eyes. I’ll never forget her eyes,’ Larry continued, bringing Grace back to the moment, so she tucked that particular memory away for now; it was probably for the best as it never did her any good to remember the good times with Matthew … it only made her current, lukewarm relationship with Phil feel like a consolation prize. ‘You can tell a lot about a person from their eyes.’ Larry leant against the doorframe and tilted his head upwards as he ruminated.

  ‘Here, do you want to sit down? Come and rest your knees,’ Grace offered, gesturing to the chaise.

  ‘Ah, no thank you, my dear. My orthopaedic consultant said that I have to keep active if I don’t want the old joints to cease up. Road to ruin that is … not keeping active.’ And he did a halfhearted knee bend as if to punctuate the point, making Grace wonder if she should try to encourage Cora to be more mobile. Maybe she could manage some arm stretches at least. It certainly wouldn’t hurt for her to try. She could sit up in bed and reach up for the hoist and bash her walking stick hard on the floor, so it was worth a go. Plus she was younger than Larry by over a decade. Grace made a mental note to mention it to her mother when she got home from work.

  ‘If you’re sure …’ Grace smiled at Larry. ‘So, what were they like, Connie’s eyes?’

  ‘Deep and pensive. As if she had lived a life of note, but with adversity and sorrow. Haunting, almost. That’s why she’s stuck in my memory. I’ve not ever seen eyes like that since …’

  ‘Oh, poor Connie,’ Grace said, even more determined to find her and discover her story. ‘And thank you for giving me time to find out more.’

  Larry smiled and moved into the centre of the unit.

  ‘Two weeks tops!’ He shook his head and sighed good-heartedly. ‘Come on, how about I give you a hand to sort through some of her things … let’s see what we can find. If we have no luck in finding a lead of any kind, then we can always get Betty to ask her pal, Maggie – the one from the knit-and-natter group, to look on the computer.

  ‘Maggie who works at the coroner’s office?’ Grace said, optimistically.

  ‘Yes, that’s the one. She does family trees for people too and has even managed to trace right back to pirate times for some of her clients.’

  ‘Really? I didn’t even know that was possible,’ Grace said, fascinated, and wondering if she could be related to a proper pirate. She quite fancied the idea
of that. It was quirky and unusual and certainly sounded more interesting than coming from a long line of potato farmers who had lived in stone huts on the desolate, windswept fields of the remotest part of southern Ireland.

  ‘It’s all there in the computer these days,’ Larry confirmed. ‘Maggie was very helpful when we were trying to track down the owner of those medals that time. We would never have known he had died or had a son up in Scotland without her help.’

  ‘True.’ But Grace really hoped this wasn’t the case for Connie. After retrieving a picture from the carpet that had fallen out of the back of the diary, Grace studied it and found herself looking at a slim, elegant young woman, with a row of yachts and small sailing boats moored behind her in the background. Rows of narrow, tall houses with shops and cafés with the awnings out curved along the water’s edge to her right, a church or a lighthouse peeping over the top on the pine-tree-clad cliff. She was wearing a silk scarf knotted at the side of her neck, pedal pushers and a stripy, boat-necked sun top and looked very 1950s chic – just like Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday – another one of Grace’s favourite films. With a handbag in the crook of her elbow, sunglasses and leather gloves in her hands, Connie looked breezy and happy at first glance, but on closer inspection there appeared to be a sadness surrounding her too, with her almond-shaped eyes gazing sideways and ever so slightly downcast. Or maybe she was just shy and didn’t like having her picture taken. It was hard to tell for sure. But Larry was right, Connie did indeed have pensive eyes. And a dazzling smile. And was strikingly beautiful … if the faded black-and-white photo was anything to go by. Grace really hoped she hadn’t died.

  Grace showed the photo to Larry who turned it over and read the old-fashioned cursive words in faint black ink on the back.

  ‘Connie. Portofino harbour. 1952,’ he read aloud and then commented, ‘very nice indeed.’ He passed the picture to Grace who slid it back where it belonged inside the diary.

  ‘But why hasn’t anyone been in contact? There must be someone – who took this photo? And who wrote Connie’s name on the back? A family member? Mr Donato? Connie’s child?’ Grace was sure Connie had a daughter as she had seen mention of a baby in one of the letters she’d found in the first suitcase. And then there was the pink fluffy teddy bear. It was tucked inside a bundle of delicately hand-knitted baby clothes – a pretty matinee jacket, a bonnet with satin ribbons and bootees in soft pink and white wool. And all of a sudden a wave of sadness came over her, for she knew that Connie was dead. In her heart she just knew. It was the most likely reason for her storage payments to have stopped, it was usually the way, and she couldn’t bear the thought of the unit being sold at auction to whoever was willing to stump up the highest bid, as had happened on rare occasions when all avenues to trace the owner or a relative had been exhausted.

  Grace felt it important to make sure it didn’t happen this time; that a complete stranger should rummage through Connie’s things with scant regard to the life that she had lived. She wasn’t really sure why she felt so strongly about it. Maybe it was seeing the photo; it had somehow made Connie real, and now Grace cared about her. Or maybe it was the pair of worn-out pink satin pointe ballet shoes that she had found in a black leather oval-shaped dancing case underneath the chaise longue. Was Connie a dancer too? Was that where the feeling of affinity came from?

  Whatever it was, Grace knew that she had to find out more about the elusive Mrs Donato with her sad eyes. And who knew, maybe Grace’s intuition was wrong and Connie was still alive: it was possible. Perhaps she had returned to Italy and was living the high life in her powder pink villa on the hillside and just didn’t give a damn about a load of old stuff deposited back in London, having long ago forgotten about its existence. Or perhaps she was old and senile and didn’t even remember the contents of her storage unit. Maybe someone else was managing her finances and had simply forgotten, or didn’t even know they were supposed to send cheques to pay for a storage unit in London.

  There were so many possible scenarios and Grace felt determined to find out more. Compelled to, even. And if there was a daughter, then surely she would want to sort through her mother’s belongings herself. It was even possible that Mrs Donato’s daughter didn’t know that her mother had died … if they were estranged for some reason. So it was entirely possible she had no idea the items were stored here … just like the soldier’s son in Scotland, who’d had no idea that his dad’s medals were here at Cohen’s Convenient Storage Company on an industrial estate in southeast London.

  ‘Who knows, Grace.’ Larry shook his head. ‘Something I’ve come to realise in this line of work is that human beings are complex. Families, especially. We’ve had all kinds of situations over the years with the storage units. Divorce, deaths, affairs, even marriage, and that’s supposed to be a happy time for people. But weddings can cause tension too, especially when a newly married couple come to clear out a unit. Do you remember the Marples?’

  ‘Oh yes, how could I forget?’ Grace pulled a face on remembering the debacle that had ensued when Mrs Marple discovered that her new husband had stored a load of memorabilia of his time with an ex-girlfriend. Photo albums, clothes, letters, souvenirs from their travels were all dumped in the big rubbish container amidst much shouting and flouncing after Mr Marple had settled the bill.

  ‘So, where shall we start?’ Grace said cheerily as she put the diary down on the dressing table and looked at the jewellery box, determined to unravel the mystery of Mrs Connie Donato’s life and reach a happy outcome.

  ‘Here is as good a place as any,’ Larry nodded, lifting the padded lid of the jewellery box.

  A moment of silence followed.

  Grace glanced inside, looked at Larry, and then they both gasped in unison.

  ‘These stones can’t be real … surely?’ Grace managed, going to touch the sapphire- and diamond-encrusted bracelet nestling in its own little velvet tray inside the box. She hesitated, unsure if she should let the tip of her finger even dare to make contact with such an exquisite piece of jewellery. What if she damaged it somehow? She would spend a lifetime trying to save enough money to replace the bracelet, if it turned out to be real and therefore worth an absolute fortune.

  ‘I sure hope not.’ Larry carefully picked up the bracelet, worry etched on his aged face. ‘Because if it is, then Mrs Donato definitely isn’t insured for such a valuable item.’

  ‘I wonder why she stored it here then? Surely a bank deposit box would have been more secure?’ Grace looked at the other items: a dazzling ruby ring, a silver – or was it platinum? – short chain with a Star of David dangling from the end, a small diamond at each of the star’s six points. A tiny silver expanding bangle, the kind that babies are sometimes given soon after they are born. Three pairs of sparkly drop earrings – one pair with diamonds, another with the darkest blue sapphire stones and the third with the palest, creamiest pearls haloed with yet more diamonds.

  ‘This is way out of our league,’ Larry exclaimed as he swept a hand through his hair. ‘We’ll need to get these jewels examined to see if they are genuine, but if it turns out they are then … well, I can’t believe they’ve just been sitting here for all these years.’ And after carefully closing the lid, he lifted the jewellery box up with both hands.

  ‘What shall we do?’ Grace asked.

  ‘Let’s get the jewellery box into the safe at least, just in case the jewels are the real deal, and then decide where we go from there. We need a contact, a lead, something to get us started on our quest to find Mrs Donato.’

  ‘So we’re definitely not going to list the unit for auction?’ Grace checked optimistically, feeling excited.

  ‘No. But, like I said, let’s give it a couple of weeks. You go through all the suitcases, read the letters and see what you can find. I’m sure Betty won’t mind holding the fort in reception. And I’ll make a start on sending out the invoice letters tomorrow; it’ll give me a chance for a nice sit-down … now that I’ve done my
exercise for the week by coming over here to the oldest and furthest part of the warehouse to find you,’ he laughed.

  ‘Thanks, Larry. I’ll get on it right away!’ And she turned towards the pile of suitcases, keen to get started. Then an idea came to her. ‘How about your nephew? The one in America?’ she suggested hurriedly, pivoting to face Larry again. Her mind was working overtime now in figuring out the quickest and best way to find Connie Donato, who was clearly a woman of considerable means … if the jewellery was genuine.

  ‘Ellis?’

  ‘Yes, doesn’t he work at an auction house?’ Grace looked at Larry.

  ‘He does!’ Larry jubilantly lifted the jewellery box up, as if in celebration of this fact. Something to set them on the right path in tracking down Mrs Donato.

  ‘Then perhaps he can tell us if the jewellery is real … or if it’s just paste with pretty coloured plastic bits and nothing to get excited about after all.’

  Larry brought the jewellery box back down as he added, ‘Ah, but Ellis works in the Fine Art department. He won’t know about diamonds and suchlike.’ And he turned to leave with a deflated look on his face.

  ‘But … hold on.’ Grace darted around the back of the chaise longue. ‘Maybe he can take a look at these instead.’ She gestured to the framed paintings. ‘I can take photos of them and you could email them to Ellis.’