by Ali McNamara
‘What sort of signs?’
I should feel awkward telling him this, but strangely I don’t – it actually feels like the most natural thing in the world now I was finally doing it.
‘Did I ever tell you how Daisy and I met?’
‘I think so, over a love of eighties music – yes?’
I nod. ‘Well, since I’ve been here I keep seeing all these eighties references. First it was the I heart the eighties sticker in the window of Daisy-Rose – don’t get rid of that by the way, will you?’
‘I wasn’t intending to.’
‘Then when Noah and I were searching for the postcards, I was given a postcard from Brighton dated July 1986. Daisy and I went to university in Brighton.’
Malachi nods. ‘Go on.’
‘Oliver Jackson, the guy that put the postcards in the auction, his address was 88 Thatcher Street.’
‘Nice one.’
‘And when Noah and I went to bid on the postcards our bidding number was one hundred and eighty, and I bought a box of eighties records there too. That one’s a bit vague, I know, but the others…’
‘No such thing as coincidence, Ana, if that’s what you’re about to say.’
‘Do you really think so?’
‘What’s more important is what you think. Actually no, what’s important is what you feel.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Try not to let your rational mind do the thinking on this one. Try to remember how you felt when you saw those eighties references.’
‘All right… er… I was happy, I guess.’
‘Because?’
‘Because they reminded me of Daisy.’
‘That can only be a good thing – am I correct? So does it matter if they actually meant anything?’
‘I didn’t say I thought they did, did I?’ I snap. ‘I was asking for your opinion.’
Malachi grins. ‘No, that’s true, you didn’t, but is it possible they could?’
‘How do you mean?’ I’m curious to find out Malachi’s view, even though I really don’t want to believe anything weird is going on.
‘Did those “signs”, shall we call them, come at a time you needed some reassurance?’
I think about this. ‘Yes, possibly.’
‘There you go then.’
‘There I go what?’
Malachi sighs. ‘Look, Ana, I don’t know what it is you want me to tell you, but if you don’t want to believe, then nothing I’m going to tell you is going to make you change your mind.’
‘So you do think something odd is happening?’
Malachi stands up. ‘Come back and see me when you’ve opened your mind to the possibilities.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘That’s my phone ringing,’ Malachi says suddenly.
I’m about to say I can’t hear anything when I hear the sound of a phone ringing in the office.
‘Catch you soon, Ana,’ he says, taking my mug from me, and before I have time to reply he strides quickly away in the direction of the office with Ralph trotting loyally at his heels.
Twenty-Seven
‘Fancy a trip to Brighton?’ Noah asks me later that same day.
I’d just been coming out of the bakery after collecting my lunch when my phone had rung.
‘Why Brighton? Oh, have you found something?’
‘Yes, it seems there were two local papers in Brighton in 1987 – The Gazette and The Post. The Gazette is still running and says it has a complete back catalogue of its copies on microfiche. It’s just in the process of transferring them to computer files apparently. The Post no longer exists but was bought by the same company that owns The Gazette. A lot of their old copies are on a newspaper archive website, but I’ve checked that already and I can’t find copies from the dates that we want. So the only way we’re going to be able to one hundred per cent check is to visit the head office and go through their records.’
‘And they’re all right with us doing this?’
Noah hesitates at the other end of the line. ‘I may have had to call in a couple of favours… but I think it should be fine.’
‘Favours from whom?’
‘That doesn’t matter. All you need to know is we’ll be able to see the newspapers from June 1987, and then we should hopefully be able to find out who this mysterious Frankie is at long last.’
After much discussion over the next twenty-four hours, much of which is me telling Noah he can’t possibly drive us all the way to Brighton, and Noah ignoring me completely by discussing which route we should take, we eventually agree to drive up one day and back the next. I’d suggested the train, but that seemed to involve an even longer and more tortuous journey than I’d taken to get down to St Felix in the first place, so by road it had to be.
‘Are you sure?’ I’d asked Noah, for probably the tenth time since he’d suggested it, the night before we were due to set off. ‘You really don’t have to go to all this trouble for me. I’m sure there are better things you could be doing.’
‘Ana, what you fail to understand,’ Noah had said, ‘is that this is by far the most interesting thing I’ve had to do since I came here to Cornwall. It’s testing my grey matter.’ He taps his head. ‘And for that I should be grateful to you, not the other way around.’
So on Friday morning at the crack of dawn we set off on a journey that Noah’s satnav suggests should take us just over five hours to complete.
‘Music?’ Noah asks, as we begin to travel along the A30.
‘Sure,’ I agree, trying not to yawn. It was 5 a.m., a time I rarely saw unless I was going through one of my bursts of insomnia.
Noah fiddles with his car radio, and Pirate FM the local Cornish radio station comes on. ‘And now on Pirate FM, for all you early risers, we’re going back to the eighties. Here’s Wham! to wake you up!’
I can’t help grinning as the voice of George Michael fills Noah’s Land Rover. It was happening again. Was this a sign to let me know I was on the right track with this jaunt along the south coast?
‘What are you smiling about?’ Noah asks. ‘I didn’t think anyone had much to smile about at this time of the morning?’
‘The eighties,’ I say, gesturing to the radio. ‘My favourite era.’
‘Oh yes, of course – well, enjoy.’
Something else that Noah and I had disagreed on before we left was driving – namely, who was going to do it. I had suggested we take turns as it would be a long journey, but Noah had insisted that he drive, saying his insurance didn’t cover guest drivers. I could have argued that my insurance would cover me to drive his car, but there seemed little point. Once Noah made his mind up about something, I was learning it was very difficult to change it, but I quite liked that about him. The more time I spent with him, the less I was seeing the meek, mild-mannered antiques shop owner that I’d first met and the more he was allowing a poised confident personality to show – perhaps that was his old self. And not for the first time I wonder again what had happened to change him.
‘Ana,’ I hear myself being called softly from close by. ‘Ana, time to wake up.’
I open my eyes and see Noah watching me.
‘Wha – Oh no, did I fall asleep?’
‘You did, round about Bodmin.’
‘And where are we now?’
‘Just past the junction for Lyme Regis.’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’
‘It’s fine. I’ve been happy listening to the radio – although we left Pirate FM a while back. I’m now on Radio 2.’
I take my eyes from Noah and look through the car window; we appear to have stopped at a service station.
‘Sorry it’s not more glamorous again. I only seem to take you to service stations, but it was the only place I could find along here.’
‘This is fine. Is it still breakfast time?’ I ask, looking at my watch and seeing it says a quarter to eight.
‘It is. Hungry?’
‘Sure am.’<
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We manage to buy two overpriced coffees and a couple of muffins from a coffee shop with a queue that snakes around the room and out of the door.
‘Again, sorry it’s not more glamorous,’ Noah repeats.
‘One – stop apologising,’ I say, as I sip on my coffee and immediately feel the warmth of freshly brewed caffeine seeping through my veins, shaking me into a more alert state. ‘Two – you might not have noticed, but I don’t really do glamorous.’ I gesture to my jeans and trainers. ‘Comfort is much more my bag. And three – these blueberry muffins happen to be one of my personal favourites, so I’m quite happy with this meagre yet very tasty breakfast.’
Noah smiles. ‘Good, I’m pleased to hear it.’
We set off again from the service station with Noah promising that we are already halfway into our journey, and me promising to stay awake this time.
‘You’re very cute when you snore, though,’ Noah says, grinning.
‘I was snoring earlier?’
‘It was more like a gentle purr really. Quite sweet actually.’
I roll my eyes. ‘I can’t believe I was snoring! In case the walls are quite thin at our hotel, I’ll ask for our rooms to be well away from each other so I don’t disturb you.’
Noah takes his eyes from the road and glances at me to see if I’m joking. Relieved to see I am, he turns back.
‘At least you found somewhere at such short notice.’
‘Yeah, it’s just budget but it should be fine.’
‘I could have driven there and back in one day, you know?’
‘Don’t be daft! It’s bad enough you driving all this way for me without killing yourself, or me for that matter. We’ll go to the offices, hopefully find what we’re looking for, then we can relax for the evening before driving home tomorrow.’
‘I’m looking forward to it,’ Noah says cheerfully. ‘I don’t get away from St Felix enough these days.’
I did get away, but secretly I was looking forward to it too. Partly because I was going back to a place I had many happy memories of, and partly because I was going there with Noah.
We arrive in Brighton just before lunch, and we park the car in a multi-storey car park that had been recommended by the hotel.
‘Lunch?’ Noah suggests. ‘It seems ages since breakfast.’
‘Definitely.’
We find a nice-looking pub, and order some drinks and a couple of baguettes with a portion of chips each.
‘The newspaper offices aren’t too far from here,’ Noah says, looking out of the window. ‘We should be able to walk there easily enough.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘I forgot you knew the place well. When were you here?’
‘2004 to 2007.’
‘Has it changed much since your uni days?’
‘From what I’ve seen so far, not that much actually.’
‘Did you enjoy your time here?’
‘Yeah, it was mostly good.’
‘Mostly?’
‘Same as all things, isn’t it? Some good things, some bad. Most of my memories of uni are good, some not so.’
‘Are you going to elaborate?’
‘Rather not.’
‘Sure, I understand. Some things are best kept in the past.’
I’d only been thinking of when Daisy had left Brighton to go up north, which at the time had been pretty traumatic for me, but I had a feeling my bad memories were nowhere near as stressful or traumatic as Noah’s.
After lunch we head off to the newspaper offices, which are in a big building a short distance from Brighton’s sea-front.
‘Here goes,’ Noah says, as we enter through a revolving glass door. ‘Keep everything crossed.’
We walk through a large foyer with modern, leather-look sofas arranged behind Perspex coffee tables that have newspapers and magazines arranged neatly on them.
‘Good afternoon,’ a young immaculately dressed male receptionist says brightly, as we approach his desk. ‘How can I help?’
‘We’re here to see Josh Walker,’ Noah replies confidently.
‘One moment.’ He taps a button on his desk and fiddles with his headset. ‘Who may I say is here?’
‘Noah Bailey, and Ana – Oh, I’m so sorry, I don’t know your surname?’ Noah looks mortified.
‘It’s Bennett, and don’t worry about it – why would you?’
Noah turns back to the receptionist. ‘Noah Bailey and Ana Bennett. Josh is expecting us.’
The receptionist nods and listens intently to his headset. ‘I do apologise – no one on Josh’s extension seems to be picking up. I’ll try the next desk.’
I glance at Noah. Surely we hadn’t travelled all this way and his contact wasn’t here?
‘Oh hi, Juliet,’ the receptionist says eventually. ‘I’m trying to locate Josh. He has two visitors waiting for him in reception.’ He listens, presumably to Juliet. ‘Oh right, yes… uh-huh… sure… Yep, I’ll tell them.’ He removes the headset. ‘It seems Josh has had to step out, but Juliet has agreed in his absence to help you with your enquiries today. I do hope that’s all right?’
Noah looks a little annoyed.
‘If you’d like to take the lift up to the second floor, Juliet will be there to meet you,’ he continues. ‘If I can just give you these to wear first.’ He hands us two lanyards with Visitor written across them. ‘If you could wear these at all times while in the building, we’d be most grateful.’
‘Thank you,’ I say, taking the lanyards. ‘Come on, Noah.’
Noah reluctantly leaves the reception desk.
‘I’d specifically arranged to speak with Josh,’ he mutters, as we wait for the lift. ‘I’m not happy.’
‘Perhaps this Juliet will be able to help us even more?’ I say, as the lift arrives and we step inside. ‘Remember everything happens for a reason. You said so yourself.’
Noah grimaces at my reminder.
We arrive on the second floor and the lift doors open.
‘Hi, you must be Ana and Noah,’ a youngish woman in casual yet fashionable attire says as we step out. ‘I’m Juliet.’ She holds out her hand for us to shake. ‘Sorry Josh couldn’t be here, but he’s told me all about the editions you’re wanting to look through. Hopefully we should be able to help.’
Juliet guides us to a small room lined with shelves covered in black files. There are several machines that look a bit like big old computer monitors on one side of the room with some of the box files already placed next to them.
‘These should be all the microfiches you will need to see to cover the newspapers you’ve requested. Do you know how to work the reader?’
To my surprise Noah nods. ‘Yeah, I’ve used them before.’
‘Good.’ Juliet hesitates. ‘Is there something in particular you’re looking for in the editions you requested?’
‘Yes,’ I begin, ‘a per —’ but Noah interrupts me.
‘We’re not exactly sure, Juliet. Do you mind if we just take a look?’
‘Not at all,’ Juliet says. ‘Josh said that’s what you wanted to do. It just seemed such a precise request, so I assumed there must be something equally specific you were looking for?’
‘We’ll let you know how we get on,’ I say politely, while Noah is already loading a small thin piece of film into the viewer.
‘Sure. Let me know if you need any help.’ Juliet gives one last inquisitive look in Noah’s direction before leaving us alone in the room.
‘That was very rude,’ I say, pulling up a chair and sitting down next to Noah. ‘She was only trying to help.’
‘I didn’t mean it to be, but she’s a journalist, isn’t she?’
‘So?’
‘In my experience, any sniff of a juicy story and they’ll be all over us in an instant asking questions and poking their noses in.’
‘But we don’t have a juicy story.’
Noah turns his head from the screen to me. ‘Lou and Frankie’s story could turn into a very
interesting one, if we ever find either of them. You may think it’s just a few old postcards you’ve found, but I can almost promise you it will very likely be so much more than that, and if it is, the papers will want a part of it, of that you can be sure.’