She must be grateful for her blessings, though. Despite the tragic loss of Violet’s final precious gift, she still had her health and sanity, food in the fridge and a solid roof above her head. In fact, she was glad to reach the flat, notwithstanding the vicious rant from Mrs Cronin, who came storming to the door, saying she had no intention of being at her neighbour’s beck and call every time she lost her keys. Since it had never actually happened before, the harsh words stung like hail, but safe, at last, at home, she immediately hunted out the folder that held her official documents and dialled the Barclaycard helpline.
‘Hi, there,’ said a recorded voice. ‘Welcome to Barclaycard! To help me find your account, please say or tap in your credit-card number.’
Having failed to realize she would need it, she was obliged to ring off and rummage in the folder again for one of her monthly statements.
‘Hi, there,’ the voice repeated once she had redialled – a strange form of greeting to her ears. Wouldn’t ‘Good afternoon’ be more respectful?
With some difficulty, she tapped in the card-number. Her fingers were increasingly stiff, these days.
‘I’m sorry, but that card doesn’t sound like one of ours,’ the anonymous voice observed.
Had she misread a digit, perhaps? Her sight was failing, like so much else. Reaching for her stronger glasses, she tried a second time, relieved to hear the cheery ‘Thanks!’
‘Now please say your date of birth – for example, the twenty-fifth of March, 1980, would be 25, 03, 80.’
‘18, 06, 20,’ she obediently responded, hardly believing she could have lived so long. In 1920, the British Empire still covered a quarter of the world, and horses and carts still delivered milk, bread, beer and coal, and there was no radio or television and only silent movies.
‘OK. And now what is the full postal code for your card’s billing address?’
As she was about to speak, the line suddenly went dead and, suppressing a groan of frustration, she was forced to go through the whole rigmarole again, until she was back to supplying her post-code.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t hear that. Could you please repeat it?’
This second call, it appeared, was fated to continue in the same stop-start manner as the first. However, she was finally put through to ‘one of the team’ – an Indian-sounding gentleman with an exceptionally strong accent, which, combined with her hearing loss, made it difficult to understand. In fact, by the time she had explained the situation and the man had asked her to spell out her name and post-code (again) and several other details, she was exhausted by the effort of listening to hard-to-grasp instructions, and having to strain her faulty ears to hear anything at all. But, at last, and to her huge relief, he confirmed that he had blocked her card and promised to send a replacement.
To celebrate, she actually poured herself a thimbleful of sherry – another gift from Violet – and sat down with it, in the small, cluttered room. It had taken a while to adjust to the lack of space in what was basically a bedsit. However, without sons or daughters to visit her, or grandchildren to stay (the adoption plan had foundered when Arthur suddenly changed his mind and insisted on trying even longer for their own child), she didn’t actually need more rooms, so this ‘studio flat’, as they called it, was, in fact, perfectly adequate.
She had planned on making the other phone-call after a brief sit-down, but, whether lulled by the sherry, or aware that her energies had reached their lowest ebb, she decided to postpone it till the morning – when she could also ring Lost Property. This sad and stressful Sunday had been quite long enough, so, tuning in to the Antiques Roadshow, she made a conscious effort to relax. Just for an hour, she intended to indulge in the glorious fantasy of owning some jewel or lamp or painting that turned out to be worth a fortune. Then she could move back to Sidcup and buy a house with a garden, full of exotic trees for Arthur.
‘Welcome to the Freedom-Pass helpline!’
Her spirits sank at the sound of another recorded voice. How long ago it seemed since real flesh-and-blood people had answered the phone. But on this occasion, at least, she wasn’t expected to press a whole succession of numbers in a long-winded attempt to speak to anyone at all.
‘Yes, may I help you?’
An Indian voice again and every bit as difficult to decipher as the Barclaycard man last night. Eventually, though, she managed to grasp that, to obtain a substitute pass, she must pay a ten-pound replacement-fee and, in the absence of a credit card or cheque, a postal order would be acceptable.
The mere mention of a postal order changed her mood entirely, bringing an instant surge of euphoria. She had totally forgotten her post-office account, as well as the joyous fact that its pin-number and card were kept not in her lost purse, but right here in the flat, along with her other official documents. Which meant she could actually draw out some money straight away, and also purchase the all-important postal order.
The foreign man was just telling her the address and, as she copied it down, she tried to keep pace with his rapid-fire speech, although continually having to interrupt and ask him to spell out words she’d failed to catch. Laurencekirk, she wrote, wondering where it was – north, south, east or west? There were so many places she had never visited, and probably never would now. Arthur had preferred to stay on home territory, even when he was fit and well.
‘Once we receive your fee and a covering letter,’ the heavily accented voice continued, ‘with your name, address and date of birth, the replacement Freedom Pass should be with you within four or five working days.’
Her relief redoubled at the thought that, by early next week, she should be able to travel again. The Freedom Pass was well named. Without it, the prohibitive cost of bus and tube and train fares would trap her as a prisoner in her flat. In fact, she decided to set out for the post office right away, before ringing the Lost Property Office. She didn’t need a bus or tube – it was only a short walk away – but what she did need was the security of no longer being penniless.
Forty minutes later, after a long wait in the queue, she was infinitely consoled to be handed three crisp ten-pound notes – not that thirty pounds would go far, especially as she had to relinquish a third of it, to pay for the postal order. And then she’d need food, if only a tin of beans. Nonetheless, once she had popped back home to write the covering letter and send it off with the fee, she was strongly tempted to splurge a little of the cash on buying a ticket to Baker Street, so she could visit the Lost Property Office in person. Surely that would be safer than resorting to the phone again, with the risk of being cut off or misunderstood? What finally swayed her, however, was the dismal prospect of spending the rest of the day indoors, with neither distraction nor company. At least, if she ventured out again, she would have an aim and purpose, with the added bonus of seeing some fellow human beings.
Yet she was shocked by the price of the ticket. It was so long since she’d paid for her travel, she could hardly countenance the huge increase in fares. It would be worth it, though, if the precious handbag was restored, along with its treasured contents, so she simply had to trust in what Mr Mohammed Ahmed had called people’s basic decency.
Timidly, she entered the Lost Property Office and joined the queue of people waiting: two young girls, with ultra-short skirts and ultra-long hair, a swarthy-looking man in a navy pinstriped suit, and an elderly couple standing (enviably) hand in hand. Always hungry for conversation, she tried to engage the latter in a little harmless chitchat, but they turned out to be foreigners and failed to understand.
So it was something of a relief when she was eventually summoned to the Enquiry Desk, to be greeted by a man who spoke loudly, clearly and with no trace of a baffling accent. Having supplied him with all the details of yesterday’s journey and a description of the bag, he raised her hopes, at least momentarily, by explaining that he was going to check if the item had already been handed in, and would she please take a seat. Subsiding on to one of the uncomfortable pla
stic chairs, she glanced at the person beside her, again hoping to exchange a friendly word or two. But the woman was on her mobile, as were the two girls now waiting opposite. How wonderful, she mused, to have so many friends one could chat to them all day.
When requested to return to the desk, she was informed that nothing had been handed in that fitted her description. ‘But don’t worry,’ the man said, brightly. ‘Items usually take up to seven days to arrive. And you don’t need to do anything more – just leave the rest to us. We’ll be searching the whole network and will contact you immediately should your bag be found. And, if nothing turns up within twenty-one days, then you’ll also be notified, but, after that, there’s nothing else we can do, I’m afraid. Right,’ he said with a final look at the computer-screen, ‘all signed and sealed. No worries!’
No worries, she thought – if only! She was seldom free of anxiety and right now it had increased at the mention of twenty-one days – an eternity to be left hanging around, torn between hope and despair, and unable to take her usual bus and tube trips, at least until next week. She did, in fact, consider staying right here for a while, if only to relish the warmth and the chance of a chat, should she meet a friendly soul not cemented to a mobile. But, seeing that all the chairs were occupied and realizing she would only be an obstruction, she had no option but to leave.
However, once outside, she managed to pass some time studying the items displayed in the window – tracing her own life-history in the various abandoned objects, each labelled with its description and the date and place it was found. A rusty old iron, from 1934, jolted her back to her mother, ironing sheets and towels, bloomers and liberty-bodices – heating the iron the old way, on a stove, and toiling patiently for hours with no thought of alien concepts like ‘women’s liberation’.
She, too, had been a dab hand at ironing, even at fourteen, and could knit and sew and darn and polish brass – all unnecessary skills now, along with letter-writing and cooking from scratch; gone the way of pounds and ounces, shillings and pence. She was a dinosaur in the modern world, lacking all the new skills; baffled by self-service checkouts, online banking, Wi-Fi, Facebook, Google and all those other mysterious things, constantly mentioned on the News.
With a sigh, she peered at a clutch of books from the forties and a stash of LPs from the sixties, a reminder of much-loved novels and songs from those far-off, much-missed days. And the 1951 top hat was identical to the one Vi’s husband had worn at their wedding. But who, she wondered, would be likely to leave a top-hat on a bus, or – even more peculiar – an iron? Forgotten phones and cameras were far more understandable and, examining the large assortment here, she saw, that as each decade wore on, they became smaller but more complex.
She, too, had grown smaller, shrinking an inch or two in height and losing her once voluptuous breasts; even her lips contracting, so that she now had a pinched-looking mouth. In fact, she was repulsed by her reflection in the glass. Even with her failing sight, she could make out the great dark pouches under her eyes, and her hair reduced to a baby-fine fuzz, so scant in parts it revealed pink, shiny patches of her scalp.
But no point hanging around any longer, depressing herself and getting cold in the process. Once back home, she would treat herself to a nice, hot mug of soup, and have it as late as possible, so it could serve as lunch-and-tea in one. Until she knew the fate of Violet’s bag, economy had to be her watchword.
The twenty-one days that had passed with no word from the Lost Property Office weighed so heavy on her spirits, she seemed to be carrying a great sackful of stones. Obviously, the official search had proved fruitless, and, any time now, she would receive a notification confirming that dismal fact. Admittedly, she now had her replacement credit card and travel-pass – and a cheap plastic purse from a charity shop – but nothing could compensate for losing her final keepsake from Violet. And the fact she had been so careless in the first place seemed to underline her general state of decrepitude. Suppose she developed dementia, like poor Arthur? Who would know or care?
She wandered disconsolately along West Green Road, avoiding the big Tesco’s, as usual. There were just as many bargains here, without the glare and confusion of a large, anonymous supermarket. Today, however, she felt more and more out-of-place as she passed Afro Hair and Beauty, Halal Meat, Caribbean Spice. These exotic stores made her into the foreigner; not the people inside them, shopping for yams, matooke and plantains, or the women having their hair braided, plaited, straightened.
As she mooched on past Oriental Foods and Eden Store Gospel Music, she couldn’t help recalling the friendly little local shop in Sidcup, owned by Mr and Mrs Thoroughly English Brown. No way was she racist – indeed, she longed to have a black or Asian friend – but the harsh truth was she didn’t belong here, simply by virtue of the fact that she didn’t know the culture.
She stopped to look in a shop selling bags, wondering who had stolen Violet’s and whether they had filled it with their own possessions, or were using the tortoiseshell powder-compact, the crocodile-skin purse and Vi’s stylish pink umbrella that folded down into a handy compact size. Did the thief feel guilt or remorse, or were those outmoded concepts like chastity and temperance?
Having finally bought a loaf, two apples and a tin of mushy peas, she headed home, battling against the spiteful wind. Crossing the road via the Seven Sisters subway, she imagined having seven sisters herself, instead of being an only child. Then, she might well have had nieces and nephews – indeed, great-nieces and -nephews by now. She even found herself christening her make-believe sisters: Poppy, Daisy, Jasmine, Iris, Rose and Marigold. Or, instead of giving them all flower-names, perhaps she could call them after months: April, May, June…. No, there weren’t enough suitable months. You could hardly christen a daughter December, January or February, when those were such gruelling months, with perilously icy pavements, coughs and colds and chilblains, and – worst of all – lonely Christmas Days.
There had been signs of Christmas since late October and, in this first week of December, one couldn’t escape reminders of the so-called Festive Season: turkeys and satsumas in the shops, twinkling lights strung along the High Road, an illuminated reindeer outside the Town Hall. The Big Day invariably required a plan, to make it more endurable: a nice boiled egg for breakfast, a walk to Page Green Common, to commune with Arthur’s tree, then back for the Queen’s Speech and a couple of mince pies and – hopefully – something uplifting on television to get her through the evening.
Once home, she checked the post and having discarded the usual flurry of leaflets from kebab houses and Chinese takeaways, she picked up the large white card from the Lost Property Office – easily identifiable from the drawings of golf-clubs, cameras, umbrellas, bags and other lost objects. Turning it over, she steeled herself to read the official notification that her bag was irretrievably lost. Instead, she lighted on something completely unexpected: Dear Mrs Simpson, We may have found the property you lost….
Delighted, yet still fearing disappointment – ‘may have’ was far from certainty – she rushed to phone them, as requested. They had to verify that the bag was hers before they could return it, or so it said on the card.
But, yes, it was hers, the man confirmed and, even more miraculous, all its contents appeared to be intact: the purse, with its cards and money, the umbrella and the powder compact, even the bag of jelly babies, which she sometimes bought to comfort herself, when mourning her lack of real babies.
She set out again in high spirits, bound for Baker Street, this time, her mood entirely transformed. But, as she entered the Lost Property Office, she couldn’t help but wonder if the whole thing was a dream, because there, standing in the centre of the room, was a radiantly pretty young girl, dressed in a long flowing dress, with a wreath of flowers on her head, and, beside her, a handsome man in a suit, with an orchid in his buttonhole. The pair looked weirdly incongruous in the unatmospheric surroundings of grey vinyl floor and white polystyrene ce
iling-tiles and, for some unknown reason, they were actually posing for photographs – surely most peculiar, in a Lost Property Office, of all places.
Pinching herself to ensure she was awake, she stole over to one of the plastic chairs, hoping the woman beside her could shed some light on the proceedings.
‘Oh, it’s quite a saga!’ the woman exclaimed, obviously keen to share the drama. ‘Those two are just about to be married.’
‘What, here?’ Primrose asked, in astonishment, although keeping her voice low, so as not to disturb the couple. Had the Lost Property Office become an unusual new venue for weddings, like Lords’ Cricket Ground or the Lexi Cinema?
‘Oh, no,’ the woman laughed. ‘They’re on their way to the Register Office. The bridegroom just told us the whole story. What happened was he bought his fiancée a wedding ring from some really pricy jeweller’s – cost a bomb, he said, because he wanted to do her proud and not stint on anything. But – would you believe? – a fortnight ago, he went and left it on a train!’ The woman edged closer and began speaking in a conspiratorial whisper, so that Primrose had to strain to hear. ‘I reckon he’d had one too many. He said he was out on some stag-night thing, with half-a-dozen mates and, on their way home, he was showing them the ring and they were all passing it round and larking about. Anyway, when they got off the train, he assumed one of them had hold of it and only realized later it must have got dropped in the carriage. Between you and me, I guess they were all so plastered they didn’t know their ankles from their arses – if you’ll forgive my language!’
Bad Mothers Brilliant Lovers Page 11