The Missing Letters of Mrs Bright (ARC)

by Beth Miller

  On my fourth day at Quiller Queen, I sold our most expensive pen, a solid gold Cross, to a customer Gran would describe as a ‘refined Arab gentleman’. It was thrilling to dig out Dad’s instructions for opening the safe where the most expensive pens were kept, which led me to a piece of paper with the latest combination in Mum’s handwriting. It was hard not to feel a little pang at this evidence of my parents’ teamwork. I took the box out to the shop with care, and clipped the pen to a chain on the counter, put there specifically for this purpose since an incident years ago when a man tried to steal a Mont Blanc. This was one of Dad’s favourite stories. ‘He looked so respectable!’ he would marvel. ‘And I stupidly put the pen into his thieving hands!’ It all ended in great excitement, with some of the regular customers tackling the villain to the floor and sitting on his back till the police came.

  The customer examined the beautifully engraved nib. ‘There is nothing like gold, is there?’ he said, turning it so that the light glinted off it.

  He didn’t blink when I told him the price, though Callie gasped. When he’d paid and gone, she and I high-fived each other. My first thought was that I couldn’t wait to tell Mum, she would be so proud. Then I thought, probably she wouldn’t care. At that moment I felt sadder than I’d done since this whole thing kicked off.

  * * *

  At closing time I texted Theo, telling him I missed him, and asked if he could possibly come and see me this evening, no matter how late. After I pressed send, three little moving dots appeared, meaning he was typing. I watched the dots for a minute, but nothing came through.

  I locked the shop and drove back to Dad’s. Gran gave me my regular glass of brandy, and I showed her my phone, the little dots still moving back and forth enticingly. ‘He’s sending a very long message, so that’s good, right?’

  ‘Mmm,’ Gran said, looking at me thoughtfully. ‘It’s about time we released you from incarceration, isn’t it?’

  I looked at my phone. Theo’s dots had disappeared, and there was no message. As I stared at it, the phone buzzed in my hand, but it was Rose calling, not Theo.

  ‘Hey, kiddo,’ she said. ‘I’m phoning on behalf of your crazy mother, who is too shy to call you.’

  ‘Oh, Rose.’ I sniffed.

  ‘Hey, hey. She would love to see you. She really misses you. Any chance you can come up for a couple of days?’

  ‘I can’t,’ I said, though I did really want to see Mum. ‘There’s the shop…’

  ‘Chip off the old block, aren’t you?’ Rose said. ‘How many times have I heard that sentence from your mother!’

  ‘May I interject?’ Gran said, right next to my non-phone ear.

  I heard Rose laugh in my other ear. ‘I can hear your redoubtable grandmother.’

  ‘Teach me to run the shop tomorrow, then go see your mother,’ Gran said. In a quieter voice, she added, ‘And talk some sense into her!’

  ‘Really, Gran?’ I stared at her in surprise. ‘But you don’t, I mean you haven’t…’ What I wanted to say was, ‘You’ve always been very snooty about the shops.’ But I couldn’t think of a polite form of words. Luckily, she assumed I was hesitating for other reasons.

  ‘I’m a very fast learner, I’ll have you know.’ She sniffed.

  ‘Well, thank you.’ I smiled gratefully at Gran. This was no time to start inspecting gift horses. ‘I’ll come Sunday,’ I told Rose, and she whooped.

  ‘Can’t wait to tell Kay!’

  When I hung up, Gran said, ‘Still no missive from Theo, then?’

  I shook my head.

  She went on, ‘Why don’t you phone him?’

  ‘I don’t know. It feels a bit weird…’ but to avoid Gran giving one of her ‘suffragettes died so that you could ring the man rather than sit by the phone’ speeches, I pressed ‘call’. Gran discreetly slipped out of the room, and I counted the rings till Theo picked up. It seemed it would go to voicemail, then he answered.

  ‘Stella?’ He sounded his usual self, if rather far away. I felt my shoulders begin to come down from their previous all-time high position somewhere above my ears.

  ‘Theo! Did you get my text? Can you come down tonight?’

  ‘I can’t, sorry, babe. It’s all go here. You too, I bet. You’ve been too busy to even think of me, am I right?’ He laughed, which seemed inappropriate as I wasn’t exactly here on a fun holiday.

  ‘No, I really miss you and think about you a lot.’ I held my breath, my fingers tightening around the phone. The silence went on and on.

  Finally, he said, ‘Ah, that’s so nice.’

  ‘What was all that texting earlier? It looked like something huge was coming in, but then it disappeared.’

  ‘Oh, I was trying to explain why I couldn’t come, but I thought it would be easier to speak, it was a bit complicated. Listen, Stell, it’s another early start tomorrow, crack of dawn at Chelmsford farmers’ market, so by the time I got to you tonight I’d pretty much have to head back. Stell? I’m sorry, I don’t think I’m safe to drive. I’m so knackered.’

  ‘That’s fine.’ I forced a smile into my voice. ‘Well, see ya.’

  I clicked off the phone before he had a chance to say anything more. We’d never been brilliant at long-distance communication, and I knew we probably wouldn’t reconnect until we were face to face. I’d go there after seeing Mum.

  * * *

  The next day I taught Gran how to run the shop. She was a surprisingly quick and enthusiastic learner.

  ‘Adored it,’ Gran told Dad that evening, as we sat down to another of her hearty dinners. ‘Should have seen me, Richard. Sleeves rolled up, hair in a scarf. Figuratively, my dear, not literally.’

  ‘Well, Mum, I’m impressed.’ Dad looked a bit stunned at Gran’s late-life flowering as a shop girl. After a few moments, he cleared his throat and said to me, ‘So you’re going to see your mother tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes, Daddy. Thanks for lending me the car. I’ll see Mum, go to my house for a couple of days, then bring it back.’

  He nodded, then reached out and put his hand on mine.

  ‘You’ll tell Kay the shop’s doing well, won’t you?’ he said. ‘I’m sure she’s been missing it.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, avoiding Gran’s eye. I wondered if she, like me, was picturing Mum sitting in Bryn Glas by the fire, setting her business cards alight and cackling with laughter.

  ‘Will you take her a letter?’ he said.

  ‘Er, sure.’

  He fished into his pocket and handed me a crumpled envelope. ‘It’s what I wish I’d said to her,’ Dad said, ‘when she went.’ With his straggly beard, stale smell and air of bewilderment, Dad still had something about him of the tramp I’d seen in the library. He wiped his eyes and stood up. ‘I’m going to bed.’

  ‘I’ll be off in the morning before you get up, Dad,’ I said. I remembered from going there as a child what a long way Bryn Glas was. He pulled me into a hug, and though it was not as soft nor fragrant as the one I was looking forward to from Mum, it was still very comforting.

  ‘Drive carefully, Sparkle.’ He went out, and we heard him climb laboriously upstairs. Sparkle was Mum’s nickname for me.

  ‘Now Stella,’ Gran said, breaking into my thoughts, ‘you’re not to go swanning round the country clutching love letters, pretending you’re in The Go-Between. Your mother is no Julie Christie.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘I’m merely saying, dear, it’s not wise to get his hopes up, is it?’ Gran frowned at me, as if the love-letter carrier-pigeon scheme was my idea. ‘Not that I don’t want your mother back as much as the next person.’

  I wondered who the next person was – someone who hated my mother, presumably.

  ‘I’ll give her the letter, Gran, if it’s the right thing to do.’

  Gran gave me an old-fashioned look. Well, even more old-fashioned than usual.

  ‘Evasive,’ she said frostily, ‘like your mother.’

  * * *

  Despite th
is exchange, Gran was still up early to make me breakfast and see me off. It took hours to get there, but the sight of Bryn Glas gave me reminiscence-ache in my stomach. We’d had so many lovely holidays here when I was little. I got out of the car and stretched my stiff limbs, putting off the moment, aware that while I was desperate to see Mum, I was also rather dreading it.

  Face your fear head on, Bettina said. You can do this.

  I can do this, I told myself, and I stepped forward and banged on the door.

  Eight

  Kay

  When there was a knock on the door, I looked out of the window and saw Richard’s car parked next to mine. Well, I very nearly had a heart attack. That certainly clarified how little I wanted to see him. My rational mind knew that Stella must have borrowed his car, but I nonetheless ran out of my room in a panic, and crashed into Rose on the landing.

  ‘What if Richard’s come too?’ I said, doing mock-but-sort-of-real shivering.

  ‘Hell’s bells!’ Rose said. ‘Do we have a gun?’

  Despite myself, I started laughing. ‘No, but there’s a poker downstairs.’

  I flung the door open and Stella fell into my arms. There was, thank God, no sign of Richard. My girl clung onto me like a lead weight, and I stood in the doorway holding her, her warm damp cheek against mine, her arms tight round my back.

  I whispered, ‘It’s so lovely to see you, Sparkle.’

  At last, she pulled away, and I ushered her into the living room.

  ‘Thanks for replying to my messages,’ she said as she sat down. Her heavy sarcasm reminded me with a pang of her teenage self.

  ‘I’m sorry, love. I’ve been struggling to know what to say. How was the journey?’

  ‘Long.’

  ‘That was my assessment too,’ Rose said, coming in with three steaming mugs. She put them on the coffee table and hugged Stella tight. ‘Hello, love.’

  ‘Hello, Rose. Thank you for keeping me posted.’ Stella picked up one of the mugs, and said, ‘Can I go and have a wash? I’ve been in that stuffy car for hours.’

  ‘Of course, sweetheart, there’s plenty of…’ she went out, and I finished pointlessly, ‘… hot water.’

  Rose and I raised our eyebrows at each other. ‘It’ll take her a little while,’ she said. ‘Be patient. You’ve turned her life upside down.’

  ‘I’ve turned my life upside down, Rose.’

  ‘Stella and Edward are technically grown-ups, but when it comes to one’s parents, we’re always little children. By leaving, you’ve effectively said to them, “You know all those years you thought me and your dad were happy and in love? Well, surprise! It was all a lie!”’

  ‘It wasn’t all a lie, Rose…’

  ‘You need to be patient and kind, like when they were toddlers.’

  ‘You’re very wise. I’ll be kind, I promise.’

  She sat opposite me, and the chair made a horrible cracking noise. ‘Oh no, what have I done?’

  ‘Let me have a look.’

  She got up gingerly. ‘Am I really fat, Kay? You’d tell me, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘You’re a gorgeous waif. Look, one of the legs needs re-aligning, that’s all.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ll take your word for it. I always forget you’re basically a bloke when it comes to DIY.’

  I fetched my Swiss army knife – it had an excellent screwdriver – and fixed the broken chair. Then I invited Rose to sit on it, and we were both pleased that there was no cracking this time.

  ‘You don’t need a husband at all,’ Rose said. ‘You can cook and fix things. You are basically a hermaphrodite.’

  ‘Gee, thanks.’

  ‘Well, look. Stella’s here now, and you’re off to Oz in a couple of days. I ought to get back to civilization.’

  ‘Thanks for helping me book the flight, Rose.’

  ‘You’d have done it without me. Eventually. Are you sure you don’t want to call Bear, tell her you’re coming?’

  ‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘It was our deal. We always said we would only phone if it was a World-Class Emergency. Originally that was because it cost so much to call Australia. Our parents would have killed us. But even when it got cheaper, we never phoned, not in all these years. Letters are our thing.’

  ‘Isn’t it an emergency now?’

  ‘I hope not. Anyway, I’ve emailed her. If she wants to reply, she will.’

  ‘You said she hardly ever looks at her email.’

  ‘Well, maybe she will this time.’ I didn’t tell Rose my silly superstition: that if I went to Australia, Bear would be fine, but if I phoned, she wouldn’t. I had to put in the effort in order for her to be fine. My rational brain pointed out that this was kind of irrational, and my irrational brain said, ‘Yeah, so?’

  * * *

  The trains between Bangor and Crewe were a mess, so I lent Rose my car, which she promised to leave for me at Heathrow. She was already on my insurance from years back, the time when I stayed with her after Tim left, taking their shared car with him, the bastard. I knew I could get a lift back south with Stella, which would give me a chance to talk to her.

  After Rose left in a cloud of exhaust and gravel, I felt strangely bereft. I was so lucky she’d been there to see me through these first few post-leaving days. She’d pushed me up mountains, made me book flights, helped me sort through my feelings, and sat me down with a pen and paper to make a list that amounted to a plan for the next few months, and… years.

  I crept upstairs to see Stella but the door of the spare room was closed and I didn’t want to be intrusive – Rose’s ‘be kind’ command ringing in my ears. I pottered quietly about, tidying, cooking and cleaning. I made us a late lunch, but Stella didn’t appear till gone 4 p.m., looking bleary-eyed.

  ‘I fell asleep! I didn’t mean to.’ She sat down and devoured the lunch, though the sandwich was curling at the corners.

  ‘So, er, what news from the front?’ I asked, as if using a World War One soldier’s voice would somehow make it seem a more casual question. ‘How are you? How’s the shop?’

  ‘Fancy leaving Dad, when you have so much in common,’ Stella said, her face blank. ‘How’s the shop? How’s the shop?’

  ‘Sorry. Old habits, you know.’

  ‘The shop, at least, is fine. Thanks for convincing Anthony to come back. Until he does, Gran’s in charge.’

  ‘Seriously? Twenty-five years we’ve had that shop and Alice has never once stepped behind the counter. I’d love to see how she handles awkward customers.’

  ‘She terrifies them. Talking of customers, guess what I sold!’ Stella smiled at me for the first time since she’d arrived. ‘Only the gold Cross fountain pen!’

  ‘You didn’t!’ I almost dropped the glass of water I was holding. How many years had that pen been in the safe? How many times had I given it a polish, ready for the implausible event that a customer might buy it? ‘That’s amazing! What did Dad say?’

  ‘Oh. He was like, “well done”.’

  ‘Good heavens, Sparkle, I’d have thought he’d be on Cloud Nine. Remember how he always says, “There’s no better present than a smart fountain pen.”’

  ‘You know, Mum, he’s not really himself right now.’ Stella shook her head.

  ‘Well, darling, please don’t feel that you have to look after him. Don’t let yourself be guilt-tripped into living back at home.’

  ‘Don’t you want to know how Dad is?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ I said, because I knew it would be awful to say ‘not really’. I stood up and turned on the kettle.

  ‘He’s in such a state, Mum. He’s been crying loads.’

  ‘But he never cries.’ Hurry up, kettle.

  ‘Well, you see,’ Stella said, ‘he’s never been left by his wife of thirty years before.’

  ‘Twenty-nine years.’ I put my hand on her arm. ‘Love, I don’t expect you to understand.’

  ‘That’s a relief, Mum, because I don’t.’ Stella looked as if she might cry. ‘I thought y
ou two loved each other! You looked fine! Where has this come from?’

  I got down two clean mugs. It turned out there was as much hot-drink-making after a separation as a bereavement. After Mum’s death last year, I’d pretty much cried tears of tea.

  ‘We grew apart, I guess. It does happen, love.’

  ‘Daddy doesn’t think you’ve grown apart!’ Stella said. ‘It’s so crazy to split up now, when I’m finally out of your hair, and you have time to spend with each other.’

  I fought hard against a sarky reply, but it was no good. ‘It’s the spending time with each other that’s killing me.’

  ‘Mum!’

  ‘Sorry, love. Jokes are inappropriate.’ I poured boiling water onto teabags and milk, relieved Rose wasn’t here to tell me off. ‘I genuinely didn’t want to hurt him.’

  Despite her long nap, Stella still looked tired. ‘But you have, Mum. And I can’t honestly understand why, unless you’ve met someone else.’

  I hadn’t felt, lately, that I occupied any moral high ground whatsoever, but I definitely did over this. ‘Gracious!’ I said, putting our mugs down on the table. ‘Why does everyone think there must be someone? It’s not very feminist of you to assume I’m incapable of living my life without a man to lean on.’

  ‘So there really isn’t anyone?’

  ‘There really isn’t.’

  I started tidying away Stella’s lunch things. I needed to keep moving because I wanted to say something about her and Theo that she wasn’t going to like, so delivering it casually was the key.

  ‘Sparkle, have I ever told you how your father and I got together?’