Celia Anderson - 59 Memory Lane

Julia rubs her eyes to ease the gritty lack-of-sleep feeling that’s built up in them over the months since Don’s death. ‘No, I wasn’t being cagey, it’s just that for a minute I couldn’t remember which one I was reading last. I’m sure it was from Don’s younger sister. She was talking about …’

There’s a friendly sort of silence as Julia racks her brain to think of the gist of that letter. She’s been sorting the letters into decades and is drawn to the fifties and sixties for many reasons. Her own recollections of that time keep mixing themselves up with Don’s family’s news. But as hard as she tries, she just can’t remember what the main point of the letter was. Something about a ring …

‘I’ll just pop inside and fetch the one I was reading last to show you,’ she says.

Five minutes later, Julia’s back outside, and Andy looks up from retying Tamsin’s shoelaces. ‘What’s up?’ he asks, taking in her flushed cheeks.

‘I can’t find the letter I was telling you about.’

Andy laughs. ‘Well, I’m not surprised. Talk about needle in a haystack – there must be hundreds of them.’

‘Yes, but it was only yesterday, and I remember putting it on top of the pile. It isn’t there now.’

‘I’m always losing things,’ says Tamsin helpfully. ‘I lost my best spider last week. I left it in a jam jar in the kitchen, and when I went back, it had gone away.’

Andy doesn’t meet his daughter’s clear gaze and changes the subject quickly. ‘How did you get on with May? You haven’t said much about the visit.’

‘It was fine,’ says Julia absently. ‘She’s coming over every Friday, if you can bring her.’

‘Course I will. Did you find plenty to talk about?’

‘Hmm? Oh … yes … it was quite painless.’

‘Does May give you a pain then?’ asks Tamsin. ‘She doesn’t make me have a pain. I love May. Don’t you love May?’

‘You bet she does, sweetheart,’ says Andy, still watching Julia’s face. ‘We all do. Why are you so anxious, Julia? Did you two argue or something?’

‘Oh, no, it’s not that. I’m just bothered that I can’t put my hands on that envelope.’

‘Who did you say it was from?’

‘I didn’t, but it was from … one of Don’s sisters, I think.’ She bites her lip.

‘Which one? There were two, weren’t there?’

Julia doesn’t answer.

Tamsin waits for a moment and then counts on her fingers as she recites the names. Sisters fascinate her. She has asked Andy for one of her own several times but he says it’s a bit difficult when there isn’t a mummy around. ‘Kathryn and Elsie,’ she says, in a singsong voice. ‘And then there were the three boys. Uncle Don told me about them.’

‘I thought there were only two brothers, Julia?’

‘No, there was—’

Tamsin butts in. ‘There was Will. He was the littlest, and then another little boy called Peter but he went to live in heaven when he was a baby. I bet he knows my mum, doesn’t he, Dad? She probably cuddles him when she’s missing me.’

Julia and Andy are silent, and Tamsin, bored, wanders off to dig a hole in the newly turned soil near the greenhouse. Sometimes she gets to make mud pies in this garden if she asks nicely. Andy turns to Julia again.

‘Is reading about all these times in the past getting a bit too much for you, do you think?’ he says. ‘Only you seem distracted, somehow. Maybe you should put them away for a little while? Have a break. Write to Emily, or something. See if she fancies a visit.’

‘What are you getting at? I’m not going gaga. I don’t need a break.’

‘No, I wasn’t saying—’

‘You think I’m losing my marbles, don’t you? Well, it’s possible. It happened to my mother at about this age.’

There are tears in Julia’s eyes as she marches back into the house, and she wipes them away with the back of her hand, slamming the kitchen door behind her. Andy frowns. Now he’s done it. Why did he have to be so tactless?

His mind returns to their conversation over and over throughout the day, and by evening he’s decided to take action. If Julia won’t get in touch with her granddaughter, he’ll do it himself. Emily gave him her email address and phone number after the funeral, just in case he needed her for anything to do with Julia, and now he does. This is serious.

Andy has seen Emily off and on over the years when she’s visited Pengelly and sometimes actually plucked up the courage to talk to her, but she always seemed rather aloof, even when she joined the rest of the local gang on the beach for impromptu barbecues and illicit cider binges. Her gothic phase was quite scary but she’s left that far behind her now.

It was a chilly day when they said the final goodbye to Don. Emily was wrapped up warmly in a soft black coat so long it almost swept the floor, and she’d added a cherry-red cashmere scarf and lipstick to match. He remembers her telling him that her grandfather posted the scarf the winter before, when Emily wasn’t able to get to Cornwall in time for Christmas. Don was always good at presents. Emily’s hair was out of sight for most of the day, tucked up inside a fur hat. She looked like a Russian princess, Andy recalls, pale and delicate, but stunning.

Afterwards, when they gathered at the local pub with all the available villagers for Don’s send-off drinks, hefty sandwiches and chunks of pork pie, Andy watched breathlessly as Emily pulled off her hat, and corkscrews of golden hair tumbled down her back. It was cross between a shampoo commercial and a Pre-Raphaelite painting come to life.

Andy needed a large whisky to take his mind off the sight. But later, when he tried to talk to Emily, she was so sad that he had not the heart to tell her how lovely she looked. And anyway, he hasn’t been interested in serious relationships with women since Allie died. You couldn’t really count Candice, could you?

He opens his laptop and starts a new email before the unsettling thoughts have a chance to get a grip.

‘Hi Emily,’ he writes. ‘I’m just dropping you a line to say …’

What is he actually going to tell her? Your grandma’s acting strangely? I’m worried she’s not even beginning to deal with Don’s death? She hardly ever leaves the house? He tries again.

… to say that Julia isn’t acting quite like herself, and I wondered if you could give me a call, or I could phone you for a bit of a team talk? I’m really concerned about her state of mind, and the way she’s forgetting things that have only just happened. I know it’s hard for her being alone in the house after all those years with your grandpa, and grief can affect people in different ways, but I’m afraid it’s more serious than just missing him and feeling sad. I won’t tell her I’ve written to you – don’t want her to think I’m interfering.

Love, Andy

He frowns at the screen, deletes ‘Love’ and adds ‘Regards’, then changes it to ‘Best wishes’, and presses Send . At least he’ll have tried. Whether she gets back to him is another matter. Flying around the world doing glitzy book deals and hobnobbing with top authors must be very time-consuming. Writing to a mere gardener will be way down her list of priorities. She probably won’t even bother to reply.