Celia Anderson - 59 Memory Lane

‘Not just Don. I’m losing my mind too, May. This is the beginning of the end. What am I going to do?’

May chews on her knuckle. How should she deal with this? She seems to recall something along the same lines happening before once or twice with people from the village soon after she’d taken their mementoes, although it could have been more common than she realised, because why would the villagers bother to tell her if they’d forgotten random things about their past lives? She’d only found out by accident a couple of times over the years, three at the most. It’s as if her harvesting sometimes leaves them with gaping holes in their memories. Holes they’re never able to fill.

‘I don’t understand,’ she hedges.

‘Neither do I, May. My mind seems to have gone blank when I try to think about what I was reading. I can’t even recall who the letter was from. I wondered if you’d … you’d maybe seen me put it anywhere?’

This is a tricky situation, but not disastrous. Julia’s noticed there’s a letter missing, but she seems more jittery about her own memory than suspicious of May’s involvement. What’s the best way to handle it? It seems to May that how she tackles this problem will affect her life … and eventual death. She needs Julia to be calm and unsuspecting so that she can have access to the letters in the coming months. She’s so nearly one hundred and eleven. Come on, May, she tells herself, don’t mess this one up.

Fossil bursts through the cat flap and into the living room where May sits pondering. He leaps onto her knee and begins to knead the boniest bits of her thighs with his needle-sharp claws.

‘Ouch!’ shouts May, more loudly than she intended.

‘What’s the matter? May? Are you hurt?’

May doesn’t answer. She tucks the letter well out of sight under her chair cushion, and waits.

‘May? Have you fallen? Hang on, I’m coming over …’

The line goes dead, and May smiles. Result , as Andy might say.

Two minutes later, May hears Julia rattling the handle of the back door. There’s no need for that – it’s open. Some of the older residents of Pengelly still can’t be doing with locked doors. Never have done, hopefully never will.

‘May?’ Her neighbour comes into the room and sees her with Fossil on her knee. She clutches her chest, like a character in a bad sitcom. ‘Oh, thank goodness. I expected to find you slumped on the floor. Why did you stop talking to me?’

Irritation is creeping into Julia’s voice now, and May needs to act fast. She passes a shaking hand over her face. Oh, yes, she can ham it up too when she needs to. Those years with the village Amateur Dramatic Society weren’t wasted after all. ‘I … I … everything went black for a minute or two …’

Julia springs into action. ‘How about I make us a nice cup of tea?’ she asks, bustling into the kitchen without waiting for a reply. ‘You just sit still and get your breath back.’

Listening to the comforting clatter of cups and saucers, May breathes a sigh of relief. Julia will have ignored the serviceable mugs on their hooks. She’s got style. ‘And maybe a fig roll, dear?’ May calls. ‘They’re in the tin on the dresser. Next to the teabags.’

Julia’s soon back, and settles the tray on a low table. She pours their tea without asking if May wants her to be mum, and soon they’re sipping away as if they do this at May’s cottage every day. The first part of the mission is accomplished. Now for the next steps.

‘I’m relieved you’re feeling better. I wonder if your blood pressure needs checking?’ says Julia, frowning. ‘Sometimes if it drops suddenly, you can keel over. It happened to me once or twice when I was carrying Felix. I really thought I was going to find you flat on your back with a head wound, or something.’

‘You’ve got a very lively imagination, dear,’ says May. ‘You should write a novel.’

‘I often wish I could. I have to make do with reading them.’

‘You should have a try. You’d need one of those USPs, though.’

‘A what?’

May sighs. She’d thought Julia would be well up on publishing terms, with Emily being in the business. ‘Unique Selling Point. I heard them talking about it on the radio when they were interviewing that lady who wrote a story about the girl looking out of a train window?’

‘I haven’t read that one. What’s it called?’

May snorts. ‘Er … Girl on a Train ?’ she suggests.

Julia shakes her head. ‘No, never heard of it. What could I have for a UFO then?’

‘USP, dear. I’m not sure.’

May thinks for a moment. ‘How about your letters? They’d make the perfect starting point for a book,’ she says, clapping her hands together.

‘My letters? Why would anyone want to read a story about Don’s family? I mean, they were a friendly bunch, I’ll give them that, but not very interesting.’

‘Think about it, Julia. Those letters are what you might call an archive. Who else has a treasure trove like that to draw on?’

‘I’m not sure if Don would like us to use his personal things like that. They belong to the family. They’re private.’

‘Oh, come on, dear. All the folk who wrote the letters are dead now, or pretty much, aren’t they?’

Julia flinches, and May curses herself for being tactless. She pats Julia’s hand. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. But I could help you to sort them and plan a story based around them. Andy could catalogue them properly. He might even type some of them out if you ask nicely. He does all sorts of useful clerical jobs at the garden centre – he’s very organised.’

‘Do you really think so? Andy’s already read quite a few of them. He seems fascinated.’

‘I do. It’d be a joint effort. We could make a start straight away. They need sorting, don’t they? You and Andy could come here to do it and Tamsin could play outside where we can all see her. It’d be fun.’

Julia’s looking interested now. ‘I wonder …’ she says.

Emily sits at her desk on the fifteenth floor reading Andy’s latest email and quietly panicking. It’s a huge relief that Colin has been encouraging about her trip to England, when she explains the reason behind it. His own elderly uncle is beginning to have memory problems too, wandering around in the night in his dressing gown and slippers.

‘Just do it, Em,’ he says, when she’s poured out her worries. ‘But if you could clear your desk and sort those last few meetings this week, I’d be eternally grateful. Family first, though, always. Never forget that. And the West Country in June will be heaven. I’m deeply envious, darling.’

Emily hugs him and thanks her lucky stars for an understanding boss. She knows Devon-born Colin isn’t like most New York City high flyers, with his taste for Scrabble, loud pullovers and flamboyant socks. He often claims to be pining for all things British, and never fails to have a tray of Earl Grey and Fortnum & Mason biscuits served on the dot of half-past three every day, whomever he happens to be with in the office.