Celia Anderson - 59 Memory Lane

… so the opal ring’s definitely missing. I don’t know what to do, Don. Mother’s blaming each of us in turn and we’ve turned the house upside down looking for it. Nothing.

Putting down the letter in her hand for a moment, Julia gazes out of the window, past the trailing clematis that climbs over the remains of an oak tree, and the wisteria taking over the shed roof, trailing its feathery lilac fronds so low every summer that Don had to stoop under it every time he retreated there.

What possessed Don to keep all these letters, and what in heaven’s name is she meant to do with them now he’s gone? If she hadn’t finally made herself go into his den she’d have still been in blissful ignorance of the contents of the wooden chest.

She remembers the day he rediscovered the disgusting old chest. She was mystified as to why anyone would want to keep such a thing.

‘You do know that piece of junk’s riddled with woodworm?’ she said, as he dragged it across the yard from the garage. ‘I was going to put it out ready for Andy to take to the tip, or to sling on his next bonfire.’

‘Not infested any more, love,’ Don said, straightening up and rubbing his back. ‘Didn’t you see me out here yesterday with that can of stuff I found in the cupboard under the stairs? I’ve zapped the little devils. Those worms are history!’ He laughed joyfully and patted the oak chest as if it were a faithful dog.

‘But what are you going to do with it?’ Julia asked. ‘It smells disgusting.’ She wrinkled her nose at the eye-watering chemical fumes still coming from the wood.

‘It’ll cancel out the stink of my pipe tobacco then. I’m having a sort out in the den. The drawers in my desk are stuffed. I can’t even open them properly. This’ll be perfect to store everything in.’

‘Wouldn’t it be better to throw something away?’ Julia knew she was wasting her breath as she said this. Don didn’t believe in getting rid of anything unless he had absolutely no choice.

Julia’s eyes prickle again as she conjures up the smile he gave her as he struggled on towards the shed with his prize. The oak chest left deep scuff marks on the path. She can still see them if she looks closely. As he heaved it through the door, he cheered and gave her a victory salute.

If only she’d taken a photograph of that moment. Such a charmer, was that man, but somehow so innocent with it. Their granddaughter, Emily, has the same wide blue eyes and twinkly smile.

With a pang, Julia wishes Emily were here, and not working abroad. New York is much too far away. These thoughts of Don are unbearably sad to cope with on her own. How is she going to get through the rest of her days without him?

Sighing, Julia forces herself to pick up the letter again. Don kept every bit of correspondence they ever received, it seems, and never bothered to sort them into any kind of order. This one is from the younger of his two sisters, Elsie. Like most of the family, Elsie adored the Cornish village where Don and Julia made their home, and visited it regularly. Ever since Julia married Don back in the spring of 1959, when he was fresh from the air force and so handsome he could have had his pick of any girl around, her summers were spoken for. She spent them changing beds, washing sheets, planning menus and thinking up suggestions for trips so the guests might take themselves off to give her a few hours of the solitude that she craved.

She didn’t mind the visitors coming. Well, not much. Don was so hospitable she’d have felt mean to say she needed a break. Anyway, in those days they had their old caravan down the coast to escape to when the season was over. And boy, they certainly enjoyed being alone again. Julia blushes at the memories. She reads on, rubbing her tired eyes as Elsie’s voice speaks to her down the years.

Anyway, other than the crisis with the ring, my most important news is that I’ve managed to change my holiday week, and so has Kathryn. Will can’t come with us this time but he sends his love. He’s been a bit peaky lately, moping around like a dog that’s lost its bone. I wish he’d get himself a girlfriend. Mother thinks he’s just waiting for the right one to come along.

Never in a month of Sundays, thinks Julia. Don’s younger brother, Will, wasn’t remotely interested in finding a girl, and now he’s a retired priest in the wilds of County Kerry. The baby of the family, Will has an ethereal charm, but a large part of his charisma is his fun-loving impulsiveness. Moping around sounds unlike him, although he sometimes was annoyingly moody. Julia casts her mind back. The ancient ink, almost invisible in places, brings that summer vividly to mind.

Elsie and Kathryn tottered off the train as dawn broke, crumpled and sticky but wildly excited at the thought of their week in Cornwall. Julia, heavily pregnant with Felix, plastered on her best welcoming smile. Oh God, here we go again, she thought. Sometimes she felt like the owner of a rather cramped B&B instead of a woman with a new and very large extended family who all loved the seaside. The big double bed had only just been changed after her mother- and father-in-law’s visit. It was good that Don’s sisters never minded sharing a bed – it meant less laundry, and they’d only be in and out of each other’s rooms half the night if not. They never seemed to stop talking, those two. The whole family was the same. What did they find to say? Julia wonders. Did they never just simply run out of words?

She rereads the last line. What was it that was bothering Will that time? Julia vaguely remembers the youngest of the family being paler than usual on his next visit, but nothing was ever said. To be fair, Julia’s thoughts were preoccupied with her own exhaustion and how she was going to cope with a newborn when she’d never even changed a nappy before. Will was almost fragile in looks – a beautiful blond boy, with high cheekbones and such narrow hips that he always had to wear braces to stop his trousers ending up around his ankles. Kathryn and Elsie were much tougher cookies.

She drops the letter and picks up another one. Elsie again, rattling on from earlier the same year, that January so long ago. Julia just began to suspect she was having a baby around then. She was twenty-six by that time, but so ridiculously naïve that she had to ask her neighbour to reassure her that the signs she noticed weren’t the beginnings of some horrible disease. She longed for her mother, or some other homely body to run to, but her parents had decided to settle in India after her father’s retirement from the army. Don had just started his new job, and they scraped together enough cash for the deposit on 60 Memory Lane. It was a shabby place – borderline derelict in parts – but they fell in love with it. The pregnancy wasn’t expected. Neither of them had much idea about family planning.

Elsie’s letter is starting to put together a picture in Julia’s mind. She reads on.

Well, you’ll be pleased to hear that Mother has finally come around to your way of thinking, and her precious opal engagement ring is going to be passed to Julia. I expect you’re right and I hope it brings her luck, as it has for Mother and Grandma, or so they insist. I’d have loved to have it, of course I would, and so would Kathryn, but with two sisters, I guess there had to be a fair way. Even Will has had his eye on it but I don’t know who he’s planning to give it to! Still no girl on the scene.

Reading about that ring has stirred up feelings she would rather have left buried. Don, usually the least cynical of men, was very suspicious about its disappearance, just when it was about to be delivered to him for his new wife.

Ruffled, Julia shakes herself and flexes stiff shoulders. She’s been sitting still too long. It’s time for a cup of tea and maybe a piece of the fruitcake she’s made from her mother’s favourite recipe. She doesn’t bake much nowadays because she has to go by instinct. She’s had to ever since the old cookery book, handwritten and full of the neat, sloping writing Julia loved, disappeared a couple of years ago. She’s searched high and low but it’s never turned up. Good job she’s still got her marbles at eighty-five, and can remember a handful of the best recipes, although the sticky lemon cake has never turned out quite the same without the book to guide her.