Phaedra Patrick - The Curious Charms Of Arthur Pepper

It took a long time for the dialling tone to kick in and even longer for someone to answer the call.

‘Mehra residence. How may I help you?’

The polite lady had an Indian accent. She sounded very young. Arthur’s voice wavered when he spoke. Wasn’t this preposterous? ‘I’m phoning about my wife,’ he said. ‘Her name was Miriam Pepper, well it was Miriam Kempster before we married. I’ve found an elephant charm with this number on it. It was in her wardrobe. I was clearing it out …’ He trailed off, wondering what on earth he was doing, what he was saying.

The lady was quiet for a moment. He was sure she was about to hang up or tell him off for making a crank call. But then she spoke. ‘Yes. I have heard stories of Miss Miriam Kempster. I’ll just find Mr Mehra for you now, sir. He will almost certainly be able to assist you.’

Arthur’s mouth fell open.

Arthur gripped the receiver tightly. A voice in his head told him to put it down, to forget about this. Firstly, there was the cost. He was on the phone to India. That couldn’t be cheap. Miriam was always so careful about the phone bill, especially with the cost of phoning Dan in Australia.

And then there was the gnawing feeling that he was prying on his wife. Trust had always formed a great part in their marriage. When he travelled around the country selling locks and safes, Miriam had voiced her concerns that on overnight stays he might succumb to the charms of a comely landlady. He had assured her that he would never do anything to jeopardise his marriage or family life. Besides, he wasn’t the type that women would find attractive. An ex-girlfriend had compared him to a mole. She said that he was timid and a bit twitchy. But, surprisingly, he had been propositioned a few times. Though it was probably because of the loneliness or opportunism of the ladies (and once a man), rather than his own appeal.

Sometimes his working days had been long. He travelled around the country a lot. He especially enjoyed showing off new mortice locks, explaining the latches, snibs and levers to his clients. There was something about locks that intrigued him. They were solid and reliable. They protected you and kept you safe. He loved how his car always smelled of oil and he enjoyed chatting to his customers in their shops. But then along came the internet and online ordering. Locksmiths didn’t need salesmen any longer. The shops that remained open started to order their stock by computer and Arthur found himself confined to a desk job. He used the phone to talk to his clients rather than talking face-to-face. He had never liked the phone. You couldn’t see people smiling or their eyes when they asked questions.

It was hard being away from the kids too, sometimes getting home when they were already in bed. Lucy understood, delighted to see him the next morning. She would fling her arms around his neck and tell him she missed him. Dan was trickier. On the rare occasion that Arthur finished work early, Dan seemed to resent it. ‘I like my time with Mum better,’ he once said. Miriam told Arthur not to take it to heart. Some kids were closer to one parent than the other. It didn’t stop Arthur from feeling guilty about working so hard to provide for his family.

Miriam had vowed that she would always be faithful, no matter what hours he worked, and he trusted that she had been. She never gave him cause to think otherwise. He never saw her flirt with other men or found any evidence that she might ever have strayed. Not that he was looking for it. But sometimes when he got home after working away, he wondered if she’d had company. It must have been hard being alone with the two kids. Not that she ever complained. She was a real trouper was Miriam.

Swallowing a lump that formed in his throat as he thought about his family, he began to move his ear away from the receiver. His hand trembled. Best just to leave this be. Hang up. But then he heard a tinny voice calling out to him. ‘Hello. Mr Mehra speaking. I understand that you are phoning about Miriam Kempster, yes?’

Arthur swallowed. His mouth had gone dry. ‘Yes, that’s right. My name is Arthur Pepper. Miriam is my wife.’ It felt wrong to say that Miriam was my wife, because although she was no longer here they were still married, weren’t they?

He explained how he’d found a charm bracelet and the elephant charm with the engraved number. He had not expected anyone to answer his call. Then he told Mr Mehra that his wife was now dead.

Mr Mehra fell silent. It was over a minute before he spoke again. ‘Oh, my dear sir. I am so sorry. She looked after me so well when I was a boy. But that was many years ago now. I still live in the same house! There is little movement in our family. We have the same phone number. I am a doctor and my father and grandfather were doctors before me. I have never forgotten Miriam’s kindness. I hoped that one day I might find her again. I should have tried harder.’

‘She looked after you?’

‘Yes. She was my ayah. She looked after me and my younger sisters.’

‘Your childminder? Here in England?’

‘No, sir. In India. I live in Goa.’

Arthur couldn’t speak. His mind went numb. He knew nothing of this. Miriam had never mentioned living in India. How could this be? He stared at the pot pourri stuffed leaf in the hallway twirling and hanging by a thread.

‘May I tell you a little about her, sir?’

‘Yes. Please do,’ he murmured. Anything to fill in some gaps, tell him that this must be some other Miriam Kempster they were talking about.

Mr Mehra’s voice was soothing and authoritative. Arthur didn’t think about his phone bill. More than anything he wanted to hear from someone else who might have known and loved Miriam, even if this man was a stranger to him. Sometimes not talking about her made it feel like her memory was fading away.

‘We had many ayahs before Miriam joined us. I was a naughty child. I played tricks on them. I put newts in their shoes and chilli flakes in their soup. They didn’t last long. But Miriam was different. She ate the hot food and didn’t say a word. She picked the newts out of her shoes and put them back in the garden. I studied her face but she was a fine actress. She never gave anything away and I didn’t know if she was annoyed with me, or amused. Slowly I gave up teasing her. There was no point. She knew all my tricks! I remember that she had a bag of wonderful marbles. They were as shiny as the moon and one was like a real tiger’s eye. She didn’t care if she kneeled in the dust.’ He gave a throaty laugh. ‘I was a little in love with her.’

‘How long did she stay with your family?’

‘For a few months, in India. I was very broken-hearted when she left. It was my entire fault. That is something I have never told anyone before. But you, Mr Pepper, deserve to know. It is a shame I have carried with me for all these years.’

Arthur shifted nervously in his seat.

‘Do you mind if I tell you? It would mean a great deal to me. It is like a secret burning a hole in my stomach.’ Mr Mehra didn’t wait for a response before he carried on his story. ‘I was only eleven but I loved Miriam. It was the first time I had noticed a girl. She was so pretty and always wore such classy clothes. Her laughter, well, it sounded like tiny bells. When I woke up in the morning she was the first thing I thought about and when I went to bed I looked forward to the next day. I know now that this was not true love like when I met my wife, Priya, but for a young boy it was very real. She was very different to the girls I went to school with. She was exotic, with her alabaster skin and hair the colour of walnuts. Her eyes were like aquamarines. I probably followed her around a little too much, but she never made me feel foolish. My mother had died when I was very young and I used to ask Miriam to sit with me in her room. We would look through my mother’s jewellery box together. She loved the elephant charm. We used to look through the emerald and see the world in green.’