A Postcard from Italy. Alex Brown
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whooping and cheering from all the other diners. ‘Of course I will marry you,’ she had laughed, ‘but only if you get up off the floor at once.’ She had never been one for showy displays of affection. The way everyone had stared and then come over to shake Matthew’s hand and tell him how marvellous he was. She remembered his smile, like he was the happiest man alive. And it had felt right. A perfect day.
‘But her eyes. I’ll never forget her eyes,’ Larry continued, bringing Grace back to the moment, so she tucked that particular memory away for now; it was probably for the best as it never did her any good to remember the good times with Matthew … it only made her current, lukewarm relationship with Phil feel like a consolation prize. ‘You can tell a lot about a person from their eyes.’ Larry leant against the doorframe and tilted his head upwards as he ruminated.
‘Here, do you want to sit down? Come and rest your knees,’ Grace offered, gesturing to the chaise.
‘Ah, no thank you, my dear. My orthopaedic consultant said that I have to keep active if I don’t want the old joints to cease up. Road to ruin that is … not keeping active.’ And he did a halfhearted knee bend as if to punctuate the point, making Grace wonder if she should try to encourage Cora to be more mobile. Maybe she could manage some arm stretches at least. It certainly wouldn’t hurt for her to try. She could sit up in bed and reach up for the hoist and bash her walking stick hard on the floor, so it was worth a go. Plus she was younger than Larry by over a decade. Grace made a mental note to mention it to her mother when she got home from work.
‘If you’re sure …’ Grace smiled at Larry. ‘So, what were they like, Connie’s eyes?’
‘Deep and pensive. As if she had lived a life of note, but with adversity and sorrow. Haunting, almost. That’s why she’s stuck in my memory. I’ve not ever seen eyes like that since …’
‘Oh, poor Connie,’ Grace said, even more determined to find her and discover her story. ‘And thank you for giving me time to find out more.’
Larry smiled and moved into the centre of the unit.
‘Two weeks tops!’ He shook his head and sighed good-heartedly. ‘Come on, how about I give you a hand to sort through some of her things … let’s see what we can find. If we have no luck in finding a lead of any kind, then we can always get Betty to ask her pal, Maggie – the one from the knit-and-natter group, to look on the computer.
‘Maggie who works at the coroner’s office?’ Grace said, optimistically.
‘Yes, that’s the one. She does family trees for people too and has even managed to trace right back to pirate times for some of her clients.’
‘Really? I didn’t even know that was possible,’ Grace said, fascinated, and wondering if she could be related to a proper pirate. She quite fancied the idea of that. It was quirky and unusual and certainly sounded more interesting than coming from a long line of potato farmers who had lived in stone huts on the desolate, windswept fields of the remotest part of southern Ireland.
‘It’s all there in the computer these days,’ Larry confirmed. ‘Maggie was very helpful when we were trying to track down the owner of those medals that time. We would never have known he had died or had a son up in Scotland without her help.’
‘True.’ But Grace really hoped this wasn’t the case for Connie. After retrieving a picture from the carpet that had fallen out of the back of the diary, Grace studied it and found herself looking at a slim, elegant young woman, with a row of yachts and small sailing boats moored behind her in the background. Rows of narrow, tall houses with shops and cafés with the awnings out curved along the water’s edge to her right, a church or a lighthouse peeping over the top on the pine-tree-clad cliff. She was wearing a silk scarf knotted at the side of her neck, pedal pushers and a stripy, boat-necked sun top and looked very 1950s chic – just like Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday – another one of Grace’s favourite films. With a handbag in the crook of her elbow, sunglasses and leather gloves in her hands, Connie looked breezy and happy at first glance, but on closer inspection there appeared to be a sadness surrounding her too, with her almond-shaped eyes gazing sideways and ever so slightly downcast. Or maybe she was just shy and didn’t like having her picture taken. It was hard to tell for sure. But Larry was right, Connie did indeed have pensive eyes. And a dazzling smile. And was strikingly beautiful … if the faded black-and-white photo was anything to go by. Grace really hoped she hadn’t died.
Grace showed the photo to Larry who turned it over and read the old-fashioned cursive words in faint black ink on the back.
‘Connie. Portofino harbour. 1952,’ he read aloud and then commented, ‘very nice indeed.’ He passed the picture to Grace who slid it back where it belonged inside the diary.
‘But why hasn’t anyone been in contact? There must be someone – who took this photo? And who wrote Connie’s name on the back? A family member? Mr Donato? Connie’s child?’ Grace was sure Connie had a daughter as she had seen mention of a baby in one of the letters she’d found in the first suitcase. And then there was the pink fluffy teddy bear. It was tucked inside a bundle of delicately hand-knitted baby clothes – a pretty matinee jacket, a bonnet with satin ribbons and bootees in soft pink and white wool. And all of a sudden a wave of sadness came over her, for she knew that Connie was dead. In her heart she just knew. It was the most likely reason for her storage payments to have stopped, it was usually the way, and she couldn’t bear the thought of the unit being sold at auction to whoever was willing to stump up the highest bid, as had happened on rare occasions when all avenues to trace the owner or a relative had been exhausted.
Grace felt it important to make sure it didn’t happen this time; that a complete stranger should rummage through Connie’s things with scant regard to the life that she had lived. She wasn’t really sure why she felt so strongly about it. Maybe it was seeing the photo; it had somehow made Connie real, and now Grace cared about her. Or maybe it was the pair of worn-out pink satin pointe ballet shoes that she had found in a black leather oval-shaped dancing case underneath the chaise longue. Was Connie a dancer too? Was that where the feeling of affinity came from?
Whatever it was, Grace knew that she had to find out more about the elusive Mrs Donato with her sad eyes. And who knew, maybe Grace’s intuition was wrong and Connie was still alive: it was possible. Perhaps she had returned to Italy and was living the high life in her powder pink villa on the hillside and just didn’t give a damn about a load of old stuff deposited back in London, having long ago forgotten about its existence. Or perhaps she was old and senile and didn’t even remember the contents of her storage unit. Maybe someone else was managing her finances and had simply forgotten, or didn’t even know they were supposed to send cheques to pay for a storage unit in London.
There were so many possible scenarios and Grace felt determined to find out more. Compelled to, even. And if there was a daughter, then surely she would want to sort through her mother’s belongings herself. It was even possible that Mrs Donato’s daughter didn’t know that her mother had died … if they were estranged for some reason. So it was entirely possible she had no idea the items were stored here … just like the soldier’s son in Scotland, who’d had no idea that his dad’s medals were here at Cohen’s Convenient Storage Company on an industrial estate in southeast London.
‘Who knows, Grace.’ Larry shook his head. ‘Something I’ve come to realise in this line of work is that human beings are complex. Families, especially. We’ve had all kinds of situations over the years with the storage units. Divorce, deaths, affairs, even marriage, and that’s supposed to be a happy time for people. But weddings can cause tension too, especially when a newly married couple come to clear out a unit. Do you remember the Marples?’
‘Oh yes, how could I forget?’ Grace pulled a face on remembering the debacle that had ensued when Mrs Marple discovered that her new husband had stored a load of memorabilia of his time with an ex-girlfriend. Photo albums, clothes, letters, souvenirs from their travels were all dumped in the big rubbish container amidst much shouting and flouncing after Mr Marple had settled the bill.
‘So, where shall we start?’ Grace said