A Postcard from Italy. Alex Brown
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for Mrs Donato in London; all of them had been returned, unopened, with ‘Not known at this address’ handwritten on the envelopes in large, flamboyant letters. Grace had to be sure they could show they had tried to contact Mrs Donato several times before she touched anything and started sorting through the items.
She didn’t know anything about antiques, but even she could see that the ornate French Louis XV style dressing table with its carved cabriole legs and marble top was of significant value. Not to mention the large leather jewellery case on top of it. Moving further into the unit, Grace gasped again as she lifted a dust sheet to reveal an exquisite silk chaise longue with a petrol blue peacock-patterned fabric that had been placed at a jaunty angle over in a corner. A clothes rail ran the length of one wall with at least twenty, maybe thirty, sparkly evening gowns hanging neatly on satin padded hangers. Each gown was carefully tucked inside its own transparent plastic protective cover. A mink coat was draped around a mannequin, presumably to help keep the coat’s shape, Grace figured, remembering how the costume staff in the theatres where she had danced had used this trick too. Stacked in one of the other corners were four old-fashioned brown utility suitcases, and next to them were three expensive-looking leather handbags – Italian design by the looks of them, as one had the famous gold Gucci badge on the front. A selection of paintings had been carefully placed behind the chaise longue, with a large oval-shaped rose-print hatbox beside them on the carpet.
Grace lifted the lid of the hatbox and drew in the nostalgic aroma of musty paper as she peeped inside to see a collection of old magazines. Variety. Britannia and Eve. Dated 1938 and through to 1941, 1942, and so on, she noticed, carefully sorting through the pile. In jaunty, faded primary colours there were pictures of women wearing headscarves and dungarees like the Land Girls did during the Second World War. Another cover, dated 1950, was much more glamorous, with a woman wearing a ball gown and holding a champagne glass. A faded brown envelope was tucked down the side and contained a handful of dried pink rose petals. Grace turned the envelope over and saw Glorious day, Portofino – 1955 handwritten on the back.
Grace could feel her spirits rising, and couldn’t wait to get started on cataloguing the contents of storage unit number 28. But where to start? She felt like a child in a sweet shop, elated and overwhelmed by the mesmerising selection of goodies on display. Smiling to herself, she stepped towards the suitcases, figuring this would be the best place to begin as there might be some paperwork in one of them with an address of a relative or a friend they could contact – there was no way Larry could just dispose of these items without them trying hard to find Mrs Donato. But as Grace reached out her hands to release the two brass clasps of the suitcase that was sitting on top of the pile, her mobile rang in the back pocket of her jeans.
‘Where are you?’ her sister, Bernie, demanded on opening the conversation, and making Grace bristle.
‘At work,’ she stated, in an equally cursory tone.
‘Well, you need to get home right away. I’ve just had Mum on the phone. She was put through via the switchboard, so I had to come out early from eating my lunch in the staff restaurant especially to deal with her …’ Grace was sure she heard Bernie tut with frustration, which made her bristling intensify. She crossed her free arm across her body as if to soothe herself. ‘And she was crying—’
‘Crying?’ Grace interjected, panic starting to trickle through her, as it was unlike Cora to cry. In fact, Grace wasn’t sure she had ever seen her mother cry. Not even when their gentle, kind dad, had died. Cora had said, ‘It was your father’s time to pass.’ And that was that. No more emotion required.
‘Yes. That’s right,’ Bernie kept on. ‘Crying. Sobbing she was, so hard she could barely get her words out. Took me ages to calm her down. Apparently, you rushed off so quickly after your own lunch break that she didn’t even get a chance to use the commode. So now she’s had an accident and feels really dreadful about it.’
‘But—’
‘No buts, Grace. You can’t just leave her like that. She’ll get sore and then likely get an infection or whatever, and you’ll never forgive yourself if that happens.’ Grace swallowed hard as she tried to formulate a response. ‘Are you still there?’ Bernie barked a few seconds later, and Grace could hear office noise now in the background.
‘Yes,’ she managed in a dejected voice, her earlier elation on seeing Mrs Donato’s belongings having suddenly vanished, not to mention her feelings of guilt and confusion. She hadn’t rushed off, and she was sure she had asked Cora if she needed to use the commode, but had been told off for fussing …
‘Look, I have to go. But sort Mum out and let me know later, OK? Oh, hold on.’ The instruction was so swift and fleeting that Grace automatically acquiesced. ‘If you take a seat over there, someone will be with you shortly,’ she heard Bernie say in a far nicer voice, and then, ‘I really do need to go, Grace. I’m just so busy. I’ve a queue of people who all need my help and …’ Grace wasn’t listening any more; all she could think about was something she had read online last night at around midnight as she stood waiting for the microwave to ping time on Cora’s request for a mug of warm milk with a sprinkle of nutmeg on top. The article was about people being busy being busy and so somehow managing to fill their time, regardless of their actual workload, and thereby convincing themselves they were busier than everyone else … she figured that Bernie must be one of those ‘busy’ people.
‘I’m busy too,’ Grace uttered, but wasn’t heard as the line went dead. Seems Bernie had gone back to being too busy to be bothered by troublesome phone calls from their bedbound mother.
Grace turned and left Mrs Donato’s glorious unit 28 behind for another day. Monday to be exact, seeing as today was Friday! The disappointment of having to wait three days to go through the contents was crushing, but at least she had something nice to look forward to now … or maybe I could come into work tomorrow? Just to take a peek inside one of those suitcases? Or I could take the one on the top of the pile home to make a start? But Grace knew this could never happen as there was no way Larry would allow her to remove one of Mrs Donato’s suitcases from the storage company’s premises – he was very fastidious about things like that and rightly took pride in looking after his customer’s belongings as if they were his own. Plus Grace knew that her mother would never agree to her leaving her home alone over the weekend. And Bernie was right … she couldn’t leave Cora lying in a wet bed, so there was nothing for it, Grace would have to go home now. And strip and then remake her mother’s bed, for a second time today.
So after closing the door behind her and securing the padlock back in place, Grace put the clipboard on to the trolley and braced herself to face Larry and Betty to explain that, not only had she turned up late this morning … but that she was now going to have to let them down again and go home early.
‘Babe, why do you even bother working at that storage place?’ Phil moaned, pushing his bushy beard towards Grace’s left cheek. They were sitting side by side on the Dralon sofa in the lounge below Cora’s bedroom having a film night. Breakfast At Tiffany’s. Grace had seen it a million times before but when Phil had said it was her turn to choose, she hadn’t hesitated, keen to rekindle some of the glamorous Hollywood magic she had felt on entering unit 28 on Friday.
It was Sunday evening and she had thought about Mrs Constance di Donato and her beautiful vintage belongings all weekend. Even her name sounded sophisticated and glamorous, and Grace couldn’t wait to get to work tomorrow to find out more about the woman she imagined lived the kind of life that she had only seen in films and read about in those lifestyle magazines. It was exciting and intriguing.
Grace had even decided to put Cora’s breakfast of toast, cereal, a little jug of milk and some fresh-fruit salad with a flask of hot tea on a tray like they did in hotels. If she left it all ready on the table by her bed, then Cora could