31
Mary finished pouring a mug of coffee in her tiny cafe on the Dashford seafront. Even though it was only just gone 12 o’clock, it would have to be the last one of the day. After the severe weather warning on the radio this morning, she planned to close early before the sea turned wild.
She headed outside to where Nancy was sitting at a table, wrapped up in a thick padded coat. She seemed to be mesmerised by the large waves breaking on the beach.
‘We’re expecting a storm,’ Mary said as she put Nancy’s second mug of black coffee down on the table in front of her.
‘Aren’t we all,’ Nancy replied, sighing.
What an odd thing to say. But then everything about Nancy’s presence here was odd. It was the first time she’d visited in fifteen years at least. Mary shuddered at the memory of Nancy’s dog, Basil, whimpering over his broken leg. Stupid animal, running out behind Mary’s car like that. At least he’d survived. Why had Nancy suddenly decided to forgive and forget, particularly today when it was hardly ideal weather for sitting outside? And why was she drinking coffee? In all the years Mary had known Nancy, she had never seen so much as a drop of coffee pass Nancy’s lips.
‘I’m going to bring the tables and chairs in,’ Mary announced.
Nancy looked at her. ‘I want to sit here for a while longer.’
‘I’ll be locking up in ten minutes. You’re alright until then. Is that coffee ok? You’re not normally a coffee drinker.’
‘It seemed appropriate today,’ Nancy said, slowly turning the mug around
What did she mean by that? ‘Is there anything you want to talk about?’
Nancy shook her head and looked away.
Fine. If that’s how it was going to be, she could suit herself. Mary busied herself collecting the tables and chairs and putting them in the storage area behind the cafe. She carried on until they were all packed away, apart from the table and chair Nancy was using.
Mary looked across at Nancy again. She was ignoring her coffee now. She looked freezing cold. Surely, a woman in her mid-70s shouldn’t be sitting outside in a high wind on a cold winter’s day. Mary tried again. ‘Can I get you anything else?’
‘I’m sorry?’
Mary repeated her question slowly and more loudly.
Nancy huffed. ‘No, thank you. And there’s no need to talk to me as if I’m senile. I’d appreciate it if you left me alone.’
The wind wasn’t the only thing that was sharp today. Mary retreated to the safety of the café. Perhaps she should phone Em. She took her phone out of her apron pocket.
Em answered immediately.
‘It’s Mary. Is Nancy ok?’
‘I think so. Why do you ask?’
‘She’s sitting outside my café nursing a mug of coffee and staring out to sea.’
‘In this weather?’ Em obviously thought it was odd, too.
‘Exactly.’
‘Did she drive down? I don’t remember hearing her go out.’
Mary looked around the corner of the cafe at the car park. ‘I can’t see her car.’
‘I’ll come and fetch her.’
Em got out of the car and headed towards Mary’s cafe. Nancy stood up as she approached.
‘If you’re after a sludgy coffee or you want to be interrogated about your personal life, you’ll have to go to Fisherman’s Arms. Mary’s just shutting up shop.’ Nancy told Em, a hint of disapproval in her voice. ‘Though they’re not quite as nosy in the Fisherman’s Arms.’
Mary scowled at her. ‘The last big storm we had, waves were crashing right where you were sitting. You’d have been washed out to sea. I don’t want your sons or anyone else, for that matter, suing me for negligence,’ she said as she picked up the small table that Nancy had been sitting at. ‘And my coffee is not sludgy. People come from miles around to drink it. You should have stuck to tea.’
There was obviously still no love lost between the two women, which made it all the more odd that Nancy was here.
The wind was seriously picking up now. Mary struggled to hold the table as a gust caught it like a sail. Em dashed over to help her.
‘No, no, no,’ Mary said. ‘I’ll manage. I don’t want you to get injured in your condition. Congratulations, by the way.’ Another gust helpfully blew her into the storage area.
Someone else who already knew Em’s news then. ‘Did Nancy tell you?’
’No, I did not.’ Nancy looked quite affronted by the suggestion.
Em picked up the remaining chair and handed it to Mary.
‘Paul at the Gallery whispered it to me a couple of weeks ago.’ Mary said as she put it away and locked up. ‘Is it common knowledge now?’
‘I guess so.’ Em was getting used to her pregnancy being an open secret. How on earth did Paul know? Had Jack let slip something to him as well? But she’d have to follow that up with Jack later. Right now, she needed to persuade Nancy to go home.
‘Why are you here?’ Nancy asked Em. ‘You said you were going straight home after you’d finished the admin?’
‘I thought you could do with a lift home before the rain set in. Mary was concerned about you.’
‘I’m not that fragile. I’m perfectly capable of walking back up to the Grange. I’ve done it in all weathers for the last 70 years. You’re not turning into Nigel, are you? That boy is still desperate to lock me away in an old people’s home.’
Nancy’s eldest son, Nigel, always underestimated his mother’s capabilities from the safety of his home 3,000 miles away in New York. Em, however, didn’t. She was taken aback. She didn’t normally get the rough side of Nancy’s tongue. She was tempted to let her get on with it, but something must be seriously wrong to put her in this mood.
‘It’s nothing to do with age. We’d all struggle to walk back up the hill in this weather. And several trees on the wooded part of the route don’t look stable. Two of them came down last time we had a high wind. I’d never forgive myself if you got struck down by one of them.’
Nancy grudgingly seemed to see the sense in what Em was suggesting. ‘Ok then. Thank you.’
‘The car’s over there by the ticket machine.’ Em said, handing Nancy the keys. ‘I just need to ask Mary something.’
When Nancy was out of earshot, Em turned to Mary. ‘Has she said what’s bothering her?’
‘She wouldn’t tell me anything. But she was reading a letter a few minutes ago.’
‘Was it from Germany?’
‘I’ve no idea, but I did notice it started “My darling Nancy”.‘
‘Is everything ok?’ Em asked Nancy as they drove up the hill back to Dashford Grange.
Nancy debated whether to share any of the many thoughts racing around her head. She didn’t want to be quizzed until she got things straight in her own mind. If there was anyone she was going to share the news with first, it should be Olivia. She would be more helpful in this situation.
‘I’m fine, thank you.’
‘If you’re sure. You don’t seem your usual self to me.’
‘Perhaps it’s the threat of the incoming storm making me feel out of sorts.’ Nancy sensed Em didn’t believe that. She deliberately looked out of the passenger window so Em couldn’t catch her eye.
They continued in silence until Em turned the car into the drive leading up to the Grange.
‘Do you want me to stay with you this afternoon?’ Em offered. ‘I’ve still got plenty of admin work to do.’
That was the last thing Nancy wanted. She’d planned her next step, and it required being left alone to use the laptop in peace.
‘I’ll be fine. You go home and put your feet up. You need to take it much easier now,’ she said, attempting to be her usual cheery self.
Nancy got out of the car and let herself into the house, aware that Em was watching her. She stood on the doorstep and turned back, smiling and waving. Em took the hint and drove away.
Time to spring into action. Nancy collected the laptop from the desk in the kitchen and took it into her study just in case Em found an excuse to come back.
She took the letter out of her pocket again. It must be genuine. Why would anyone take the trouble to fake someone’s handwriting when they could easily type it on a computer and just copy the signature instead? And there was something about how the writer used words and phrases that was instantly familiar, even after 56 years apart.
But if Hans wanted to get in touch again, she needed to make sure it genuinely was him and find out what he’d been up to since she last saw him. For all her love of adventure, she didn’t like surprises.
He hadn’t given his address, just a phone number. She started by searching for that to see if it was his.
Nothing came up. He must be ex-directory, but most people were these days, so that didn’t prove a thing.
She searched for his name. 54 million results. Hardly surprising. Why couldn’t she have fallen for someone with a less common name?
She tried “Hans Schmidt Berlin” instead.
That narrowed it down to a mere 15 million results. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. She clicked on the images option in case there was a photo of him. There were many men of all ages, but none looked familiar. Though he would be 80 now. Would she recognise him from a recent photo?
And what if he wasn’t in Berlin? She looked more closely at the postmark. It was illegible, so there was no help there. But the postage stamp was German. That narrowed it down, but Germany was a big country.
She was just about to try searching for “Hans Schmidt importer” when Olivia phoned. ‘What’s wrong?’ she said as soon as Nancy answered.
‘Who says anything is wrong?’
‘I’ve had reports you were behaving strangely this morning. Jack texted me.’
‘If you call wanting to be on my own, behaving strangely, then yes, I suppose I have.’
‘Has someone upset you? You’re not normally one for seeking solitude.’
’No, I had a letter out of the blue.’
‘Ooh. Not bad news, I hope.’
‘No, it surprised me, that’s all.’
‘How intriguing. Are you going to tell me who it’s from?’
Nancy laughed. There was no way Olivia would let the topic go until she got every piece of information out of her, which, in this instance, would be helpful. ‘Hans.’
‘Hans?’ Oliva sounded shocked. ‘The amazing vanishing Hans?’
‘Yes. How many other people named Hans do you know?’
‘Good god, after all this time. What did he say?’
‘That he misses me. He always has.’
‘He should have thought of that before he did a moonlight flit.’ Olivia hadn’t had a good word to say about Hans since his disappearance, not that they’d discussed him in many years. Nancy had tried to forget about him completely, but there was always a nagging doubt in the back of her mind that something bad had happened to him, and they should’ve done more to find him. Olivia didn’t buy that at all. She just thought he was, at best, an idiot and, at worst, a lying bastard.
‘Apparently, there’s an explanation for that. He wants to meet me to tell me what happened. He suggested I phone him so we could make arrangements.’
Olivia sighed. ‘And why couldn’t he tell you in his letter? Or over the phone? Are you sure it’s not some sort of scam?’
‘No, I’m not sure. His letter contains lots of detail about what we did in Paris, but that might be a deliberate attempt to make me think it’s genuine. If he kept a diary, someone could have found it and used the information to fool me. That’s why I want to find out what he’s been up to since 1964. The letter says he waited until his wife died before he contacted me. Other than that, he doesn’t say how he’s spent the last 50-odd years. You’ve not kept in touch with Christa or Ingrid, have you?’
‘No. I exchanged Christmas cards with Christa for a few years, but they stopped when the children were young. Have you tried looking on Facebook?’
‘Not yet. But I guess it will be a similar story there. There are so many Hans Schmidts in the world.’
‘What you need is a professional. The private detective I used to spy on Isabella might be able to help. ‘
Nancy remembered him doing an excellent job on Jack’s ex-wife. ‘Does he cover Germany?’
‘I’ve no idea, but I assume he’s got contacts who can help if he doesn’t. I’ll find his details and text you.’
Later that afternoon, Nancy walked up the old, narrow servants’ stairs into the attic rooms at the top of the house.
There were piles of boxes of old papers and discarded furniture from decades ago. She ought to sort through it all. There might be some hidden gems she could reinstate downstairs or sell. But she’d been saying that ever since she inherited the house in the 1970s. It wasn’t fair to leave all this for Mark and Nigel to sort through when she eventually shuffled off this mortal coil. However, that wasn’t why she was up here today.
Olivia’s private detective had got straight back to Nancy after she’d texted him. He couldn’t help, he said, but he recommended a company in Berlin and gave her their email address. After exchanging a few messages, they’d agreed on a price. She’d given them all the information she had on Hans, including a photo of the envelope the letter had come in, in case they could decipher the postmark. But they’d also asked if she had a photo of him, and she’d only ever had one of those.
She moved a few boxes out of the way, coughing at the clouds of dust she was stirring up. A cardboard filing box labelled “Nancy 1972” caught her eye. She knocked the thick layer of dust off the top so it wouldn’t fall on the contents, then carefully lifted the lid. Some old children’s books and a photo album lay on top. But underneath, she found what she was looking for: a sheaf of letters tied up with a red ribbon. The envelope on top had “Nancy” written on it in Hans’ writing. She stifled a sniffle.
You ridiculous woman,she said to herself as she undid the ribbon. The bundle contained every letter and card she’d received in Paris, including the note Hans had pushed under her door to schedule his first English lesson. She flicked through the papers until she found the envelope she was looking for.
It was a card from Ingrid and Dieter to say thank you for their wedding present. Inside the card, Ingrid had included a copy of the photo of the wedding party the passerby had taken with Christa’s little camera. There they all stood, the newlyweds in the centre with Christa, Olivia and Pierre on Ingrid’s side and Nancy and Hans next to Dieter.
Darling Hans. Seeing his slightly crooked smile made her heartbeat speed up. Or you forgot to take your tablets this morning.
He looked so young. They all did. The picture was too small to show his long blond eyelashes, but she could see them clearly in her mind’s eye as she remembered the feel of his lips on hers the first time he’d kissed her by the restaurant. Get a grip, woman. All this talk of babies must be making you sentimental in your old age.