Chapter 26
I t took another pot of tea and all of the Penguins to get to the bottom of it. June was completely astonished. She insisted on Mirren coming with her into the sitting room, which was elegant, if clearly uninhabited, and going through the bookshelves there to find the old photo albums. Mirren let her take her time. Finally, she found it. A tiny black-and-white photograph with white corners, very faded, of two little girls in a back garden, wearing short summer dresses and ribbons in their hair.
‘There we are!’ she said. On the back, in faded ink, someone had written: Violet and June, Summer 1944.
‘Violet’s father must have taken that. He was a wonderful man, your great-grandfather. We’d moved south, but my dad died early on in the war, there was a lot of us like that. Your great-grandfather treated me just like his own. I practically lived at Violet’s. My mother was never the same. We’re quite an ...’ She coughed politely. ‘An eccentric family.’
‘And the book?’ Mirren couldn’t help herself asking.
‘Well, yes, my great-uncle had illustrated it, but there had been a falling-out with the publisher, then Mr Stevenson had gone away, I believe to the South Seas, and it rather got away from them. Then the darling boy died far too young – no children, of course – and the draft came down to us. He wasn’t so fashionable then – we didn’t know what we had.’
‘So it was yours?’
‘I suppose it was. I knew I loved it.’
Mirren’s heart was racing. If this was the family home ... could it be in an attic? A basement somewhere?
‘And then what happened to it?’
June’s mouth twisted. ‘Och, I was only wee. It was such a very long time ago.’
‘I know.’
‘And children’s memories . . .’
‘I know.’
‘Mind you,’ said June, ‘I remember a lot of the 1940s. Couldn’t tell you what on earth I did for the whole of the 2010s.’
‘I sympathise,’ said Mirren.
June screwed up her face. ‘When Mr Sutherland died ... Oh, my dear, it was a terrible thing. Violet just cried and cried and cried. And I cried too, so much. It was like losing a second daddy. And then of course I lost Violet too. They had to leave their house.’
Her eyes misted over.
‘It was so common,’ she said, ‘but it was still just as awful. No babby should ever lose a parent in a war.’
‘No,’ said Mirren.
‘And then after that ... they moved. They just moved. I don’t even know where. Where is she now?’
‘London,’ Mirren said.
‘That’s a big place. I can’t ... Is she all right?’
Mirren shrugged. ‘Not really. That’s why I promised to bring the book for her.’
‘I don’t remember ever seeing it again after that summer,’ said June. ‘What does Violet think?’
‘She thinks her mother must have sold it. They didn’t have much money.’
‘No, nobody did,’ said June. ‘But she couldn’t have sold it – it was ours. Her mother would never have done that.’
‘So might she have given it back?’
‘She must have,’ said June. ‘But I’ve never ever seen it.’
‘Might it be in an attic somewhere?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said June. ‘After I was last in line to inherit, Hector and I moved here ...’
She showed Mirren a picture on the mantelpiece of a distinguished-looking man with a big 1970s moustache.
‘And we raised the girls here and they were huge readers. They went through everything.’
She ran her hands along the books on the shelves. ‘In fact, I even remember buying them an edition of that book with flowers on it because we’d lost ours. I looked everywhere.’
‘That’s the edition I had!’ said Mirren. ‘That’s the one Violet bought for me.’
‘Goodness, how funny,’ said June, her face dreamy.
Mirren looked around. ‘So ...’ She sighed. ‘Oh, June. I think you were my last hope. I can’t ... I have absolutely no idea where I would ...’
Just then, there came a loud knock on the door.