Chapter 7 Charlotte
Charlotte
‘Yes, he’s a springer spaniel. No, I’m not looking for someone to take him permanently, just to give him a little company for a couple of hours a day while I’m at work.
Oh, you have a toy poodle? Those are cute, aren’t they?
Isn’t it a hassle to get them clipped because they don’t moult?
No? Wouldn’t that be preferable to them getting hair on the sofa?
Oh, you have a leather sofa? Well, I suppose that would make things easier, wouldn’t it?
Yes, a meet and greet would be a good idea. ’
Charlotte said goodbye and hung up. Maybe it would be third time lucky.
She’d met two potential pet companions for Harry on Saturday, but while initial impressions had been positive, both had turned out a little less than ideal.
Ivy, the elderly lady who lived at the end of the street, had offered to take him for a couple of hours a day as a companion to Rex, her Pomeranian.
However, upon the first meeting, it transpired that she had forgotten to mention also owning three corn snakes, all of which roamed freely around the house.
Harry, who was a fiend for digging out the slow-worms at the bottom of the garden, had gone straight for the first one to appear, and only Charlotte’s desperate lunge had prevented the snakes being downsized to two and a half.
Although Ivy offered to come around to Charlotte’s house instead, she also had a tendency to cook everything with garlic, one of Charlotte’s least favourite foods.
They both decided that it might be best to pass.
The second potential pet companion had come in the form of Dufus, the three-legged Rottweiler owned by Darius, an unemployed Greek man who lived two doors down.
At the first sight of Harry, Dufus, whose missing leg was allegedly the result of a dog attack during his adolescence, had let out a long, mournful howl, one that went on forever, drilling into Charlotte’s skull to the point where she got Darius and Dufus mixed up twice, and, afraid of getting a third strike, suggested she look elsewhere.
Needing a bit of fresh air and space, she and Harry piled into the car and headed out of Brentwell to Willow River, where they enjoyed a pleasant walk along the canal, followed by afternoon tea in the Willow River Guesthouse.
When they got back, Charlotte wandered around the house for a while, putting off the inevitable, which was to begin the slow sorting-out of Grandma’s things.
While in an ideal world she could keep everything as a shrine to Grandma, the reality was that as the sole recipient from Grandma’s will, Charlotte would have to decide whether to keep, sell, give away or chuck out each item.
The will, read on Friday morning, had thrown up no surprises, no vast donations to cat charities or long-lost relatives, no posthumous confessions or revelations of children given up for adoption.
Charlotte had received everything, and the house was now officially hers, although she had been paying Grandma’s mortgage for the last five years anyway, and with another ten to go, there was no great change there.
As for the contents, Grandma had kept accumulation to a minimum.
Due to them living together, there was no great pile of furniture or appliances to sell, just a few boxes of private bits and bobs that Charlotte now found she had both the right, and the curiosity, to look through.
With Christmas approaching, however, the time for giving, Charlotte was feeling in a charitable mood.
The only real indicator of how deserving a person was, she found in the bottom drawer of Grandma’s dresser.
Last year’s Christmas cards. She took them out, smiling at the impressive size of the pile, although closer inspection revealed several to be circulars, and at least half addressed to herself, rather than Grandma.
Taking what was left of the pile, she went downstairs, found a pen and pencil, then made a list of extended family and friends whose generosity deserved a little windfall from Grandma’s passing.
It was a short list.
Kenneth, Grandma’s cousin, who lived in a nursing home in Scarborough.
Ninety-four years old. He still sent Grandma a Christmas card every year, a little note written in increasingly shaky writing.
Perhaps he would like Grandma’s set of Chinese vases, or perhaps the grandfather clock in the hall, if Charlotte got it repaired first. Although perhaps reminding him of both his inability to travel and the passing of time might not be a good idea.
Or what about Grandma’s set of bone china-handled steak knives?
To the best of Charlotte’s knowledge, they’d never been out of the packet. Could he even eat steak?
In the end she settled on a couple of cushion covers, still in their packets. Everyone needed cushion covers, didn’t they?
Next was someone called Benjamin, who, after a bit of searching through Grandma’s old address book, turned out to be a former neighbour from Plymouth, before she’d moved to Brentwell.
Charlotte searched his name online, ascertained that he was most likely a little younger than Grandma, and allocated him the steak knives.
It took only an hour to get through the Christmas card list. Due to the nature of the cards, at least half of the senders only gave a first name, and no home address.
Simple messages suggested they were casual acquaintances, although she was able to identify a number of people from the local community and Grandma’s various clubs and societies.
Pretty soon, she’d run out of people to donate to, meaning what was left would either have to go to charity or be kept or sold.
Much as she had loved Grandma, their fashion tastes had clashed.
Aside from one fake fur coat, Charlotte wasn’t keen to keep anything from Grandma’s wardrobe, or indeed the wardrobe itself, for that matter.
She’d been spying on a nice new one at the garden centre out on the Willow River road for ages, so it was perhaps time for an upgrade.
With Harry sitting beside her, she gently removed Grandma’s clothes and put them into boxes, surprised at just how many clothes Grandma had owned but never wore.
Pulling out one final pair of jeans that were creased from not being used and had the same musty smell as the wardrobe itself, she found herself staring at a crumpled white envelope at the bottom.
A faded label had been written on the side.
For Charlotte. When she’s ready.
Charlotte’s heart started to race. Harry, perhaps aware of the sudden tension, whined and put his head on Charlotte’s knee. With her hand shaking, she reached out and took the envelope, which had been there so long it let out a creak as it came unstuck from the drawer bottom.
The paper felt brittle and dry. Something inside the envelope made indentations in the paper. She turned it over, easily pulling away a piece of tape that had become flaky with age.
There was no note inside, only two simple gold rings that tinkled together as they fell out into Charlotte’s palm.
It took her a moment to realise what she was looking at; then she let out a little gasp. Picking up one, she turned it up to the light to see the inscription along the inside of the band.
Frank and Laura, forever.
On the other one, the opposite way around: Laura and Frank, forever.
Charlotte swayed suddenly feeling the weight of the world on her shoulders. She hugged Harry to her, the dog whining before letting out a little pant of excitement.
Her parents’ wedding rings. Saved for her.
She had never thought about them before.
Her parents themselves weren’t even a memory, just names on her birth certificate.
There was a single picture of them in the kitchen, a studio picture, a three-year-old Charlotte in a pink frock looking grumpy on a chair between two smiling strangers, the man with a handlebar moustache and a mullet, the woman with a hideous blonde perm.
Charlotte had no memory of that day, nor of Frank and Laura themselves, but now, faced with the bonds of the love that had brought her into the world, she started to feel queasy, old thoughts and feelings beginning to break the surface.
Grandma had always looked to the future.
Everything had been about tomorrow, not yesterday.
Yesterday was done; it couldn’t be changed.
The only thing you could change was the now, today, tomorrow.
Charlotte, picking up on her grandmother’s ideology, had long ago stopped giving Frank and Laura any more than a passing glance when she came down to the breakfast table each morning.
Now, though, she began to wonder. Was there more?
She slid the two wedding bands back into the envelope and put it down on the floor.
The bottom drawer of the wardrobe was still out, now empty of its load of old clothes, and the envelope it had hidden.
Instead of pushing it back in, however, Charlotte gave it another tug.
It popped out in her hands, and she gave a little gasp as she almost fell backwards.
Putting it aside, she leaned forward, peering into the dark gap beneath the wardrobe.
Surely her grandmother wasn’t one of those secretive types? Then, giving a wry smile, she saw it, there, pushed right back into the space behind the drawers, against the far wall.
An old, tatty shoebox.
Charlotte reached in and pulled it out. It felt heavy, and from the way the edges had frayed and in places been repaired with packing tape, she could tell it had once been taken out often. Carefully slipping her fingers underneath it, she lifted it out and put it down on the floor.
For a moment, as she lifted the lid and saw a covering of tissue paper, she thought the joke might be on her, and that this was actually just a pair of old—but very heavy—shoes.
Then, as she pushed the tissue paper aside, she saw stacks of old photographs and a few mementoes of a life from long ago.
Her grandmother’s treasure, and perhaps, her grandmother’s secrets.
Charlotte took a deep breath. She needed coffee for this. She might even need Kelly for moral support.
Heading back downstairs, she put the kettle on, and then went looking for her phone.