I try her number and it clicks straight to an answering machine. She has one of those messages older people use, where they just give their phone number rather than their name. I leave my details, explaining about her son’s bag. The trail finally feels as though it’s getting warmer.
It’s her birthday tomorrow, he has a gift for her in his suitcase—surely, he has to notice he has the wrong bag before then? What if he lost his phone, or he’s been in an accident? What if he’s in the hospital now, with my suitcase, and he’s lost all power of speech, but he’s desperately trying to communicate with the doctors about needing to get the case back to its rightful owner? Maybe I should call the hospital, just in case.
As my mind darts down unlikely alleys, I open Google Maps to see where Maude lives in relation to where I am. Then I see a street name I recognize from yearly Christmas cards: Rue du Val Bach. Only a few minutes’ walk from where I’m standing—Mad Aunt Monica’s house.
4 December 1995
Annie,
I am sorry it has come to this, but with all that’s happened, I think it best we cease communicating. Losing my son and my mother this year has been upsetting enough, without the added distress you have contributed to our lives. Clearly, you and I are never going to see eye to eye on what is right, and what belongs to whom. I don’t want to be reminded of it every time you get in touch, so it would be better if you are not.
You will not receive another penny from our family. Anything else pertaining to Alexander’s estate, please contact my lawyer, details enclosed.
Love and best wishes to your daughter,
Sue Le Quesne
Chapter 11
If I’m going to get a firsthand account of Mum and Dad’s story from anyone, it will be from great-aunt Monica. There are only a few houses on the road, so her place is easy to find. As soon as I see the front garden, I know it must be hers. Ceramic ornaments litter the lawn and patio. They are all hedgehog figurines carrying out various hobbies—a ballerina hedgehog, a hedgehog in waders with a fishing rod, and two ceramic hedgehogs on a miniature tandem bicycle. Now I come to think about it, most of the Christmas cards I’ve received were hedgehog-themed: hedgehogs in Christmas hats or poking out of stockings, hedgehogs on ice skates or encased in snow to make spiky snowballs.
I ring the bell tentatively, not sure what or whom I might be about to meet. I have a vision of the door being opened by a life-size Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle.
“Hello?” says a gray-haired woman as she opens the door, thankfully no spikes in sight. She looks like a normal seventy-something-year-old woman, with a bob of straight hair, spectacles on a chain around her neck, a green floral blouse, and—oh, bright purple galoshes on her feet.
“I’m so sorry to knock on your door like this, but—”
She puts her glasses on and peers at me, then cuts me off. “Laura?”
“Yes.” I feel myself beam. Either she recognizes me, or she received my postcard.
“I got your card this morning”—she grins—“and now here you are! My, my, don’t you look like your father.”
No one’s ever said that to me before, and I eagerly tuck away her words as though she’s given me back a piece of him. Monica beckons me in, pointing to a brush mat in the shape of a hedgehog where I can wipe my feet.
“Sorry to turn up unannounced like this, I was nearby and—”
“I should have been most offended if you had not turned up,” she says staunchly, marching back into the house and throwing both hands into the air. Her voice is posh and clipped, like a drill sergeant Julie Andrews. “Kitty would have been particularly upset, wouldn’t you, Kitty?”
As I follow her through to the kitchen, I look around for a cat or some other pet who might answer to the name.
We walk through to an open-plan kitchen-living area, a haven of chintzy furniture and net curtains. There are two mustard-colored armchairs in the living area and an orange rug covered in geometric patterns. The kitchen Aga is lined with tea towels. One has the words, I may be prickly, but I don’t bite, next to a cartoon hedgehog with a maniacal smile.
“Kitty Kettle,” says Monica, holding a kettle aloft like an Olympic flame, “she loves to make a brew for two!”
I laugh nervously, unsure whether this is a joke.
“Tea would be lovely, thank you.”
“Don’t thank me,” Monica says, leaning toward me with two unblinking eyes. “Kitty does all the hard work.”
Well, it seems Mum was right; Monica is mad as a handbag full of hedgehogs.
“As I mentioned in my card, I was hoping I could ask you a few questions about my parents’ story, Aunt Monica. I write for a website and I’m putting together an article about the coin and how it brought my parents together.” I reach a hand instinctively to my pendant.
“Such a shame, Al and Annie, such a shame, the whole business,” Monica says, making a tutting noise as she leans in to get a better look at the coin around my neck. “Well, I’m glad you still have my mother’s coin safe.” Then with a sigh she says, “Good match for each other, your parents were, if only Alex hadn’t been such a terrible bounder.”
I’m not sure what she means by the word “bounder.” Dad was killed in a motorcycle accident in Morocco—perhaps she means he was adventurous, he didn’t like to sit still. I nod in any case.
“All I really know about him is what Mum told me.”
“Well, I wouldn’t believe all of it. He wasn’t all bad,” Monica says as she pours out tea and hands me a cup. “I assume milk and no sugar unless someone says otherwise.”
“That’s perfect.”
“Thank you, Kitty,” she says, patting the kettle. Then she looks at me expectantly, so I follow suit, offering a mumble of thanks to an inanimate kitchen appliance.
Monica leads me through to the living room area, which is full of dark mahogany furniture. Every surface is covered in little ceramic hedgehogs, and framed cross-stitches line the walls, mainly of hedgehogs, but there are various maps of the Channel Islands too.
“You like hedgehogs then?” I say.
Monica takes a seat in one of the mustard-colored armchairs and waves me to the one opposite.
“Who doesn’t like hedgehogs?” she asks, as though I’ve commented on the fact that she likes air and breathing. “Harmless, adorable little things. Show me a person who doesn’t like hedgehogs, and I will show you a psychopath. Lock them all up, I would.”
I’m not convinced this is the universal test for assessing psychopaths, or whether people should be put in jail, but I nod politely and take a sip of my tea, which is, in fact, ninety-eight percent milk.