“Yeah, but you can ask, right?”
“Sure, except I’ll have Poppy with me. I can’t do much hunting around.”
Liza didn’t speak for a while. She leaned forward in her seat with her face closer to the windscreen. “I’m going clothes shopping tomorrow. I need some emerald green shoes. I have all the other colors. Do you think Poppy would want to come with me, instead?”
Mitchell had noticed some of Poppy’s skirts were looking shorter, and one of her T-shirts was a bit tight. He usually took her to the supermarket, where she pointed at things in the sale and he put them in his trolley. “She’d love that,” he said. “Thank you.”
“Great. It will be fun. She can help me choose.”
He thought about it for a while. “Let’s not tell her in advance, though, or she might explode with excitement.”
“It can be my way of apologizing for last night.”
Mitchell paused, not sure if Liza meant waking him up from his sleep, or falling asleep beside him. “Absolutely none needed,” he said, anyway.
When Liza pulled up outside Angel House, Poppy woke up. “Oh, are we home?” she asked with a yawn.
“You slept all the way.”
“It’s kind of like time travel,” she said.
Liza and Mitchell shared a secret smile.
Even though he longed to jump straight into a shower, he felt obliged to invite Liza inside. “Do you want to come up for a tea or coffee?” he asked lightly.
“Oh, thanks, but I should get home and—”
Poppy perked up. “You can read Dad’s letters. People have written to him.”
“They’re from strangers,” Mitchell added. “Nothing important.”
“Well,” Liza smiled sympathetically at Poppy. “I’m sure your dad will be really tired after the long car journey.”
Mitchell bristled, how she made him sound like an old man. “You’re more than welcome to join us,” he reasserted.
“Well...okay. In that case, I’d love a brew.”
After Liza found a car parking spot, she, Mitchell and Poppy walked into the lobby.
Carl looked up from his desk, his eyes alert to the sight of Mitchell with Liza. His wastepaper basket overflowed with snowballs of scrunched-up paper and his fingers worked as if he was crumbling bread. When he moved his hands back, he had created a small paper boat. “I’m better at making things than writing letters.” He tutted. “Did you have a good trip?”
Poppy grinned. “We slept in a forest and toasted marshmallows on a fire.”
“That sounds awesome.”
“It was.”
“You had a visitor this morning, Mr. Fisher. She left something for you.” Carl reached down and placed an overstuffed plastic shopping bag in front of him on the desk.
Through the translucent white plastic, Mitchell could see brown envelopes and yellow padded bags, postcards and even something with polka dots. He estimated there must be at least fifty pieces of mail in there.
Carl eyed it. “Are you sure it isn’t your birthday?”
“Are all those for you?” Liza laughed. “You’re very popular.”
“They’re a mistake,” Mitchell said tetchily. “A journalist published a competition asking people in Upchester to write in. She asked me to read some letters, but not this many.”
Carl pushed the bag toward Mitchell. “She said her name was Susan Smite, or something like that. She had light blonde hair and a big yellow bag. I told her you’d be back this afternoon, and I’d look after these for you.”
“How on earth did she trace me here?” Mitchell wondered aloud.
“She’s a journalist, a clever person. I bet she can find out things like that,” Carl said. “I told her I was trying to write a letter, too. She said there were some open ones in the bag that I could read for inspiration.” He fiddled with his tie. “I thought you’d want to read them first, right?”
When he looked at them, Mitchell clenched his jaw. “I said I’d help her, but this number of letters is ridiculous. I need to call her.” He tugged Barry’s mobile out of his pocket.
“Um.” Carl bit his lip. “I said you’d meet her in the Dala café at four.”
Mitchell stared at him in disbelief. “Me?”
Carl nodded meekly. “She was quite adamant.”
“Well, I’m not going to—” Mitchell raised his voice.
“Dad.” Poppy’s eyes urged him not to kick up a fuss in front of Liza.
“I need to end this.”
An awkward silence fell between the four of them until Liza broke the tension. “Gosh, I could do with that cup of tea,” she said.
“I’ll make you one.” Carl jumped up. “Can’t write letters but I make a great cuppa.”
“Oh, I wasn’t hinting...” Liza began, but Carl hurried off and disappeared through the door to the basement.
Mitchell calmed down and lowered the phone. “I suppose I could meet Susan,” he relented. “Very briefly.”
They stood together uneasily until Carl reappeared holding a silver tray with a flowery teapot, jug of milk and four dinky cups and saucers. He carried over a few chairs and they all sat down around his desk. After pouring the tea for each of them, he fumbled for a piece of paper in his drawer. “I found someone to read my friend’s letter for me,” he said. “I want to write back to her, but don’t know what to say. I’m not very good with words. Can you help me, Mr. Fisher?”
“I’m not the best person to ask...”
“You have a big bag full of letters,” Carl noted.
“They’re not mine.”
Liza sipped her tea. “I can help you, if you like? I’m not bad with words.”
Carl nodded gratefully. “I don’t know where to start, or what to say.”
“Just be yourself. Write to the person as you’d usually talk to them. You don’t have to start it with Dear or Dearest. Hi, is fine, or Hello.”
Carl wrote, Hi Donna, at the top of his page, and Liza smiled with encouragement.
“Writing a letter is a bit like building a bridge,” Mitchell joined in. “Now you need to think about your foundations, the groundwork, the things you really want to lay down. Maybe use a pencil first. Then you can add your building blocks, the words you want to purvey and the sentences and paragraphs to give your letter structure.”