‘I don’t believe you sometimes,’ Annabel muttered, flinging herself onto a chair. ‘Some Christmas holiday this is turning out to be. Well I’m sorry, but you can count me out – it’s bloody freezing and I bet there are rats down there. Get James to bring the boxes up.’
‘Look, it won’t take long,’ Grace tried to persuade her. ‘And you can sit at the top and sort the stuff out. We’ll get through it in no time if we all pitch in.’
A few hours later, Grace felt like she was corralling unruly sheep. Annabel and James had agreed to help, but both would slip away endlessly – James to check on the football scores; Annabel for any reason that would avoid the task at hand. At least when Millie got up it meant that her enthusiastic auntie was happy to keep her entertained, leaving Grace free to go through things.
By mid-afternoon they had done well. There were piles of full boxes and binbags destined for either the tip or a charity shop. The cellar was now rimmed with bare, grimy shelves.
‘Okay,’ Grace conceded, when she took stock of how much they had done. ‘Let’s take a break.’
‘Finally, she lets us rest.’ James sat down heavily on the stairs and leaned against the wall.
‘Let me tell you this before I forget,’ Annabel said. She patted the three boxes in front of her. ‘These look like they contain personal effects, letters and suchlike, so you’d better go through them. It’s strange that they weren’t in the attic with the rest.’
‘Perhaps Connie and Bill got too old to clamber about in the attic,’ Grace replied, opening one of them and rummaging inside, finding exercise books, notebooks, more photograph albums, newspaper clippings and loose papers, all mish-mashed together. She sighed. ‘There’s so much of this stuff. It’s such a wrench, going through all their memories and deciding which ones are worth keeping – that’s if I can even make sense of them. Sometimes I’ve no idea why they held on to something. I wish I wasn’t packing away their lives with so little idea of what these things meant to them.’
However, if there was anything in the cottage containing more information about why Adam might have disappeared, then she was getting down to the last few places to look. The suggestion that these boxes might reveal something important gave her a renewed sense of purpose.
‘If I take these upstairs, can you two entertain Millie for a while?’ she asked them.
‘Anything if it keeps me away from those damn boxes,’ Annabel replied, while James added, ‘Sure.’
When Grace got into her room, she lifted the boxes one by one and tipped their contents onto the bedcovers, knowing that if she had to clear them away before she could go to sleep tonight it would make her work faster. She climbed up to sit amid the chaotic mountain of papers, and began rifling through. Anything she wasn’t interested in got tossed back into an empty crate, and she began to stack the rest in piles by her bedside, next to her neglected copy of Rebecca.
Her spirits sank as the collection of papers she wanted to look at more closely grew larger. Bundles of letters, mainly, or notepads that had been scribbled in. Bank statements that she didn’t feel she could throw away without checking. Old greeting cards. Photos – both in albums and loose. A couple of school yearbooks that might well contain something about Adam. As she was going through them, it became clear that at least one of the boxes had contained Rachel’s effects. It made her think of Connie and Bill facing the same task, whittling down their daughter’s belongings to retain the official documents that proved her existence, and the photos and letters that could help them recapture Rachel, even if only for a moment, as her image or words briefly fleshed out the spectre of her from the confines of memory. For all Grace knew, so many other things she had touched in the past few weeks had secrets of their own to tell, but they had died along with their keepers. All Grace could do was unwittingly dispose of the evidence.
She picked up a bundle of letters. They were written in the same handwriting, and she plucked one from the top and opened it. Without knowing the contents she couldn’t determine their value, but she still felt as though she were snooping.
Dear Mum and Dad,
I hope you are both all right. I know you will still be getting over the shock, but please, please keep writing and telling me your news. I am doing fine in York. I’ve found a flat, and there’s plenty of space for the baby, who is kicking me all the time now – it’s a strong little thing, that’s for sure.
When you see Meredith, please could you tell her that I’m sorry I didn’t say goodbye. I’ve included a letter for you to pass on to her. I miss you all very much. I know it’s hard, but I’m sure I am doing the right thing. Why don’t you come and see us when the baby arrives?
All my love,
Rachel
Grace plucked the next one from the pile.
Dear Mum and Dad,