‘Death records?’ I suggest.
There’s a silence, and Julie looks a bit sheepish.
‘I actually looked into that, when we started this, and I don’t think we have enough information. We don’t know what her last name was, do we? I mean, assuming it didn’t stay as Brightmore her whole life.’
‘What if it did?’ I ask.
She comes and sits down next to me, and Patricia sits on her other side.
‘Can we use your iPad?’ Julie asks.
I agree, and she goes to fetch it. ‘Here, I’ll show you.’
She goes to a website called Finding Family and logs in, and I think about the fact that she’s been doing this at home, in her own time. It’s humbling. I watch her type in the name, Dorothy Brightmore, select ‘deceased’ and do a search on the whole of the United Kingdom. There are four pages of results. Four pages of people called Dorothy Brightmore. It’s astonishing to me that there was ever more than one. I prompt her to put Dot’s year of birth in, and it comes down to one page. Still, there’s a list. We can rule out the ones who died as children. And what are we left with? She might have died in 2002, in Lancashire, or in 2015, in Nottinghamshire, or in 1975, in Essex. That brings me up short. I never thought about her dying young. She would have been in her mid-forties then. But someone with that name died there, at that age, and it might have been her. If it wasn’t, it was someone else’s loved one.
‘She could be any of these, or none,’ I say.
Julie nods. ‘And I don’t know how we find out,’ she says.
I don’t either.
Patricia pipes up, then. ‘Is there anyone else who knew her when she lived around here?’
I think about that. There’s Reg Bishop, of course. Who else? I close my eyes and go back to those dance halls, that typing pool, those pubs, those tearooms. I see faces, and some of them have names attached, and some of them don’t. I’ll need to keep thinking, keep reaching back across the years.
‘I’m not sure. I’ll have a think.’
Patricia nods, and it’s quiet, and I know no one wants to say that we’re stuck, so I turn the conversation back to the party, and soon they’re talking about music and food and I retreat a little, not physically, but in my mind. Slip back to the past and have a wander around. There has to be someone, doesn’t there? And then for the first time, I think about how it might have been if I’d had the courage to start this while Arthur was still alive. If he’d agreed to go along with it. He was always good at puzzles. Crosswords and sudoku. Jigsaws. How would he have approached it? What questions would he have asked?
‘Well,’ Patricia says, ‘I’d better get going. Dance class tonight. Are either of you coming?’
Julie looks at me. ‘Fancy it, Mabel? I could drive us.’
It would be so easy to say no. In the past, I would have done. And it’s almost a reflex. But I fight against it, because I’ve found that when I do, good things sometimes happen. And I’ve found, too, that sometimes I genuinely enjoy doing something other than sitting at home.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Yes. Why not?’
I persuade Julie to stay and have her tea with me. There’s no point in her going home for an hour or two and then coming back to pick me up. And she’s got no plans with Martin. She makes us cheese and tomato toasties with salad and we eat them sitting in the front room, laughing when the hot cheese oozes out of the sides.
When we’re in the car on the way to the class, I see Erin out of my window. She’s walking in our direction, looking glum.
‘Can you pull over?’ I ask Julie.
She frowns, looks in the rear-view mirror. Pulls into the curb. I press the button to make my window go down.
‘Hello, Erin,’ I call. ‘Where are you off to?’
She jumps a bit. Then bends down and sees me. ‘Just finished work. No plans. What about you?’
‘We’re on our way to a dance class in Overbury. Would you like to come?’
I’m not sure what it is that makes me ask her. It might be that she’s always on her own when I see her, that I have this idea of her being lonely. She considers it, her head tilted slightly to one side.
‘All right,’ she says, and she opens the back door and clambers in.
‘Are you sure you don’t mind?’ She directs this question at Julie.
‘I don’t mind at all, love. I’m Julie.’
‘Erin.’
‘It’s nice to meet you. Any friend of Mabel’s and all that.’
She pulls back out and we’re on our way. Simple as that. Why did I always make things so hard? Saying no. Never asking anyone anything in case they misinterpreted it. Sometimes, people say yes and things just work and it feels easy and good.
Patricia welcomes Erin like she’s known her for years. At the class, she pairs her with me.
‘What do I do?’ Erin asks.
We’re facing one another, and I’m looking up at her because she’s taller than me, or perhaps it’s just that she still stands straight and tall while I’m stooped, and I put my hands out to show her the hold.
‘Patricia will tell us what we need to do, but I find sometimes it helps to just let the music guide me.’
She looks unsure. ‘I’ve never done anything like this before.’
She dips her head, and then Patricia’s voice is calling out instructions and we’re dancing, or something like it. We’re clumsy together, stepping on each other’s toes and turning in opposite directions when we’re supposed to be moving as one. She can’t stop laughing, and I find myself smiling too. I look down at our feet, mine in black leather flats and hers in scuffed white trainers. The skin of her hand feels impossibly smooth against mine. Everything I have behind me this girl has ahead. The thought of it makes me feel giddy.
When the music stops, Erin continues to laugh. There are tears on her cheeks.
‘Are you quite all right?’ I whisper.
It takes her a while to compose herself enough to speak. ‘I’m so glad I came.’
And then the music starts again and Patricia’s looking at us a bit like we’re naughty schoolchildren so I don’t get a chance to ask her why until the end of the class.
‘It’s Hannah,’ she says, when I do.
‘Hannah?’
‘The girl I like at work. We’ve been seeing each other but while I thought it was serious, she thought it was fine to sleep with some guy from her school at the same time. We had a huge row and I was on my way home to lie on my bed listening to angry music when I saw you.’
There’s mirth in her expression but I can see in her eyes that she’s hurt. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say.
‘Sorry? But you turned my whole day around, bringing me here.’
‘About Hannah, I mean. You deserve better.’
She nods. ‘I do.’
I’m glad she knows. I didn’t, at her age. I decide bringing up talking to her family again would be a bit much, on top of the heartache. I’ll keep my eye on her. I’ll add it to the list when I get home.
1. Get in touch with friends and family
2. Contact the funeral parlour
3. Go to the supermarket
4. Clean the house
5. Find D
6. Help Julie get her husband back