She wrinkles her nose a tiny bit. ‘I go by Catherine these days.’
As she ushers us inside and asks what we’d like to drink, I try to see the child I knew in this old woman’s face, and it is there, just about. But I wouldn’t have known her, if I’d met her on the street. Is it the same with me? Have I come so far from who I was that I’m barely recognisable? Cathy’s home is warm and welcoming, cluttered with photos and bits and pieces that look like they’re souvenirs from holidays or things young children might have made. Probably grandchildren. It smells faintly of baking, as if she whipped up a batch of scones after breakfast. If she did, she doesn’t offer us one. There’s a Christmas tree in the corner of the room and it’s full of mismatched, homemade decorations.
‘You have a lovely home here,’ Reg says, taking the mug she indicates from the tray she brings in with one hand and helping himself to a biscuit with the other.
‘Thank you, we’ve been here for over thirty years.’
I spot the ‘we’ and I’m sure Reg does too, but neither of us says anything. For a short while, there’s no sound in the room besides the sipping of tea. Or slurping, in Reg’s case.
‘So,’ I say, keen to get things moving in the right direction. ‘I believe Reg has told you I’m hoping to find Dot Brightmore, and he says you stayed in touch with the family for a long time.’
Cathy nods. ‘I did, yes. And it’s Dot Black.’
I feel a jolt of something. This is new information, and she seems sure of it, too.
‘Dot got married?’ I ask stupidly.
‘She did. In 1962. To a Thomas Black.’
‘And you’re sure about that?’
She looks a bit affronted. ‘I was at the wedding.’
I want to ask her to tell me all about it, what Dot’s dress and flowers were like, where it was held and, most importantly, about her groom – this Thomas Black. Whether he was kind, and good, and worthy of her. But I can’t see Reg being keen to sit through that.
‘Was she living in London, then, do you know?’
Cathy sits back and puts a finger to the side of her lips. Thinking.
‘The wedding was near here. Trenton. But I think they were living in London, yes.’
Dot got married in Trenton, five miles from here, and I didn’t know about it. Didn’t get an invitation. It’s so much to take in.
‘Do you know whether she’s still alive?’ I ask.
Because at the heart of it, that’s what I need to know. Is this entire search, which I’ve put so much into, and which has brought me joy and companionship and disappointment, in vain? Are we looking for a woman who’s been buried or cremated? I wince at the thought. And that’s when I realise that I don’t hold a grudge against her for not replying to my letters, or for not inviting me to her wedding. She would have had her reasons. I knew Dot. Really knew her. She wasn’t the type to just turn away from a friendship without looking back.
Cathy shakes her head. ‘I don’t, I’m afraid. You see, it was my mother and her mother who were close. Always in and out of each other’s houses, they were. After Dot left, the Brightmores lived in that house for another twenty years. But then they retired, Dot’s parents, and they went to live near the sea. Somewhere in Hampshire. His lifelong dream, apparently. They got a boat. And still, our mothers kept in touch. My parents went down there to see them a handful of times, and they came back for visits, too. I used to always hear about what Dot and her brother Charles were up to. But then my mother took ill and died, quite quickly, and I think I heard that Dot’s mother died fairly soon after that. The men didn’t keep up with one another – they don’t, do they? So that was that.’
I look across at Reg, who’s looking a bit affronted at the suggestion that men don’t keep in touch with old friends, and then back to Cathy.
‘When was that?’ I ask. ‘When did your mother die?’
‘In 1998,’ she says, with no hesitation.
‘So Dot was alive and well up to that point, as far as you know?’
‘Oh yes. She didn’t stay in London, mind, not after her and Thomas had children. They moved out to somewhere in Hampshire to be near her parents. Portsmouth, maybe.’
I want to shake her, to ask her to think and be sure. After all those dead ends, I’m finally getting somewhere. But I’m dependent on Cathy Milton to progress. Who would have thought, all those years ago, when Dot and I were playing with our dolls and Cathy was whining and asking to join in, that we would be in this position now? There’s something else to process, too. She said they had children.
‘How many children did she have?’ I ask.
‘Two. Both boys. John and William, I think they were called.’
‘And is there anything else you can tell me? Anything that might help me find her?’
There’s a note of pleading in my voice, because it feels like I’ve learned so much, and in a way, I have. I know that Dot got married, what her married name was, and that she had two children. I know she moved out of London and that she was alive twenty-five years ago. But does any of that bring me closer to finding her now? I’m not sure whether it does or not.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t think so,’ she says.
But she offers me her telephone number, and I take it, and give her mine.
‘We weren’t always kind to you, when we were children,’ I say.
She dips her head, as if it hasn’t occurred to her.
‘Thank you for your help,’ I say.
I stand, and she stands, and then we both look over at Reg, who’s finishing off his tea. He makes an indecipherable grumbling noise and then he gets up and we go to leave.
At the door, Cathy has a question for me. ‘Why are you looking for her, now, after all these years? I know how close the two of you were but I assumed you’d had a big falling out when you weren’t at the wedding.’
It’s a difficult one to answer. I take my time, put my shoes back on.
‘I don’t know why she went,’ I say, ‘or why she didn’t stay in touch. And now, I probably don’t have all that long, and I’d like to get to the bottom of it, if I can.’
Cathy nods.
‘She was my best friend,’ I add. And I’m not sure why.
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Yes. I remember. And I know she was lost, after your brother died…’
‘We all were.’ Still are, I want to add.
‘You can never really know anyone fully, can you?’ she asks.
It reminds me of what the vicar said about Arthur, in those days after his death, and I didn’t know how to answer it then, but I think perhaps I do now.
‘No,’ I say. ‘No, you can’t.’
‘Well, I’ll be in touch if I think of anything,’ she says.
Back in Reg’s shiny car, he turns to me. ‘One step closer.’
And then he reaches across and puts his left hand on my right knee, his sausage fingers giving it a squeeze, and I’m so shocked I’m slow to react and he’s taken it away before I can insist that he does just that.