I breathe in sharply.
“Why do you have those here?”
“I wanted to talk to Mr. Townsend about the emerald one when we go for coffee after this,” she says, trying to unclip the lid. She presses the box to her stomach, hunching over, nails working at one corner. “He was staying at the hotel when it was lost, and he might remember something, but I’m just going to check that one’s definitely in there, because I did take it out to have it cleaned, and . . . Argh!”
The lid pings off. The two remaining rings go flying.
“Shit. Shit!” Izzy drops to the ground, as though under enemy fire.
“What? What?” Barty yells, looking around wildly.
“Nobody panic!” says Izzy, commando-crawling across the floor of Budgens. “I’ve got the silver wedding ring! It’s just the emerald . . . one . . .”
She lifts her head slowly. The ring is between Mr. Townsend’s sensible brogues. He is staring down at it with open astonishment. A member of the Budgens staff pauses behind him, clearly contemplating asking questions about Izzy’s position, and then makes the sensible decision to move on and pretend he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.
I am also trying to pretend that there is nothing out of the ordinary about seeing Izzy in this position, mostly by staring fixedly at the ceiling.
“Mr. Townsend?” Izzy says.
“That ring,” he says, voice shaking.
Izzy stands and holds it out to him. The bright supermarket lights hit the ring’s emerald and it sends green light scattering across the vinyl floor.
“That’s Maisie’s ring,” Mr. Townsend says, almost breathless. “That’s it, right there. She was buried with that ring. What the devil is it doing in your Tupperware box?”
* * *
? ? ? ? ?
We all make our way to the café, sitting around a circular table, eating our Budgens doughnuts with our café-bought coffees. I feel quite uncomfortable about this, but Barty has no shame, and he was the one who paid for it all.
Izzy explains what Gerry told her over the phone. How the woman who lost that emerald ring had a replica made so as not to upset her husband. How much she’d loved him, and how she hadn’t wanted to hurt him by admitting she had lost his precious ring.
“I’m not sad,” Mr. Townsend says. His tone is thoughtful. He turns his face to the rain outside, blinking slowly behind his glasses. “It’s very typical of Maisie, actually. She never could stand to upset anybody. It used to drive me up the wall, the lengths she would go to avoid causing anyone else any bother. And she was always wearing fake jewels onstage, so I suppose she knew how to have something like that made.”
“I think it’s romantic,” Izzy says.
“Yeah,” Ollie pipes up. “She went to loads of effort so you wouldn’t be upset. That’s nice, isn’t it?”
“Yes. It is.” Mr. Townsend opens his hand, looking down at the ring. It is beautiful. It’s Izzy’s favourite from the box, I think—she’s always fiddling with it. “Maisie and I were never straightforward. On and off like a light switch, she used to say.”
“You broke up?” I ask.
I don’t know whether it’s because Mr. Townsend is old, or because his wife passed away, but I had always imagined them having a very sweet, sedate relationship. In my head, Mrs. Townsend was probably a kind-hearted older lady who wore florals and baked.
But then, I always have idealised the dead. See my father, bitten by a venomous adder while saving a small village, or killed in a high-speed car chase while serving in the Agência Brasileira de Inteligência.
“Oh, all the time,” Mr. Townsend says wryly. “But we always found our way back to each other. That was just our story.” He shrugs. “Our friends didn’t understand. But I’ve always said that love takes a different shape for everybody. Some of us fall in love the straightforward way, and some of us have a more . . . winding path.”
Mr. Townsend is giving me a significant look. I stare down at my Americano as Izzy’s phone bursts to life beside her coffee cup.
“Excuse me,” Izzy says, standing. “Mrs. SB’s calling. I’m going to guess that . . .” She taps her bottom lip. “Dinah’s bleached something antique.”
“Ruby’s climbed something dangerous,” I counter-offer.
She bites back a smile. “Closest guess wins?”
I nod once as she answers the call.
“Hi, Mrs. SB! Ah, baby Jacobs has peed on that eighteenth-century rug, has he . . .”
Izzy mouths I win at me as she heads outside, and I raise my eyebrows. I would say that’s debatable.
“Refill?” Ollie asks. He’s got himself a bottomless coffee. I am not sure he should be allowed this much caffeine.
“I’ll come with you, stretch the legs,” Barty says, getting up.
“It never occurred to me that one of your special rings could be mine,” Mr. Townsend says as they make their way to the till. He closes it in his trembling palm. “All that dashing around and making phone calls. I’m sorry I didn’t save you the bother.”
“It’s not your fault,” I say. “And Izzy’s enjoying the search, I think. It seems to matter a great deal to her.”
“Well, of course,” Mr. Townsend says, eyes still on his closed fist. “Given the ring she lost.”
He looks up when I say nothing.
“Ah,” he says. “Was that a secret?”
“She doesn’t . . . share personal things with me,” I say, slightly pained. “She lost a ring?”
“She told me a few years ago, when we were discussing her family. It was a twenty-first birthday present from her father—she lost it while swimming in the sea in Brighton,” Mr. Townsend says. “Very sad.”
I remember how she’d looked in that first conversation we’d had with Mrs. SB—how her eyes had shone with tears.
I am struck by an entirely ridiculous urge to trawl the ocean. Perhaps Izzy’s ring washed up somewhere? Perhaps I could . . . learn to scuba dive . . . ?
“It was years ago,” Mr. Townsend says gently. “It’s gone for good, that ring.”
I clear my throat, looking down at my coffee, embarrassed. I had not realised I was quite so transparent.
“So that’s why she cares so much,” I say, taking a sip as I try to compose myself.
“Partly, I imagine,” Mr. Townsend says. “But I think Izzy likes anything with a story attached. And rings are objects we give a lot of value to, us humans. Symbols of eternity, dedication, you name it. They were always going to catch her eye.” He looks at me levelly. “Lucas . . . do you care for her?”
I am so taken aback, and so overrun with the emotions of the day, that I almost answer him honestly. But then, as I open my mouth, my uncle pops into my head, and I imagine what he’d say if he knew I was spilling my romantic troubles to a guest. And just like that, I clam up. My whole body responds to the thought. Stiff back, chin up, face blank.
“She is a very talented colleague,” I say.
I hate that I’m still like this, even with Ant?nio so many thousands of miles away. Even with my own car, my own flat, my own job, my own degree—almost. But these traits are so deeply engrained, I don’t know how to unlearn them.
In my embarrassment, I almost miss something important that Mr. Townsend says: that Izzy likes things with stories behind them. It only comes to me on the drive home, with everyone chatting away in the back seat. Izzy has looked at me—really looked at me—just a few times in the last few weeks, and every single time it’s been a moment when I’ve let her see something that I don’t necessarily want to show her. Telling her why I exercise. Sharing why I raise my voice sometimes, and why I so badly want to change that. Moments when I showed her there’s a story to me.
It’s an uncomfortable realisation. I don’t like to share personal matters with anybody—it’s not how I was raised. But I don’t want to be that way. I would like some of Izzy’s courage, her openness. I would like to believe that I can let a person see me, and that once they have, they might think more of me, not less.
Izzy