The Spice Lounge is a few minutes’ walk from the pretty triangle green, where I try not to look at the mothers pushing Bugaboos while they stare intently into their iPhone screens. I never looked away from Violet when I was with her. I want to call across to them, beg them to cherish these moments.
It’s half past eleven in the morning. I hadn’t thought it through, but it’s too early and the door sign says CLOSED. I can see a young guy inside, folding napkins into swans at an empty table, and the door to the kitchen swings open and closed as people come and go. The swan boy looks at me, tilts his head in confusion. My first instinct is to shuffle off in embarrassment, but I hold my nerve and try a smile. He folds one more swan slowly, squirms under my continued eye contact and begrudgingly walks toward the door. When he unlocks it and pulls it open, the hip-hop playing over the speakers inside rushes out and takes me by surprise, so the words get stuck in my throat.
“We’re not open yet,” he says gently as I stand there, mute. “We open at noon,” he adds. “If you’re that hungry.”
“I, um…” I stare at his eyes, worrying about how much time is passing without me explaining myself. “I’m looking for someone.”
“Okay?” he says, like it’s a question. I fumble for the folded picture of my sister in my handbag, thrust it at him.
“This is my sister, Robin. We’ve lost contact and I need to find her.”
“Is she a fan of Indian food?” He smiles and looks back at the picture. “She seems a bit familiar,” he says, “but I don’t think she’s a customer.” He laughs. “She’s not famous, is she?”
“She is actually, kind of. She’s in a band, was in a band. I’m not really sure now.” I realize that I sound manic and confused, that I wouldn’t give information to me if I were him.
“I was joking,” he says, in a thicker Manchester accent than he had before. “But she’s famous, is she? Well,” he whistles, “I wish I knew who she was, then.”
“So you’ve not served her in here before?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t think so but…I’ll ask the others.”
He turns and calls behind him, the beat of the hip-hop merging with his yell. “Rav! Can you come here a minute?” The boy stands back and gestures me inside. “You wanna come in for a bit?”
—
I sit at the table and watch another waiter smooth white tablecloth over white tablecloth over white tablecloth. Gradually a crowd of guys approach me; some of them seem shy and nervous but a few seem amused.
“You’re looking for your sister?” a gray-haired man with a neat beard asks seriously and quietly.
“Yes.” I nod, overeager, and spread the printed picture out in front of me so Robin’s face is disproportionately large compared with all of ours.
“Is this her?” the man asks, flicking his eyes over Robin.
“Yes,” I say, and they all peer in, except for the older guy.
“Why do you think we’d have seen her?” he asks suspiciously.
“She knows you like younger women, Rav,” one of the men at the back of the group says loudly. There are snorts of laughter, but Rav ignores him and keeps his gaze on me.
“She lives around here. I think she might have ordered a takeaway from you once.”
“Hmn,” the older man says, lifts the picture of Robin and holds it up to the light. “Hmn.”
“Not seen her, mate, sorry,” says a tall guy at the back of the group, turning to return to the kitchen, his friend following.
“She does look a bit familiar,” the swan boy says again, hopefully.
The older man shakes his head. “I’m sorry,” he says, and he really emphasizes the words and pats my hand. “I’ve not seen this lady. But good luck finding your sister.”
The swan boy looks disappointed. I guess there’s not normally much excitement on an early shift folding napkins.
“Thanks anyway,” I say, and ease myself to standing. Even though it was a long shot, I feel my eyes prickle. I cough it away. “In case you remember anything, can I give you my number?”
I leave the young guy holding one of their own takeaway menus with my new phone number written on it, flopping in his hand. As I step down onto the pavement, the gray-haired man appears and relocks the door, holding up his hand to wave solemnly as I move on.
ROBIN|PRESENT DAY
The morning after calling the police, Robin woke up to see Little Chick in his room and Mr. Magpie in the kitchen, doing laundry. Mrs. Magpie had left without the boy.
“Good morning, Mr. Magpie,” she whispered, although really she should call him Henry Watkins now. Mr. Magpie didn’t exist.
Robin watched his apartment on and off all morning as she paced and tidied and then pumped as much iron as she could stand.
She’d done something. She’d actually done something.
The letter box clattered. She took a deep breath and counted her way down the stairs, skipping the final for an equal number.
A bill from the gas board, a statement from the bank and a bright white anonymous letter. She bent and scooped them up deftly. Took them straight to the office on the middle floor. The window overlooking the green was swamped by the heavy curtain and was never to be touched. The front of the house was not Robin’s domain; that was his. The Knocker.
She filed the bills, still in their envelopes. Placed the white letter on the desk, angled it so it was perfectly lined up with the edge. She studied it for a moment. It was thin, very light. A blurred postmark that looked like “Maidenhead,” but she couldn’t be sure. Letters were a trigger for Robin, according to a therapist she’d soon stopped calling. That letter in L.A. just before she’d imploded seemed to confirm the diagnosis.
“You’re a liar,” it began.
There’d been a sweet spot without any post, a few weeks in this house before her address change filtered through and the letter box started to snap again.
She turned this white envelope over. Looked at the gummed flap on the back. So thin, this paper. It would burn in seconds, tear in less. She needed to fix something. Robin’s finger hooked into the gap by the gummed-down line.
This would be the first letter she’d dared open since that one in L.A. over two years ago.
She felt the scratch of its flap, pulling her into the present, shrinking the present to a moment. She closed her eyes, opened them, pushed her finger in more and was about to swipe it open when the knocks came. It was almost like he knew.
The Knocker was back. The glimmer of hope that some vulnerable old man shouting had put a stop to it seemed ridiculously na?ve in retrospect.
She froze, then wriggled the envelope off her finger and slid to sit on the floor, pushing herself slowly under the makeshift shelter of the desk.
When the bangs reached crescendo, then dead stop, she resurfaced. The letter sat there, out of the question now. She threw it onto the top of the wardrobe with the others, slammed the door as she left the room and headed up to her bedroom.
From the curtain slit, she could see Henry Watkins and his son still playing in the little boy’s bedroom. It looked normal and happy but it made her feel worse than ever.