Nico turned to Francesca. ‘What do you want to start with? Shall we have a look through your mum’s cassettes?’
Francesca looked as though Nico had asked her if she was wearing a crinoline to the end of term party. Cassettes were pretty passé by the time I was a teenager. To Francesca, they must have seemed as antiquated as a mangle. Mum hadn’t had the cash to splash out on a CD player, so I was still pulling endless chewed up tape out of my crappy Walkman and winding it back in with a pencil long after my friends had moved on to CDs. But given that I was trying to become Francesca’s friend, I didn’t want to underline that I was old enough to remember life without iTunes. I let Nico reach his own conclusion that the cassettes could be the first thing shuffled towards the hatch.
I examined the other boxes, looking for one with the least amount of emotional baggage. I definitely didn’t want to come across the photos of Nico and Caitlin cutting their wedding cake, gazing lovingly at baby Francesca or raising glasses of champagne to each other by the Christmas tree. I scanned the labels, looking for the deceased first wife’s equivalent of drain-unblocking equipment.
Clearly not the one marked ‘Francesca’.
I pointed to it. ‘Here, look, there’s one with your name on. Do you want to start with that?’
Francesca looked a bit uncertain and, to be honest, I didn’t blame her. Christ knows what a box with ‘Maggie’ on it would hold – probably twenty bottles of half-used anti-frizz serum in my endless quest to have smooth, shiny hair, abandoned when nature’s superior curling power defeated my optimism.
I shot Nico a meaningful look, which seemed to shake him out of his stupor.
He reached for the box and started picking at the Sellotape. ‘Come on, love, shall we have a look?’
As their dark heads pressed together to peer inside, I inspected the other labels.
‘Outdoor wear’? I wondered if Caitlin had been so organised that every April, scarves, macs and bobble hats were folded away so she wouldn’t spend the summer fighting her way through various woolly garments before the flip-flops could be unearthed.
Nope. The whole clothes thing was too personal, too real. I didn’t want to start looking at every little trace of mud on Caitlin’s boots and wonder whether she’d worn them walking hand-in-hand with Nico, sheltering under a tree in a summer shower, kissing and cuddling until the downpour passed.
I marched over to a box marked ‘Textbooks’. That didn’t sound like it would be home to too many lovey-dovey memories. I slit it open and scanned the titles – Caitlin’s books on nutrition and exercise. I lifted out a few from the top layer just to check I wasn’t about to jettison a first edition of Fit or Fat? or a must-have volume about ‘mastering your metabolism’, ‘strengthening your core’ or any number of un-fun things I’d existed for thirty-five years without worrying about.
I called over to Francesca, ‘You’re not thinking of studying nutrition and sport science, are you?’
She snorted. ‘No chance. I’m not spending my life trying to lick a load of old fatties into shape.’
I sucked in my stomach.
I picked out an enormous illustrated tome about the place of exercise in psychotherapy. It looked like the huge French dictionaries Mum had staggered home with after a clear out from the local library in case she could flog them. We never did find any takers but we stacked them up and used them as a stand for the hamster cage. Nico must find me very limited if Caitlin had a brain big enough to understand how skipping on the spot could make you less of a loony.
I looked over at Nico on the other side of the attic, hoping I’d be enough for him in the long term. He was sitting side-by-side with Francesca, delving into a white wicker chest, exclaiming quietly over tiny pairs of toddler shoes, a little tulip-print babygro, a blue bunny with one ear. I wasn’t sure Sam’s dad would even be able to pick him out of a line-up of ten-year-olds with sandy hair and freckles, let alone remember his baby toys. Francesca was stroking things, pressing them to her face. My heart ached as I watched her straining for a memory of Caitlin, a remnant of a scent, a whisper of a touch contained within random objects that probably smelt more of dust and damp.
She pulled out some school exercise books. ‘Look, Dad, creative writing in Miss Roland’s class!’ Nico started reading her story about her new dog, ‘Polly-Dolly’, out loud, while Francesca squealed with embarrassment. ‘And it wasn’t even true! Mum never did let me have a dog.’ She tapped the page. ‘Look how fat I’ve drawn Mum. I don’t remember her like that.’
I tried not to listen to their conversation, rummaging noisily into the box, the private emotions between father and daughter making me feel like a cuckoo in a nest for two.
‘The dust is making my throat dry. I’m going to pop down and fetch us some tea.’
‘I’ll go,’ Nico said, jumping up as though he was grateful to have an excuse to escape for a minute.
I wanted to bound down the ladder, to get away from all the grief and regret and someone else’s love spreading like ivy out of everything we opened but I knelt down again to carry on sorting.
I came across a gold jewellery box tucked away underneath another layer of books. Good job I hadn’t just glanced in, seen a few dusty old books on how to stop wetting yourself on the trampoline and dumped the lot. I picked it up, running my fingers over the heart shape studded in what looked like rubies on the top. I opened the lid. It was empty, just a padded cushion at the bottom, but a blast of classical music filled the attic, making me jump. Francesca craned over to see what I’d found. I stood up and squeezed around Caitlin’s exercise bike, stepping over yoga mats and a half-deflated Pilates ball to show her.
She stroked the blue velvet inside and said, ‘I don’t remember Mum having this. It’s really pretty.’ She shut the box then opened it again. ‘What’s that music?’
‘I don’t know. You’ll have to ask your dad. I don’t know anything about classical music.’ Straight out of my ‘How to be a Fab Stepmum’ manual, I grabbed my opportunity to engage. ‘Do you like this sort of music?’ I asked, dreading that she’d launch into some comparison of composers I’d never heard of. All the Farinellis seemed to scoff up the arts and culture section of newspapers with their breakfast.
Francesca wrinkled her nose. ‘Not really. Mum used to listen to opera all the time but I’m not that keen.’
‘You might be later on. Shall I put this to one side for you? It’s real gold, judging by the hallmark on the bottom, so it’s definitely worth hanging onto,’ I said.
Francesca nodded. ‘Yes please. I could use it for my earrings.’