My moment of usefulness faded away and she started looking at her old schoolbooks again. I rotated my shoulders, picking my way back to the other side of the attic. As I stood deciding between tackling the bag labelled ‘bed linen’ or opening up an old-fashioned chest that contained God knows what to make me doubt myself a little bit more, I sneezed and the gold box flew out of my grasp.
It landed lid open on a pile of rucksacks, the sound of violins and flutes blaring out.
‘Sorry, sorry, must be all the dust.’ I scrabbled to retrieve it, praying that I hadn’t dented something that would turn out to be a priceless heirloom.
As I picked it up, tipping it upside down to inspect for damage, the padded velvet bottom fell out. A shower of papers fluttered down: tickets, a postcard, a couple of handwritten notes, a folded-up menu from the National Portrait Gallery. I gathered them together to stuff them back in, noticing an engraving inside on the bottom.
My darling Caity-Cat
Whenever I hear this music, I will think of you and wish we’d made different choices.
Yours always, P
I frowned and peered closer. Yes, definitely ‘P’. I really didn’t want to know what pet name Caitlin had for Nico. ‘Petal?’ ‘Pumpkin?’ ‘Precious?’ Ugh. Thank God Nico hadn’t thought up a Caity-Cat equivalent for me. Maggie-Moo. Or if I didn’t get on top of my weight soon, Maggie Muffin-top. I’d once had a boyfriend who called me ‘Shnoodle Bum’. It had put me off nicknames for life.
‘Wish we’d made different choices.’ What did that mean? What choices? I peered down at the pieces of paper in my hand, the souvenirs of Caitlin’s life. She’d missed out on so much. Would she have enjoyed all of these concerts, these places, these dinners just that little bit more, sought to wring a fraction more fun out of every minute, if she’d known that her minutes were in limited supply? Decided to have another drink, another iced bun, sod tomorrow?
I glanced over at Francesca, who was still flicking through her books, biting her lip in concentration. Despite knowing that discovering any more details about Nico’s relationship with the woman who preceded me would just be extra torture, I flipped through the tickets. Opera tickets. Pelléas and Mélisande at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. La Traviata at the London Coliseum, Così Fan Tutte at the Theatre Royal in Bath. I shoved the tickets back in the box, along with a flyer for ‘Late Turner: Painting Set Free at Tate Britain’.
Nico had never mentioned opera to me. He’d clearly dismissed me as a complete numbskull and decided to stick to safe topics like I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, the latest James Bond films, and Natural Calico or Orchid White paint for the dining room. I felt a stab of hurt. If I’d grown up in an Italian family where weekends were about museums, concerts and cooking, I’d probably have known about opera and art too. Mum, for all her warm and wonderful qualities, was far more interested in Coronation Street and a bucket of KFC than culture and ‘foreign’ cuisine. I hoped Nico wouldn’t expect me to go to anything more sophisticated than Adele. I didn’t think I could bear an evening with the whole Farinelli family summarising the main plot of Turandot for me, while singing along in Italian themselves.
I sneaked a glance at the other pieces of paper. A dinner menu from the Ritz. Christ, I’d be grateful for breakfast at a Premier Inn. I’d always had the impression that Nico liked rustic, spit and sawdust type restaurants rather than uber-posh places. Or maybe he just thought I’d feel more comfortable there. Perhaps he thought I’d let him down by sloshing wine into my water glass or tipping the free mints into my handbag for later. To be fair, I might do that, indoctrinated as I was with Mum’s scooping up of sugar sachets and serviettes. She couldn’t walk past a plastic spoon in a café without thinking it might somehow come in handy.
Next was a birthday card with a filthy joke about how much sex would keep him happy on the front. That was a side to Nico I hadn’t seen. More in keeping with the sort of thing Sam’s dad would find funny. The thought of Caitlin and Nico having sex made me feel queasy.
Tickets for Andrea Bocelli in Leeds, November 2013. Il Divo concert, Rotterdam, April 2012. I’d better not admit I’d only been to one live concert and that was One Direction with Sam.
I picked up a postcard of Bath Abbey. I’d always fancied a weekend in Bath. Sam’s dad had pushed the boat out and taken me for a night at a pub in Dudley once, where he’d proceeded to drink himself to a standstill on snakebite. I should have realised he wasn’t in it for the long term.
I turned the postcard over.
June 2012
My darling Caitlin,
Whenever I go to Bath I will think of that wonderful weekend. I’m still trying to work out a way for us to be together forever!
All my love, always, P.
I looked at the date. Four years ago. What did he mean about ‘a way to be together’? Surely he didn’t mean for him to die as well? Had he contemplated a suicide pact? Did he know she was ill then? I remembered my mum telling me that she’d been absolutely fine, developed stomach pains over Easter 2013 and died the following year in February. Anyway, none of my business, whatever he’d meant.
I heard Nico call from the bottom of the ladder. I jammed everything back into the box and bunged the padded cushion on top, my heart skipping guiltily at poking into his private love notes, the little snippets of his life before me.
Before cancer had chosen his door to knock on.
I leaned out of the hatch and took the mugs of tea from him as he climbed up.
The little break had done him good. His face was less pinched. He made his way over to Francesca. ‘How are you getting on?’
‘Okay. I should chuck all these old schoolbooks away. But, I don’t know, I just feel that I won’t ever get the chance to write about Mum or draw her again. I sort of like the idea of having pictures of her that I drew before she was ill.’
‘Darling, you keep whatever you want.’
‘Maggie found a lovely jewellery box for me, didn’t you? The one that plays opera music when you open it.’
Nico looked puzzled. I lifted it up, bracing myself for ‘Oh yes, I bought that when we had an amazing weekend in Vienna/Verona/Paris.’
He frowned. ‘I don’t remember that.’
I opened the lid.
He rolled his eyes. ‘I didn’t know you could even get jewellery boxes that played opera.’
‘Which opera is it?’ Francesca asked.
Nico laughed. ‘No idea. Opera’s such a racket. I used to send her with your grandmother whenever I got the chance. God knows where that box came from.’
A shared passion for opera was not going to be my route to bonding with Anna. I tried not to feel uncomfortable about all the little insights I was absorbing about Caitlin. I didn’t want to find fifty-five thousand more areas where I could consider myself inferior. Thankfully Francesca pulling out a pair of tiny ladybird wellies distracted Nico.