From the look on her face, I knew there was more to the story and once again, against my better judgement, I found I couldn’t stop myself from asking another question.
‘So you retired?’ I pressed lightly. ‘You didn’t want to act any more?’
‘Pass me those packages,’ Myrna ordered. ‘That’s why you’re here after all.’
I wasn’t the only one who was good at changing the subject.
She attacked the first box with her corkscrew, tearing through the brown wrapping paper and slashing through the Sellotape as though it had done something to offend her. Fishing around inside, she pulled out a tissue paper package and tossed the box to the ground. It was a tiny glass salt shaker. She held it up to the light to inspect it further, a satisfied sound tickling the back of her throat before she placed it on the coffee table. The second box went the same way, savagely attacked then discarded. This one contained a silver salt shaker.
‘They’re lovely,’ I said for the want of something to say. Even if she’d given me a thousand guesses as to what was inside, I never would have got it. ‘Do you collect them?’
‘Against my will.’ Myrna picked up the second salt shaker and turned it over in her still nimble fingers. ‘People send them to me. Still. After all these years.’
‘That’s … nice?’
‘I was in a famous picture,The Waitress, 1962,’ she explained, putting the salt shaker down and swapping it for another chocolate from the box. ‘Have you seen it?’
Biting my lip, I shook my head.
‘One of the last great noirs in my opinion. I, the titular waitress, was killed at the end.’
‘Spoiler alert,’ I said, reaching for the truffles.
She tutted and slapped my hand away from the chocolate box. ‘Don’t blame me for your shameful cinematic education.The Waitressis a classic. In the final scene, as I fall to the ground, shot dead by my vengeful ex-lover, my arm extends and the camera closes in on my hand as it slowly opens to reveal the key to the whole story. A salt shaker. The salt shaker that matches the peppermill found at the scene of the crime at the beginning of the movie. It would all make a lot more sense if you’d seen the film instead of rotting your brain on dinosaurs and wizards and whatever other nonsense your generation calls entertainment.’
‘I’m sorry, it sounds brilliant,’ I offered meekly. This was not the time to tell her I’d seen theTwilightsaga more than twenty times; she didn’t strike me as someone who had an allegiance to Team Edward or Team Jacob.
‘My fans began to send these almost as soon as the picture came out. They’ve slowed down over the years but never completely stopped.’
‘How many do you have?’ I asked, genuinely curious.
‘I’ve never counted.’
She picked up the salt shakers and stood slowly, her loose black silk shirt and matching palazzo pants rippling as she walked across the room, gesturing for me to come along. ‘You tell me, how many do you think are in here?’
She pulled back a curtain to reveal a floor-to-ceiling glass-fronted cabinet built into the wall, each and every inch of shelf space covered in salt shakers. There had tobe a thousand, if not tens of thousands. Salt shakers of all different sizes and shapes, made of glass, porcelain, gold and silver. Some were decorated, some were plain, some with words or names of places painted on them, and some bearing a picture of a woman in a blue dress and white apron, who I took to be a very young Myrna Moore.
‘This is wild,’ I said as she opened the closest cabinet to find a home for the latest additions to her collection. ‘People just send them to you?’
‘From all over the world.’ She stood back to observe her collection, arms folded across her chest. ‘I don’t get so many these days. It’s too difficult now, to find my address, to package the thing, to take it to the post office. If someone can’t do something with two taps on their phone, they don’t bother, effort is a dirty word. Very few people have the moxie we had in my day.’
My first instinct was to defend the under eighties, but I knew she was at least partially right. I lived and died by my phone and was on first-name terms with at least half the Deliveroo drivers in the greater Nottingham area.
‘Very few people would, for example, climb up a tree and jump over a wall to deliver a package.’
The expression on her face was not easy to interpret but, unless I was mistaken, she looked amused. One corner of her mouth ticked upwards and her eyes sparkled, reflecting the light of a trillion salt shakers. Of course, there was also a very good chance I was misreading the situation entirely and she was about to kneecap me with a crowbar for a laugh.
‘How are you enjoying the Edelsteins’ house?’ she asked.
I exhaled with relief as she led us back to our seats,all my joints intact. ‘It’s beautiful,’ I replied, thinking about all the families she must have seen move in and out over the years. ‘Did you happen to know the Garcias who lived in the house next door?’
‘Joe and Rosa?’ This time her expression was easy to read. A huge, beaming smile took over her whole face. ‘Wonderful people. Joe was a builder, like Gabriel. They moved here together, as I recall. Rosa had the most beautiful singing voice and those big brown eyes. I always said that girl could have been a star.’
‘I met their grandson,’ I told her. ‘He’s renovating the house.’
The slightest blush warmed my cheeks at the thought of said grandson but thankfully, Myrna didn’t seem to notice.
‘Takes after his grandfather then.’ Her smile faltered as she flexed the fingers on her right hand. ‘I was sorry to hear Joe had passed. He built a lot of beautiful houses in this neighbourhood, although I doubt many of them are still standing. They’ll knock this place to the ground the moment I’m out of it.’
