‘As am I… Please, come on through.’
‘Stella, shush!’ she says, walking through the hallway. Everything is white and beige. Clean. High ceilings, generic prints on the walls. Large vases spilling with exotic flowers. None of the warmth and personality of Kate’s house.
‘Sorry about these two little beasts, they always get a bit over-excited when I have visitors.’ She smiles again. Despite the formality of the home, there is something warm in her voice. ‘Please, take a seat.’ She perches on the edge of a pale white sofa. God, I hope I don’t sweat blue dye onto the fabric.
‘Tea?’ she asks, leaning forwards and pouring from a silver teapot.
‘Please.’
‘Lemon? Honey?’
I think of the workman’s tea Kate served. How she said Mike would drink it so strong it was a wonder it didn’t stain his teeth.
‘Just milk, please.’ She nods and pours milk from a matching silver jug.
‘So, you’d like to talk about an article you’re writing?’
I take a sip of tea. Earl Grey. Mike whispers into my ear, ‘Tastes like bloody perfume, if you ask me.’I nod. It hadn’t taken me long to find out more about Alice Winters. She’d moved to Shropshire in the mid-eighties. Got a job as an intern at a regional finance company. Made her way up the corporate ladder. Developed an impressive portfolio and started her own investment company in the early nineties. Her résumé felt so at odds to the woman he described. A capitalist never fitted with what I’d had in mind for Michael’s dream girl. I didn’t mention him in my email, preferring to keep that detail until we were face to face.
‘That’s right. I’m writing about a man I think you met, back in the eighties? In Yorkshire?’
She frowns, tilting her head, putting her cup back down.
‘His name was Michael Jones?’
Her hand reaches out to stroke one of the dogs curled up beside her. ‘Michael…’ She takes a moment. As though trying to place the name.
‘He was an artist?’ I prompt. Something changes, like a lightbulb has just popped on over her head.
‘I did meet a Michael, but goodness, that was years ago.’
‘I know. He… You asked him to write to you?’
She leans back, nodding.
‘That’s right. He was something of a dish, if I remember rightly. Had the kind of cheek bones that could break hearts, beautiful eyes. He never wrote to me; I was a bit put out about that, if I recall. Sorry, I’m confused… Why would you be contacting me about him? We barely knew each other. I thought this piece was about my career?’
I don’t reply. I hadn’t actually said that, just mentioned I’d like to talk to her about her early life and what happened once she moved to the Midlands. I reach into my bag and pull out the letters. ‘Michael… Hedidwrite to you. He had the wrong address. You just didn’t get them. But they’ve found their way to me.’
‘Really?’ Her voice has a breathless tilt to it. She lets out a small laugh. ‘Well, I never. I always wondered why he didn’t. We had one of those nights… I missed my bus; he stayed with me. We had fun, you know?’
Fun. The word hits me. It was so much more to him.
‘A bit of a…’ She clicks her fingers trying to find the right word. ‘Spark.’
‘He… felt that too. He tried to find you.’
The corner of her mouth lifts, eyes somewhere far away as she seems to fall into the past.
‘I did see a card, back then, a little shop around the corner. It was a little obtuse, it said a Michael had found something of mine. I’d lost a ring that night and I tried to call a few times butnever heard anything back. Gosh, I haven’t thought about him for years.’
I swallow. The air feels too thin. ‘He found your ring. Kept hold of it for you.’
I take the ring from my finger and pass it over.
She lifts it, turning it in the light spilling into the room from the large windows. ‘Wow.’ She lets out a small bubble of laughter. ‘I never thought I’d see this again. I’d borrowed it off a friend. The sapphire matched my dress. She was so cross when I lost it.’
My hands grip the letters, still tied together with Kate’s ribbon. I think of his words, the brutal honesty in them, the longing, the way the ring hung around his neck like a talisman that was then passed to Kate. She shifts forwards. I realise I’m holding them tightly. I don’t want to let them go. But this is why I’m here. This is why they came to me, so I could find her and pass them on. She takes them from me. I hold the tea in my hands, warming them. Something is cracking inside my chest. She scans the first letter, her mouth lifting into a smile.
