Just Haven't Met You Yet

by Sophie Cousens

  Then I think of the Ukrainian man’s bird carvings in the rafters of Sans Ennui. How wrong it feels that whoever buys the house might not know they are there, that the only remaining physical evidence of the man’s story could be lost. On impulse, I ask Ilídio, ‘Could I use this workbench?’

  ‘Of course,’ he says, ‘keep me company.’

  ‘Do you have any silver wire?’ I ask.

  ‘I have everything,’ says Ilídio, walking over to a tall chest of drawers. I follow him and watch as he searches through a cabinet full of tools, buttons, hinges, and cardboard boxes. He pulls out some brown paper bags and inside one finds a coil of silver wire. ‘I keep all sorts. You never know what you might need. Use whatever you like.’

  ‘I can pay for whatever I use.’

  He shakes his head as he gives me the wire.

  ‘Comes with the commission.’

  The porch door of Sans Ennui is open. Ted told me they rarely lock the house, which feels so alien to me, a Londoner with two security bolts on my front door. Inside, I call out his name, though I know he’s not there because the drive is still empty. I pick up the shoebox, which is sitting on a window ledge, waiting for me to take it, and then, on a whim, I pick up the jar of sea glass too. My veins pulse with a long-forgotten feeling, the anticipation of what I might create.

  Back at the workshop, I show Ilídio the box of jewellery.

  ‘What will you do with it?’ he asks.

  ‘I don’t know yet,’ I say. ‘Do you ever feel like you just need to channel your energy into making something with your hands?’

  Ilídio smiles and cracks his knuckles. ‘Every day, Laura. Every damn day.’

  Until now, anything related to jewellery making has felt almost macabre to me, too steeped in loss. Picking up tools would have felt like wearing Mum’s clothes or sleeping in her unwashed sheets. But now, something new bubbles its way to the surface, as though these feelings have been brewed and distilled into something else entirely. The watch and the book and the music; I clung to them as though they were physical totems of love, but here in my hands I have something real that Mum gave me: her love of making things. She taught me how to find the quality beneath the tarnish, how to bend and melt and thread and polish and pick things apart. I might never be as good at it as she was, but not doing it at all would be like nailing up the attic on those birds.

  Ilídio and I set to work in companionable silence, he at his workbench and me at mine. As I unpack the treasure trove from the shoebox in front of me, feeling the textures of metal and stone in my hands, the familiar clinking of tangled chains, I feel a flush of energy, the creative part of myself waking up. It’s lain dormant for a long time, too tired from work, too busy online or scrolling on my phone, too tinged with the sadness of association. Yet, here, now, it holds no sadness.

  I wrap green sea glass in silver wire, then solder each droplet of glass to a vintage chain bracelet. From Ted’s box, I take a simple necklace of silver mesh, mend it, and then weave a layer of sea glass through it. It takes on a life of its own once I’ve started, like a wave of silver, with all the secrets of the sea caught in its motion. Dee has always encouraged me to create things. I cannot wait to show her this necklace – once she is talking to me again.

  Time disappears into the place it goes when you are in creative flow. When I next look up through the workshop window, I realise it is dark outside. I must have been sitting here for hours. Ilídio has gone. A coffee cup is on the bench behind me with a Post-it note stuck to it: ‘Didn’t want to disturb you, stay as long as you like. Put key under pot.’ He must have crept away to bed. I must go myself. Before I leave, I lay out my creations on the bench, put the sea glass bracelet around my wrist, and feel something I haven’t felt in years: pride.

  ‘Thanks, Mum,’ I say softly.

  She led me here, to what I needed.

  6 July ’92

  Dear Alex,

  She is wonderful, isn’t she? I knew you would love her the second you laid eyes on her. You can visit her any time you like. I printed out the photos of you holding her – copies enclosed. She has your chin, don’t you think? And your huge feet – she will be a giant!

  I’m sorry, Al, but I still feel the same way about the coin. Finding the coin is what led me to you, to Laura, and I want a piece of it for her. You don’t experience objects the way I do – I feel all the memories it holds when I have it in my hand, visceral to me. If your family would promise to leave both pieces to Laura once your grandmother passes, then I would return my half until then, but I’d want it in writing. I agree, better for the pieces to stay together.

  Love,

  Annie

  Chapter 26

  That night I dream I’m in a pitch meeting with Suki – a standard anxiety dream for me. Usually I’m naked or mute in these dreams, but this time, I am a tiger, towering over her, roaring at the room. That’s what comes of reading Tiger Woman before bed. The tone of the book, with all its grandiose affirmations, is a bit much for me. But beyond the metaphors, perhaps the message of tuning back into your instincts is a valid one; I don’t think it was logic that led me to that workbench last night.

  I wake feeling surprisingly well rested. Looking out of the window, there’s still no sign of Ted’s car in the driveway. Where did he sleep? Has he left the island to go and find her? How worried about him should I be?

  I need to check my emails now the Wi-Fi is back on, but I left my laptop at Sandy’s and when I climb over the wall, no one is home, and the house is shut up. This would have been enough to send me into a panic yesterday, but this morning I feel uncharacteristically calm. It is Sunday; surely I can afford to be disconnected for one morning of the weekend. So instead of fretting, I decide to go for a sea swim.

  Stepping into the garden with my towel wrapped around my bikini, I close my eyes, and turn my face to the sky. The sun feels brighter here somehow, though the September air is still cool beneath the cloudless sky. Running barefoot down the path to the sea, I throw off my towel as I hit the sand and plunge head-first into the waves, not giving myself a chance to wimp out. The icy water winds me, stripping me back to something elemental. Then, once I’ve caught my breath, I look out to the watery horizon; Gerry’s spirit level, levelling me.

  In the sea, I can’t help thinking back over the conversation I had with Dee, before she got upset with me. Her theory that my search for the impossibly perfect guy could be a distraction, because I don’t believe I deserve to be happy. She’s wrong – I do think I deserve happiness, and honestly, I don’t think my subconscious is that clever. But maybe I need to rethink where that happiness is going to come from. The feeling of contentment in the workshop last night – it gave me a glimpse of a different kind of happiness, the one you can only find from within.

  Even if I do have some soul-searching to do, there’s no denying I had a great time with Jasper yesterday. I laughed, I felt fun; there is such levity and brightness to him. But then Ted feels like this anchor point, drawing me in, and in the map of my mind, all roads lead back to that kiss. He made it clear enough that it was a mistake; I need to forget what happened on the sand. I hope he is OK though; I would like to know that he is OK.

  After warming up in a scalding shower, I get dressed in coral shorts, a white V-neck T-shirt and vintage gold plimsolls. Still no car on the drive. I decide to take up Sandy on her offer to lend me her bike. It’s a beautiful day, only a few miles to Monica’s house, and I could use the exercise.

  It turns out the road is a lot more uphill than I remember from the car journey, and I’m glowing by the time I tap on the hedgehog-shaped door knocker.

  ‘Ah, Laura, you came, fabulous!’ Aunt Monica cries as she opens the door. ‘Now, I must apologise – I had my facts muddled when I saw you on Friday. It was my nephew Oliver who nearly married a woman who had all those phobias, not Alexander. She was called Annie too, which is where the confusion came from.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I say as I tak
e off my jacket. ‘I thought it might be something like that.’

  ‘Now, there’s someone here who’d like to meet you, and a chocolate log, freshly made today. Kitty, more work for you, dear!’

  She leads me through to the chintz-laden sitting room where another woman is sitting in one of the mustard-coloured armchairs, holding a cup and saucer in her hands. I guess her to be in her early eighties; her body is of a sturdier physique than Monica’s, and she has white hair set into a bob. She is dressed in green corduroy trousers, a neat checked shirt and sweater vest, with a beautiful green peacock brooch pinned to it, made of enamel. Her eyes are grey and glazed; the look of someone who might be blind or partially sighted.

  ‘Laura, this is Sue, your grandmother,’ says Aunt Monica.

  ‘My grandmother,’ I say, reaching a hand to my pendant, suddenly inexplicably nervous to meet ‘Bad Granny’.

  Sue carefully reaches out a hand to feel for the coffee table next to her, so she can put down her cup and saucer. Then she reaches her empty palms out to me, so I walk towards her and offer up my hands for her to squeeze.

  ‘Laura,’ she says, as though it is a foreign word. ‘I met you once, you know, a long time ago.’

  ‘You must have been knee-high to a hedgehog,’ chips in Monica from the kitchen.

  Looking at my grandmother’s face, there’s something so familiar about her. Then I realise what it is: she has my nose, the same narrow bridge and pert tip.

  ‘I have the same nose as you,’ I blurt out.

  She peers at me, squinting her eyes.

  ‘May I see, with my hands?’ she asks. ‘My eyes aren’t so good.’

  I nod, guiding her hand to my face. She runs a finger down the bridge and then gently pinches each side. The last person to touch my nose was probably my mother. Whenever I asked questions about her love life, she’d pinch it and say, ‘Alright, Nosy Nora.’ My grandmother’s touch unlocks the memory; I’d forgotten all about Nosy Nora.

  ‘That’s certainly a Blampied nose,’ she says with a nod. ‘A very fine nose it is, too.’

  ‘Mum used to say that,’ I say, softly.

  Sue invites me to sit down. She asks how I’m enjoying my first trip to Jersey, which parts of the island I have seen. Her voice is clipped, reminding me of my old headmistress from school. I tell Sue about my mother’s album, about me retracing her steps, while Monica listens in from the kitchen, where she is dusting her chocolate log with icing sugar. I explain I came here to write about the coin but confess that the version of the story I was told might not have been accurate. Sue pauses for a moment, reaching out a hand for mine.

  ‘I’m glad you didn’t know what really went on. It was all so silly, Laura.’ Sue sighs. ‘I’m afraid your mother and I didn’t see eye to eye on a few things, and well, time marches relentlessly on without anyone noticing.’

  ‘What did you fall out about?’ I ask. ‘Was it money, Dad’s will?’

  ‘It wasn’t money,’ Sue says, shaking her head, ‘well, not any old money. It was that wretched coin – the ha’penny.’

  Monica comes through from the kitchen with cups of tea for us both.

  ‘When our mother Margorie passed away, she wanted her husband’s coin buried with her,’ Monica explains. ‘But your mother had it and she wouldn’t give it back, certainly didn’t want it buried in the ground. We were all so raw after Alex’s accident …’ Monica trails off.

  ‘It felt like another thing Annie had taken from us.’ Sue speaks slowly, but her voice has a resonance to it, as though she is used to having an audience.

  ‘Another thing?’ I ask, feeling myself frown.

  Sue’s face creases into a wince.

  ‘All these years later, it won’t hold up to logic. I was a grieving mother and reason gets sent to the back of the queue behind pain and anger. This extra work he took on, the well-paid job in Morocco; he did it all so he could contribute, so he could help Annie. Would he have rushed off otherwise, so soon after the summer season? I’m not sure.’ Sue shakes her head, and I feel my jaw tense at the implication. ‘Perhaps that was unfair,’ she adds quickly, ‘but I’m just explaining how it was we lost touch. I did write to Annie once, you know, an olive branch of sorts, but she didn’t reply. I’m only glad Monica kept the door open all these years, giving you the chance to eventually walk back through.’

  I kneel down at my grandmother’s feet, reaching a hand to my pendant, which now feels like a lead weight around my neck. Everything I thought it represented was wrong. It was the source of more conflict than love, and I don’t want it if it wasn’t meant for me. I unclip the two pieces of metal from the pendant and press them into my grandmother’s hand.

  ‘I’m sorry if my mother took these from you. You should have them back.’

  Sue feels the pieces between her fingers and starts to cry, a silent trickle glistening between the creases of her pale papery cheek.

  ‘I can’t even see them.’ Her mouth falls open, and she holds her head in her hand as her face crumples. ‘I missed knowing my granddaughter over two pieces of silver; I am a foolish Judas.’

  ‘Now, now,’ Monica strides over and puts an arm around her sister’s shoulder. ‘She’s here now, no point regretting what’s past.’

  ‘Yes, I’m here now,’ I say, reaching out to squeeze my grandmother’s hand. ‘I’m only sorry I didn’t ask Mum more questions about you all. I didn’t know any of this.’

  Sue presses the coins back into my palm.

  ‘You must keep them; I have learnt my lesson not to put trinkets over flesh and blood.’

  Her words make me think of my mother, the magpie. She chose the coin for me, over my Jersey family. Have I, like her, been too intent on trying to keep hold of a history, a story, by having something tangible to lock it in? Then again, without the coin, I wouldn’t even be here.

  Monica brings us all a slice of chocolate log to go with our tea, and the mood shifts to cheerier terrain. Both women want to hear all about my life, about growing up in Bristol, my work, my interests. I end up telling them all about the jewellery Mum and I used to make together, the fairs we’d go to every weekend, hunting out shiny things.

  ‘Perhaps that is the Blampied in you,’ Sue says fondly, ‘my father’s jeweller streak.’

  ‘Well, I think I have a long way to go before I’d be considered a proper Jersey bean,’ I say. ‘I’ve been calling myself Le Ques-ne all my life, I only learnt it was pronounced Le Cane this weekend.’

  Sue finds this so funny that she chokes on her piece of cake, and it takes a good few minutes for her to regain her composure.

  After tea, Monica sits down next to me with a photo album she’s picked out.

  ‘I’ve spent the last few years writing people’s names on the backs of all these old photos. Once we’ve gone, no one will remember who anyone is otherwise.’

  She takes me through pages of photos; there are several of William Blampied, who started it all, dressed in his army uniform before he left for the war. There is a picture of William and Margorie’s wedding day, at a Jersey church in 1936. Pictures of Sue, Monica, and their brother Graham as children on holidays in Greece and France. Finally, we get to pictures of my dad as a child; I’ve only ever seen a handful of photos of him, and I stare in wonder at eyes so similar to my own, looking back at me from a faded photograph.

  ‘Do shout if this is dull, dear,’ says Monica.

  ‘It’s not dull at all. I know so little about Dad’s family. Does your brother Graham have children? Did Dad have cousins?’

  ‘Oh yes, Deidre, Oliver, and James, and they all have children of their own. I’m sure they’ll want to meet you.’

  I have cousins. I have family beyond Gran. The thought brings a lump to my throat.

  ‘Oh, would you mind fetching the box from your car, Monica?’ Sue asks, and Monica waves a finger in the air as though remembering it herself.

  ‘I kept a box of your father’s things. I suppose I thought you might come
for it one day,’ Sue says.

  Monica returns from the car with a battered cardboard box in her arms, and I jump up to help her with it.

  ‘It’s probably not much worth keeping, just things I couldn’t throw away at the time,’ Sue explains.

  Monica and I open it together. Inside are a few well-thumbed books, mainly thrillers and murder mysteries. School certificates, a journal of handwritten recipes, and a small tin of baby teeth, which makes Monica and me both grimace and then laugh.

  ‘Why do people keep these?’ I ask, shaking my head.

  ‘What’s that?’ asks Sue.

  ‘Teeth,’ says Monica and wrinkles her nose. ‘Hedgehogs have flat teeth like humans, you know. Some people think they have sharp teeth like rodents, but they don’t. They’re just like us.’

  I bite my lip to stop myself from smiling, imagining Monica with tins full of hedgehog teeth hidden all around her house.

  This box feels like a room’s remnants thrown hastily together. Beneath the paperback books is a plastic file with an ‘A’ written on the front. It is full of letters, some typed, some handwritten. There are clippings from the Jersey Evening News; articles about the coin that I have seen before and then, unmistakably, my mother’s handwriting. Monica pats my shoulder.

  ‘We’ll leave Laura in peace to have a look-see, shall we, Sue?’ she says, taking her sister by the arm and guiding her through the sliding door, out into the garden. ‘Birds need feeding in any case.’

  In the file I find letters my mother sent my father, the bones of their break-up drawn in ink, clipped neatly together. Why would Dad have kept these? There are also letters from him, which she returned unread. He kept everything. The words I read fill the holes in the narrative that no one would explicitly say: Dad did not want me.

  As I read, I feel a weight settle on my shoulders. Now I truly understand why Mum lied, why she wanted to paint me a prettier picture, why she didn’t stay in touch with his family.