The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper

by Phaedra Patrick

  “I believe so.”

  “Uh-huh. I think she was worried. I mean, you don’t really go out much.”

  “No, I don’t suppose I do.” Arthur stood poised with one foot in front of the other, ready to be on his way. Instead, he reconsidered and crossed over to speak to his neighbor. “I went to Graystock Manor in Bath and then I went to London. You know, sightseeing and things.”

  “I think that’s great.” Terry leaned on his mower. “I really do. When my mum died, well, my dad went to pieces. He kind of retreated into himself and gave up. It’s good that you’re getting out and about...making the most of things.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re always welcome to pop ’round to mine for a cup of sugar or a chat. It’s just me so I’d welcome the company. It’s not the nicest thing being on your own, is it?”

  “No. It isn’t...”

  “And it would be nice to see you at Men in Caves again.”

  “Is Bobby still barking commands?”

  “Oh, yes. And my woodwork is still as appalling. I still make tortoises that look like cars.”

  Arthur raised himself up onto his toes. “Speaking of which...” He narrowed his eyes as he saw movement in Terry’s ornamental grasses.

  Terry gave an exaggerated sigh. “Not again.” He strode over and stooped to pick up the escaped tortoise once more. “What is it about my garden that is so attractive to reptiles?”

  “Maybe it’s you it likes.”

  “Maybe. Or perhaps he just has a sense of adventure. He doesn’t like to stay put, this one.”

  * * *

  As Arthur walked to Lucy’s he took in the sights and sounds around him that he didn’t usually notice, stopping occasionally to admire what a beautiful place he lived in. The fields in the distance were a patchwork of greens. He noticed bursts of daisies sprouting from the cracks in the pavement. He was aware of each step he took, from the soreness of his ankle to the thrilling feeling that he was moving closer to his daughter.

  The top of York Minster gleamed gold in the sun and Arthur really couldn’t remember the last time he had visited and gone inside. He’d never had a to-do list, taking each day as it came, doing whatever Miriam and the kids wanted to do, but he thought that he might start one.

  He arrived at Lucy’s in the realization that he hadn’t been there for months. Lucy always came to them, at Christmas, for birthdays, for her usual weekly visits—before they petered out after Miriam’s death. He wasn’t even sure if she had picked up his message.

  The door was freshly painted in scarlet and the window frames were white and bright. When Lucy opened the door he had an urge to leap forward and hug her, as he had done with Mike, but he held back, unsure of what her reaction would be. He wasn’t certain of her feelings toward him any longer.

  “Come in,” she said, and opened the door. She was wearing a white apron and green rubber gardening gloves. A smudge of soil ran from her eye to her chin. She turned and for a moment she looked just like her mother. Arthur stopped still. The resemblance was uncanny. They shared the same tilted nose and aquamarine eyes and the same air of serenity. “Dad?” she said. “Are you okay?”

  “Oh, yes. I...well...you reminded me of your mum then. Just for a moment.”

  Lucy looked away quickly. “Come in,” she repeated. “We can go through to the garden. It’s too nice to stay indoors.”

  Arthur recalled that there used to be beige carpet in the dining room and now there were stripped-back floorboards. A pair of men’s Wellington boots stood at the door. Were they Anthony’s old ones or did they belong to a new man? He didn’t even know if Lucy had met anyone else, or if she was still mourning her marriage.

  As if she could read his mind, Lucy followed his gaze. “They’re too big but I wear them for gardening. I’m not giving them back to Anthony but they’re too good to give away. A few pairs of thick socks and they fit me just fine.”

  “Good. They look nice and sturdy. I need to get some new boots. Mine have a hole in them.”

  “These ones are size ten.”

  “Oh. I used to be a ten. I’m eight and a half now.”

  “You should take them.”

  “No. I can’t. You use them...”

  “They’re too big.” She picked them up and thrust them into his arms. “Please have them.”

  He was about to protest but then he saw the determination in her eyes. The hurt. So he relented. “Thanks. They’re just the ticket. Maybe your mother has some that will fit you.”

  “She was a four and I’m a six.”

  “Oh.”

  They chatted and agreed that it had been a good year for carrots but not so great for potatoes. They listed the different dishes that you could make with rhubarb and the merits of using wooden lollipop sticks to mark the rows of vegetables. They agreed that there had been a lot of sun that year so far but not enough rain. Lucy asked what kind of savories Bernadette was making at the moment and Arthur said that he particularly enjoyed her sausage rolls but he wished that she wouldn’t bring marzipan cake, as he didn’t like the taste but didn’t want to offend her by not eating it. Lucy agreed that marzipan was by far the worst food she could imagine and wasn’t it strange that it was made from almonds and she liked those. They both thought that Christmas cake would be much better with just a layer of icing.

  It was a hot day. Arthur wore his slacks and a shirt with a stiff collar. He wondered how he had ever felt comfortable wearing these clothes day in and day out. He decided that he had never really liked them. Miriam had laid them out for him each day and they became a uniform.

  Sweat dribbled down his neck and gathered in a small pool beneath his collar. He found the belt on his trousers cut into his waist as he bent over. “I owe you an explanation about my travels,” he said.

  Lucy dug in the trowel, scooped and then flung weeds, not watching where they landed. “Well, yes, you do. You took off to Graystock Manor, then left me a garbled message to say you’d been attacked by a tiger.”

  “I went to London, too.” He had decided that he needed to tell her the truth. He wanted her to know about the bracelet and the stories it held.

  Lucy clenched her teeth, which made dimples appear in her cheeks. She focused intently on each weed, staring, then jabbing. “I’m really worried about you.”

  “There’s no need.”

  “Of course there’s need. You’re acting very oddly. What on earth are you doing traveling around the country?”

  Arthur looked at his shoes. The toes were flecked with soil from Lucy’s digging. “I need to tell you something. It will explain what I’ve been up to. It’s about your mother...”

  Lucy didn’t look up. “Go on, then.”

  Arthur wished that she would meet his eyes, but she was intent on attacking the lawn. It looked as if moles had been on a rampage. He spoke, anyway. “I was clearing out your mother’s wardrobe, you see, one year after she...you know. I was most surprised to find a gold charm bracelet stuffed inside her boot. I’d never seen it before. It had all sorts of charms on it—an elephant, a heart, a flower. Do you know anything about it?”

  Lucy shook her head. “No. Mum didn’t wear stuff like that. A charm bracelet? Are you sure it was hers?”

  “Well, it was in her boot. And Mr. Mehra in India said that he gave her the elephant.”

  “An elephant?”

  “Well, a charm one. Apparently your mother was Mr. Mehra’s child-minder in Goa, when he was a boy.”

  “Dad.” Lucy sat back on her heels. Her cheeks reddened. “You’re not making sense. Mum never went to India.”

  “That’s what I thought, too. But she did, Lucy. She lived there. Mr. Mehra told me and I believe him. I know it sounds awfully strange. I’m trying to find out where else she lived, what she did before we marri
ed. That’s why I went to Graystock, why I went to London.”

  “I don’t understand what’s going on here. What are you talking about?”

  Arthur slowed down his words. “I found a number engraved on one of the charms on the bracelet. It was a phone number. I spoke to a wonderful man in India who said that Miriam used to look after him. I’m finding out things about your mother that I never knew.”

  “Mum never went to India,” Lucy insisted.

  “I know. It’s difficult to believe.”

  “There must be some kind of mix-up.”

  “Mr. Mehra is a doctor. He described your mother’s laugh perfectly, and her bag of marbles. I believe he’s telling the truth.”

  Lucy started to stab the soil again. She stopped briefly to scoop up a worm with the tip of her trowel and deposit it in a plant pot, then used her trowel like a dagger again. All the while she muttered under her breath.

  Arthur didn’t know how to handle other people’s emotions. When Lucy’s teenage hormones reared their ugly head when she turned thirteen, he found the best way to deal with it was to study the newspaper and to leave it all to Miriam. It was she who dealt with tears over boys, a brief dabble with blue-streaked hair, the slamming of doors and the occasional thrown coffee cup. She told Dan to quieten down when he was high-spirited and regularly said to him, “Don’t speak to your father like that.”

  Arthur felt if he ignored moods, maybe they would go away. But now he could see that his daughter was consumed by something. It was as if she had swallowed a swarm of bees that were bursting to get out. He couldn’t stand it any longer. “Lucy. Are you okay?” He placed his hand on her arm. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you this before.”

  She squinted against the sun, her forehead rippling. “Yes, I’m fine.”

  He paused for a moment, wondering whether to leave things alone, like he had done so many times over the years. But he kept his hand in place. “No, you’re not. I can tell.”

  Lucy stood up straight. She dropped the trowel to the ground. “I don’t think I can handle all this.”

  “All what?”

  “You, on your mad travels and telling me strange stories about Mum. Trying to cope without Anthony. Having lost the...” She ran her hand through her hair, then shook her head. “Oh, look, it doesn’t matter.”

  “Yes, it does. Of course it does. I didn’t mean to worry you. Sit down with me and talk. I promise to try to listen. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  For a few seconds she gazed off into the distance. Her lip curled up to the left as she seemed to consider his offer. “Okay,” she said finally.

  She wrestled two deck chairs out of the shed and set them on the grass next to each other, batting off the dust and soil with a gardening glove. She and her father sat down, their faces tilted toward the sun, squinting so that whatever they said to each other was done without looking into each other’s eyes. It brought a kind of anonymity to what they had to say.

  “What is it?” he said.

  Lucy took a deep breath. “I want to tell you why I didn’t go to Mum’s funeral. You need to know.”

  “It’s in the past. You were poorly. You said goodbye in your own way.” He spoke the words, forgiving her already even though it agonized him that she hadn’t been there. He longed with every bone in his body to know how his daughter had done such a thing.

  “I was ill, but there was something else. I am so sorry...”

  It was then that she let out a cry. Arthur’s eyes widened. But his daughter wasn’t a little girl any longer. Should he scoop her into his arms? He followed his instincts and got out of his deck chair. He stood, his body in silhouette against the sun, and then dropped to his knees. Circling his arms around her he held her tight, like he should have done so many times when she was growing up. For a moment she resisted, her body stiff and unresponsive. But then it was as if she was a puppet and someone let go of her strings. She crumpled into his arms. She tucked her head under his chin and they stayed there for a while, holding on for dear life.

  “Whatever is the matter?”

  She stifled a sob but then let it go and a noise came out of her like nothing Arthur had heard before, from deep within her chest. It was a strangled mewl. Swallowing, she wiped away a trail of spittle from her chin. “I had a miscarriage, Dad. I was fifteen weeks gone. I had the scan and everything was fine. I was going to tell you and Mum face-to-face. It seemed too exciting a thing to announce over the phone. It was my big story. I’d arranged to come over for tea, remember? I was going to tell you that I was pregnant.” She gave a sigh full of regret. “I had bad stomach cramps the day after the scan. I curled into a ball on the bathroom floor and the baby started to come too early. Anthony called for an ambulance. It arrived within minutes, but they couldn’t do anything...” She shook her head. “Sorry, I don’t want to think about it.

  “We’d been drifting apart before I found I was pregnant. And then Mum died. I tried to get back on my feet. I forced myself to get out of bed and get washed and dressed, but on the day of Mum’s funeral, I broke down. I couldn’t bear to be in the church with the coffin and prayers and the crying. It was where me and Anthony got married. I’m really sorry, Dad.”

  Arthur was silent as he took in her story. Everything made sense now—her distance from him. He tried to block out the thought of her curled on the bathroom floor alone. “You’ve been very brave. Your mum would understand. I wish I had known, though...”

  “You had to sort out her funeral. You were grieving.”

  “We should have been together as a family. There was so much to do—certificates to sign, doctors to speak to, arrangements, flowers. It helped to keep my mind busy. I didn’t notice anything wrong when I spoke to you.”

  Lucy nodded. “We started to drift apart, didn’t we? When I got wrapped up with trying to save my marriage...with Dan moving away.”

  Arthur reached out and brushed away a tear from her cheek. “We’re here now.”

  Lucy gave a weak smile, then glanced around the lawn. “I’ve made a terrible mess of my garden.”

  “It’s only grass.”

  She flopped back onto the chair and supported her head with one hand. “Do you think about Mum a lot?”

  “All the time.”

  “Me, too. I pick up the phone to give her a call for a chat. But then I remember that she’s not here anymore. I pretend that she is, though. I imagine that the two of you are at your house together, and that she’s bustling around dusting, or writing her letters. If I didn’t think like that, then it would be too much to bear.”

  Arthur nodded. He pulled up a daisy and twirled it around in his fingers. “I’m glad I came over.”

  “Me, too. I have to phone Dan, though, to tell him that everything is okay.”

  “Okay?”

  “When you took off with Bernadette and then left a message about a tiger attack, I phoned Dan. I thought that maybe...”

  “What?”

  “That you might be starting with dementia or something.”

  “Oh, Lucy, I’m sorry. I think I’m as right as rain. It’s just the bracelet triggered something in me—a need to find out about your mum. I didn’t mean to cause you any alarm.”

  Lucy studied her father’s face. He had the same kindly eyes, the same red nose, as usual. She believed that he was fine. “I’m just glad that you’re okay.” She sighed with relief. “And is it really true about the bracelet? About the charms and India?”

  “Yes.” He took the bracelet from his pocket and passed it to her.

  Lucy studied each of the charms. She shook her head. “This doesn’t look like something Mum would own.”

  “It was hers. I know it was.”

  “Then I want to hear more about it. Tell me about your adventures.”

  Arthur nodded. He e
xplained how he found the bracelet. He told Lucy about the tiger, rolling up his sleeve to his shoulder to display his wound. He expressed his concern for Sebastian coping with the elderly De Chauffant and how Mike’s dog was called Lucy. He told her of his visit to see Post Office Vera.

  Lucy spun the emerald in the elephant charm. “I can’t believe this is what you’ve been up to.”

  “I should have told you, but it all seemed so unlikely.”

  “I know now, though.” She handed the bracelet back to him. “Where next, then?”

  Arthur shrugged. “I’m not sure. There are initials on the paint palette. S.Y. The jewelry shop owner didn’t know what they were.”

  “You have got to carry on your search.”

  “But what if I find out more things that should remain hidden? The more I find out, the more questions it raises.”

  “Isn’t it better to know? Do you remember that Mum gave me her pink-and-white-striped box before she died? It has lots of photos in there. I’ve not been able to bring myself to look through it. I could get it now...” She let the comment hang in the air.

  Arthur had forgotten about the candy-striped box that Miriam kept in the cupboard over the bed. She had asked Arthur if he minded her giving it to Lucy and he said that he didn’t. He remembered people and things and times in his head and wasn’t sentimental for taking snaps, or keeping train tickets or postcards or holiday souvenirs. Arthur stared up at the sky and then the soil-studded grass. “It’s up to you,” he said.

  Lucy went to get the box and they sat at the kitchen table. When she took off the lid Arthur could smell old paper, ink and lavender perfume.

  He watched as Lucy took out a chunk of photos and browsed through them one at a time. She turned them this way and that and smiled. She held one up and Arthur saw it was of his wedding day. His black hair curled and flopped over his right eyebrow. The sleeves of his suit were too long, almost covering his knuckles. Miriam wore her mother’s wedding dress. It had been passed down through the family. Her grandmother had worn it, too. It was a little too big on the waist. “Are you sure you don’t want to look?” she said.