A Parcel for Anna Browne

by Miranda Dickinson

  ‘They could be. They could, Anna! Trust me, honey, no one in this world does anything without an agenda.’

  ‘I wish I hadn’t told you now.’ Anna stood. ‘I’m sorry, I have to go.’

  ‘So, what did they send this time?’

  She let out a sigh, torn between wanting to leave and not wanting to offend a friend. ‘I don’t know yet. I’m going to open it when I get home.’

  ‘You have it with you now? Open it! Let’s see what you got.’

  Anna thought of the parcel lying in her bag – the precious gift that it seemed only she saw the value of. And she considered what Tish would make of it. Would her friend’s view of the actual object tarnish her own? So, Anna made a decision. The gift was intended for her, and her alone. To share it would almost remove some of the magic that in her eyes still surrounded it.

  ‘No,’ she lied. ‘It’s at home. I’m going back to open it now.’ Remembering her friend’s concern from earlier, she smiled. ‘But I’ll show you what it is next week, okay? And I would very much like us to remain friends. I’m sorry if I’ve been distracted.’

  Tish shrugged. ‘As long as we keep meeting up, it’s good. Go. Open your parcel.’

  As the lift shuddered and squeaked up to her floor, Anna considered her response to Tish. Why had sharing the moment with her friend been such a dreadful thing? She rarely told lies – a reaction to years spent enduring her mother’s tall tales. Why had she lied to Tish today? Tish said Anna had been different recently, and this certainly seemed to be true. Anna wasn’t sure whether she should like this version of herself, but she couldn’t help thinking she had made the right decision today. People at work – and now Tish – had all taken it upon themselves to pass damning judgement on the parcels. So what right did they have to share the wonder and excitement that Anna felt at opening them?

  The first parcel had made her happy for weeks. The second was just as unexpected, and meant just as much. She deserved to enjoy this moment, she decided. Because it might not last. While it did, she was determined to enjoy it – alone.

  The parcel was considerably smaller than the first, a square box measuring no more than three inches across, but wrapped with identical care. The address label had been printed this time but, as before, gave no clue to the sender’s address or identity. Anna turned the parcel over in her hands and heard a faint rattle from inside. She suppressed the urge to squeal – a childlike joy quivering up within her. Instantly, she was back in the small bedroom of her grandmother’s house in St Agnes, long before the bitter battle ensued that would see young Anna and brother Ruari denied access to it. Until Anna’s tenth birthday, she and Ruari spent every Christmas at Grandma Morwenna’s fisherman’s cottage perched high above the village looking out to the sea. Senara claimed that her bar work at the Blue Peter Inn in Polperro kept her away, but Anna was later to learn that she and Morwenna could not be in the same house for longer than a few hours. Morwenna got the grandchildren, while Senara had four child-free days over Christmas to do as she pleased: the perfect arrangement for both women.

  Morwenna made Christmas the most exciting, magical time of the year for the Browne children – her home-made gifts and house filled with far too many fairy lights for the aged electrics in the cottage to cope with instilled a love of the festive season in Anna that time, trouble and experience couldn’t shake. Her favourite time was early on Christmas morning – while the village outside still lay in darkness – when she would wriggle out from the too-tight sheets of her bed and reach down to pat the bulging pillowcase propped up beside it. The thrilling, muted rustle of wrapping paper was enough to make her Christmas even before it had properly begun, the promise of what lay within the folds of faded, candy-striped cotton far more important to her than the contents. When Senara called time on the children’s St Agnes Christmases, without warning and with no explanation, Anna never experienced this again. She quickly learned – as she would with many other aspects of her childhood – that surprises and magic were not priorities for her mother. Where Grandma Morwenna delighted in awe and wonder, Senara mistrusted anything she was unprepared for. Instead of surprise Christmas presents, Anna and Ruari received money hastily crumpled into last year’s leftover Christmas cards. Her mother’s answer, whenever Anna asked for a surprise, was always the same: ‘Trust me, girl, you don’t want surprises. Life throws too many of ’em your way, and none of ’em good.’

  Maybe that’s why this means so much to me, Anna thought, as she carefully unstuck the tape holding down the corners of folded brown paper on the small parcel. It proves not all surprises are bad . . .

  Within the folds of packaging paper and nestled within a plain white cardboard box lay a smaller, hinged box covered in dark-blue velvet, the colour of the night sky in Talland Bay, just around the headland from Polperro, where Anna and Ruari would sneak after dark in their teens with bottles of local scrumpy smuggled out from their mother’s not-so-secret stash. Gazing up at the star-strewn heavens from the dark beach, the two Browne siblings would dream of where their lives would take them. For Ruari, it was always going to be somewhere exciting: backpacking to the furthermost corners of the world – as far as possible from Cornwall. He achieved his dream at seventeen, travelling through Cambodia, Guam and Vietnam, until a beautiful girl called Jodie whom he met backpacking across Australia called him home to Cornwall, to embark upon a new adventure building his own surfing business, supported by a stable family life and kids. Anna was proud of her brother for his intrepid ambitions, but her wish on Talland Beach had been far simpler: to be somewhere she could be herself, instead of ‘Senara Browne’s daughter’. The city called her after university, and she never looked back as the train took her away from Cornwall. It was easy to be anonymous here: to have friends of her own choosing, or unlimited solitude if she so desired.

  Anna gently lifted the lid of the velvet box, which opened with a satisfying creak, to reveal a beautiful costume-jewellery brooch in the shape of an owl. It looked old – perhaps fifty or sixty years of age. Made of shiny brass with green rhinestone eyes, it sat on a branch set with two coral stones and glinted in the light as she turned it. Something about the owl’s expression made her smile.

  ‘Now, where did you come from?’ she asked, searching beneath its velvet-covered cushion in the box for any clue. But there was neither a maker’s mark nor a note. Stumped, she picked up the brown wrapping paper and was about to screw it into a ball when she noticed a small rectangle of white card caught in the folds of one side. On it was typed:

  THIS OWL IS WISE,

  BUT NOT AS WISE AS YOU, ANNA BROWNE.

  Anna stared at the message. These were the first words she had received from her mystery gift-giver, but they made no sense at all. She didn’t feel very wise. If she were, surely she would have been able to decipher the identity of the sender? Was it an invitation to guess? Or did it hint of more conundrums to come? She remembered Ted’s latest theory, that a killer was drawing her into his deadly game, but quickly dismissed the thought. People didn’t do that in real life, only in TV shows and films where plausibility wasn’t important.

  The sparkling green eyes of the owl stared up at her as she ran her finger across its head. A previous owner must have done the same, as the textured curve between its ear tufts had been worn smooth. It was satisfying to touch and made Anna feel calm. She had always been fond of owls as creatures, and the brooch would look good on the lapel of her work jacket when she wore it next Monday. Beyond that, the mystery would have to remain unsolved – for now.

  Thirteen

  Ted blustered into reception the following Monday like a storm-cloud threatening rain. His usual good-morning wishes forgotten, he slapped a sheet of paper on the reception desk and jabbed at it with a thick, accusatory finger.

  ‘There! I told you, girl – I told you it was coming!’

  Anna looked up from the appointment diary. ‘Told me what was coming?’

  ‘It’s all here: tightening
belts, increasing competition, special measures . . .’ He shook his head. ‘Just like I warned. We’ll all be for the high jump, mark my words. They don’t send memos like this unless they’re really up the creek.’

  The sheet of paper appeared to be an internal memo, sent from Juliet Evans to the editorial team.

  Anna peered at the memo. ‘Where did you get this?’

  ‘It fell off one of the desks upstairs as I was passing,’ Ted replied.

  ‘Ted!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You can’t go around stealing private memos from people’s desks.’

  ‘I didn’t. It fell . . . If papers fall off desks and I happen to pick them up, I can’t be held responsible if I happen to read what’s on them. Besides, every desk has one. I saw the new intern putting them out before the morning shift arrived.’

  Anna folded her arms. ‘So you just happened to watch the intern delivering these and then just happened to walk past as one fell off the desk?’

  Ted was unrepentant. ‘Life is one coincidence after another.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Anna read the memo. It called for a meeting of the editorial team that afternoon, at which both Juliet and the senior Board members would be present. She had to admit, it didn’t look promising. There had been rumours for months now that the Messenger was in trouble, but this was the first tangible indication that they were anything other than the product of wild speculation and Ted’s gossip-mongering. It was common knowledge that the Messenger had been trailing its three biggest national rivals in popularity for a couple of years, its fortunes dictated – as were those of other national newspapers – by changing readership values, and not helped by its tardiness in embracing the digital age. But even this hadn’t dented the fierce ambition of the paper’s editor, who regularly circulated defiant news briefings to her staff, boasting of the paper’s innovative strategies and stable circulation figures.

  ‘See what I mean? Dragon Evans wouldn’t call a meeting like that unless pushed.’ Ted sucked air in through the sizeable gap in his front teeth. ‘Bad news, if the big boys are crashing her party.’

  ‘We don’t know that,’ Anna replied, careful to keep her voice steady despite her concern. ‘And you should know better than to steal other people’s property. This meeting could be anything. Ms Evans talks about new strategies in her weekly staff bulletin all the time.’

  ‘But she doesn’t usually have the Board to babysit her, does she? Admit it, Anna, you’re worried now.’

  Anna was, but Ted Blaskiewicz was the last person on the planet she would ever admit it to. Her concern would be broadcast across the building in a heartbeat: It must be bad, if even Anna Browne on reception is worried . . . Involuntarily, her fingers rose to her left lapel to stroke the smooth metal head of the owl brooch, its coolness soothing. ‘We’ll be fine, I’m sure of it. Now go and put that memo back where you found it, before the team arrive.’

  Sheniece spotted Anna’s brooch as soon as she joined her at reception. ‘Cute owl. Is it real gold?’

  ‘I don’t think so. It looks like brass to me.’

  ‘Is it new? I haven’t seen you wearing it before.’

  ‘It arrived on Friday.’

  Sheniece’s charcoal-lidded eyes widened. ‘Is that what was in your parcel?’

  Forgetting the worrying staff memo, Anna smiled. Her colleague’s excitement at her latest gift matched her own, and she liked having something to share at last. ‘I think it’s possibly a piece of 1950s costume jewellery.’

  ‘They’re slipping, after last time.’ Sheniece made a closer inspection of the owl. ‘That scarf was proper money. You’d think they’d have gone for gold for this one.’

  ‘I like him. He makes me smile. And if the brooch was really expensive, I wouldn’t have worn it for work.’

  ‘You wore the scarf. And look what happened when you did that: people noticed.’

  ‘You noticed the owl,’ Anna returned.

  ‘You’re right, I did. I like his eyes.’

  Anna couldn’t help sharing the details of her latest gift. ‘There was a note too, this time.’

  ‘No! So who’s your secret admirer?’

  ‘I have no idea. It was just a message: “This owl is wise, but not as wise as you . . . ”’

  Sheniece wrinkled her nose. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Search me. I’ve been trying to work it out all weekend, but it just doesn’t make any sense.’

  ‘Weird. Although, you are quite wise actually. I’ve always thought that.’

  It was a casual remark, but its impact on Anna was considerable. Firstly, she never imagined herself to be wise, and secondly, her endearing but self-obsessed colleague noticing anything about Anna was practically a miracle in itself. ‘Really?’

  Sheniece was inspecting a scuff on one of her painted fingernails. ‘Mm-hmm. Wiser than me, anyhow. Not that that’s setting the bar high or anything. I mean, you always know what to say when morons come to the desk. You don’t answer back or tell them to get stuffed, like I want to. I like that. I envy it, a bit.’

  ‘That’s a lovely thing to say—’ Anna began, but Sheniece was already heading off to the kitchen behind reception for her early-morning caffeine shot. Alone again, Anna considered the revelation. Of all the people she knew, Sheniece Wilson was the last she expected to hear that from. Was she wise?

  As the week passed, the difference that Anna had felt wearing the scarf returned. She was more aware of her reactions; as if she were granted more time to think before speaking. The message from the parcel still confused her, but the faith professed in her good judgement by whoever had sent it meant a great deal. Of course people had complimented her character before – she remembered the regulars in the Blue Peter Inn congratulating her for being ‘nothing like your mother, God save her,’ and her friends in the city seemed to value her opinion. But to receive an endorsement from someone she didn’t know was a new experience.

  It had all happened since she had received the second parcel. And, as with the first, Anna was amazed at the change she felt. She had never considered herself remarkable before: could an anonymous note and a quirky brooch really change that?

  Fourteen

  Seamus Flatley had been the caretaker of Walton Tower for fifteen years and nothing surprised him. It was a source of great pride to him, and a fact he guarded jealously. His mother had scolded him for it, many moons ago, in the grey-green kitchen of his County Clare childhood home: There’s no surprising you, is there, Seamus Flatley? Seamus didn’t mind. Better a life lived with no surprises than one derailed by bad ones. Take his eldest brother Colm, for example, now almost fifty, with three failed marriages behind him and nothing but the bottle for consolation. Poor beggar hadn’t seen any of the divorces coming. Colm had been the one who wanted surprises as a kid: given the nasty shocks life had thrown into his path, what good had surprises ever done him?

  And so it was with some consternation that Seamus discovered his long-held assumption was wrong.

  It was the fault of that young woman in 16B. Seamus thought he’d got the measure of her – quiet, pleasant girl from out of town, who never played her music too loudly or complained to him about the state of Walton Tower’s faded amenities, like many of its other tenants. The kind of person you notice for her ordinariness.

  But that Friday evening, everything changed.

  He was mopping the brown-and-white tiles of the apartment-block entrance lobby, one ear on the angry man shouting from a talk radio station on the small portable propped on a bank of post-boxes, the other listening out for the sound of approaching footsteps from the staircase rising above his head. It paid to be aware of movement in and out of the building, especially when several of the tenants owed his boss money. Seamus considered himself something of an expert in deducing which tenants would appear next on the chase-list scrawled in the building owner’s heavy hand: it was amazing how fleet-footed even the most naturally cumbersome could become when re
nt was owed.

  A few minutes after six o’clock the front door creaked open and the Nice Girl from 16B entered. She was carrying a brown package in her arms, but this wasn’t what made Seamus Flatley stop mopping and stare at her. It was her face. He’d seen it often enough during the years she had occupied 16B and had to admit it was very pleasant indeed. A little shy, to be sure, but welcoming – not like the professional business people, who were locked-and-bolted doors as far as any human interaction was concerned. But today it was different. She was glowing, as if a golden spotlight were pooling over her as she walked across the lobby.

  ‘Hi, Seamus,’ she called out, before he’d had the chance to wish her a good evening.

  ‘Hello, Anna.’

  She didn’t just pause on the stairs as she usually did. She came bounding over to him – as bold as brass – a delighted smile on her pretty face. ‘Don’t you think life is wonderful, sometimes?’

  ‘I . . . well, I hadn’t really thought of it,’ he stuttered.

  ‘It is. You never know what’s around the corner, do you?’

  ‘I suppose not.’ Like poor Colm and his three ex-missuses . . . ‘You seem happy.’

  ‘I am. And not only because it’s Friday.’ She hugged the parcel as if it was a small puppy. ‘Have a lovely weekend.’

  Then she smiled at him and he was struck by a sudden sense of someone so completely happy they could melt into air before him. Seamus was transfixed as she passed him and ascended the stairs. He had always thought of Anna Browne as shy and sweet, but steady. She had never given any indication that she had the ability to be forthright. But this evening she had been like a completely different woman.