A December to Remember (41)

Looking incongruous against the backdrop of biscuity paperwork was an oxblood leatherbound photograph album. Simone looked up at her sisters, who nodded reassuringly that she should open it.

Star’s hand flew to her mouth. Maggie too felt a sudden rush of emotion. Simone held the album steady and bit her lip to keep her emotions in check. Their younger selves stared gleefully out at them from the page. Three little girls, wild looking, like woodland nymphs, with flowers in their hair and clothed in cotton sundresses smudged with grass and blackcurrant stains. They were grinning at the camera, the sun’s rays catching in their hair and casting a yellowy film over the scene. Simone’s jet-black hair was cut short, in contrast to Star’s white-blond shoulder-length hair, while Maggie’s curls were a thick magenta tangle to her waist. If their differing hair and skin tones had caused anyone to question their sisterhood, one look into those matching green North eyes would have set them straight.

She turned the page.

“I don’t remember these,” said Star.

“Me either,” said Simone.

“But I can remember the feeling of it,” Maggie added, and her sisters agreed. “Dad must have taken them.”

“And then he took the time to put them all in an album.” Star smiled.

“You look like me,” said Verity, peering closer at a photograph of Maggie holding a plump pink-faced baby, Star, while Simone grinned like the proudest sister that ever was, Star’s tiny hand clasped around her fingers. Looking at these photos, it seemed impossible to imagine the distance adulthood had brought.

“We were happy, weren’t we.” Simone was smoothing the bubbling cellophane over the photographs. “I forget that sometimes.”

“I don’t think it occurred to us not to be happy,” said Maggie.

“I looked forward to the summer all year. It was my favorite time,” added Star.

“Better than Christmas?” Verity asked, astonished.

“Better than anything,” Star replied.

“Do you miss Granddad?”

“I do, very much.” Star smiled sadly.

“He was one of a kind.” Maggie’s hair fell over her eyes and she tucked it behind her ear.

“It doesn’t seem right that he’s gone, does it? I didn’t think I’d feel the lack of his presence in the world as much as I do.” Simone was still kneeling by the box.

“That’s just how I feel,” said Star.

Maybe by sifting through the past they could find their way back to when they were summer sisters, and bring those lost parts of themselves into the present. It occurred to Maggie that for a man so invested in a life of free-spirited chaos, Augustus sure knew how to play the long game when it came to his daughters.





19





It was Friday morning. The night before, each sister had taken a pile of papers from the strongbox to look through. It had been an emotional evening. Old memories, old hurts, and old happy times swirled around them in a confusing jumble.

In the morning light, Star had her head bent over a collection of silver lockets and periodically looked up at the tablet Duncan had loaned her, to confirm the dates against a hallmark checker website.

The ledger was open on Duncan’s desk, and he was prowling the shop looking for a pair of seventeenth-century shoe buckles, which had supposedly belonged to Charles the First.

“Are you starting from the first page and working through methodically?” asked Simone, who had left sifting through old winter solstice celebration menus and budgets to help Duncan’s search.

“I am attempting it this way first, yes. If that doesn’t seem fruitful, I will do it the other way: pick an item and attempt to match it to the ledger. Have you looked through it?” he asked.

“No.”

“It’s a bit . . . disjointed. I’d expected it to be laid out chronologically or alphabetically by item. Whilst it is alphabetized, it’s organized according to where the items came from rather than what they are. Where space has run out for a particular letter, another page has been added in with glue. It’s a little chaotic.”

“Ah, much like the man himself.”

“Oh, it wasn’t started by Augustus. The ledger begins with notes from Patience North and has been carried on down the generations.”

“So the buckles we’re looking for came from where?”

“Abingdon.”

“Of course. Absolutely no help whatsoever in finding the items.”

“That is correct.”

The door to the shop opened and Patrick walked in. “Patrick North!” Simone raised her hand in greeting. It still took her by surprise that he was a young man now. Seeing him at the funeral had been the first time she’d seen him properly in maybe five years. He looked like his dad, apart from the eyes of course.

Despite the sisters’ difficult relationships with their father and, in more recent years, one another, they were all fiercely protective of their name. Maggie had kept the name North when she’d married Josh, and when Simone had married Evette, she’d taken the North name. Patrick and Verity were also Norths, as would Simone’s children be, should she ever have any.

“Hi,” he called, meandering through the aisles until he located them.

“Hey, Patrick.” Star smiled up at him. “How are you?”