The nurse she spoke to at the nurses’ desk knew nothing of her father, or the item he’d bequeathed her.
‘What was the name? Reckland?’
‘Eklund,’ The Temp said, ‘it’s Swedish.’
The nurse shook her head and went to get another nurse, who also didn’t recognize the name or the story. In the end, it was a porter with some wonky tattoos on his forearms who came to her aid.
‘Mr Eklund?’ he asked, coming to the desk to appraise The Temp.
‘Yes.’
‘Old guy? Grey hair?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Swedish? Stole some wine?’
‘Yes. I think so.’
‘You’re the daughter?’
‘Yes.’
‘Of course you are, you look just like him.’
The sentence hit The Temp as though she had just walked into an invisible wall.
The porter said, ‘I’m sorry for your loss, darlin’。’
She nodded, knowing that if she tried to speak now, she would cry.
The nurse behind the desk spoke up. ‘Do you know where the Recklund guy left this stuff for his daughter, Paul?’
‘Course I do,’ he said brightly, exiting the ward and leaving The Temp alone with the nurse.
The nurse was dipping a chocolate digestive biscuit into a cup of tea. Her mug was adorned with coloured cartoon cats who were cartwheeling. The Temp focused on the mug. Right now, she reminded herself, people are having normal days. Drinking tea, owning mugs with cats on them.
‘I don’t know what’s in it,’ the porter said, as he reappeared through the automatic doors and handed it to her. It was a stained blue duffel bag. It came with its own smell. Ammonia. Damp. Earth. The straps were orange, or they were on the sides of the bag. By the handle, the orange had worn to a brown.
The Temp was unable to find a word to appraise it.
‘Was you expecting anything?’ the porter asked. The Temp shook her head. The bag was lighter than she’d expected. ‘Have they given you the birth certificate?’ he asked.
The Temp shook her head again.
The porter went behind the desk.
‘Paul! What are you doing?’ the nurse said, as he started opening the top drawer of her desk and ruffling through papers. Half of her recently dipped digestive biscuit crumbled and fell into her tea.
‘Birth certificate,’ he said. ‘This young lady’s father had her birth certificate.’
The nurse was uninterested. ‘Haven’t seen one. I’m on my break.’ She picked up a teaspoon and started trying to scoop out the wet bits of biscuit that were now floating on the surface of her tea.
‘Gotcha,’ he said, pulling the pink square from the drawer. Paul read the full name on the certificate. ‘This you?’ he asked.
The Temp nodded.
The missing birth certificate had always been a mystery to The Temp and her mother. It had disappeared from the drawer in the kitchen on the day of the stripy dungarees picture. What purpose could an absent father have with his daughter’s birth certificate? Looking down at it then, The Temp saw that he had managed to keep the certificate in perfect condition, except for the creases that formed a cross in the centre where it had been folded in half and in half once again.
He’d taken care of it.
The Temp had always associated her father’s stealing with negativity. When her mother told stories from their courtship of his thieving, it was always bad. It always ended with embarrassment or police or fighting, or trouble of some kind. But this wasn’t like that. It was an act of love, a keepsake, a sign that she had meant something to him.
‘The girl that translated the Swedish for him,’ Paul told her, ‘she said that he wanted to tell you he was sorry for what he did and that he wanted you to keep what’s in the bag.’
‘What’s in it?’
‘Not a clue, haven’t looked.’
The Temp nodded. ‘Thank you.’ But before she reached the door, she turned and asked, ‘A girl translated for him?’
‘She certainly did.’
And with a smile, The Temp asked, ‘Which way is it from here to the May Ward?’
The Temp didn’t know this part of the hospital well and, having immediately forgotten the porter’s directions from her father’s ward to the May Ward, she wandered directionless for a while, the bag in one hand, her birth certificate in the other. Eventually she stopped.
The corridor was empty and had long windows all along it, the sills of which reached just above the floor and so made a perfect place to sit. The Temp crouched down onto the windowsill. She placed the bag in front of her.