Page 118 of Kate and Clara's Curious Cornish Craft Shop
Maggie shakes her head sadly. ‘No, Arty searched and searched for them, but he never found them.’
‘Did he have any idea where they went?’ Jack asks. ‘Any clues?’
Maggie again shakes her head. ‘No, they just disappeared, and with it Freddie’s name. No one remembers him now. Only me. He was a great painter, you know, and a lovely, lovely man.’
Maggie looks so desolate now that I’m starting to feel bad we ever came here and disturbed this old lady’s memories.
‘Did you know him?’ she asks Jack again. ‘Freddie?’
Jack shakes his head. ‘No, sadly not, but we’ve heard a lot about him and we wanted to help find his lost paintings. We knew you knew him and we hoped that you might be able to help us.’
‘Mom, if this is too upsetting for you, then Jack and Kate can go?’ Susan asks, looking with concern at her mother.
‘No!’ Maggie says in a stern voice. ‘I don’t have much left that’s mine these days, but I do have my memories. You can’t take those away from me.’
‘No one wants to take your memories away from you, Granny,’ her granddaughter says gently. ‘No one can or wants to do that.’
‘Not now I have them hidden in my room, you can’t!’ Maggie says cryptically. She nods and folds her arms across her chest.
‘You’re getting confused again, Granny. Your memories are kept up here.’ She points to her head, and then her heart. ‘And here.’
I look at Jack.Exactly like Clara, her great-grandmother, had before her …
‘No, you silly girl!’ Maggie says crossly. ‘I mean my real memories. I have my box.’
Susan looks at the younger Maggie and mouths silently, ‘What box?’
Her daughter shrugs and shakes her head.
‘You see,’ Maggie says, patting Jack on the hand and grinning. ‘They think they know everything about me, but they don’t.’
‘What are you talking about, Mom?’ Susan asks. ‘What box?’
‘If you’d care to go to my room, Susan, you’ll find a tin box hidden under my bed. Please bring it back here to me immediately.’
Susan, looking puzzled, does as she’s asked, while her mother sits back in her chair with her hands in her lap and patiently waits for her daughter to return.
‘Would anyone like some tea?’ Maggie’s granddaughter asks. ‘I meant to ask you when you came in, but completely forgot. I’m so sorry.’
‘Tea!’ Her grandmother snorts. ‘These people haven’t come here to drink tea. They’re professionals doing an important job.’
I would have quite liked a cup of tea, but now I don’t dare say anything.
‘I’ll put the kettle on anyway, Granny. Professionals or not.’ Her granddaughter smiles at us. ‘They still get thirsty.’
Maggie shakes her head as the young woman disappears into the kitchen. ‘They have no idea,’ she says, addressing me for the first time. ‘They think I’m completely doolally. I’m not, of course, I’m just a little forgetful sometimes.’
I nod.
‘I don’t forget the important things though – the things that matter. Did you know my mother?’ she asks me. ‘You remind me of her.’
‘Not really, no … but I’ve heard she was a fine lady.’
‘She was. Very fine. She liked to sew, you know?’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘She made clothes at first, then she got more adventurous when the sixties came and began to stitch felts with her machine. She embroidered them on to skirts and dresses, and then eventually started to create her own pictures with them. Arty would paint and she would sew. We were quite the artistic family. Did you know I nearly went to art college? I wasn’t too shabby … But then I had Susan and all that was forgotten about.’
