Page 59 of All Our Missing Pieces

I watched her hurry out of the kitchen and run lightly up the stairs. I heard her tap across the landing, then resume climbing up to the second floor. There was silence for a few minutes before she returned, a bunch of keys jingling in her hand.

But they weren’t the only keys she had. On a slim gold chain around her neck, I could see another, smaller key – one that must have been hidden by the neckline of her top until she’d taken it out, used it and forgotten in her haste to conceal it again.

The suitcase, I thought. The suitcase I saw Beatrice going through – she’s bought a lock for it, and she keeps her keys in there.

So Orla was aware of what Beatrice had been doing – and yet Beatrice was still there, living in the house. She hadn’t been asked to leave or even, as far as I knew, reprimanded for snooping through Orla’s things.

Why not? What Beatrice had done was outrageous. Clearly Orla cared enough about her privacy to put stuff under lock and key – but not enough to say anything to the person responsible.

But before I could make sense of the questions racing through my mind, Orla led me towards the door beneath the stairs that I presumed led to the cellar, although I’d never had any reason to open it. She slipped a key into the padlock that held closed a hasp on the door – bright, new brass; surely that hadn’t been there last time I looked? – and opened it.

‘Come on down,’ she said. ‘Mind the stairs – they’re steep and a bit slippery.’

Gingerly, I picked my way down the narrow flight of wooden stairs. The cellar was cavernous, stretching away beneath the whole of the ground floor. The grey flagstones on the floor were worn smooth with age, and the only light was what trickled in from a grating outside.

‘It’s kind of creepy down here,’ Orla apologised. ‘One of the first things I got Luke to do was clear out all the junk, because I was worried about rats. I’m mildly phobic of them. That’s one of the reasons I was so happy when Maud decided to move in.’

I shivered; the air down here was noticeably cooler than the rest of the house.

‘I can imagine,’ I said. ‘It’s definitely spooky. Still – we were talking about Halloween, right?’

‘We certainly were. Now, I’ve a whole load of old stuff down here. I never thought I’d accumulate possessions, but you do, don’t you? They get so they have a kind of power over you.’

She led me over to a stack of storage boxes arranged along one of the walls – sturdy, plastic tea crates, their sides rough-textured black, their lids bright yellow. I could see sticky labels on their sides, the edges curling slightly in the damp air, each bearing Orla’s neat cursive handwriting.

Art materials. Winter clothes. Party clothes. Portraits. Notebooks. Photographs.

It takes a special kind of pack rat, I thought, to lug a crate full of notebooks around the world with them. I remembered Orla’s bedroom, almost minimalist in its tidiness. How strange that she should keep one part of her house like that, and yet have all these accumulated possessions down here.

The topmost crate was the one labelled ‘Portraits’. Orla lifted it down easily – clearly whatever pictures it contained, there weren’t very many of them. Then she reached for the one labelled ‘Party clothes’ and heaved it to the floor with more effort.

She levered open the interlocking halves of the plastic lid. The air filled with the smell of cedar and perfume, and she crouched down again, lifting off a layer of tissue paper.

‘I haven’t looked through these old things in ages,’ she said. ‘When I was packing up to come here, I just shoved everything in.’

Slowly, feeling like I was intruding on something private, I approached and squatted down next to her.

She lifted out a royal blue satin dress, a large, crumpled bow on its shoulder.

‘Look at this horror. I wore it to a ball when I was eighteen. The 1980s had a lot to answer for.’

I laughed. ‘It’ll probably come back though, and be worth loads.’

‘It certainly cost enough at the time.’ She pushed back her hair. ‘And this monstrosity was a bridesmaid’s dress – at least I can’t take the blame for choosing it.’

She laid a peach-coloured floral frock over my lap. I could hear the rustling of tulle beneath the stiff skirt.

‘I should take the whole lot down to the market.’ She sighed. ‘I might get a few quid for them. Ah – this is what I was looking for.’

She stood up, a beaded black garment hanging from her arm. Even my inexpert eyes could see that it was in a different league from the other dresses, timeless and beautiful.

‘Schiaparelli,’ Orla said. ‘It was my grandmother’s. I think it would fit you.’

I stood too, placing the other dresses back in the chest, and Orla handed me the black one. I could feel the weight of it and see countless jet beads glinting in the dim light.

‘Orla,’ I said, ‘I can’t possibly wear this. Not to some random Halloween party. It’s too precious – it must be worth a fortune.’

She tilted her head. ‘It’s only gathering dust down here, Livvie. Well, it would be if it weren’t hidden away in a box. Clothes are meant to be worn.’