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Oh, God – this must be Granny’s letters. Oh,God.
The courier marches in and fixes me with a hard stare. ‘Where do I put these?’
‘There, please,’ I say, and point to the middle of the floor, next to the coffee table.
He gives me a look that clearly says: you delusional creature. ‘Then let’s move these,’ he says and, dumping the boxes on the floor, he pushes the sofa to the wall and the coffee table next to it.
‘Hey, Carmine.’ A voice at my shoulder makes me jump. ‘Where do these go?’ The second courier, slightly less stocky but equally red in the face.
‘She wants them here,’ Carmine says, gesturing to the newly cleared bit of floor. The new arrival grimaces.
‘But will they all fit?’ he says, and looks at me as if I ought to know.
‘This is the space there is,’ I manage to say, and the new chap looks aghast at Carmine, who shrugs. ‘I’m sorry there isn’t a lift,’ I add, because I really am.
Carmine shakes his head. ‘It’s you I’m sorry for,’ he says, and then vanishes down the stairs trailing the new chap after him.
It takes several more trips to bring all the boxes up the stairs. By the time they finish, my living room looks like Hampton Court Maze. Carmine and the other courier – his name is Andrea, I discover – each drink a coffee with a ton of sugar and then depart, wishing me good luck.
There’s one consolation, I reflect as I stare at the boxes all over my floor. If there is some marketable angle, some irresistibly exciting hook to mine and Granny’s story, then it’s bound to be in here somewhere. I just have the weekend to find it.
14
There’s no system. That’s the problem. There’s no fuckingsystem.
The boxes aren’t labelled – that’s bad enough. But the stuff that’s in them, the letters and papers and so on, have all been shoved in willy-nilly so that a handwritten note from 1965 is next to a party invitation from 1997 is next to a dentist’s appointment reminder from 1984. Whoever packed these away – Mummy, or someone under her direction – clearly didn’t care about the process at all. I suppose I should just be grateful they weren’t all put through the shredder.
I shift position on the floor, trying to bring life back into my numbing legs and bum. It’s almost evening, and in the time since Carmine and Andrea left I’ve managed to go through a few of the boxes, pulling out anything that looks vaguely interesting and putting it, roughly in date order, to one side. Nearly all the personal letters I’ve found are in Italian, which is obviously great, but the problem with personal letters is that they’re, well, personal. Every time I stop and look at one I’m confronted with names I don’t recognise, signatures I can’t read, events I can make no sense of and at least a dozen words I don’t know. I’ve had four large mugs of coffee and far too many chocolate biscuits, I’ve got a crick in my neck, and I’m rapidly losing all hope in this entire enterprise. Unless I’m very lucky, unless the next thing I turn up is a love letter from the Pope, I’m going to have nothing to show Richenda on Monday. I wish I had someone to help me.
Well, theoretically I do. In fact, I have two people who keep on offering me help and being really quite insistent about it: Marco and Chiara. Obviously Marco is out. Yes, this was all his idea and yes, he seemed genuinely excited about it. But I’ve been avoiding him, and he hasn’t been in touch with me and besides, he and Chiara are a couple. A social unit. I can’t just go asking her boyfriend to come round to my flat and look at my grandmother’s letters. It even sounds dodgy, like luring someone upstairs to see your etchings.
So that leaves Chiara. But can I really ask her? I’ve been dodging her invitations all week. Surely I can’t just phone her up and say:look, I know I wasn’t available for coffee and a chat the other day, but is there any chance you want to spend your Saturday evening helping me out with a colossal, unmanageable, boring piece of research? I’ll buy the pizza!
I look at the unopened boxes in front of me. I look at the heap of letters on the floor next to me. I think about what happens if I break my first ever book contract, and how much I’ve loved these last weeks, and whether I’ll get to write anything for anyone ever again that isn’t about nickel alloys or fishing vests.
I pick up my phone.
*
‘Madonna,’ Chiara breathes. She’s standing in the doorway of my flat with a paper deli bag in her hand, and she’s staring at the boxes.
‘I know,’ I say. ‘There’s so much. I won’t get through all of it in time, but I’d be so grateful if you could have a look at some of the letters I’ve pulled out and see if anything stands out for you. You can scan them much faster than I can.’
‘Sure.’ Chiara deposits the bag on top of the nearest box and comes over to look at the heap of papers, which I’ve moved onto the sofa. ‘Is this what you’ve got so far?’
‘Yes. I’m sure most of it isn’t relevant, but I keep thinking there might be something in here somewhere, just one detail I can give my publishers.’ She gives me a puzzled look. ‘It’s a bit complicated,’ I say and explain, as briefly as I can, aboutThe Laird’s Lady’s Guideand Richenda’s attempts to help me keep my contract.
Chiara sits down on the arm of the sofa. She looks taken aback, maybe even a little hurt. ‘I had no idea,’ she says. ‘You must be so stressed out.’
‘Well, I didn’t tell you. I could have told you,’ I admit.
‘Yes. Why didn’t you? I don’t understand, Tori.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘Honestly, I feel like a dick.’
‘You feel like a dick?’ Chiara snorts. ‘You were going through all this – although, like I say, you really should have said something – and I just kept on trying to set you up. You must have thought I was so annoying!’
‘What do you mean, set me up?’
