The Girl Who Came Home(25)
‘Yes dear,’ she shouted back up, the projection of her voice causing her to cough slightly. ‘A small black case. About the size of a pillow. It’s probably near the back. Underneath a load of your great-grandfather’s old junk.’
You don’t say.
Just as she was about to give up and go down the stepladder for a tea break, Grace saw the slightest glimpse of a solid, black corner jutting out between two fallen boxes. She clambered over to it, the ache in her stooped back and the pain in her knees suddenly forgotten. Her heart raced as she pushed and heaved the heavy boxes to one side and grabbing the edge, pulled the small, black case, out onto the bare floorboards. It was about the size of a pillow.
The hairs stood up on the back of her neck, she could hear the blood rushing through her ears, and her heart hammered in her chest. Yes, she thought, yes. This is it! She swept her fingers across the top of the case, sending a shower of dust particles whirling and spinning into the air around her, blurring her vision temporarily and causing her to cough.
As the dust settled, she saw what she had been searching for. A luggage label bearing the name Maggie Murphy and an address of North Ashland Avenue, Chicago
‘I have it Maggie,’ she called, coughing again in the dust, ‘I’ve found it!’ Her voice was shrill with excitement. Her great-grandmother didn’t respond. ‘I’m coming down, you can pour the tea.’
*
Maggie placed the case carefully on her lap. She sat for a moment, closing her eyes, lost in the distant memories of her life. The small clock on the mantelpiece struck eleven o’clock, a bird sang from the old blackberry bush in the garden, a fly buzzed annoyingly in the hallway and particles of dust danced in the shaft of sunlight streaming in through the window. Nothing else moved for those few, quiet moments. Grace hardly dare breathe.
‘I shouldn’t have gone back for it really,’ Maggie said softly, rubbing her hand across the top of the case. ‘It’s a bit silly now when I think about it, a ship sinking and me going back for a coat and a suitcase. We didn’t realise how bad it was though you see Grace; we didn’t think she would go down.’ She sat silently again then as she prepared herself to face her past.
‘Do you remember what’s in it Maggie?’
Her great-grandmother looked at her; a softness, a sadness in her eyes. ‘I do Grace. I do. Even after all these years.’
Grace watched quietly as Maggie fiddled with the rusted fastenings, her frail hands shaking more than usual. Those few moments, with the latches grating and groaning but refusing to open, felt like hours. That small, black case seemed, at that moment, like a barrier; a dam against which a deluge of memories had strained for decades and which now threatened to engulf her great-grandmother as soon as it released its secrets and revealed its history.
‘Are you absolutely sure you want to do this?’ Grace asked tentatively, afraid that opening this case may have a bigger impact on their lives than either of them had at first thought.
Maggie looked at her. ‘No, I’m not sure at all. But we’re here now aren’t we and I don’t know about you, but I’m certainly not going to put that case back up in that stuffy old attic without seeing what’s inside.’
Finally, the fastenings clicked open. Gently, Maggie lifted the lid, emitting a tiny, barely audible gasp as her eyes settled on the contents inside.
It was a moment Grace would never forget, watching this dignified old lady who she loved so much, as she stared into a small case which she’d last seen when only a child. A lifetime of memories flooded her lined face; a lifetime of forgetting washed away in that silent moment in an ordinary sitting room in an average house in a quiet, Chicago suburb.
Maggie lifted her head, resting it against the back of the chair, a sense of release washing over her, the dreadful burden of carrying this secret for all these years seeming to lift from her small shoulders.
Grace sat quietly in the seat opposite, rubbing her fingers over the rough, plum-coloured fabric of the chair, digging her nails into the edges of the intricate pattern, just as she had done since she could first remember coming to this house as a small child. She almost felt uncomfortable now, as if she were intruding in a very private moment. Watching Maggie now, the magnitude of her story hit her fully for the first time. She had been on Titanic. She had watched the people she loved drown in an icy sea. She had heard the screams and terror of a thousand voices and had lost everything except for the contents of that small, insignificant case and the clothes on her back. It struck Grace that this was no longer about a story to reignite her journalism career; this was real life, and she was watching it happen in front of her very eyes.