The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper(52)

“Isn’t it better to know? Do you remember that Mum gave me her pink-and-white-striped box before she died? It has lots of photos in there. I’ve not been able to bring myself to look through it. I could get it now...” She let the comment hang in the air.

Arthur had forgotten about the candy-striped box that Miriam kept in the cupboard over the bed. She had asked Arthur if he minded her giving it to Lucy and he said that he didn’t. He remembered people and things and times in his head and wasn’t sentimental for taking snaps, or keeping train tickets or postcards or holiday souvenirs. Arthur stared up at the sky and then the soil-studded grass. “It’s up to you,” he said.

Lucy went to get the box and they sat at the kitchen table. When she took off the lid Arthur could smell old paper, ink and lavender perfume.

He watched as Lucy took out a chunk of photos and browsed through them one at a time. She turned them this way and that and smiled. She held one up and Arthur saw it was of his wedding day. His black hair curled and flopped over his right eyebrow. The sleeves of his suit were too long, almost covering his knuckles. Miriam wore her mother’s wedding dress. It had been passed down through the family. Her grandmother had worn it, too. It was a little too big on the waist. “Are you sure you don’t want to look?” she said.

Arthur shook his head. He didn’t want to view pictures of his past.

When Lucy had finished, she peered inside the box. “There’s something wedged in the corner,” she said. She picked at it with her thumb and forefinger.

“Let me try,” Arthur said. He managed to pinch out a piece of crumpled paper. He handed it to Lucy and she smoothed it out. It was gray with faded lettering.

“I think it’s the top of a compliments slip or an old receipt.” She peered more closely. “The name says Le Dé à Coudre d’Or. There’s also some writing but it’s been torn off. Numbers, I think.”

They looked at each other blankly.

“It means nothing to me.” Arthur shrugged.

“I think d’or means gold in French,” Lucy said. “I’ll check on my phone.”

Arthur took the paper. “I think the numbers say 1969. That’s the year me and your mum got married.”

Lucy tapped a few buttons searching for a translation. She frowned and tried again. “I think I’ve found something,” she said. “Le Dé à Coudre d’Or. It means ‘The Gold Thimble.’ There’s a wedding boutique in Paris with that name.”

“Paris?” Arthur said. He thought of the pins in the map on Miriam’s bedroom wall. UK, India...and France. He couldn’t remember if the pin had been stuck in Paris.

Lucy turned the screen to show him. A photograph showed a charming shop with a tasteful white sheath dress in the window.

Arthur felt as if his heart stopped beating for a second. This couldn’t be coincidence. A gold thimble on Miriam’s charm bracelet and a piece of paper with the name of a shop called The Gold Thimble from their wedding year. There had to be a connection. But was he ready to find out even more about his wife? Would it only lead to bewilderment and hurt, especially as the thimble charm might be about to lead him to Paris?

“Do you think we should go?” Lucy asked softly.

Arthur mused the same thing. “It looks like a good lead...”

“Mum once gave me some money, when she took her pension. She told me to spend it on something frivolous, but I never did. ‘Spend it on yourself. Choose something special. I forbid you to spend it on household appliances or bills.’ I remember her exact words,” Lucy said. “I thought I might spend it on something nice when I had a baby, except it wasn’t to be... I still have the money in a jam jar in my wardrobe.”

“You should spend it on yourself. Like Mum said, get something nice.”

“Well, I’ve decided I’m going to treat both of us. How do you fancy a trip over to France? We could stop by at the wedding boutique.”

Arthur only took a moment to consider this. Even if he found out nothing further about the bracelet, then he would get to spend some lovely time with his daughter. “That sounds wonderful. Let’s go,” he said.





The Thimble


IF ARTHUR HAD ever been asked to describe how he imagined Paris, he would say that actually he had never given much thought to the place. He had seen the Eiffel Tower on the place mats that Miriam had bought for half price in the Sainsbury’s sale and once watched a program about a cruise boat that took tourists up and down the Seine, sailed by a captain who was both seasick and allergic to helping people. Arthur thought that the water looked rather murky and that if he had to sail anywhere it would be on one of those sleek white cruise ships with swimming pools on board, hopping off around the Mediterranean. Paris just wasn’t one of those places that appealed to him.

Miriam, however, had a preoccupation with all things French. When it was on offer, she subscribed to a magazine called Viva! that featured lots of photos of chic women dancing through puddles while holding umbrellas, sipping tiny cups of coffee or carrying small dogs in the baskets on the front of their bicycles.

As far as he could remember she had never expressed a strong desire to visit Paris. She had said that the prices in shops were very expensive. He thought she knew this through reading her magazine. He himself had pictured a cliché—lots of people wearing striped tops, with strings of garlic and baguettes of bread poking out of their baskets.