The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper(79)

Arthur looked at his son and caught only glimpses of the young boy with the round face, chocolate button eyes and tufty hair who used to jump up with excitement when The Muppets came on TV. “You said you had something you wanted to tell me,” he prompted.

Lucy and Dan looked at each other.

“I told Dan about your travels around the country,” Lucy said.

“You’re a real adventurer, Dad.”

“I also told him about the charm bracelet...”

“I remember Mum showing it to me when I was a kid...” Dan said.

“She showed it to you?”

“I remember once when Lucy was at school and I was at home with Mum. I’d got a stomachache and she let me stay off and watch TV. After a while I was so bored. So we went to your bedroom. Mum crouched and got something out of her wardrobe. It was the charm bracelet. She showed me all the charms and she told me a little story about each one. Of course, I’ve always had cloth ears, so I can’t remember any of them. But I played with it all afternoon. Then she put it back and I never saw it again. I asked her on a couple more occasions if I could play with it but she said she had ‘put it away.’ I always remembered it, though. I liked the elephant best. I remember his green stone.”

“Me, too. He’s a noble beast.” He looked at his son. “So what did you have to tell me?”

“There’s the story of one charm left to discover?”

“Yes, the heart.”

“I bought it,” said Dan.

Arthur dropped his cup. It smashed on the floor and tea and china spattered everywhere. Lucy went to find a cloth and a dustpan and brush. “What did you say?”

“I bought the heart charm. Well, Kyle and Marina picked it out. We were in a shop in Sydney. Mum told me that I should make more effort with my gifts to you.”

“I used to think that you should try harder with gifts to your mum.”

“Well, this time I did. We walked past a jewelry shop and the trays in the window were lined with gold charms. Marina wanted to stop and look and I remembered Mum’s charm bracelet. I’d totally forgotten but then the memory was so clear. It was as if I was a kid again playing with the tiger, the elephant. I said that Marina could pick a charm and that we’d send it to Grandma in England. She was so excited. She chose the heart straightaway. I didn’t know if Mum still had the bracelet, but it was a nice present, anyway.”

“I took the bracelet to a jewelry shop in London and the owner said that the heart charm was more modern,” Arthur said. “It wasn’t soldered onto the bracelet properly.”

“Maybe Mum used your box of tricks to nip it in place herself.”

“But she didn’t mention it to me. She didn’t show me,” Arthur said.

“We only sent it a couple of weeks before she died. She might have planned to show you another time...”

Or perhaps if she had showed me, then I would have asked questions, Arthur thought. I would have asked her the stories behind the charms and it was too late for her to tell me. It would have brought up bad memories of Martin. Maybe the heart charm helped to bring happiness to the bracelet. “That’s probably the case.” He nodded. “Of course she would have told me about it.”

*

Dan drove Arthur and Lucy up to Whitby in his hire car. It was a sunny but windy day and Arthur had dressed appropriately this time in a padded waterproof jacket and lace-up boots. He had loaned Dan some clothes. His son had forgotten what the British weather could be like.

They walked through the old town and up the one hundred and ninety-nine steps to the old abbey. Arthur took it steady, stopping to sit on benches en route and look out over the orange-tiled roofs of the houses and B and Bs. Lucy rescued strands of hair from her mouth and Dan flung out his arms and ran into the wind when they reached the top. “Whooo!” he shouted out. “Kyle and Marina would love it up here.”

“Do you think you might bring them over one day?” Arthur asked tentatively. He hadn’t seen them for a long time.

“I will do, Dad. I promise. We’ll try to come over each year from now on. I didn’t realize how much Mum’s passing away would affect me... I also want to say that I’m sorry.”

“Whatever for?”

“I used to give you a hard time sometimes, when you wanted to read to me, when you were late home from work. I didn’t appreciate how hard it is to be a parent, until I had the kids myself. I was a total pain in the backside.” He turned to his sister. “To you, too, Luce.”

Arthur shook his head. “No need to apologize, son.”

“Nobody’s perfect.” Lucy gave Dan’s arm a punch. “And you certainly aren’t.”

Dan gave a mock, “Ouch,” and laughed.

They strolled around the graveyard and circled the crumbling abbey and then walked over to the hillside overlooking the sea.

“Do you remember that time that me and Lucy went to the ice cream van with Mum?” Dan said. “We were playing tag and ran into the road? That big lorry was rumbling toward us, but we hadn’t noticed. You appeared out of nowhere and yanked our arms out of the sockets. The lorry thundered past. You saved our lives. I almost peed with terror.”

“You remember that?”

“Yeah. I thought you were like Superman. I told all my friends at school. It was like you had superhuman powers.”