‘You see, if there were more people around like him, we wouldn’t be in the state we are now.’
It wasn’t clear to me exactly what she meant by this remark, so I let it pass.
‘I haven’t seen your father,’ Miss Erith continued, ‘for more than twenty years. 1987, it was, when he left. He’d only been here a year or so. I was just getting excited about the idea of having him for a neighbour when he buggered off to Australia, without so much as a by-your-leave.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘It was a bit of a surprise for me, as well.’
‘Well, I’m not sure I was surprised, exactly. Not in retrospect, anyway. It never struck me as being a very sensible thing to do, coming back here, to his home town, after his wife had died and everything. What he really needed was a fresh start. Still, I was very disappointed. He was good company, and we’re not exactly spoiled for that around here, I can tell you. He never wrote, or anything. Never got back in touch. Miserable sod. How old would he be now, seventy-something? He’s still in good shape, did you say?’
‘Yes. I saw him in Sydney last month. That was when he asked me to call in here. He wants me to find some … some items from the flat. Trouble is, I can’t seem to get in. I think I was given the wrong key.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ve got one somewhere. I still go in there every so often, to check the post. You know, it’s very irresponsible of him to leave that flat empty for so long. It could have been squatted by now. In fact, it should have been, really. If it had been anybody else I would have reported him to the housing association.’
Mumtaz returned, at this point, with a tray loaded with teacups, saucers and a plate full of biscuits. I fetched another chair from the corner of the room and offered him the armchair he must have been using before. Soon we were all settled again.
‘You never knew Mr Sim, did you?’ Miss Erith asked him. ‘From the flat across the corridor.’
‘No, I never had the pleasure,’ said the doctor. ‘A little before my time.’
‘Max has come to collect some of his things,’ said Miss Erith. ‘Though I don’t know what, exactly, because there isn’t much in there.’
‘I was told something about some postcards,’ I said.
‘Ah! Of course! Well I’ve got those, unless there’ve been any others in the last three weeks.’
Miss Erith began to rise effortfully to her feet, but Mumtaz tried to stop her.
‘Please, Margaret, don’t exert yourself –’
‘Give over,’ she said, brushing him away. ‘I’m not a cripple yet, you know. Now hang on, they’re in the spare room somewhere …’
While she was away, Mumtaz poured me some tea and handed me the cup, smiling in a confiding sort of way.
‘She has plenty of spirit, Margaret – still plenty of spirit. Mind you, her body’s not in such bad shape either. Would you have guessed that she’s seventy-nine? You should get her to tell you the story of her life. Fascinating. She was born on the canals, you know. Her father used to keep a famous shop for canal people, a few miles north from here at Weston. All that trade and traffic is gone now, of course. But just imagine! Imagine the changes she must have seen in her lifetime. Someone should fetch a tape recorder and keep her story for posterity. In fact, that’s what I should be doing. I’ve mentioned it to her, of course, but she’s too modest. “Oh, nobody wants to hear about a boring old lady like me,” she’ll say. But stories like hers need to be remembered, don’t you think? Otherwise, England has forgotten its own past, and once that happens, we’re in trouble, aren’t we? Even more trouble than we’re in at the moment.’
Another enigmatic remark; but before I had time to think about it, Miss Erith re-entered the room, saying, ‘I’m sorry they’re not in a box or anything,’ and dragging a large black bin liner behind her.
‘What the – … ?’ I said, opening the bag and peering inside.
‘You see, I never sorted them, or anything like that,’ said Miss Erith, ‘because I had no idea whether your father was ever coming back or not. And he specifically told me not to forward anything.’
The bag was full to the brim with picture postcards. I reached inside and pulled out a handful at random. They were nearly all from places in the Far East – Tokyo, Palau, Singapore … They all had my father’s address written neatly in block capitals on the right-hand side, while the other half was filled to the very edges with cramped, intense handwriting. And they all bore the same signature: ‘Roger’.
‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘This is beginning to ring a bell.’
And yes, it was true: I remembered, now, that similar postcards used to arrive at the family home in Birmingham every so often. They would be scooped up from the doormat along with the rest of the post, either by me or my mother, and placed without comment on my father’s desk in the dining room, to be read by him when he returned home from work in the evening. Like everything else that took place in our uncommunicative household, this practice was hardly ever discussed or even remarked upon. Although I did recall saying to my mother, at least once, ‘Who is Roger, anyway?’, to which she had simply replied, ‘I think he was some old friend of your father’s.’ And that had been an end of it.
‘I’ve seen this handwriting before,’ I went on. ‘And always on postcards like this. All through the seventies, my dad used to get these.’
‘They come about once a month, generally,’ said Miss Erith. ‘He doesn’t get anything else. A bit of junk mail sometimes.’
‘I’ll take them away with me,’ I said. ‘Is that all right?’
‘Of course it is. Oh, and the key’s over there, while I remember. In the fruit bowl, on top of the bookcase.’
I got up to retrieve the key and, while I was on my feet, said: ‘I’ll just pop across and look for the other stuff, I think. Shouldn’t take a minute or two.’
To tell the truth, I was dreading going into the flat, and wanted to get it over with as soon as possible. So I left Miss Erith and Dr Hameed drinking their tea, and stepped back into the gloom of the corridor. And this time my father’s door unlocked easily.
Have you ever been inside a place that has not been lived in for more than twenty years? If not, you will find it difficult to understand what it feels like. Just then I tapped out a couple of sentences but I decided to delete them again because they didn’t seem to do justice to the atmosphere in
