We drove past the library then turned back down Oxford Road and passed another familiar landmark, a shop called On the Eighth Day.
‘Oh my god, it’s still there,’ said Jo as she pointed out of the window.
Back the day, it had been a cool hippie shop, and many of the students and musicians in the city used to hang out there. It was now a food emporium and vegetarian café. We stopped off to buy some sandwiches to eat en route. Once inside, we were dismayed to see that there was no trace of the colourful and bohemian place it used to be.
‘Mitch worked in a similar place in London, didn’t she?’ said Jo. ‘I seem to remember her telling me about it. Her sister worked there too. Sixth Star—’
‘Seventh Star,’ I said. ‘I went there once when I happened to be in London and thought I’d look Mitch up. I found Fi there and she gave me a number to call Mitch in one of the communes, I forget which one.’
‘Is The Seventh Star still there, Sara?’ Ally asked.
‘It is, but like The Eighth Day, it’s a food shop and café now. I never thought to ask about Fi or Mitch because all the people who work there look so young. It was so long ago that Mitch worked there, over forty years.’
‘You never know,’ said Jo. ‘Some people never move around, so there might be someone there who knows where she went.’
‘Doubt it,’ said Jo as we got back in the car. ‘Hey, remember Karl Twigg’s antique market in Deansgate? We’d buy vintage dresses from the 1940s and 1950s, or bits of lace and velvet.’
‘You did,’ I said. ‘I was never into that hippie look.’
‘The antique market has long gone too,’ said Sara. ‘I did go and have a look once when I was up here working.’
Jo sighed. ‘The look I aspired to then was Pre-Raphaelite—’
‘Inspired by the collection at Manchester City Art Gallery in town,’ said Ally. ‘You had that fabulous ankle-length velvet cape, Jo.’
‘We’d spend many a wet Saturday afternoon gazing at the beautiful women painted by Edward Burne-Jones or Rossetti,’ I told Ajay. ‘We were all looking for a knight to come and rescue us, then carry us away into the sunset on his trusty steed.’
‘More like a rusty bike,’ I said, ‘or moped.’
‘I mourn that lost girl,’ said Jo.
‘Why? She’s still inside you.’
‘Just more wrinkly on the outside,’ I said. Jo punched me gently on the arm. ‘We all are, Jo, not just you.’
‘I mean I mourn the innocent Jo, the girl before the responsibilities, the disappointments, the losses that life has dealt along the way. Jo back then was so full of hope, dreams, ambitions.’
‘We’re older and wiser,’ I said.
‘Older, but not much wiser in my case,’ said Sara.
‘But look at us,’ said Jo, ‘here we are, still friends, still with that bond we had back then.’
I put an arm around Jo, the other around Sara and gave them a hug. ‘Indeed. Here we still are.’
‘It would be amazing if we could find Mitch, wouldn’t it?’ said Jo. ‘Being here, remembering so much from those days, she was such a part of it all, an essential part of our gang.’
‘Exactly what I think,’ said Sara.
I had my doubts. Our trip down memory lane had only served to show that Manchester was no longer the place I knew or belonged. Everything changes, places evolve to the point they’re unrecognizable, I thought, but maybe some elements remain. My old friends from that time are still here in the present day, older but still as dear. They are part of that lost past that I can take with me into the future.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Jo
Present day
The car took us down towards Withington and Mercury Drive, where Mitch’s parents used to live. We piled out and looked around.
God, I was having a good time. A day out looking at old haunts with my best old mates, away from the chores back at home. Ally was subdued, which was understandable; Sara more enthusiastic, especially about finding Mitch. I was with her on that. We’d been the Fab Four, not the Fab Three. Mooching around Manchester and going back to our roots was interesting, and yes the place had changed, but the city I knew was still there underneath and it was stirring something inside me – the memory of a girl I used to be before I became the mug who married Doug. She was still in there. OK, so I’d not been very confident back then but I was carefree with hopes and dreams and a life of possibilities. Maybe, as Sara said, it wasn’t too late. I’d spent so many years thinking exactly that – too late, too late – but of course it wasn’t. I wasn’t doomed quite yet. The surgeon who’d put the stents in had said, ‘You’re good to go for another thirty years.’ Since the experience in the hospital when I was floating about on the ceiling, I’d felt different – renewed and more determined to live life to the fullest. I could have a resurgence. A resurrection. I could rise like a phoenix out of the ashes. And maybe, when the time was right, I could help Ally back to a place where she didn’t feel it was all over for her with Michael’s death. I wanted to spend more time with Sara, too, so that she would realize she wasn’t alone either. Together we could go forward.
‘Doesn’t look that different,’ said Ally, as we surveyed the quiet tree-lined street of semi-detached houses, some mock Tudor, with small front gardens. She pointed down to the right. ‘Mitch’s was down there, wasn’t it?’
‘Number thirty-six,’ said Jo. ‘So what do we do now? Go together to knock on doors, or shall I take one side, you two the other?’
‘Stick together,’ said Ajay. ‘There’s only one of me and I
