for a new box before she posted all this stuff off.
‘Here we go, if it will keep you quiet, madam.’ It isn’t a big secret after all. There is nothing in there that matters; just a load of old dust and memories I’d rather not be dredging up at this moment. But it’s guilt that makes me cave in to her, guilt about the fact that she might not be around to ever see any of it, if I wait too long. ‘It’s just some old keepsakes, photos and things that Granny sent over. Most of it will go to Lily. When we meet up.’
Once the masking tape is all off the side flaps of the box fall open limply, revealing a pile of yellow-stained envelopes. Most of them seem to contain photos. A few hold old birthday cards, flowery and beribboned with ‘to our darling daughter’ on the outside. On the inside of one of them, all embellished in curlicues, are the words ‘from Pandora and Henry’.
‘Who’s this, all dressed up like a dog’s dinner?’ Shelley pulls my attention back to one of the photos. ‘She looks vaguely familiar.’
She’s found a picture of me and Liliana in our dancing outfits. I, as usual, being the taller, slimmer one—albeit two years younger—got to be the ‘male’ partner, dressed up in a tuxedo with my dark red hair cut appropriately short. Thankfully, though, Shelley hasn’t even noticed me. It is Lily she is frowning at; Lily with her long blonde bubbly curls and that frilly dusty-pink dress with all the sparkly sequins sewn into the hem. I take the photo from her for a minute, feeling my fingers trembling, even after so many years, as a gush of unhappy memories comes flooding back.
‘I can’t believe she kept that!’ I make as if to tear it in two and then change my mind because, after all, Lily might still want it.
‘It’s Aunt Lily, isn’t it?’
‘It is. She always got to wear the most beautiful dresses.’
‘Oh, Mum!’ Shelley’s face crumples in mirth. ‘You didn’t really think that dress was beautiful, did you? The only thing she’s got on that’s halfway decent is that string of blue beads around her neck.’
‘Well, actually…’ I do a double-take of Lily’s glammedup version of a ra-ra skirt before dropping the photo back into the box. Shelley is right. How things change! That dress really does look rather hideous. ‘Okay Point taken. It was the kind of thing we thought was beautiful at the time. One of these days you’re going to look back at yourself wearing all that Goth war-paint…’ I stop and catch Shelley’s eye. ‘Oh, Shelley, I’m so sorry. You won’t, will you? I can’t think that way. I just can’t get used to thinking that way, it’s so unnatural.’
‘It’s all right, Mum.’ Shelley’s wide blue eyes are calm and focused. ‘It’s funny how Pandora kept all those things for so long, though, isn’t it? Look, she’s even—she’s even kept that necklace in here. The one that Lily’s wearing.’ Her nimble fingers dive in and pull it out. She holds it up to the light so we can both see. Oh, but I had forgotten that necklace! Its pale blue nuggets of rounded sea-glass are all held individually in place by a tiny filament of gold wire. The central portion of the necklace is a darker blue stone—also sea-glass though you’d never know it—it’s so dark it could be lapis lazuli—and that is framed by the iridescent halo of a cut-out piece of mother of pearl.
‘It looks just like something a mermaid might wear,’ Shelley breathes. Exactly, I think, and her comment makes me smile. I designed it with a mermaid in mind, all those years ago. I collected all those bits of blue glass myself, on solitary walks, trawling along the coast of Cornwall.
‘Can I keep it?’ my daughter begs, and I shrug. Why not? If Lily were here she would claim that it was hers, that she always wore it. But the truth is, I found the glass, I designed it, and I fashioned it up with the limited tools that I had at my disposal. My friend—a lady in the second-hand jewellery shop—had cut the mother of pearl into shape, but she’d shown me how to do everything else. The only thing I wasn’t allowed to do, I realise now, was actually wear it. It so happened that the colours and the theme were a perfect match for the dance outfit that Lily was wearing that season. I had to give it over to her. Oh, I wasn’t exactly forced. It was just the kind of thing we were expected to do, back then.
‘All these things—I mean, they must have been so precious to Pandora once. Maybe to you too?’ Shelley glances at me curiously but I look away. She will never really know the truth about that.
‘The things that matter to us change,’ I say simply. ‘What mattered so much yesterday doesn’t matter so much today. What matters today, we might not give a fig about tomorrow.’
‘When you look at it that way,’ Shelley is scanning Daniel’s list on the fridge again, this time looking quiet and thoughtful, ‘maybe those resolutions aren’t so stupid after all. Maybe it means we should just make the most of things while they’re important to us. For instance, we could still get Daniel the second tortoise, couldn’t we? Hattie could have her mate. And I was thinking…we could still take that holiday. Just you and me. Daniel’s away on scout camp the week of my birthday. I’d really love it if we could go down to Cornwall, back to Summer Bay for one last time. It could be this year’s birthday present for me. That shouldn’t break the bank too much, should it?’
‘Do you really mean that?’ I watch her fasten my necklace around her throat and I feel my heart thudding in my chest. It’s been so long since Shelley expressed any real interest in anything at all. If my daughter could only be interested in something, if she could only have something to live for, then she might live a little longer, a little better. She might have a little more joy in whatever days she has left to her. ‘I would love to take a trip down there with you. Are you sure you don’t want to go when Danny can come too?’
‘No!’ Shelley comes back vehemently. Then she recovers herself and smiles. ‘I just want some special time with you. While we still can, you understand?’
‘Of course I do.’
‘And Dad won’t mind?’
Bill, of course, will have to be consulted. He always likes to be included in whatever plans are made for Shelley, and that’s fair enough. But my ex-husband has his new wife and their young child to think about these days, doesn’t he?
‘I’ll square it with your dad,’ I tell her decisively. And Daniel will have to be managed somehow because he’ll no doubt want to be in on it too. But then Daniel has his scout camp to look forward to, so why shouldn’t Shelley have her special time?
‘Don’t you wonder when it happens?’ Shelley is still thoughtful, looking at the box. ‘When do all those precious things become…just a pile of old junk?’
It happens when we’re not looking, I think. At the same time that those crows’ feet appear, which we tell ourselves will disappear when we get a good night’s sleep. When our dress size creeps up from a ten to a twelve and then a fourteen. When we’re not looking.
‘It happens when we cease to care,’ I tell her.
‘But if you don’t care,’ she whispers, ‘why were you so upset that Granny Panny sent it all on to you?’
‘I’m not…’ I begin, but there is little point in lying to Shelley. I edge over to the kitchen sink and throw the dregs of my coffee away. ‘Maybe you have never heard the story of Pandora’s Box?’ I say to her at last. ‘In Greek myth, Pandora was a beautiful and foolish woman who, out of insatiable curiosity, opened a box that she had been warned she should never open. The minute she opened it, out flew all the spites: Old Age, Sickness, Envy, Disloyalty, Deceit…in short, everything that makes mankind miserable.’ I trail off.
‘Come on, Mum. This isn’t a magical box. It isn’t going to release a load of nasty stuff into the air just because we’ve opened it up to look inside. You don’t really believe that, do you?’
‘Of course not literally,’ I say. A shiver goes through me then. I’m not superstitious. I’m not really going to be opening up the past just because we’ve