The Memory Box Read Free Page A

suggested that I should employ a house clearance company, but I saw it as my duty to Charlotte to do the job myself, and I did it. This was, of course, how I found the box, though I very nearly missed it. I left the attics until last, and almost succumbed to the temptation to let the owner of a second-hand shop nearby do this final part of the clearing out, since I knew, or thought I knew, there was only junk up there. But then I recollected that glimpse, so long ago, of what had looked like drawings or plans. They might be work of my father’s and if so I felt I should at least look at them.
    I was very tired that last day, when I made myself go up there. The ladder didn’t glide down easily as it had done all those years ago for Rory. It was stuck through disuse, I suppose, and I had to yank it hard. I had difficulty, too, clambering up through the remarkably small gap and realised only when I’d hauled myself through that there must be a far bigger entry into the other attic or no furniture could ever have been taken up. I should have looked for another trapdoor. But once in the attics everything was as I remembered – chairs, little tables, chests of clothes. The second-hand dealer could come for them, his lucky day (because some might be of value). The rolls of paper were indeed old architectural drawings, though none was signed and I didn’t know if they were my father’s. I began pulling them along, covering myself with dust, ready to drop them through the trapdoor so that I could take them into the garden and make a bonfire.
    My father could never throw anything away – he was a hoarder, everything had to be kept, either in case it came in useful (however unlikely), or simply because he was fond of whatever it was. He was very fond of all his old plans and drawings – the very paper seemed precious to him. When I was little, he used to let me help him roll up the huge sheets he worked on and I loved to do it. ‘Slowly now, Catherine,’ he’d say, and, ‘Keep it even, keep it even, don’t press too hard.’ I’d roll up the paper at one end, struggling to do it neatly and keep pace with his rolling at the other, and together we would achieve the perfect roll he wanted. I found it hard to be slow and methodical and careful. I was all rush, and wondered why I couldn’t be like my father. When I ‘helped’ him do such simple jobs he’d smile at me and say I’d done well. He knew, even then, when I was only five or six, that I was not like him and he made allowances for my clumsiness and impatience all the time. Later, when I used to get upset because I wasn’t the person I wanted to be, wasn’t like him or Charlotte, he’d comfort me and say nobody could help their nature, all they could do was try to curb what they didn’t like about themselves. My grandmother, if she was around and heard him, would sigh and say, ‘Some people have a lot of curbing to do,’ or, more puzzlingly, ‘Some people I knew never learned to curb their waywardness.’
    But I couldn’t keep these dusty old rolls of crackly paper. And they were too personal to give away, even if anyone had wanted them, so I had decided I would have to burn them, however upsetting this proved to be. (I didn’t have time, though, in the end, and took them with me after all.) It was in moving these rolls that I found the box. What I actually saw was something that looked like a tarpaulin wrapped round a roughly cylindrical bundle and tied very securely . My attention might not have been caught if it had not been for an incongruous pink label attached to the cord knotted round this parcel. On the label, written in ink which had faded but was still decipherable, was my own name – ‘For my darling Catherine Hope, in the future’, it said.
    I felt instantly cold. Cold, and also apprehensive. Yet there was nothing frightening in itself about this pretty pink label, which was decorated all round the edge with tiny drawings of flowers, the