“I don’t know how it works! I haven’t been given an instruction pamphlet, you know.” Her tone is scathing, but I can see an insecure flash in her eye. “I don’t want to be here. I’ve just found myself here. And all I know is, I need my necklace. That’s all I know. And for that… I need your help.”
For a while there’s silence. I swallow another oyster, uncomfortable thoughts jabbing at my conscience. She’s my great-aunt. This is her one and only last wish. You should make an effort with someone’s one and only last wish. Even if it is totally impossible and stupid.
“Sadie.” At last I exhale sharply. “If I find your necklace for you, will you go away and leave me in peace?”
“Yes.”
“For good?”
“Yes.” Her eyes are starting to shine.
I fold my arms sternly. “If I look for your necklace as hard as I can but can’t find it because it was lost a zillion years ago or, more likely, never existed… will you still go away?”
There’s a pause. Sadie looks sulky.
“It did exist,” she says.
“Will you?” I persist. “Because I’m not spending all summer on some ridiculous treasure hunt.”
For a few moments, Sadie glowers at me, clearly trying to think of some put-down. But she can’t.
“Very well,” she says at last.
“OK. It’s a deal.” I lift my champagne glass toward her. “Here’s to finding your necklace.”
“Come on, then! Start looking!” She darts her head around impatiently, as though we might start searching right here and now in the restaurant.
“We can’t just go randomly looking! We have to be scientific .” I reach into my bag, pull out the necklace sketch, and unfold it. “All right. Think back. Where did you last have it?”
FIVE
Fairside Nursing Home is in a leafy residential road: a redbrick, double-fronted building with net curtains in every single window. I survey it from the other side of the road, then turn to look at Sadie, who has been following me in silence ever since Potters Bar station. She came with me on the tube, but I barely saw her: She spent the whole time flitting along the carriage, looking at people, popping up to ground level and down again.
“So, that’s where you used to live,” I say with an awkward brightness. “It’s really nice! Lovely… garden.” I gesture at a couple of mangy shrubs.
Sadie doesn’t answer. I look up and see a line of tension in her pale jaw. This must be strange for her, coming back here. I wonder how well she remembers it.
“Hey, how old are you, anyway?” I say curiously, as the thought occurs to me. “I mean, I know you’re a hundred and five really. But now. As you are… here.” I gesture at her.
Sadie looks taken aback by the question. She examines her arms, peers at her dress, and thoughtfully rubs the fabric between her fingers.
“Twenty-three,” she says at last. “Yes, I think I’m twenty-three.”
I’m doing mental calculations in my head. She was 105 when she died. Which would mean…
“You were twenty-three in the year 1927.”
“That’s right!” Her face suddenly comes alive. “We had a pajama party for my birthday. We drank gin fizzes all evening and danced ’til the birds started singing… Oh, I miss pajama parties.” She hugs herself. “Do you have many pajama parties?”
Does a one-night stand count as a pajama party?
“I’m not sure they’re quite the same-” I break off as a woman’s face glances out of a top-floor window at me. “Come on. Let’s go.”
I head briskly across the road, up the path to the wide front door, and press the security buzzer.
“Hello?” I call into the grille. “I don’t have an appointment, I’m afraid.”
There’s the sound of a key in a lock, and the front door opens. A woman in a blue nurse’s uniform beams at me. She looks in her early thirties, with her hair tied back in a knot, and a plump pale face.
“Can I help you?”
“Yes. My name’s Lara, and I’m here about a… a former resident.” I glance at Sadie.
She’s gone.
I hurriedly scan the whole front garden-but she’s totally disappeared. Bloody hell. She’s left me in the lurch.
“A former resident?” The nurse prompts me.
“Oh. Er… Sadie Lancaster?”
“Sadie!” Her face softens. “Come in! I’m Ginny, senior staff nurse.”
I follow her into a linoleum-floored hall smelling of beeswax and disinfectant. The whole place is quiet, apart from the nurse’s rubber shoes squeaking on the floor and the distant sound of the TV. Through a door I glimpse a couple of old ladies sitting in chairs with crocheted blankets over their knees.
I’ve never really known any old people. Not really, really old.
“Hello!” I wave nervously at one white-haired lady who is sitting nearby, and her face immediately crumples in distress.
Shit.
“Sorry!” I call quietly. “I didn’t mean to… er…”
A nurse comes over to the white-haired lady, and in slight relief I hurry after Ginny, hoping she didn’t notice.
“Are you a relation?” she asks, showing me into a little reception room.
“I’m Sadie’s great-niece.”
“Lovely!” says the nurse, flicking on the kettle. “Cup of tea? We’ve been expecting someone to call, actually. Nobody ever picked up her stuff.”