‘Blimey!’ I said, as Owen staggered out, hauling a stained canvas bag. He’d returned from Italy that morning and when I’d got home from work he was entering into the spirit of the sale with a vigour that surprised me. ‘What’s that?’
‘A tent,’ he said. ‘It leaks. It’s always leaked. It leaks so badly that it’s like sleeping under a gutter.’
‘Right. But you can’t throw away Miles’s shoe rack. He uses it. Where are the shoes that go in it?’
Owen shrugged and tugged his tent past me, scattering bent pegs as he went. But then he stopped and gave me a look that turned my stomach to liquid.
‘Hi, Astrid,’ said Pippa, appearing in the doorway. Her hair was piled messily on top of her head and there was a smudge of dirt on her cheek. She glittered with energy. ‘If you want to get rid of stuff you’d better hurry. People are arriving in fifteen minutes.’
‘Nobody’ll buy any of this.’
‘Want to bet?’
‘Where’s Miles anyway?’
‘I think he and Leah are keeping out of the way.’
‘And Davy?’
‘He’s gone to get beer for all of us.’
I leaned my bike against the wall of the house and went over to the table. There were books (cookery books, novels, biographies, dictionaries, atlases, travel books, books about mathematics and economics, music and law, books that belonged to libraries and even schools); there were kitchen utensils, videos and DVDs, beaded cushions, a rug, a lumpy old duvet, ripped sheets, a mop, a hairdryer in the shape of a duck, a shoebox full of wind chimes, empty biscuit tins, and several packs of cards, which I was almost certain were incomplete.
‘These are nice.’ I bent over a small box of jewellery. ‘Are these yours, Pippa?’
‘I never wear them any more,’ she said airily.
‘Some are lovely. You can’t sell these beads.’
‘I can.’
‘I’ll buy them.’
‘We’re supposed to be getting rid of things, Astrid!’ said Dario.
I stopped him and examined his face. He was still bruised and swollen, his speech muffled. ‘How are you doing?’ I asked.
‘Fine.’
‘You should be taking it easy.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I need to do this.’
Davy arrived, carrying a bag bulging with cans, which he started handing out. I took mine and went into my bedroom, to see if there was anything I could throw out. But while Pippa’s room is like an Aladdin’s cave, mine is rather minimalist. I sat on my bed and stared around, realizing how little I owned.
I heard footsteps bounding up the stairs, and then they stopped. There was a knock at my door. ‘Who is it?’
‘ Me. Owen.’
Oh.’ I got up from my bed and ran my fingers through my hair. ‘Come in.’
The door opened and Owen entered, pushing it shut behind him.
‘I brought you something.’ He held out a little box. ‘From Milan.’
‘For me? I don’t know what to say. Thank you.’
‘You have to open it.’
‘Right.’
I pushed up the lid and there was a pair of small silver earrings, round and with spokes, like two tiny bicycle wheels. ‘You’ll spot a connection.’
I unhooked the earrings I was wearing and put them on. ‘What do you think?’
‘They seem good,’ he said. ‘But what do I know?’ There was a pause. ‘I’d better go. Things to carry.’
There were already about a dozen people clustering round the tables. I didn’t recognize most of them. It sometimes dismayed me: I’d been living in the house for years but most of the people who lived in the street were still strangers.
I walked up to the tables and looked at the detritus of our lives together, now being pawed over by our neighbours. Soon it would be scattered and we would scatter with it.
Pippa and Dario were unpacking some clothes from a box and draping them over one end of the table. I walked over and picked up a long flowery skirt and ran my fingers through the soft fabric. ‘Some of this stuff really isn’t bad,’ I said. ‘Why are you getting rid of it?’
Pippa gave me a challenging look, which seemed to suggest I didn’t understand the ways of clothes and fashion. ‘I’ve got a rule,’ she said. ‘Every so often I go through my stuff and if I find something I haven’t worn for six months, out it goes, however much I think I like it. Because if I’m not wearing it, there must be something wrong.’
‘Well, I haven’t seen you wear any of this,’ I said. ‘I’m not exactly in the money at the moment but I might pick up a couple of things. How much are they?’
‘A fiver each,’ said Dario.
‘Really?’ said a voice from behind me. I looked round and saw a flamboyantly dressed woman with long dark curly hair. ‘All of it?’
‘Priced to sell,’ said Dario.
The woman sorted eagerly through the clothes, cramming dresses, skirts and blouses under her arm. Her eagerness was contagious, setting off a frenzy among the other women who were gathered around. I still had the skirt in my hand and I managed to grab a beautiful black Victorian-style top with a lace collar. Everything else was gone in seconds and the women of Maitland Street and beyond were frantically proffering bundles of banknotes at an almost alarmed Dario and Pippa. I handed over my own ten-pound note and took my haul back to my room, squeezing past Mick who was manoeuvring a standard lamp out of the door.
‘Are there any lights left?’ I said.
‘It’s summer,’ said Mick.
By the time I re-emerged, word had got round and the crowd of customers had grown quite large. The only item of clothing left was an army greatcoat that had been left by a previous tenant. But there was still plenty to fight for. People were paying money for objects that we would have had trouble persuading the dustmen to take away. Dario had priced the non-functioning toaster at fifteen pence. An old man offered him five and Dario told him he had a deal. I was rather touched by the idea of our crap toaster being lovingly repaired and having a new life making toast for him. It was like a horse finally reaching an animal sanctuary after a lifetime of grinding toil. Only the handleless pasta machine stood untouched, unbought and unloved.
‘Are you Astrid Bell?’ a voice said.
I looked round. The speaker was a man in his early sixties, wearing a grey suit, a tie and black shoes. He was balding and wore glasses.
‘That’s right,’ I said.
‘You were the last person who saw my wife,’ he said.
I was going to say, ‘Not the last’ but didn’t, because it sounded like heartless quibbling over words.
‘Are you…?’
‘I’m Joe Farrell,’ he said. ‘Peggy’s husband.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I was so shocked and upset by what happened.’
‘You see that lad over there?’ he said, pointing at a teenage boy who was trying on an old Walkman Dario was selling.
‘I don’t know him,’ I said.
‘I don’t either,’ he said. ‘But I know who he is. He’s one of the gang who robbed my wife after she was dead.’
‘The ones who broke into your car?’
‘That’s right.’
‘How do you know?’
‘They called me into the police station and showed me photographs. He was one.’
He took a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose loudly. Knowing who he was, I looked at him searchingly. His face was grey with grief, if that wasn’t my imagination. He had missed a patch of stubble along his jawline with his razor, now that there was nobody to notice for him. I dimly remembered that he had been brought in for questioning, not just as a witness. Did the police think he might have murdered his wife?
‘They only charged them with theft,’ he said. ‘They’re out on bail now, would you believe it? And now here he is. What do you think about that for a nerve?’