“Sorry Love, but this parcel won’t go through the letterbox next door. It’s too wide, and it says, ‘Please don’t bend.’ It’s made it this far, so it seems a shame to just shove it through the gap. Looks like the poor thing’s been halfway round the world.”
Lara looked at the wide, brown envelope in the postman’s hands as though it had the power to destroy her world.
Because it did.
It already had.
She reached out to take it from him and then dropped her hands. “Why is it here?” she demanded. “This isn’t where it should have gone.”
“Dunno love.” The postman shrugged. An Artic blast created a growing drip on the end of his frozen nose. “Can you take it?” he asked, cocking his head.
Lara stared at the brown envelope. Her heart hammered the blood through her eardrums like a jazz beat. She shook her head. “This isn’t where it’s meant to be,” she whispered. She took a step backwards, and the postman shoved it into her arms.
“There’s extra to pay,” he said, eyeing her with caution. “Not enough stamps.”
Lara’s eyes widened. “That’s because it’s come to the wrong place!” She raised her voice, and the parcel tipped, slipping from the ledge of her folded arms. She caught it one handed, and the postman smiled with satisfaction. “That’s another four pounds and fifty pence,” he said with a flapping hand. “They put the new address on the label, but didn’t say why. For future reference, there’s no charge if they write ‘no longer at this address’ or something of that ilk.” He jerked his head at the parcel. “But they didn’t.”
Lara stared down at the brown wrapper, small tears and greasy patches marking its journey. The postman looked back towards the gate and then at her again. He repeated his question. “Can you settle up? I can take cash.” He winced. “Or I can take it back to the depot. They’ll destroy it.”
Lara yelped and clutched the parcel to her breast. “No! I’ll just get my purse.” She set it on the hall cupboard and retrieved her handbag from the bottom step. “Her fingers fumbled out a five-pound note, and she thrust it into his outstretched hand and slammed the door.
“What about your change?” He flipped open the letterbox and his eyes stared at her through the gap. “I owe you fifty pence.”
“Keep it!” Lara shouted. She snatched up the parcel and took it into the lounge, closing the door behind her. Moments later, the gate clicked as the postman proceeded on his way.
Relief sent the adrenaline roaming free through her bloodstream and Lara gasped. She sank down against the lounge door until her bottom touched the floor. The sobs came thick and fast, as desolation, grief and frustration mingled in her chest. Her tears ran over the battered address label, causing her handwriting to become illegible as the black ink absorbed the salt water. The dark line scribed through Lara’s neat label had redirected the envelope from Mr A Livingstone in a New York office to the house next door.
To Arama.
Lara sat on the floor until her leg muscles trembled with cold and inactivity. Her arms ached from holding the stiff brown envelope too hard and she’d bent it despite the printed instruction. She didn’t open the envelope, already intimately familiar with its well-travelled contents. She’d placed every one of them there, sealed against harm and sent with best wishes from a whole other life.
The house shook with the vibration of a door slamming. Lara started and the painful hitch in her chest released as a hiccup. Grief turned to rage in less than a second and she hauled herself up from the ground like an elderly woman. Wrenching the front door open and leaving it gaping wide, she ran through her front gate and barged Arama’s open with force. She hammered on his door with the heel of her hand, sending darts of pain shooting through her wrist. After a lifetime of waiting and more hammering, the door disappeared from in front of her. She’d put so much anger into her knocking, she fell forwards into the entrance, the parcel still clutched between her forearm and chest. Bare chested and wearing only a pair of shorts, he dangled a tee shirt from his left hand.
“Whoa!” Arama caught her as she tipped. His arm against her ribs caused a gasp of pain to echo off the brickwork.
“Get off me!” she yelled at him, slapping his hands until she’d righted herself. The tee shirt fluttered onto the carpet. “Leave me alone!”
Arama tilted his head and squinted at her. His lips slid open into a line of sarcasm. “You knocked on my door.” He peered around her and snorted. “And you bust the hinge on my gate.”
“You!” She raised her index finger and jabbed it against his muscular chest. “You!”
“Okay.” Arama nodded to a woman pushing a pram along the street. He seized Lara’s wrist and dragged her into the house before slamming the door behind him. “What is wrong with you?” he demanded.
Lara slammed the parcel against his bare chest. Another crease appeared across the centre, enraging her even more.
A gentle dusting of hair covered his pectorals, snaking in a line over his stomach and into his shorts. Lara struggled for control, shoving at the parcel to force Arama to take its weight. “I’ve bent it now!” she yelled into his face, aware she’d pulverised it on the shortest leg of its journey. She’d been the first and last person to handle it, the irony painful. “Take it!” she hissed at him through gritted teeth.
Arama looked down at the address label and frowned. He noticed the Royal Mail sticker and the additional cost. He shrugged. “I’ll pay you back,” he said, his lips turning upwards in confusion. “No need to rip your nightie over four quid.” He raised a speculative eyebrow. “But that’s not the problem between us, is it?”
Lara groaned. “It was you!” she hissed. “You’re Arie Hohaia. You’re Hone’s grandson.” Tears coursed unchecked down her blotchy face as she failed to regain command of herself. Her self-control had sneaked back through the broken gate and she should have followed it. “He loved you!” she screamed. “He did it all for you. Two years of cataloguing and photographing, labelling and writing your family history. For an ungrateful, self-centred man who didn’t deserve any of it. Your rejection killed him! He dreamed of meeting you, his lost grandson. He talked about you every day for two years and this is who you are? I’m so glad that noble old man never had the misfortune to meet you. It would have broken his heart like it’s broken mine.”
Lara turned to leave, taking one last look at the chunky brown envelope. She’d filled it with Hone, such hope and excitement involved in its compilation. “I hope the contents of that envelope break you into a million pieces, because it’s what you deserve,” she snarled. “Stay away from me. Don’t talk to me and don’t come near me. I never want to see your miserable face again as long as I live!”
Then she left, slamming both his front door and her own.
Arama stood in his hallway still clutching the envelope to his chest, his fingers trembling. He He heard Lara’s muffled sobs drift through the thin wall from next door but couldn’t move. The thing in his hands filled him with terror. And regret.
Kerry attendance at a parents’ evening meant she wouldn’t call around for a chat. It also meant she didn’t witness Lara’s destruction. Grief rode her like a rodeo champion, digging its cruel spurs into her damaged heart and not releasing her until she’d collapsed. By the time she sank into a tortured fitful sleep, she knew she’d never find happiness again. Of course, he was Hone’s grandson, she chided herself. That was the attraction.
Though he hadn’t known it, Arama carried the old man’s genetics. He lacked the ready smile and the wicked chuckle, though she’d sensed they existed beneath his gruff, humourless exterior. Lara felt Hone’s loss again as though it had emerged from the freezer like frozen peas, as fresh as the day of packaging.
Her empty bedroom in all its opulence offered no answers. No sound came through the wall from next door and Lara conjured up mental images of Arama’s evening. Had he opened the parcel, or cast it onto the sofa or into the dustbin?
“Hone’s grandson,” she whispered into the darkness. “You broke that old man’s heart and he relinquished his grasp on life as if you’d pushed him off a cliff. I hate you.” Lara sniffed against her pillow. “I hate you.”
But that was the problem. She didn’t.