‘Tell me a story about you,’ I say to her. ‘Not the jewellery, but you.’
‘My darling, if I told you a story about me, I would be here all day. I mean, of course, you would be here all day. I am here all day anyway.’ Her voice has the slightest husk of an accent, one I do not recognise. She speaks with a slight hesitancy, the caution of someone who sometimes has to translate words in her head before they leave her mouth. ‘Tell me about you.’
‘There’s really nothing to tell. I’m here to help you, anyway.’ We’re sitting in the large community room in the retirement village where she lives. It’s bright from the stark overhead lighting, and airy from the glass floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook the large courtyard. Several blue easy chairs are placed around small, low coffee tables. Apart from the lack of a counter and leather seating, it could be Beached Heads.
On the table in front of us is a light-wood box with a hinged lid that is carved with different types of musical notes. Inside, she has a collection of gold and silver items, brooches, pieces with precious gems that look like real sapphires and emeralds. Pearls, too. Mrs Lehtinen, a widow who has lived at the home for a few months, is the third person I am seeing here today and she has by far the most extensive collection of jewellery. The others had modest assortments of jewellery and talking to them, seeing the condition of their hands, I knew I would make their pieces into elasticated bracelets or simply necklaces so they could wear their collections with no catches to negotiate, no clasps to undo.
Apparently one of the staff saw my advert in the local magazine and asked the residents if they’d be interested in having me look at their jewellery. Six were interested. Mrs Lehtinen is one of those people who seems to exist in a soft-focus glow: her hair is white with a candyflossy haze, her skin is the colour and consistency of a peach, her eyes are a gentle blue. I don’t recognise where in the world her name might come from, just like I can’t place her accent.
‘You look like one of the girls who works here,’ Mrs Lehtinen says. ‘Abi is her name. You look so much like her.’
‘Do I?’ I say. I always look like people apparently. During my second year of college, I had people coming up to me constantly telling me they’d started a conversation with me in the library, the canteen, the bar, the car park, only to find they were talking to another girl. ‘She’s your absolute double,’ they’d say. When I finally met her, we discovered the only similarity between us was that we were both brown-skinned, and even then, not the same shade of brown. Other than that, we were different heights, weights and had completely different features. But apparently none of the people around us could see that. We’d both raised our eyebrows at each other, nodded sagely, and had to stop ourselves from laughing out loud. ‘You look nothing like me,’ we both said at the same time.
‘You are her double,’ Mrs Lehtinen says.
‘I hear that all the time,’ I say diplomatically. ‘I think I must look like a lot of people.’
Mrs Lehtinen smiles at me. ‘You think I’m a silly old woman, don’t you?’
‘No, I don’t.’ I really don’t. ‘Do you want to show me some of your jewellery? Tell me about the different pieces if you don’t want to tell me a story about you.’
‘I collect jewellery like I collect ailments,’ she says. ‘I am never really sure where any of them come from or when I am going to get rid of them.’
I grin at her. I see she is one of those people who needs to be dealt with differently. She won’t tell me her story until I’ve told her something about me.
I remove the butterfly pendant from around my neck. I hold it out to her. I notice Mrs Lehtinen’s hands as she relieves me of the necklace. The rest of her – right down to her powder blue twinset – may be soft-focusy but she has lived. Her wrinkled, weathered and used hands tell me so. Her mind must be a treasury of stories, as varied and interesting as her chest of treasures in front of us.
She’s surprised, as most people are, by the lightness of my pendant. It looks heavy, solid, its strong, thick lines create an expectation of heft, but it has very little weight because it is hollow.
‘This used to be a pair of earrings,’ I explain. ‘I got the earrings when I went on holiday. You know how, when you’re on holiday, something you buy looks amazing and you love it, then you get it home and the shine comes off it and you realise that the thing that was the most amazing thing in the world is now hellish? That was these earrings. They were incredibly uncomfortable. The shape, though, like teardrops, reminded me of the closed wings of a butterfly. I like butterflies, always have done, so I thought I could remake the earrings into something I could wear. It is not very good, because I was just starting to make jewellery.’ I run my fingers along the solid lines where the wings meet. You can still see the rivulets of the solder, something I would painstakingly file smooth if I was making the piece now. ‘I cut into this part of the earring, then I had to file both edges into curves to make them fit. Then I had to solder them together.’
It sounds so simple, that I just did it, but the pain I went through: I had sobbed as the solder ran into the wrong places because I hadn’t painted enough of the yellow-green liquid flux into the right areas; I had cried again at the moment when I had finally got the solder to stay and it snapped off because I was too vigorous with the filing. ‘I used a large silver jump-ring and soldered it on to the wings to make it into a head. See?’ I moved my finger over the curved antennae on each side of the butterfly’s head. ‘The small antennae were made by melting and soldering on the little links you put through your ears.’ As I speak, she turns the pendant over and over in her hands. ‘I wear it all time now so it’s gone from a pair of earrings that sat in a drawer mostly forgotten to something I love to wear. I want to do that with some of your jewellery.’
‘It is so simple but kaunis.’ Mrs Lehtinen’s hands turn over the pendant and her eyes, upon which she has now placed the glasses she wears around her neck on a gold chain, continue to scrutinise it. ‘What is the word? Beautiful. But not as ordinary as beautiful. No, no, I don’t mean beautiful. In Finnish the word is henkeäsalpaava.’
‘Henkeäsalpaava,’ I repeat as close to what she said as I can. I nod while I say it, acting as though I understand completely what she is getting at. She’s Finnish. Does she have children? I wonder. Grandchildren? Did they sleep in baby boxes, too? Did she decorate them or were they as plain as they were when they were given to mothers by the government?
‘I haven’t met many Finnish people in my life,’ I say.
‘I am surprised at that, there are many of us around. Even here, in Brighton.’
She’s not really giving me her full attention, she seems obsessed by the pendant. It isn’t that perfect. I love it, but I can see all its flaws, all the ways I would have made it differently now I am more experienced at what I do. Back then I was trying too hard to make things perfect and didn’t always manage it. In 2015, having done this for years, I still aim for perfection, but I don’t panic because anything that goes wrong, I know I can usually fix. Or at least make it look like the problem was intentional.
‘Do you like butterflies?’ I ask her.
‘It is not that,’ Mrs Lehtinen replies. ‘I am always fascinated by them because I remember a long time ago I knew of a baby who had a perhonen box.’ She traces her fingers over the wing curves of my butterfly pendant.
‘A what?’ I ask, scared to repeat the word in case it comes out wrong and I end up swearing at her.
‘A butterfly box,’ she says. ‘A box covered in perhonen. In Finland, when a baby is born, the government gives the mother a box full of everything they need – clothes and nappies and the like. And the box has a mattress too so the baby can sleep in it.’
I know this. The tingling that has taken over my body tells me that I know this. The sudden shortness of my breath tells me that I know this. I nod at her.
‘I told the young girl of the family I used to live next door to about it when she was expecting. Many years ago. I told her and she made one. She decorated it with perhonen. Beautiful butterflies. She used such henkeäsalpaava colours. She had a baby girl.’
When I was eight Dad took me on a rollercoaster for the first time. We were on our annual trip to Blackpool and I was giddy with the excitement of finally doing something grown-up and adventurous with my dad. We sat next to each other and he held my hand. Right at the top of the rollercoaster, just before the car began its descent, I felt weightless; as light as air, as though I weighed nothing. As if I was nothing. I was suspended above the Earth and in those seconds I felt like I was flying. I was a butterfly, as light as anything.
I feel like that now. I am suspended above the Earth, weightless, light as air.
‘Does she still have the butterfly box, the little girl?’ My voice is working even though I am as light as air, as weightless as a butterfly.
‘I do not know. The baby … They … She went to live somewhere else. They said they sent her back to their country in Africa to grow up with family because the girl was too young to look after her properly. But I do not think that was the case. The girl’s guardian, she was my friend and she was so proud. She did not like scandal. We were never to speak of what happened, nor the baby. I suspect …’ Mrs Lehtinen stops turning my pendant over in her hand and places it carefully on the table beside her open jewellery box. ‘But what do I know? I am just a silly old woman.’
She is just a silly old woman and I am still as light as air. My body tingles and my lungs do not work properly, but I am as light as air.
‘You’re not a silly old woman,’ I say. Ask her. Ask her what happened to the girl who had the baby. Where she is now. Ask her.
Mrs Lehtinen’s eyes are suddenly, surprisingly, on me. She is as far away from a silly old woman as it is possible to get. ‘The girl, Abi, the one you look like, she is also the daughter of the woman who made the butterfly box. She had a box, too.’
I stare at her. Does she know? Has she guessed who I am? Who I might be? I do this, though. I’m constantly looking at people and wondering if we’re related, if they could be a half-sibling or a parent. I’ve never had a relative who looks like me, who acts like me, who’s interested in the same things as me. I’m always searching. This is probably an extension of that: I have come across a coincidence and I am using it as a passive way to search for more information on who I am and where I have come from. I didn’t go looking for this, it came to me.
Of course it’s a coincidence, that’s what most things are in life. We believe in Fate, we believe in kismet, we believe in predetermined happenings, when really, it’s all down to coincidence. There must be hundreds of children out there who slept in butterfly boxes when they were born. Hundreds, if not thousands. I mean, what are the chances of me actually sitting down opposite the neighbour of the woman who gave birth to me? Slim to none, I’d say. And what are the chances of the other child of the woman who gave birth to me working here, too? Not even slim, just nonexistent. I am seeing things that are not there.
‘OK, Mrs Lehtinen, are there any pieces of jewellery that you’d like to wear again and I can help you with?’ I am back. I know this is all nonsense, my brain searching for familiarity – family – in the world of strangers I have grown up in, when I know who my family are. Here I am, back on solid ground. I am no longer floating, hovering above reality. I am back to doing what I am here to do.
My hand reaches for my butterfly pendant. It is trembling. Stop shaking, I tell my hand. Stop shaking, you’re showing me up. Mrs Lehtinen is watching me but my hand won’t stop shaking. I enclose my butterfly pendant in my hand, hide the tremors. I hook the thick chain over my neck and flip open my toolbox, take out my camera. Mrs Lehtinen stares at my yellow and black tool box – years ago I decorated it with butterfly stickers.
That was at the time when I was particularly obsessed with butterflies. Back then, I would have the same recurring dream that I was in a park full of butterflies. I would be surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of them, all different, all beautiful, but I wouldn’t notice any of the creatures around me because I was frantically, desperately searching for my baby. I had lost my baby in that park and I needed to get him back. It was obvious what that was about. I use my foot to slide my butterfly-covered toolbox under the table, out of Mrs Lehtinen’s line of sight.
‘Shall I photograph some pieces and photograph you and then go away to think of some ideas?’ I say.
‘Why don’t you go and talk to Abi? She is down the corridor in the office. She is the deputy manager. She is a lovely girl. Always so helpful to everyone, but especially to me because I know her grandmother. I’m sure she’ll tell you all you need to know about the baby boxes.’
‘I’m more interested in your jewellery and how I can make it work for you, to be honest,’ I say to the woman in front of me. ‘And I have other people to see as well. There are two more after you. So I … erm … don’t really have time to do that.’
‘You will come back to see me?’ she asks.
‘Erm … yes, if you want me to. But do you think you will want any of your jewellery remade?’
‘I’m sure I will. Take your photographs, and come back to see me with your ideas.’
I’m shaking too much to lay out the jewellery properly. I take a few of the pieces out, but mostly I photograph them in situ in the box. With my hand still tremoring, I snap her picture, the flash causing me to jump a little each time I take a shot.
I know it’s a coincidence because that’s what happens to people like me.
‘Dad, why don’t I look like you and Mum?’
‘Ah, Clemmy, that’s a good question.’ Dad’s large hands picked me up and sat me on his lap. From the glass-fronted sideboard beside his chair, he plucked the picture of us from when we went to Blackpool for the day. Dad had to ask somebody he didn’t even know to take a picture of us all. ‘The thing of it is, everybody is different. We all look different in our own ways. See, here, your mum and I, we look different. She’s got blonde hair – it mostly came out of a bottle but I didn’t tell you that – and I’ve got dark hair. And you’ve got black hair. We’re none of us the same.’
‘But why is my skin different to yours? You and Mum have the same skin.’
‘We don’t, actually, Clemmy, but I know what you mean.’ Dad stopped talking and stared at the photo for a long time. I was scared he would do what Mum did and look like he was going to cry. ‘The thing of it is, Clemmy, I was meant to tell you this with your mum here. She’ll be raging at me for not waiting for her, but I’ll tell you anyway. You know how a baby grows in their mum’s tummy?’ I knew that. I was four but I knew that. I still didn’t know how the baby got out of the mum’s tummy and into the baby pram, but I thought I would ask Dad that another time. ‘You didn’t grow in your mum’s tummy.’
I was frightened suddenly: why didn’t I grow in Mum’s tummy like everyone else? ‘Why not, Dad?’
‘Mum can’t grow babies in her tummy, nobody knows why. You grew in another lady’s tummy but she couldn’t look after you. And the lady who was a social worker said that we could look after you if we wanted, and we could be your mum and dad. We really wanted to. When we first saw you in that butterfly box we knew that we really wanted to be your mum and dad.
‘You have the same skin as the lady whose tummy you grew in, but we have the same smile, me and you, and you laugh at the same things your mum does. And we all like to throw stones in the sea. We don’t look the same but no one does, not really. We have more things that make us the same than things that make us different.’ His finger, which was big and fat like a sausage, pointed to the picture again. ‘You see how we’ve all got the same type of ears? Round, not pointy. And my curly hair is a little bit like yours. Your mother’s would be curly a bit like yours if she didn’t put those damn rollers in every night. And here, look at our hands: square at the end of our fingers. We’re the same and we’re different. And being different is just as good as being the same.’
I didn’t understand why the mum who grew me in her tummy couldn’t look after me, and I didn’t understand what he meant about there were more things the same than different. But I did understand that he couldn’t say we had the same nose because we didn’t. And not the same mouth. And not the same eyes. And definitely, definitely not the same skin colour. His was peach, mine was brown. Dad thought that was good. It made Mum nearly cry, but Dad thought it was good. I didn’t understand why they didn’t both think it was good or they didn’t both want to cry. Maybe that was another different thing that was good.
I gave Dad a hug. I thought he needed one.