There it was, in the parish newsletter, under Furniture for Sale: “20 inch cream-colour bathroom cabinet, rose-shape handles.” With any luck, a replica of the one Charlene had broken last week. She had searched online, flagged up a couple of possibilities, but nothing to match the rest of her bathroom suite.
It was only £40. Charlene called the number: a Margaret Pierce with a croaky voice and a hint of deafness. Charlene drove to the address: an old, rather scruffy ground-floor division with a broken front step and a small garden gone to seed. Charlene looked at the cabinet, and her face fell: it was incomplete. It must have been attached to a corner wall, for one side was missing. Maybe if she pulled the side-piece off her broken cabinet…
“Oh, is it meant to be an all-round cupboard,” said Margaret Pierce. “No dear, I didn’t know. Twenty pounds for you because it’s not complete. I’d give it you free but I need to make what I can off the old stuff before the winter, I only heat one room but the electric costs an arm and a leg these days…”
“No!” said Charlene quickly. “It’ll be fine. I’m sure I can make it fit, it’s lovely. These rose handles! They’re just what I nee — what I was looking for. It’s — it’s actually a pretty good piece, I’ll give you sixty, seriously, I don’t want to feel like I’m robbing you.”
“Oh, are you sure that’s —”
“Absolutely!” said Charlene, pulling out her wallet. “Here’s sixty-five. And do let me know if you have any other little pieces you’re looking to sell off. Thank you so much!”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Margaret Pierce, looking vaguely around, and Charlene tried not to seem aware of how uncomfortable the room looked. Not bare, but under-furnished; sparse. A worn sofa and a single chair at the broken-leaved table. An old TV perched on a peeling kitchen stool. “Well, I always wondered about my old teapot, worth a couple of quid maybe.”
Charlene hardly glanced at the teapot, but agreed on a price of £200. She went out to find a cashpoint, returned with the money and tried to slip in an extra twenty, but Margaret Pierce caught her.
“No, no, that’s not right,” said Margaret Pierce. “That’s eight twenties and six tens, look. You need to count your money more carefully, young lady, or you’ll find yourself short in later life, you will. Here, that’s better.”
***
It was in the parish newsletter, under Obituaries: “Margaret Pierce, aged 83, suddenly at her home after a short illness. Funeral 27th November at 11am, Dordley Parish Church.”
Charlene decided to go to the funeral. She wanted to listen to Margaret Pierce’s eulogy — to hear just a little of her life story. The small, badly-furnished room had stayed with Charlene, diluting the pleasure of repairing her bathroom décor.
Young Margaret had been a singer. Had sung on the radio. Had never married, but had always been extremely fond of her niece and her niece’s husband. Always ready and welcoming with her blue-and-white teapot and home-made scones. Something of a family treasure, that teapot. Blue and white. No-one knew where it was now, lost, broken, maybe stolen, but the bereaved would be very, very happy if any fellow mourners knew of its whereabouts, for it held great sentimental value to the family. Charlene began to feel that the eulogy was more about the teapot than the teapot’s owner—who had refused to sell it to her niece, but had offered it to a stranger.
“And what was your connection to our Dear Departed?” asked the niece’s husband after the service.
“Oh,” said Charlene. “No, I didn’t know her well. But she — she seemed a lovely person, so kind and gentle.”
The niece’s husband’s eyebrows lifted. “Well. I’d imagined you were very close. The way you were crying through the hymns.”
“Oh sorry!” said Charlene. “I mean — yes, um, funerals do that to you, you know —”
“Did you often visit at her home?”
“Uh,” said Charlene, backing away as politely as she could. “Um, no. So sorry; I would have liked to know her better.”
“Well, let us know if anything comes to mind,” said the niece’s husband. “Regarding her estate, I mean. According to the church secretary, our Dear Departed was in the habit of selling what she thought was old furniture, and she didn’t always know the true value of things.”
***
There was an advert in the parish newsletter for a local antiques and house clearances dealer who would give free valuations, but Charlene decided to go farther afield. On her next trip to Hurdlington, she carried a small suitcase containing the blue and white teapot, swathed in bubble-wrap and padded with newspapers. On her phone she carried the postcodes of two or three well-reputed antiques experts.
Charlene felt strangely shy. She knew nothing about antique china. She’d been pretending all along. She’d paid £200 for a piece of old crockery she’d intended to throw out; she had only held on to it from a sentimental sense of connection with Margaret Pierce.
“I’ve got this piece,” she said, taking it out. “It’s, I don’t know, it might be rubbish of course, I just had this feeling…”
The woman picked up the teapot, turned it over, and gave Charlene a sharp look.
“You need to get this thing insured,” she said.
“It’s valuable?”
“I can’t give you an exact figure, but it’ll be upwards of twenty thousand, probably quite a lot upwards. Are you looking to sell? I can contact my colleague in London…”
Charlene heard the woman talking on the phone, talking fast, too fast for Charlene to follow. Originals and centuries and trade routes and thousands and thousands of pounds. Charlene fidgeted, trying to take deep breaths. She had done a kind deed. Or she had cheated an old lady. Or both. Was she laughing or crying? She didn’t know.
Fiona M Jones writes very short things. Her stories and literary essays are published everywhere except Antarctica.
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