Combinations

Combinations

A LOCKED brIEFCASE

is far too delicious a proposition for me to let it pass me by. I’ve tried all the obvious number combinations I can think of, but nothing.

I give it a shake. Something rattles within.

And something rattles without as Marjie clatters through the bead curtains from the back room. ‘Do you want this?’ She hands me a stack of paper, held together with a treasury tag. The title page says ‘All the Ghosts of Newquay – First Draft, September 1987’.

‘Do I

want this?’

‘Yes, you know, for your collection.’

I must make a face of terror because Marjie laughs.

‘Eddie,’ Marjie says, putting her hand on my hand, ‘I know you take things from the shop.’

‘What? You do?’

‘Of course.’ She laughs. ‘Nobody’s jackets are that

crunchy.’

‘Oh. Crikey. I can explain.’

‘It’s okay, Eddie. I trust you.’

‘You do?’

‘Of course. I don’t doubt that what you’re taking has no monetary value.’

‘It doesn’t, I promise.’

‘It’s okay,’ Marjie says, as though I’m being silly and she wants me to calm down.

‘Are you sure?’

‘I’ve always believed,’ Marjie says, ‘that as you know what it feels like to search for an item lost to charity, whatever you’re doing is probably very kind.’

She passes the crinkly stack of paper towards me. It looks like a first draft of a novel, typed by hand on a typewriter, and I remember what it felt like to hand my publisher the manuscript for my book. These pages are littered with hope.

When I finally get the briefcase open, it is filled with hundreds of tiny paper cranes.