Carbon Copy

The photo I held in my hand provided answers to many of my questions. It also raised more questions for which I wasn’t sure I wanted answers.

It would never have happened if it hadn’t been raining. Rain always stopped play, and this Tuesday evening proved no exception to the rule. Plans for a quiet wine bar with friends, followed by a walk in the park, sharing gossip, whispers and laughter had all been put on hold by the not-so-friendly weather forecast for that summer evening. And so it had happened that, with the rain dripping down the windows like tears, I found myself in the spare room, faced with, what seemed to be, a mountain of boxes left to me after my mother had died, or passed on, whichever you preferred. Whatever... she was gone and I was left with the memories, packed into plastic boxes, hastily bought from the nearest cheap shop. A lifetime stuffed into ten boxes. Seemed sad to me. Birthday cards, postcards, letters, once loved items, locks of hair that must have belonged to someone but now unnamed, and photographs…..

The one I was holding had a name on the back…. Olivia. No date, no location. Just ….Olivia.

There were three of us in the family but I’d always felt like the odd one out. My older brother Patrick - the architect. Fresh out of university with a first class degree, he was snapped up by a large city company specializing in building those warehouses by the side of the motorway that nobody really likes to look at but which everyone tells you are so necessary in the new generation. ‘Online shopping is the way to go,’ they say.’ We need somewhere to store the goods you want.’ That’s the argument and to soften the blow of taking away our fields and hedgerows, they paint the warehouses shades of blue to match the sky if they are positive or shades of grey if they tend to the more realistic view of the British weather. Anyway, that’s Patrick. Now owning a spectacular view from the top floor of an expensive London apartment and living the life of a wealthy batchelor. Sorted. No room for the boxes there.

Then there’s Matilda or Tilly as she prefers. Married to her first ever boyfriend at the age of 16 and after a successful start as a manager of a delicatessen selling vegetarian produce is now supposedly even happier with three children under the age of five. At the nursery, at the supermarket or at the local park. Always busy, always fussing, always ready with a cup of tea to listen to me, though she’s never had the answers. No room for boxes there either. All rooms needed for growing children. So I got the boxes.

Me, the one in the middle. I’ve never really found my own way. You have to kiss a lot of toads to find your prince, they say, but I seem to need to try a lot of jobs, to find what I am really good at. You’re supposed to grow wiser with age, but I’m still searching for the right lane on the motorway of life and I don’t always learn from my mistakes. I could never stick at anything. When I was younger, I’d try out different clubs with great enthusiasm at first, but interest would wane as things got harder and more complicated. I’d lose the motivation to keep going. It was the same with friendships. I’d find someone I liked, spend hours with them but as soon as they got too close, I’d back off and leave them confused. I’d end up alone again.

I sometimes felt like the missing part of a huge jigsaw. – the jigsaw of life. Everything and everyone else fitted perfectly but I couldn’t find the hole I belonged in. Why was that? What was the piece missing from the jigsaw of my life?

The photo drew me back. Everything about it looked familiar and yet it was unfamiliar. Where was it taken? I began to look closely. A small child was standing, smiling at the camera with a black and white collie dog sitting patiently at her heels. I fancied its name was Bobby. The sun was shining and from the picture, you could almost smell the hay in the barns behind the golden haired child and hear the bees in the meadows beyond. A stone wall ran along the left side of the picture.

As I studied each item of the background, memories came back to me. A holiday, a long time ago. A farm. It was hot. Was I there on that day with Olivia? If I closed my eyes, I could almost imagine myself sitting on the wall, out of sight of the camera lens, holding the ball so the dog would stay put for the photographer. Or was that just a product of an over stimulated imagination?

Turning to the child, I made my way up from the feet. Maybe I did not want to start at the face, subconsciously already aware of what I would find. I saw a pair of white leather sandals – the sort that had a cut out pattern on the top and a crossbar with a buckle. The kind all little girls had started off with before Velcro came along. I’d had a pair myself when I was younger until I had begged my mother to let me have something a little more grown-up. Moving upwards, Olivia wore a simple white dress with a small rosebud pattern. I recognized it immediately. At the end of my bed lay a quilt, an 18th birthday present from my grandmother. A few of the squares were made up of the same rosebud material I was looking at now. What part did Olivia’s dress play in my checkered history?

Finally, I looked intently at the face and saw…..my own….. and yet not my own. The face was rounder and the hair not so curly, yet the similarities outweighed the differences if the judge was going to pronounce the verdict. Both of us had over large ears and a nose that tilted upwards with cheeky dimples which only appeared with the widest of smiles. Olivia had all of these. So did I.

Everything fitted together in an instant. The reason I had felt alone for most of my life. The reason I could not find my place. Olivia should have been a part of it. Where once she obviously had been so closely entwined as to be inseparable, something had torn her away from me. The pieces of my jigsaw had been dropped and her piece was never going to be part of my puzzle again.

Nobody had spoken of Olivia and I had no recollection of a time with her, only the time without her. The photograph was the key to a door that needed to be opened. What had happened to Olivia? Why had nobody told me? Maybe I had been there that day, just out of reach. Was this the only picture of Olivia?

As the night drew in and the rain continued to hammer outside, I pulled the box closer to see hundreds more photos. Somewhere in the midst of them all, I might find more answers. I put Olivia down next to me and started the search.