A Brush with Death: A Penny Brannigan Mystery - By Elizabeth J. Duncan Page 0,29

in her native Nova Scotia, the ivy on the tea shop did turn a lustrous scarlet and put on a brave show. She thought about Canada from time to time but did not long for it. This had been her home for many years, and in her heart she would always belong here, not there.

As she turned into the little lane that led to her cottage, her thoughts turned again to Alys. What was she like, she wondered. What did her accent sound like? Did she have a favourite fragrance?

She walked through the small front garden to her front door. She had arranged for a neighbourhood boy to start work on the garden after school, and just as Gareth had promised, with the weeds gone and order restored it was looking much better. The pale pink, late-summer roses nodded gently to her as she brushed by them, and she smiled as she put her key in the door.

As she pushed the door open and entered the living room, she sensed the change that had come over the house in the short weeks that she had been there. Gone was the sense of unloved abandonment and loneliness; the house was filling up again with contentment and energy and was slowly starting to take on the personality of its new owner.

Suddenly, Penny was impatient to lay its ghosts to rest. I must find out what happened so I can put this behind me and get on with my life, she thought. She glanced at her watch. The library would be open for another hour. She closed the door again and hurried out.

Seated at the computer, she typed in “Liverpool artists 1960s.” There were masses of material on the Merseyside music scene, a little about the poetry scene, but not much about artists. On a different search, there were lots of Alys Joneses but not her Alys Jones. Twenty-five very fast minutes later the banner warning her that her time was almost up crawled along the bottom of the screen. She closed her notebook and stood up.

On the way out, she thanked the librarian and made a mental note that getting her own computer had now risen to the top of her priorities list. She had even heard somewhere that you didn’t need to get the Internet cable installed in your home now; you could get a little thing that plugged into your computer and the Internet was instantly available to you. Laptop, she thought. I’ll get a laptop and I’ll get it right away. I’ll ask Bethan what kind to get. She’s young and smart—she’ll know about things like that. Oh, God, do I feel old and out of it.

But still, she told herself, if she couldn’t find what she wanted on the Internet, there was an old-fashioned, low-tech way, and she knew exactly where she had to go to do it.

“Well, Penny,” said Mrs. Lloyd the next day at her regular Thursday afternoon manciure, “I hear Eirlys is going to be working here. About time, too! You know I’ve been telling you for years that you need someone young about the place to liven us all up. Someone on the BBC was saying just this morning that mentorship is the way to go. It helps us view the world through younger eyes and keeps us in touch with what young people are up to.

“Now, in my day,” she went on, “things moved much more slowly. But the pace of change these days! You simply can’t keep up with it. As you know, I got my mobile phone a few months ago and I do use it for making calls, but apparently I could use it to take photos, send text messages, and all kinds of other things. Send text messages! I ask you—who on earth would I send a text message to?”

Penny nodded as Mrs. Lloyd rambled on. Once she was up and running, there was no stopping her. Penny’s thoughts drifted away.

“. . . and then,” Mrs. Lloyd was continuing, “I’ll be going to Llandudno for my usual tea at Badgers. But my friend Bunny from the post office days, the one who came to lunch last week—you’ll remember I told you about her—she was suggesting that we might go to the theatre in Manchester and stop overnight at her daughter’s home. So I think we’ll do that. And no doubt she’ll want to come in for a manicure, too, before we go. There! Now I’ve brought you another customer.