sweating in a tangle of sheets, sharing random snippets of their lives back home. Marcus described his hikes into Western Australia’s Kimberley Ranges, where the red dust settled into every crevice of your body and backpack, and the best vantage point from which to take in the New Year’s Eve fireworks on Sydney Harbour. Kate told him of her autumn walks through Boston and her love of Essie’s Louisburg house, creaky with history—how one of her favourite places in the world was Essie’s sunny buttercup yellow kitchen with matching curtains, always filled with baking smells.
Inevitably, as always, their talk turned to the Cheapside story.
‘That first day, you had a drawing of a button that matched the ones in the Cheapside cache. What’s the connection?’
‘I’m not sure.’ Kate tried to match Marcus’s carefree tone. ‘I found it with my great-grandmother’s papers. She was originally from London. And it turns out my cousin Bella wears the same button on a chain around her neck. The one in the sketch has jewels, though, and Bella’s doesn’t.’
‘Now that’s a story. Are you going to include it?’
‘Not until I have evidence. My great-grandmother didn’t speak much about her childhood. Her family were poor Irish immigrants. I asked her once when I was eighteen …’ Kate shrugged. ‘I asked her why she never went back to London but she wouldn’t tell me. I still have no idea …’ She now understood that Essie had probably kept her complex feelings—particularly hurt, loss and disappointment—bundled up and tucked deep inside her heart. She pushed the image of the envelope with the silver fern lying on her desk at home from her mind.
‘Mostly Essie just talked about everyday stuff—fish on Fridays, collecting coal pieces from train tracks, the suffragette protests. Kids playing football down cobbled lanes.’
‘She sounds like a storyteller. Must run in the family.’
‘Maybe. I prefer to stick to jewellery. More tangible.’
‘So what are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know …’ She half pulled a pillow over her head in frustration. ‘I mean, what if Essie—or someone close to her—stole the jewels? How else would a poor family come by Bella’s button?’
If her great-grandmother was a thief, Kate wasn’t sure if she could write about it. Should she? Her great-grandmother had created a great legacy in Boston, championed many worthy causes. Why ruin Essie’s reputation?
Kate winced. ‘I’m not sure that’s a story I want to tell.’
Marcus pulled the pillow from between them as he leaned on one elbow. ‘Well, you don’t have to decide now. There’re so many grey areas.’
‘Marcus, I’m preparing a report for a collector demanding that a ring be repatriated to the Dutch Jewish family it belonged to before they fled the Nazis in 1940. If I don’t ’fess up, that would make a me a total hypocrite as a historian. Bella’s button belongs with the others at the museum.’
‘Not … exactly.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, for starters, none of the jewellery in the collection was owned by the Museum of London. The museum didn’t even exist in the 1600s.’
‘Sure, but—’
‘So who buried the collection? I mean we don’t know who owned the jewels, right? Also, how did your relatives stumble across these pieces hundreds of years later?’
‘Essie had an older brother, Freddie. He was a navvy—a builder’s labourer—who died on a worksite near Cheapside. It’s possible he saw the jewels when they were recovered in 1912 … or found some.’ Kate couldn’t quite bring herself to say, or stole some. But from the expression on Marcus’s face, he understood.
Kate continued, ‘Essie used to tell us a fairytale of a big box of treasure being pulled out of the ground—pouches of pearls, handfuls of gold chains and rings for every finger and toe. It was guarded by a man with eyes the colour of emeralds. He cast a spell on her.’
‘What kind of spell?’
‘She didn’t say.’
‘Sounds like a typical Irish fairytale to me.’
‘This was different.’
‘She transferred it to her life in London. So, was this mystery man a leprechaun? Leprechauns are known for making mischief. Did she capture him?’
Kate eyed him and gently pushed his shoulder. ‘I’m serious!’
Marcus brushed a piece of hair from her face and said, ‘Kate, folktales are made up. But at their heart they’re stories about the messy business of being human. Rage, jealousy … lust.’ He ran a finger across her stomach.
Kate and Marcus stared at each other and the only sound came from the blades of the fan beating overhead. All those years behind the lens had taught him where to focus.
‘Now about