I blew out a breath so strong that my cheeks puffed out and my hair, despite being fortified by about half a can of Elnett, was forced to quiver.

  What a morning I’d had, and it was only nine o’clock. After a sleepless night of tossing, turning and replaying every second of yesterday, I’d got up at the crack of dawn, as soon as it was light. The sick feeling in my stomach was still there, right beside the knot of absolute devastation that I’d lost the most important possessions in my life. I’d let them down. Don. Dee. Josie. I’d been careless with their memories and I couldn’t look myself in the mirror.

  The first thing I’d done was empty out all my bins, just in case, by some powers of osmosis, my rings had somehow found their way in there. It was mad, I knew. I had a vivid recollection of exactly what I’d done with them, and yet, I was doubting myself. But then, I’d been so tired, stressed and overwrought yesterday. What if it was one of those situations like I’d had when I was pregnant, or just after the babies were born, or in the grips of the bastard menopause, when I’d find my tights in the freezer and my fish fingers in the washing machine?

  After putting everything back in the bins, and disinfecting my arms from the tips of my fingers to my elbows, I’d gone out of the front door, and with the slow, steady focus of a police search team on a murder enquiry on every episode of Taggart, I’d once again scoured the path, the front garden, the walkway down the front of our terraced row of houses to the car park. Nothing. I’d continued round all the cars and Willie from number 16’s camper van, where he went at night to hide his secret smoking habit from his wife. Still nothing.

  On the way back, my gaze had fallen on the bloody Neighbourhood Watch sign and I’d been tempted to punch it. If I hadn’t seen that yesterday, then I wouldn’t have been gripped by the fear of having my rings burgled while I was away, I wouldn’t have gone back in for them and they wouldn’t be lost. I’d had to take several deep breaths to compose myself, at which point Nish from next door had dangled out of her window.

  ‘Val, love, are you okay? Are you having one of those panic attacks? Someone was talking about them on Loose Women the other day.’

  I’d shaken my head, tried to smile. ‘No, I’m fine. Just a bit out of puff.’

  ‘Ah okay. Did you find your rings? Amir told me about what happened. He was out there with his metal detector yesterday looking for them on your lawn.’

  ‘He’s a gem,’ I’d said, meaning it. ‘Would you thank him for me? I haven’t found them yet, but I’m not giving up. I’ll let you know what happens and thanks again.’

  Nish had disappeared back inside the window and I’d come back through my front door. When I’d got to the kitchen, Carly and Carol were out of their beds and they’d both been sitting at the table, drinking coffee out of my oversized mugs, staring at me like I was deranged.

  ‘Aunt Val, were you just having a conversation with Uncle Don?’ Carly had asked warily.

  I was confused. ‘What are you talking about? Why would you think that?’

  Carol had taken over. ‘We looked out of the window and you were shouting at the sky.’

  Despite everything that had happened, despite the heartbreak, the tears and the devastating loss, I’d found that hilarious. ‘I was talking to Nish next door. She was hanging out of her bedroom window.’

  ‘Oh thank God for that. We thought you’d lost it,’ Carol had blurted.

  Next jobs on the list had been to call the taxi office again. This time, we’d got someone different, who’d informed us that, no, nothing had been handed in, no, they still hadn’t managed to speak to the driver, and no, Sandra didn’t work weekends so she couldn’t be contacted either. I’d said I would call back tomorrow and hung up.

  Carly had checked the Lost Property websites for both Glasgow Airport and Heathrow. Nothing.

  ‘Have you called the police yet? Maybe something has been handed in there?’ Carol had suggested and I could have kicked myself for not doing that last night.

  I’d phoned the local police office, based in the next village, and reported the loss, gave descriptions and asked them to keep an eye out. The very nice female officer on duty had obliged and I’d heard her tapping away on a keyboard, before she came back and said that nothing matching that description had been handed in.

  So here we now were, all sitting at our kitchen table again, preparing to participate in the idea that Carly had come up with yesterday. I still thought of it as ‘our’ table. Mine and Don’s. I knew I always would.

  ‘Tell me again what it’s called – an Instant Live?’ I wittered, trying to fix my hair again and straightening my good pink blouse, worn specially for the occasion.

  ‘An Instagram Live,’ Carol corrected.

  The girls – yes, in my mind, I still called them ‘the girls’ even though they were in their fifties – had made a go of explaining it all to me last night so I had a grasp of it now. Carol’s job promoting things on social media apparently had quite the following – 5.5 million to be exact.

  ‘What?’ I’d gasped when I’d heard that. ‘Five and a half million people follow you on the socials now?’

  ‘That’s just Instagram,’ Carol had nodded. ‘I’ve stopped using Twitter and Facebook because I didn’t feel they had the same impact.’

  I was aware of the overall principles of social media and my niece’s job. We’d all gone to New York a few years ago – me, Carol, Carly, their pal, Jess, and Carol’s daughter, Toni – and Carol had been taking pictures the whole time and clicking away on her phone like a demon uploading them. She’d explained that advertisers paid her to promote their brands, and I got that – it was not much different from the modelling that Carol had done since she was a teenager, but she’d explained how it was changed days now that women still got smashing modelling jobs well into their fifties and beyond. Just last year, she’d even been on This Morning twice – modelling handbags the first time and wedding hats the second. I’d beamed all day and told everyone I met. Carol had said a shoot the next day for Valentino had been more impressive, but I was sticking to my opinion that morning telly had to be the high point of the week.

  The whole social media thing though?

  I was very well aware that many women my age were completely savvy in these technologically advanced times, but I just had zero interest. I preferred to have my conversations with my pals in person over a cuppa and a Tunnock’s caramel log. This Instagram Live thing was just like that, they’d explained to me – only Carol’s followers could tune in and watch us. I’d never wanted gaffer tape more.

  ‘Okay, are you ready?’ Carol asked me, flicking her long, poker-straight blonde hair off her perfect face, with its high cheekbones and those huge eyes.

  I wasn’t. Stomach churning. Hands shaking. Chest tight. Terrified. But if it helped… ‘I’m ready,’ I whispered.

  Over at the other side of the table, Carly added some advice. ‘Okay, remember, just act like you’re speaking to Carol. If you need me, I’m over here, but I’m staying out of shot because my hair looks like a fight between two sheepdogs.’

  ‘Right, one, two, three…’ Carol said, then immediately started speaking into the camera on her mobile phone, which was balanced on some kind of hook in the middle of a big round white light on the table in front of us. ‘Hi, gang, how are we all doing this morning? Thank you so much for tuning in. I’ve been flagging up this “live” all morning because it’s one that’s really personal to me, to my family and to one of my favourite people in the world – my Aunt Val.’

  She did a zoomie-out thing on the phone, and suddenly I could see myself on the screen. I aimed for a smile, but it probably came out somewhere between ‘in pain’ and ‘serial killer’. Five and a half million people. Okay, so they wouldn’t all be watching this, but Carol had said something about loading it up to her story so that anyone looking at her page all day could see it. My knees began to shake and this time I did have a conversation with Don. Help me out here, love. Help me do this.

  ‘So, the reason for coming on this morning is because Val has lost something extremely precious, and we want to put it out there in case someone, somewhere, comes across it. It’s a little black pouch like this…’ Carol held up a picture of an identical little velvet bag. ‘And in it are four rings that mean the world to her. They’re irreplaceable. We’ll tell you about them all throughout the day today, both here on this Insta Live and later, on Twisted Knickers, the podcast I do with my sexy sister-in-law, Carly Morton.’

  Off camera, Carly made a daft face, but I caught it out of the corner of my eye and it de-escalated my anxiety just enough to make my knees stop trembling.

  Carol went on to give all the details about the route I had taken and the places it could have been lost.

  ‘What we thought we’d do is tell you a little bit about each ring, so you’ll understand how important they are.’ She turned to me.

  ‘Aunt Val, which one do you want to talk about first?’

  She’d told me she was going to ask that, so I was prepared. I took a deep breath and sent up another SOS. Don, love, I need you… And then I began to speak.

  ‘I think maybe we start at the beginning. You know, I started dating Don when you and our Carly were just wee pals in school. Lord, we weren’t much more than kids ourselves. We’d been classmates from our very first year, but we didn’t start dating until we were teenagers. It was all very angelic then. Some kissing. A lot of cuddling. Mostly we were just best pals that were a special kind of happy when we were together…’

  I felt myself getting lost in the memory, and suddenly it was as if there were just the three of us there, and we were reminiscing about some of the happiest days of my life.

  ‘I don’t know that I remember a time when I didn’t think I’d marry him one day. It wasn’t a question of whether, just a question of when… It wasn’t just that he was the most handsome big bugger I’d ever seen…’ My hand flew to my mouth. ‘Sorry! Can I say bugger on the Instants?’

  Carol nodded, with a reassuring smile, and said softly, ‘You can. Go on.’

  ‘Okay. I just don’t want to get you into trouble. So, anyway, it wasn’t just that he was a handsome big b… bloke, but, oh my, his heart. He cared about people. He wasn’t soft on the outside – he’d stand up to anyone that was going after someone he loved – but that was because on the inside he had the most caring soul of anyone I’ve ever known. He was… what is it they say nowadays?’ I paused to think. ‘He was my person. That was it. Don Murray was my person. And I was his.’

  I heard a sniff and realised that Carly was wiping away tears with the wristband of her jumper. I really hoped I was doing this right. Carol had told me not just to talk about the ring, but to share a bit about why it mattered, because that way it would catch people’s hearts and perhaps they’d talk about it and spread the word.

  I took another deep breath and went on, ‘Sorry, I got a bit lost thinking about him there. Anyway, so after we left school, Don got a job with the council as an apprentice draughtsman and oh, we were so excited. A real job. And money at the end of it! On the first Friday that he got a pay packet, he burst through my door with a box of chocolates, all beaming and so happy. I was so proud of him, and thrilled to bits about the chocolates if I’m being honest. Turns out that wasn’t the only surprise. A song came on the radio that we loved – Gladys Knight and the Pips sang it and it was called “Midnight Train to Georgia”, when he pulled me up for a dance. We did that a lot in the kitchen. There were only three TV channels, so dancing in the kitchen was one of our favourite ways to pass the time. His big arms went around me and we were swaying, until he suddenly stopped, pulled out a little box from the pocket of his good work trousers. Next thing, he was down on one knee, the box was open and inside was the most beautiful ring I’d ever seen. Gold. With three little stones in a row. “They’re not real diamonds, Val, but I promise that one day, when I’ve made something of myself, I’ll get you a real one. Will you marry me and stick around for that?”’

  Now, sitting in my kitchen, it was my turn to wipe away tears, but unlike Carly, I used the back of my hand, because there was no way I was spoiling my good blouse. I thought I’d be embarrassed, with all those people watching, but, weirdly, I didn’t care. I just went on with the story…

  ‘“I’ll marry you and you never need to buy me another thing, Don Murray,” I told him. I meant it as well. Every word. All I cared about was that we would spend our lives together. But turned out he never forgot his promise. It took decades for us to have two extra pennies to rub together, but when we did, well, turns out Don had been saving those pennies for a long time. On our thirtieth wedding anniversary, he bought me a new ring with real diamonds this time…’ I rubbed at that ring, on my wedding finger now, where it had been since the day he gave it to me. ‘It’s gorgeous, but if I’m being honest, the original one means so much more and I’d have been happy with that one forever. It was the one that was on my finger for over thirty years, and it was the one that represented us loving each other when we had nothing, and for every year afterwards, until…’ I choked and Carly forgot about avoiding the camera and flew over to take my hand and held it tight until I could speak again. ‘Until he died just a few weeks ago. So you see, now he’s gone and I’ve lost the most special thing he ever gave me.’ I had to pause again for a moment, because the guilt was fighting with the grief inside me. How could I have lost it? How could I have been so bloody careless?

  ‘Can we see what it looks like, Aunt Val?’ Carol prodded gently and I was grateful that she brought me back to the present.

  ‘Of course, love.’ I held up a picture of that night, of Don and me when we were barely seventeen, joy splitting my face, holding my hand up to show off the ring my boyfriend had just given me.

  ‘Here it is. So if you, or someone you know, finds a ring that looks just like the one in this photo, then please let our Carol know. I can’t tell you how grateful I’d be to have that part of him back with me.’

  Carol took over again, finishing off with all the details, while I sent a silent message up to someone who definitely didn’t have Wi-Fi or access to social media.

  I’d just have to wait and see if my darling Don received it.

  14

  SOPHIE

  Sophie woke up to the sound of a trolley trundling along the corridor outside the room and the cheery woman who was pushing it greeting everyone with a sing-song, ‘Good morning!’

  She wondered if the lady was like that all day long, or if she left work and slumped into a trance to conserve her energy until it was time to come back in and be relentlessly chipper again the next morning.

  Sophie yawned, still tired after a night of broken sleep. She’d been sleeping so lightly that she’d instantly woken up when the lovely nurses had come around to check on her every couple of hours.

  Before she stretched, or pushed herself up, she did an internal check of her body parts. Okay, so everything was still there. She moved her legs and was relieved that there was no pain. She wiggled her fingers. All fine there too. Next came a gentle twist of her body, so that she was lying on her back. So far so good. And finally she pushed herself up and felt like the tea lady had just dropped the happy act and punched her in the face. Okay, so still some residual pain then. Her head hurt, mostly on the side where she must have banged it on the window, and her neck and shoulder were aching too. Pulling her hospital robe away from her body, she peered down under it and saw a massive blue black bruise mapping out the exact spot where her seat belt had been. It wasn’t pretty, but having the belt on had no doubt saved her from so much worse.

  There were two of them in the ward, and Jasmine, the woman in the other bed, was rousing herself up to a sitting position too. Last night wasn’t how Sophie had expected to spend her first night in Glasgow, but it wasn’t all bad. Jasmine had been brought in with a cyst on her ovaries, and they were scheduling her for surgery today. There had been something quite liberating for both of them, being able to chat to a complete stranger about what had happened to them.

  ‘How are you feeling this morning, Sophie?’ Jasmine murmured as she stretched gently, not putting her arms too far above her head. Understandable. Jasmine’s biggest worry last night had been that the cyst would burst, and it would become an emergency situation.

  ‘Sore head, sore shoulder, feel like I’ve been in a car crash, still can’t believe that happened to me, but happy I’m still in one piece.’ That just about summed it up.

  ‘Still planning on doing the Sleepless in Seattle thing today then?’ Jasmine teased and Sophie couldn’t help but laugh. Last night, she’d explained why she’d come to Glasgow, and even as she was saying it, she knew she sounded bonkers. And it wasn’t down to the concussion.

  Jasmine had put her hands up to stop her at one point. ‘I need to get this right, because I’m going to have to repeat this to all my mates and I don’t want to miss anything out. Two years ago, he proposed to you in the middle of George Square. And you said no.’

  ‘Correct,’ Sophie had confirmed, making her jaw ache because she couldn’t help but laugh at Jasmine’s incredulous reaction. Not that it had been a surprise. If it was the other way round, Sophie would have been thinking Jasmine was nuts too. ‘But not because I didn’t love him because I did, even though we’d only been together for a few months. But I needed to go home because my mum was sick.’

  ‘It’s just not fair. She was way too young to have cancer,’ Jasmine had said, and Sophie had seen a flicker of worry go across the other woman’s face. Earlier, when Sophie had told Jasmine about her mum’s cancer, she’d shared that she been told that the cyst on her ovaries was likely to be benign, but she was terrified that they were wrong. Sophie had tried to reassure her, and hoped that she’d made her feel a little better.