Page 52 of The Tapes

FRIDAY

I don’t think human beings have enough hands.

Opposable thumbs and the central nervous system is clearly right up there when it comes to usefulness – but I honestly think the next step has to be a third hand.

The main argument in favour is that getting a weekly big shop from the car into the house should be easier than it currently is.

I don’t think anyone can dispute that Tesco stores are too big nowadays.

As I hobble the few steps along the driveway, I have a bag hooked over each shoulder, two more cutting into one hand – and then a final bag in the other. That leaves me a grand total of zero hands with which to go fishing into my actual bag for the key to get myself inside.

I end up putting all the shopping bags on the ground in order to find the aforementioned key, by which time three apples are making a break for the road.

After I’ve rescued them, unlocked and opened the front door, and then retrieved the shopping, I’m beginning to think that a fourth hand might actually be necessary – because then I’d be able to pick up the mail that’s scattered across the welcome mat, before tapping in the code to the manically beeping burglar alarm.

I dump the shopping in the kitchen, then return to close the front door. After that, I tap the code into the burglar alarm, which makes the brain-frying beeping finally knock it on the head.

In the blissful relative silence, it doesn’t take long to skim through the four letters on the welcome mat.

When I was young, any form of letter addressed to me would bring a thrill that would likely be the highlight of my week.

My grandma, who lived on the other side of town, and who I saw most days, once mailed me a sixth birthday card.

I thought it was the most wondrous thing.

I kept the envelope and everything inside for a good dozen years until I had a clear-out.

Now, more or less anything that comes through the door is destined for the recycling box with only a cursory look.

Today’s mail consists of:

a) A letter from Barclays that mentions something about my overdraft rate going up.

b) A pamphlet from the Liberal Democrat party about an upcoming local election that may as well have ‘feed me to the shredder’ written all over it.

c) Something for my ex-boyfriend, which means I will have to text him again.

d) A plain envelope with no stamp and my name written on the front. ‘HOPE TAYLOR’ stands out in black biro on the white background. It’s been written in very neat block capital letters, almost as if it’s come from a printer. It’s thin and feels empty.

I carry everything through to the kitchen and then edge around the floor-dumped shopping bags as I slip a fingernail underneath the envelope’s flap and scratch it open.

At first, I really do think the envelope is bare. There’s nothing immediately visible inside and it’s only when I go digging to the bottom that I find the browning scrap of slightly crusty newspaper.

As soon as I pull it out, there’s a gentle edge of musty-dustiness in the air. Like the back corners of a library where nobody goes.

The newspaper clipping has been sliced neatly along the middle of an advert for Whiskas cat food. There is a stack of small tins plus a cat sitting at the side with its head very tidily chopped off.

Except that isn’t what the clipping is of.

When I flip it over, I realise it’s a short news story.

POLICE are appealing for witnesses after a six-month-old baby was stolen from the back seat of a car in Lower Woolton yesterday.

Penny Craven left her daughter, Jane, in the back of her brown Vauxhall Cavalier, which was parked on Marston Close, near to the junction with Vicarage Hill.

She was in Marston Newsagents for approximately three minutes before returning to find that Jane was no longer in the car.

The article cuts off at a point where it feels like there was likely more to come. From the date at the top, it is thirty-four years old.

There’s a picture of the baby, although I’m not sure how much use it might have been to anyone at the time.

The dotted image is slightly fuzzy, with the monochrome bleeding into the background.

To my untrained eye, the child looks like any other of a similar age.

Jane has almost no hair, a slightly pudgy face and a squat nose.

She’s sort of smiling, although it’s more that confused face that kids do as they’re trying to figure out how their mouths work.

I read the story through a second time and then check inside the envelope again, wondering if I’ve missed something.

It’s empty.

I look at the front of the envelope, then the back, except the only details are my own name. There’s no return address, or anything to indicate who might have put it through the door.

I’ve never heard of Penny Craven, Jane Craven, or Lower Woolton. It all feels as if this has been delivered to the wrong person. Perhaps a different Hope Taylor, who’d know what any of this meant?

I put the article and the envelope down on the side and then send a reluctant text to Aki, telling him there’s more mail for him if he wants to pick it up. After that, I put away the shopping, before returning to the article.

The third read offers no more clues than I had before. The snip along the bottom of the article isn’t quite straight and there’s a hint of a fourth paragraph that isn’t there.

I put it down and then pick it up. Something about it feels familiar and yet it doesn’t. The photo of the missing baby is grainy and greying. A reminder of how fast things have moved in my lifetime. Newspapers have gone from an inky black and white to colour to an anachronism.

The baby photo is the sort of posed picture that could have been taken in the old days by a professional at a shopping centre. Perhaps they still are? Jane has puffed-out cheeks and wide eyes. The poor thing is probably scared of the giant figure in front of her with a huge camera.

And then I see it.

I find myself touching my ear. The curved bit along the top is called the helix except, for me, there is no arch. It is a straight slice, almost as if someone once cut through it with scissors.

When I was young, I’d hate to look at myself in a mirror because the deformed ear was the only thing I’d ever see.

One of my friends once got a pair of piercings through the helix of her ear and I always wondered if it was a subtle dig at me because that part of my ear doesn’t exist. Boys, especially, would notice.

In recent times, that angle of my ear has been the least of my worries when it comes to health. I don’t think about it too often any longer.

I’m thinking about it now, though.

I’ve seen myself in a mirror tens of thousands of times.

I know exactly how my ear looks – and yet I hurry through to the hall and stand in front of the full-length mirror to stare at the side of my head, the article still in my hand.

I tuck a strand of my short hair behind my ear and turn a little, so that I’m at the same angle as little Jane Craven in the picture.

The article is from thirty-four years ago. I’m thirty-four years old.

I look from Jane to me and back again.

The top part of my ear is missing. The top part of her ear is missing.

Mirror to photo to mirror…to photo. Which leaves me with one simple, yet horrifying, question.

Is this… me?