What He Never Sent

The archive in Turin wrote back to Morag on the twenty-eighth of January. Four lines. Boxes seven, eight and nine had been inventoried on receipt in the spring, the inventory was enclosed, and no item in it corresponded to the description supplied. The inventory ran to two pages and I read all of it twice, because I have been wrong about a document before.

Renzo did the flat in Turin in the last week of the month. He did it properly: three days, both wardrobes, the hall cupboard with the skis in it that nobody in that family has ever used, the cistern of the lavatory, which he reported in exactly the tone he had used for the wardrobes. He rang me at ten past ten on the Wednesday night to say there was nothing, and then stayed on the line a while without saying anything, which from Renzo Ferro…