Adelaide waits for him to finish the story.
‘We were robbed,’ he goes on.
‘Oh!’ Adelaide and Daphne exclaim at the same time.
‘I thought maybe the bracelet would turn up,’ the man says. ‘I’ve tried so many places in this area.’
Adelaide wants to tell him that a thief isn’t likely to donate jewellery to a charity shop when they could sell it instead, but he looks upset so she doesn’t.
He’s frowning at her now, stepping closer, and she wonders if she managed to upset him anyway.
‘Are you …’ he starts, then shakes his head. ‘No. You couldn’t be.’
Adelaide exchanges glances with Daphne, who raises her eyebrows.
The man frowns again. ‘No, you are. You’re Adelaide Drysdale! I knew it was you. I was second row at the Philharmonic a few years ago, right in front of you. You were wonderful!’
He looks chuffed, while Adelaide is taken aback. This used to happen to her sometimes in smaller cities with a population that loved classical music and had a culture of going to the symphony – but it hasn’t since she returned to Sydney. Her home town may have the most glorious opera house in the world, and there are plenty of people who go to cultural events, who play instruments and read and do all sorts of things, but she still thinks it’s a backwater compared to the far older cities of Europe. So she’s never even considered that someone in Sydney would recognise her. Yet here he is.
‘Thank you,’ she says as graciously as she can, not wanting to sound full of herself – that most Australian of sins.
‘Are you …’ The man looks around the shop. ‘Working here? Surely you’re not retired?’
‘I am,’ she says. ‘I still play, but for my own amusement.’
‘Well! What a shame. I would have loved to see you perform in the Concert Hall, perhaps.’
The Sydney Opera House Concert Hall is one venue Adelaide has never played. She had the opportunity years ago – an invitation from the Sydney Symphony Orchestra to join them – and she refused. The momentum of her career would have shiftedin a way she couldn’t control if she left the northern hemisphere and there would have been no easy way, she feared, to re-enter the orchestral world she had taken years to establish herself in. Not that she told anyone about the offer. She knew that Louis, Daphne, others, would encourage her to come home. But at the time she’d still wanted to be far from her past and the decisions she had made then.
‘Thank you.’ It’s all she can think of to say.
He smiles kindly. ‘My wife will wish she’d been here with me, to meet you. Even if I can’t find her bracelet.’
He glances into the display case at the counter. It’s so sparse that it doesn’t take him long to assess the contents, and the expression on his face tells Adelaide that he hasn’t found the bracelet, as she expected.
‘Perhaps you could write a description of it,’ Daphne says, ‘just in case we see it.’
She fetches her notepad and a pen and hands them to him.
Once finished, he offers them back to her. ‘Thank you,’ he says, then he extends his hand to Adelaide, who takes it.
‘And thank you too,’ he says. ‘You made me proud to be Australian. Seeing you there, so accomplished, so far from home …’ He shakes her hand a couple of times, then lets it go. ‘What a brilliant career you have had.’
Adelaide smiles, feeling emotional in a way that surprises her, and he turns to leave.
‘How lovely,’ Daphne murmurs as he goes out the door. She gives Adelaide’s arm a squeeze. ‘I’m so proud of you too. And I hadn’t realised you were such a celebrity!’
Adelaide laughs. ‘Only to a select group.’
Daphne sighs. ‘And to think I never saw you play in any of those orchestras.’
They look at each other, and Adelaide feels the consequences of their years apart. The high points of each other’s lives, the sadnesses too, all unshared, the stories unknown. Daphne’schildren, whom she didn’t see growing up. Her own child, who was the reason for this enormous chasm in the connection with her oldest friend. The lie at the heart of her whole life. Bigger, more destructive than she can ever admit to, and especially not to Daphne.
‘Perhaps you’ll play for me one day,’ Daphne says, looking as proud as she says she is.
‘Perhaps,’ Adelaide responds, then turns away. She can feel her heart actually aching in her chest, and a sense of the past cracking open in front of her, pulling her future into it.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN