Things Found in Marie’s Dusty Suitcase After Hunting Out The Padlock Key Located In a Tin on the Top Shelf of the Pantry

1. Main compartment: two thick plastic bags bearing slogans in an indecipherable alphabet.

She and Sadie had laughed themselves around the supermarket near their accommodation on the outskirts of Heraklion. Tinned tentacles, ten tonne watermelons, extremely handsome locals. Sadie flirted with the boldest but Marie had always shied away from overt attention. She had looked down and, as she looked up again, Leandros - who had hung back from the others - caught her eye and gave her a shy smile.

Pernod girls back at Manchester Uni, they had bought the shop’s cheapest bottle of Ouzo, from which they downed two shot glasses as an aperitif before heading to the taverna among the buzz of mopeds and, afterwards, the local nightclub.

Back at the apartment in the early hours, Sadie had yawned and made her excuses. Leandros told Marie that Greeks drink Ouzo at mealtimes the way the British drink wine. Then he had kissed her on the balcony. The sex was warm and uncomplicated.

Things Found in Marie’s Dusty Suitcase After Hunting Out The Padlock Key Located In a Tin on the Top Shelf of the Pantry

2. Zipped compartment: ticket to the Museum Of Modern Art, New York

Five years later, and Sadie was a buyer and Marie a merchandiser at a high street fashion chain, back in the days when there was a high street. Sadie had organised a five-day break to cheer her up – somehow wangled a great Manhattan hotel at Travelodge prices from a last minute online deal. The bed was so enormous, with three extra-wide pillows along its width, that they’d joked about unintentionally booking a room reserved for orgies. Marie wouldn’t even have known Sadie was in it, if she hadn’t placed one frigid foot on the back of her calf as she was on the verge of sleep. Sadie was always like that: a pain in the arse, but essential.

They’d visited MOMA on the last day, their cases already full of cheap Levis and tops from Banana Republic. Sadie hadn’t expected the Starry Night to be so tiny. She had stared at it, eyes filling with tears, until Sadie had pulled her away. He is so not worth it, she had said.

Things Found in Marie’s Dusty Suitcase After Hunting Out The Padlock Key Located In a Tin on the Top Shelf of the Pantry

3. Zipped compartment: train ticket to York

Marie found it hard to believe that Sadie had grown up in that tiny terraced house. It somehow didn’t seem big enough to contain her. When her mother answered the door, she had squeezed her so hard that she could have been Sadie herself. Marie had stepped straight into the living room, where Sadie lay on the sofa. They had run the London Marathon together the previous spring – or rather, Sadie had dragged Marie around - which made it even harder to accept that she was now dying. It took the most aggressive bitch of a breast cancer to bring her best friend down. All she can remember of the February funeral is the sobs punctuating the church’s silence.
But, if only in Sadie's honour, it is time now to journey again, make new memories.