to deal with bumping into Bob and the floozy when she went to the pub. She looked up at Peter and gave him half a smile.
"What happens now?" she asked.
"I honestly couldn't tell you," he said shrugging his shoulders. "I've been stuck here for the best part of forty years."
"Is this what it's like, then?"
"Were you expecting harps and angels?" Peter asked jokingly. Alison blushed. "I've seen other people pass, someone usually comes for them and they walk into the light, but no-one has ever come for me."
"Didn't you have a family?" Alison asked. She worried if it was too much of a personal question but Peter showed no anxiety about answering.
"I had a wife once but she up and left me when our daughter was just a baby."
"I'm so sorry," Alison said, giving him a sympathetic look. "My husband left me too." Peter instinctively rubbed her shoulder and Alison smiled.
"I always wondered what happened to my little Maggie. I tried to find her but..." Peter's voice trailed off as his emotions got the better of him.
"So, do you think there is a reason why you haven't moved on?"
"I have no idea," Peter replied, shaking his head.
"Perhaps it was to wait for someone? Your wife?"
"No, we were never that close. I only married her because she fell pregnant with Maggie. Felicity and I weren't best suited. She wanted a big house, flashy car and all that, more than I could ever give her. She ran off with a cabaret singer she met while we were on holiday. Chester something, his name was."
"Chester Belmont..." Alison mumbled to herself.
"I'm sorry, what did you say?" Peter asked, narrowing his eyes. He knew exactly what Alison had said but he couldn't quite believe it.
"Chester Belmont. He was a cabaret singer. He used to do the summer season on Bournemouth pier."
"That's right! How on earth do you know that name?"
"He was my dad," Alison admitted with a sheepish grin.
"I don't believe it! And your mother? Was her name Felicity?" Peter asked. Alison nodded. "And did you have a sister called Maggie?" Peter asked, eagerly.
"No, I was an only child," Alison replied, shaking her head. Peter's hopeful expression fell. "Wait a minute! How could I have forgotten about that! When I was a girl I found an old shoe box in my mum's wardrobe. It was full of papers and old photographs. I was looking at the pictures when I found my birth certificate. I got all upset about it because my birthday was right but they'd got my name wrong. It said Margaret Alice but my mother always called me Alison."
"Margaret Alice Dunne, 3rd November 1962," Peter said, a smile spreading across his face and a tear forming in the corner of his eye.
"That's right!" Alison gasped. "Then that means..."
"I've found my little girl," Peter said, wrapping his arms around Alison and holding her tight against his chest. Alison's tears started to fall once more as she hugged her estranged father. It seemed ironic that after a lifetime apart they found each other in death but all that mattered was that they were reunited.
"My mum never told me but I knew Chester wasn't my real dad. I always wondered about you, who you were, what you looked like," Alison said.
"I hope I'm, not too much of a disappointment!" Peter joked.
Alison shook her head and smiled. "No, not at all! You're very handsome..."
"I don't know about that! I do know something though, I could murder a drink!" Peter said.
"Me too!" said Alison. Peter stood up and took her hand, he looked into her eyes and smiled from ear to ear.
As they walked towards the wine bar on the other side of the courtyard, the doorway began to glow. At first it shone with a pale yellow light, but it gradually became brighter until it consumed them as they stepped inside. A cat on the fire escape watched as their silhouettes faded with the light and they passed into whatever lay beyond.
Thank you for reading The Boutique.
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