The Keeper of Lost Things(24)
And then there was Sunshine. In this, at least, she was ahead of Anthony, but she couldn’t take any credit for being so. It was Sunshine who had offered her friendship first and even then Laura had been—was still—reluctant to reciprocate. She thought about all the times that she had seen Sunshine before Anthony had died, and done nothing. Said nothing. Not even hello. But Anthony had done what little he could even after his death. Laura was disappointed in herself, but she was determined to try to change. She took her tea upstairs to the rose-scented bedroom she had claimed for her own. Or rather that she had chosen to share with Therese. Because she was still there. Her things were still there. Not her clothes, of course, but her dressing table set, the photograph of her with Anthony, which was inexplicably facedown once more, and the little blue enamel clock: 11:55. Stopped again. Laura put down her cup and wound the clock until its gentle ticking resumed. She went to bed leaving the curtains wide open, and outside the perfect moon veiled the rose garden in a ghostly damask of light and shade.
CHAPTER 17
1984
“At Christmas time we da, di, da and we vanish shade . . .”
Mrs. Doyle was in fine voice as she served the man in front of Eunice with two sausage plaits and a couple of squares of Tottenham cake. She paused for breath to greet Eunice.
“He’s a great bloke, that Bob Gelding, getting all those pop singers to make a record for those poor blighters in Ethio . . .”—the rest of the word slipped away from Mrs. Doyle’s lexical grasp—“in the desert.”
Eunice smiled in agreement.
“He’s almost a saint.”
Mrs. Doyle began putting donuts in a bag.
“Mind you,” she continued, “it’s not as though that Boy George and Midget Ure and the like can’t afford to do a bit of charity. And those Bananas—lovely girls, but not a hairbrush between them, by the looks of things.”
Douglas was undisturbed by Eunice’s returning footsteps up the stairs. His gray and grizzled muzzle twitched and his front paws flicked gently as he dreamed of who knows what. But it must have been a happy dream, Eunice thought, because the corners of his mouth were turned up in a smile. Bomber was watching him from his desk like an anxious child from a window watching his snowman begin inevitably to melt. She wanted to reassure him, but there was nothing she could say. Douglas was getting old. His days were growing shorter in length and in number. He would die and hearts would break. But for now he was warm and content, and when he eventually woke, a cream donut would be waiting for him. The switch from jam to cream (which was actually jam and cream) was an effort to keep Douglas’s old bones padded with a little of the flesh that seemed to mysteriously dissolve with each passing year.
Bomber, however, was experiencing the exact opposite. In the ten years or so that Eunice had known him, he had eventually managed to grow a very modest tummy to add a little softness to his still-rangy frame. He patted it affectionately as he said for the umpteenth time:
“We must stop eating so many donuts.” A comment completely unaccompanied by any purpose or intent, and duly ignored by Eunice.
“Are your parents coming into town this week?”
Eunice had grown very fond of Grace and Godfrey and looked forward to their visits, which were unfortunately becoming less and less frequent. It was all too apparent that old age was an unforgiving wingman. Godfrey in particular was becoming less solid in both body and mind; his reason and robustness inexorably stealing away.
“No, not this week. They’re feeling a bit out of sorts. Stoked up the AGA, stocked up on the single malt, and secured the portcullis, I shouldn’t wonder.”
Bomber was frowning at a manuscript that was open on his desk.
“Why? What’s up?”
Eunice was concerned.
“Well, one of their good chums was caught up in that bomb in Brighton, and then there was the fire in the tube station a couple of weeks ago, and that’s on their normal route. I just think that they feel, in the words of that classic song favored by teddy bears, it’s safer to stay at home.”
Bomber slapped the manuscript shut.
“Probably just as well. I think that Ma might have felt duty bound to inquire about this.”
He waggled the manuscript at Eunice as though it were a rotting fish. Douglas finally stirred in his corner. He took in his surroundings through aged, opalescent eyes, and finding them safe and familiar, summoned the energy to gently wag the tip of his tail. Eunice rushed over to kiss his sleep-warm head and tempt him with his donut, which was already cut and plated to his exacting requirements. But she hadn’t forgotten the rotting fish.
“What is it?”
Bomber heaved an exaggerated sigh.
“It’s called Big Head and Bigot.”
“Sounds intriguing.”
“Well, that’s one word for my darling sister’s latest ‘livre terrible.’ It’s about the five daughters of a bankrupt football manager. Their mother is determined to marry them off to pop stars or footballers or anyone who’s rich. She parades them at the local Hunt Ball, where the eldest, Janet, is asked to dance by the special guest, a young, handsome owner of a country house hotel called Mr. Bingo. Her sister Izzy is rather taken with his enigmatic friend, Mr. Arsey, a world-famous concert pianist, but he thinks that the antics of the Young Farmers in attendance are rather vulgar and refuses to join Izzy in a karaoke duet. She calls him a snob and goes off in a bit of a huff. To cut a long and strangely familiar story short, the youngest daughter runs off to Margate with a second-rate footballer where they get matching tattoos. She falls pregnant, is dumped, and ends up in a bedsit in Peckham. After some well-intentioned but rather pompous interference from Mr. Arsey, Janet eventually marries Mr. Bingo, and after his agent forbids it, Mr. Arsey ends up making sweet music with Izzy.”