The Keeper of Lost Things(52)

“Sunshine?”

“Um?” She was concentrating hard to make out what Laura was writing.

“You know the other day when you said that the Lady of the Flowers was upset?”

“Yep.”

Laura put the pen down and blew on the wet ink. As soon as she put the label down, Sunshine picked it up and blew on it some more. Just to be sure.

“Well, do you think that she’s upset with me?”

Sunshine adopted her how-can-you-be-so-stupid expression and stance, which involved rolling her eyes, huffing, and jamming her hands onto her hips.

“She’s not upsetted with just you”—the “of course” was understood—“she’s upsetted with everyone.”

That was not an answer that Laura was expecting. If she believed what Sunshine was saying (and the jury was still having a latte break on that one), then she was relieved not to be the sole target of Therese’s anger, but still absolutely none the wiser as to what she could do appease her.

“But why is she angry?”

Sunshine shrugged. She had lost interest in Therese for the moment and was looking forward to her tea. She studied her watch. She could do all of the “o’clocks” and most of the “half-pasts,” and anything in between became a “nearly.”

“It’s nearly four o’clock,” she said “and tea’s at four o’clock on the spot.”

She went and stood by the door.

“This morning I made fairy cakes, scones, the even lovelier mince pies, and prawn folly fonts. For our tea.”

Freddy grinned. “Which explains why you didn’t get here until nearly half-past eleven.” He winked at Laura and mouthed, Lucky for me.

“And Dad made sausage rollovers,” said Sunshine, pulling on her coat.





CHAPTER 33


Eunice


1991

“These sausage rolls are not a patch on Mrs. Doyle’s,” said Bomber, bravely soldiering on through his second. Since Mrs. Doyle’s retirement to a seafront flat in Margate, the bakery had been taken over by a franchise, and the handmade cakes and patisseries had been replaced with ready-made, mass-produced imitations. Eunice passed him a paper napkin as flakes of pastry fluttered down his front and into his lap.

“I’m sure Baby Jane will happily help with any leftovers,” she said, glancing across at the little pug’s eager face. Baby Jane was out of luck. Despite its inferior quality, Bomber finished his lunch and did his best to redistribute the flakes of pastry he was wearing in the general direction of the wastepaper bin. Eunice had bought him two sausage rolls as a special treat, for once forsaking her concern for his health and waistline. They were going to see Grace and Godfrey later and visits to Folly End had become increasingly difficult over the past year. She wished that there was something, anything, that she could do to lessen Bomber’s pain as he watched the man he once knew as his father recede inexorably toward some far-distant, inaccessible horizon. Godfrey’s physical salubrity was a bitter irony cruelly yoked, as it was, to his mental fragility, leaving him like an overgrown, frightened, and angry child. “Body like a buffalo, mind like a moth” was how Grace described him. His plight was a dreadful punishment to those who loved him. To Godfrey, his friends and family were now strangers to be feared and, if possible, avoided. Any attempts at physical affection—a touch, a kiss, a hug—were met with a fist or a kick. Grace and Bomber both had the bruises to prove it. Grace was stoical as ever, but now, almost two years after they had moved to Folly End, she no longer shared a room with her husband. These days it was only safe to love him from a distance. Portia kept her distance entirely. Her visits had stopped when the violence began.

Bomber shook his head in disbelief as he slipped a heavy manuscript from a brown envelope that had arrived with that morning’s post.

“I’m sure she only does it to wind me up.”

It was his sister’s latest manuscript.

“Does she send them to anyone else?”

Eunice peered over his shoulder and helped herself to the synopsis sheets.

“I’m sure she does. I’m beyond embarrassment now. She definitely sent the last one to Bruce. He said he was almost tempted to publish it just to see the look on my face.”

Eunice was already engrossed in the pages she was holding, shaking with silent mirth. Bomber leaned back in his chair and tucked his hands behind his head.

“Well, come on, then. Put me out of my misery.”

Eunice wagged her finger at him, grinning.

“It’s funny you should say that, but I was just thinking that maybe we could get Kathy Bates to kidnap Portia, tie her to a bed in a remote woodland cabin, break both her legs thoroughly with a lump hammer, and then give her some top tips on how to write a novel.”

When they had first seen the film Misery, they had amused themselves over dinner afterward by compiling a list of writers who might benefit from a term at the Kathy Bates school of creative writing. Eunice couldn’t believe that they had forgotten Portia.

“Might be simpler if she just broke all her fingers, and then she wouldn’t be able to write at all.”

Eunice shook her head at Bomber in mock disapproval.

“But then we would be deprived of such literary gems as this,” she said, waving the synopsis in the air. She cleared her throat and paused for dramatic effect. Baby Jane yapped at her to get on with it.