The Keeper of Lost Things(53)
“Janine Ear is a young orphan being raised by her cruel, wealthy aunt, Mrs. Weed. She is a strange child who sees ghosts, and her aunt tells everyone that she is ‘on drugs’ and sends her to a private rehab clinic called High Wood. The owner of High Wood, Mr. Bratwurst, spends all the fees on heroin, and only feeds the girls bread and lard. Janine makes friends with a kind and sensible girl called Ellen Scalding, who dies when she chokes on a crust of dry bread because there is no nominated First Aider on duty and Janine doesn’t know how to do the Heimlich maneuver.”
Eunice paused to check that Bomber wasn’t in need of such assistance himself. He was convulsed with silent laughter and Baby Jane was sitting at his feet looking vaguely puzzled. Eunice waited for him to compose himself a little before continuing.
“Mr. Bratwurst is sent to prison for failing to meet the requirements of the Health and Safety legislation, and Janine accepts the position of Au Pair at a stately home called Pricklefields in Pontefract, where her charge is a lively little French girl named Belle, and her employer is a dark, brooding man with hidden troubles called Mr. Manchester, who shouts a lot but is kind to the servants. Janine falls in love with him. One evening, he wakes up to find that his hair is on fire and she saves his life. He proposes. The wedding day is a disaster.”
“It’s not the only thing,” spluttered Bomber.
Eunice went on.
“Just as they are about to exchange their vows, a man called Mr. Mason turns up claiming that Mr. Manchester is already married to his sister, Bunty. Mr. Manchester drags them back to Pricklefields, where they witness Bunty, out of her brains on crack cocaine, crawling round the attic on all fours, snarling and growling and trying to bite their ankles, chased by her carer brandishing a syringe of ketamine. Janine packs her bag. Just as she is about to die from hypothermia wandering round on the moors, a kind, Born Again Christian vicar and his two sisters find her and take her home. As luck would have it, they turn out to be her cousins, and even luckier than that, a long-lost uncle has died and left her all his money. Janine kindly shares her inheritance, but refuses to marry the vicar and join him as a missionary in Lewisham, because she now realizes that Mr. Manchester will always be the love of her life. She returns to Pricklefields to find that it has been burned to the ground. An old lady passing by tells her that the ‘junkie bitch Bunty’ started the fire and died dancing on the roof while it burned. Mr. Manchester bravely rescued all the servants and the kitten, but was blinded by a falling beam and lost one of his ears. Now he is single again, Janine decides to give their relationship another chance, but explains to Mr. Manchester that they will have to take things slowly, as she still has ‘trust issues.’ Six weeks later they marry, and when their first son is born, Mr. Manchester miraculously regains the sight in one eye.”
“It’s comedy genius!” announced Eunice, grinning as she handed the pages back to Bomber. “Are you sure you’re not tempted to publish?”
Bomber threw a rubber, which just missed her head as she ducked.
Eunice sat down at her desk and cupped her chin in her hands, lost in thought.
“Why do you think she does it?” she asked Bomber. “I mean, she can’t just do it to wind you up. It’s too much effort. And anyway, knowing Portia, the joke would have worn thin by now. There has to be more to it than that. And if she wanted to, she could self-publish. She could certainly afford it.”
Bomber shook his head sadly.
“I think that she genuinely wants to be good at something. Unfortunately, she’s just picked the wrong thing. For all her money and so-called friends, I expect that hers is a pretty empty life sometimes.”
“I think, perhaps, that it’s all about you.” Eunice stood up again and strolled over to the window. She could order her thoughts better when she was moving.
“I think she wants her big brother’s approval—praise, love, validation—whatever you want to call it, and she’s trying to earn it through writing. She’s painted herself into a corner in every other way: she’s rude, selfish, shallow, and sometimes downright cruel, and she’d never admit that she cares a flying fortress what you think of her, but she does. Deep down, your little sister just wants you to be proud of her, and she’s chosen to write, not because she has any talent or because it gives her any joy. It’s a means to an end. You are a publisher and she wants to write a book that you think good enough to publish. That’s why she always ‘borrows’ her plot lines from the classic greats.”
“But I do love her. I can’t approve of the way she behaves—the way she treats Ma and Pa and the way she talks to you. But she’s my sister. I’ll always love her.”
Eunice came and stood behind him, and placed her hands gently on his shoulders.
“I know that. But I don’t think Portia does. Poor Portia.” And for once, she meant it.
CHAPTER 34
Laura sat on the bed, her fists clenched so tightly that her fingernails bit crescents into the flesh of her palms. She didn’t know whether to be frightened or furious. Al Bowlly’s voice drifted up from the garden room below, and his seductive tones were like fingernails scraping relentlessly down a blackboard.
“Well, I’m sick at the very thought of you!” she exploded, and launched the book from her bedside table violently across the room. It hit one of the glass candlesticks on the dressing table, which fell to the floor and smashed.