The Keeper of Lost Things(6)
The life they could have had together was a self-harming fantasy in which Anthony rarely indulged. They might have been grandparents by now. Therese had never spoken about wanting children, but then they had both assumed that they had the indubitable tenure of time. A tragic complacency, as it turned out. She had always wanted a dog. Anthony had held out for as long as he could, blustering about damage to the rose garden and excavations in the lawn. But she had won him round in the end, as she always did with a fatal cocktail of charm and sheer bloody-mindedness. They were due to collect the dog from Battersea the week after she died. Instead Anthony spent the day wandering through the empty house desperately gathering in any traces of her presence; the indent of her head on a pillow; titian strands in her hairbrush, and a smudge of scarlet lipstick on a glass. Paltry but precious proof of a life now extinguished. In the miserable months that followed, Padua fought to keep the echoes of her existence within its walls. Anthony would come into a room, feeling that she had, only moments before, left it. Day after day he played hide-and-seek with her shadow. He heard her music in the garden room, caught her laughter in the garden, and felt her kiss on his mouth in the dark. But gradually, imperceptibly, infinitesimally she let him be. She let him make a life without her. The trace that lingered, and still remained to this day, was the scent of roses in places where it could not be.
Anthony brushed the gray powder from his fingertips and replaced the lid on the tin. One day this would be him. Perhaps that was why the ashes troubled him so much. He must not be lost like this poor soul in the tin. He had to be with Therese.
Laura lay wide-awake with her eyes clenched shut in fruitless pursuit of sleep. The worries and doubts that daytime activity kept at bay came sneaking back under cover of darkness, unpicking the threads of her comfortable life like moths on a cashmere sweater. The slam of a front door and loud voices and laughter from the neighboring flat crushed any fragile hope of sleep that remained. The couple who had moved in next door enjoyed a busy and rowdy social life at the expense of their fellow residents. Within minutes of their return, accompanied by a dozen or so fellow party animals, the thin walls of Laura’s flat began to pulse to the relentless throb of drum and bass.
“Sweet Jesus—not again!”
Laura swung her legs out of bed and drummed her heels against the side of the divan in frustration. It was the third time this week. She had tried reasoning with them. She had threatened them with the police. In the end, and rather to her shame, she had resorted to yelling expletives. Their response was always the same: gushing apologies laced with empty promises followed by no change whatsoever. They simply ignored her. Perhaps she should consider letting down the tires on their Golf GTI or shoving horse manure through their letter box. She smiled to herself in spite of her anger. Where on earth would she get horse manure from?
In the kitchen, Laura warmed milk in one saucepan to make hot chocolate, and with another she beat an exasperated tattoo on the party wall. A chunk of plaster the size of a dinner plate dislodged and smashed onto the floor.
“Shit!”
Laura scowled accusingly at the saucepan still clenched in her hand. There was a hiss of burning milk as the contents of the other saucepan boiled over.
“Shit! Shit! Shit!”
Having cleared up the mess and heated some more milk, Laura sat at the table cradling her warm mug. She could feel the clouds gathering about her and the ground slipping beneath her feet. There was a storm coming, of that she was certain. It wasn’t just the neighbors who were troubling her, it was Anthony too. Over the past weeks something had changed. His physical decline was gradual, inevitable with age, but there was something else. An indefinable shift. She felt as though he was pulling away from her like a disenchanted lover secretly packing a suitcase, preparing to leave. If she lost Anthony, then she would lose Padua too, and together they offered her asylum from the madness that was the real world.
Since her divorce from Vince, the precious few bearings that had set her course through life had drifted away. Having given up university and the chance of a writing career to marry Vince, she had hoped for children and all that motherhood would bring, and later, perhaps, an Open University degree. But none of these had happened. She had fallen pregnant just once. The prospect of a child had temporarily shored up their already crumbling marriage. Vince had spared no expense and completed the nursery in a single weekend. The following week Laura had miscarried. The next few years were spent doggedly trying to replace the child that was never born. The sex became grim and dutiful. They subjected themselves to all the necessary invasive and undignified medical interventions to determine where the problem lay, but the results were all normal. Vince became angry more than sad that he couldn’t have what he thought he wanted. Eventually, and by then to Laura’s relief, the sex stopped altogether.
It was then that she began to plan her escape. When she had married Vince, he insisted that she had no need to work, and by the time it became clear that she was not going to be a mother, Laura’s lack of experience and qualifications were a significant problem when she began looking for a job. And she had needed a job, because she needed money. She needed money to leave Vince. Laura just wanted enough to get a flat and be able to keep herself; to slip away one day when Vince was at work and then divorce him from a safe distance. But the only job she could get was part-time and low paid. It wasn’t enough and so she started writing, dreaming of a best seller. She worked on her novel every day for hours, always hiding any evidence from Vince. In six months it was complete, and with high hopes Laura began submitting it to agents. Six months later, the pile of rejection letters and e-mails was almost as thick as the novel itself. They were depressingly consistent. Laura’s writing had more style than substance. She wrote “beautifully” but her plot was too “quiet.” In desperation, she answered an advertisement in a women’s magazine. It guaranteed an income for writers who could produce short stories to a specific format for a niche publication which was enjoying a rapidly expanding readership. The deposit for Laura’s flat was eventually paid for by an embarrassing and extensive catalog of cloying erotica written for Feathers, Lace and Fantasy Fiction—“a magazine for hot women, with burning desires.”