The Keeper of Lost Things

by Ruth Hogan

  Bomber sighed. He knew exactly what was coming.

  “Your sister has apparently written a book that she would like you to publish. I haven’t read it—haven’t even seen it, come to that—but she says that you’re being deliberately mulish and refusing to give it proper consideration. What have you got to say for yourself?”

  Eunice was agog and intrigued by the hint of a smile that skittered across Grace’s mouth as she delivered her words in such a stern tone. Bomber strode across the room to the window in the manner of a defense barrister preparing to address the jury.

  “The first point is undoubtedly true. Portia has written something that she calls a book and she does indeed want me to publish it. The second point is a wicked falsehood, which I deny with every fiber of my being.”

  Bomber slammed the palm of his hand onto his desk to emphasize his apparent indignation, before laughing out loud and slumping into his chair.

  “Listen, Ma, I have read it and it’s bloody awful. It’s also been written by someone else first and they made a damn sight better fist of it than she did.”

  Godfrey furrowed his brows and tutted in disapproval.

  “You mean she’s copied it?”

  “Well, she calls it an ‘ommage.’”

  Godfrey turned to his wife and shook his head.

  “Are you sure that you brought home the right one from the hospital? I can’t think where she gets it from.”

  Grace bowled a rather desperate attempt at a defense for her daughter’s sticky wicket.

  “Perhaps she didn’t realize that her story resembled someone else’s. Perhaps it was simply an unfortunate coincidence.”

  It was a no ball.

  “Nice try, Ma, but it’s called Lady Clatterly’s Chauffeur and it’s about a woman called Bonnie and her husband, Gifford, who’s been paralyzed playing rugby. She ends up having an affair with her chauffeur, Mellons, a rough yet strangely tender northerner with a speech impediment who keeps tropical fish.”

  Godfrey shook his head in disbelief.

  “I’m sure that girl was dropped on her head.”

  Grace ignored her husband but didn’t contradict him, and turned to Bomber.

  “Well, that’s cleared that up. Sounds perfectly dreadful. I’d chuck it in the bin if I were you. I can’t abide laziness, and if she can’t even be bothered to think of her own story, she can’t expect anything else.”

  Bomber winked gratefully at her.

  “A boy’s best friend is his mother.”

  “Not if she names him Norman!”

  She stood up and rearmed herself with her handbag.

  “Come along, Godfrey. It’s time for Claridge’s.”

  She kissed Bomber good-bye and Godfrey shook his hand.

  “We always have tea there when we come up to town,” she explained to Eunice. “Best cucumber sandwiches in the world.”

  Godfrey tipped his hat to Eunice.

  “The gin and lime’s not bad either.”

  CHAPTER 7

  The ruby droplet glistened on her fingertip before splashing onto the pale lemon skirt of her new dress. Laura cursed, sucked her finger angrily, and wished she had worn her jeans. She loved filling the house with fresh flowers, but the beauty of the roses came at a price and the tip of the thorn was still embedded in her finger. In the kitchen, she stripped the lower leaves from the stems she had cut and filled two large vases with tepid water. One arrangement was for the garden room and one for the hall. As she trimmed and arranged the flowers, she fretted over the conversation that she had had with Anthony that morning. He had asked her to “come and have a chat” with him in the garden room before she went home for the day. She checked her watch. She felt as though she had been summoned to the headmaster’s office. It was ridiculous; he was her friend. But. What was the “but” that kept prickling Laura’s skin? Outside, the sky was still blue, but Laura could smell a storm in the air. She picked up one of the vases, took a deep breath, and carried it out into the hall.

  In the rose garden, it was hushed and still. But the air was heavy with the coming storm. In Anthony’s study nothing moved or made a sound. But the air was thick with stories. A blade of light from the cloud-streaked sun sliced through the barely breached curtains and fired a blood-red glint on a crowded shelf just beside the biscuit tin.

  RED GEMSTONE—

  Found, St. Peter’s churchyard, late afternoon, 6th July . . .

  The smell of gardenias always reminded Lilia of her mother in her pale blue Schiaparelli gown. St. Peter’s was awash with their waxy blooms and their perfume filled the cool air that welcomed friends and relations in from the fierce afternoon sun outside. At least the flowers had been Eliza’s choice. Lilia was glad to sit down. New shoes were pinching her toes, but her vanity made no concession to arthritis and old age. The woman in the ridiculous hat had to be his mother. Half the occupants of the pew behind her would miss the entire wedding. An announcement from the vicar brought the rustling congregation to its feet as the bride arrived in her ugly mushroom of a dress clinging desperately to her father’s arm. Lilia’s heart winced.

  She had offered Eliza the Schiaparelli. She loved it, but the groom wasn’t keen.

  “Good God, Lizzie! You can’t get married in a dead woman’s dress.”

  Lilia had never liked Eliza’s intended. Henry. She could never trust a man who shared his name with a vacuum cleaner. The first time they met, he had looked down his shiny, bulbous nose at her in a fashion that clearly intimated that women over sixty-five don’t count. He spoke to her with the exaggerated patience of someone house-training a recalcitrant puppy. In fact, at that first family lunch, so lovingly prepared and so kindly intended, Lilia got the distinct impression that none of the family passed muster, except, of course, Eliza. And her greatest assets, in his eyes, were her beauty and her tractability. Oh, he was complimentary enough about the food. The roast chicken was almost as delicious as his mother’s, and the wine was “really quite good.” But Lilia watched him registering with disdain a slight mark on his fork and an imaginary smudge on his wineglass. Eliza was already, even then, gently explaining and excusing his behavior, like an anxious mother with an unruly toddler. Lilia thought that what he needed was a jolly good slap on the back of his chubby legs. But she wasn’t really worried, because she never dreamed it would last. Henry was an irksome addition to the family, but she could cope because he was temporary. Surely?

  Eliza had been such a spirited child; determined to follow her own path. She wore her party frock with Wellingtons to go fishing for newts in the stream at the bottom of the garden. She liked banana and tuna-fish sandwiches and once spent the whole day walking everywhere backward “just to see what it feels like.” But everything changed when her mother, Lilia’s daughter, died when Eliza was just fifteen. Her father had remarried and provided her with a perfectly serviceable stepmother. But they were never close.

  Lilia’s own mother had taught her two things; dress for oneself, and marry for love. She had managed the first but not the second, and regretted it for her whole life. Lilia learned from her lesson well. Clothes had always been her passion; it had been a love affair that had never disappointed. And so it was with her marriage. James was a gardener for her parents at their country house. He grew jewel-hued anemones, pom-pom dahlias, and velvet roses that smelled of summer. Lilia was astonished that such a man, sinewy and strong, with hands twice the size of hers, could coax into life such delicate blooms and blossoms. She fell in love. Eliza had adored her grandfather, but Lilia was widowed when she was still a little girl. Years later, she once asked Lilia how she had known that he was the man she should marry and Lilia told her. Because he loved her anyway. Their courtship was long and difficult. Her father disapproved and she was strong-willed and impatient. But no matter how ill her temper, how sunburned her face, how dreadful her cooking, James loved her anyway. They were happily married for forty-five years, and she still missed him every day.

  When her
mother died, Eliza’s sense of purpose faded away and she became lost, like an empty paper bag being blown this way and that in the wind. And so she remained, until one day the bag got caught on a barbed-wire fence; Henry. Henry was a hedge-fund manager and everyone knew that that was not a proper job. He was a money gardener; he grew money. For Christmas, Henry bought Eliza cordon bleu cookery lessons, and took her to his mother’s hairdresser. Lilia waited for it to be over. For her birthday, in March, he bought Eliza expensive clothes that made her look like someone else and replaced her beloved old Mini with a brand-new two-seater convertible she was too afraid to drive in case it got scratched. And still Lilia waited for it to be over. In June he took her to Dubai and proposed marriage. She wanted her mother’s ring, but he said that diamonds were “so last year.” He bought her a new one set with a ruby the color of blood. Lilia always felt it was a bad omen.

  Eliza would be there soon. Lilia thought that they’d sit under the apple tree. It was shady there and she liked to listen to the sleepy buzzing of the bees and smell the warm grass, like hay. Eliza always had tea with Lilia on Saturday afternoons. Salmon and cucumber sandwiches and lemon-curd tarts. Thank heavens the tuna fish and banana fell out of favor eventually. It was a Saturday afternoon when she had brought Lilia’s invitation to the wedding, and she had asked Lilia then what her mother would have thought of Henry; would she have liked him and would she approve of their marriage? Eliza had looked so young in spite of her overdone hair and her stiff, new clothes, so anxious for approval, and so keen for someone to reassure her that this would be the “happy ever after” that she was longing for. Lilia had been a coward. She had lied.

  Henry turned and saw his bride creeping nervously down the aisle and smiled. But there was no tenderness softening his face. It was the smile of a man taking delivery of a smart new car; not that of a groom melting at the sight of his beloved bride. As she arrived at his side and her father placed her hand in his, Henry looked smug; he approved. The vicar announced the hymn. As the congregation struggled through “Guide Me, O Thou Great Redeemer,” Lilia could feel the panic bubbling inside her like jam in a saucepan about to boil over.

  Lilia always used the best china tea things on a Saturday, and the lemon-curd tarts always perched on a glass cake stand. The sandwiches were ready and the kettle had boiled, ready to warm the pot. It was their own little tea party and they had been doing it since her mother died. Today Lilia had a present for her.

  A hush is a dangerous thing. Silence is solid and dependable, but a hush is expectant, like a pregnant pause; it invites mischief, like a loose thread begging to be pulled. The vicar started it, poor chap. He asked for it. When Lilia was a little girl during the war, they had a house in London. There was an Anderson shelter in the garden, but they didn’t always use it. Sometimes they just hid under the table; madness, she knew, but you had to be there to understand it. When the doodlebugs were raining down, the thing they all feared most was not the bangs and the crashes and the earsplitting explosions, but the hush. The hush meant that that bomb was for you.

  “If any person here present knows of any reason why . . .”

  The vicar launched the bomb. There was a hush, and Lilia dropped it.

  As the bride swept back down the aisle alone, her face was lit by a beaming smile of relief. She looked truly radiant.

  Eliza had given him back the ring. But the ruby had fallen out on the day of the wedding and they never found it. Henry was livid. Lilia imagined his face the color of the lost stone. They should be in Marbella now. Eliza would have preferred Sorrento, but it wasn’t smart enough for Henry. In the end, he took his mother with him instead. And Eliza was coming to tea with Lilia. On her seat was her present. Nestled in silver tissue paper and tied with a pale blue ribbon was the Schiaparelli. He never loved her anyway.

  Anthony picked up the framed photograph from Therese’s dressing table and gazed at her image. It had been taken on the day of their engagement. Outside, lightning crazed the charcoal sky. From the window of her bedroom, he stared out at the rose garden, where the first plump raindrops were splashing onto velvet petals. He had never seen Therese wearing the dress, but over the long years without her he had often tried to picture their wedding day. Therese had been so excited. She had chosen flowers for the church and music for the ceremony. And, of course, she had bought the dress. The invitations had been sent. He imagined himself nervously waiting at the altar for her arrival. He would have been so happy and so proud of his beautiful bride. She would have been late, of that there was no doubt. She would have made quite an entrance in her cornflower silk chiffon gown; an unusual choice for a wedding dress, but then, she was an unusual woman. Extraordinary. She had said that it matched the color of her engagement ring. Now the dress was shrouded in tissue paper and buried in a box in the attic. He couldn’t bear to look at it, nor part with it. He sat down on the edge of the bed and buried his face in his hands. He had still been in church on the day that should have been their wedding day. It was the day of Therese’s funeral. And even now, he could almost hear her saying that at least his new suit had been put to good use.

  Laura threw her keys onto the hall table and kicked off her shoes. Her flat was hot and stuffy and she opened the window in the poky sitting room before pouring herself a large glass of white wine, icy cold from the fridge. She hoped that the wine would soothe her disheveled mind. Anthony had told her so many things that she hadn’t known, and the knowledge had swept through her head like a wild wind through a field of barley, leaving it mussed and disarranged. She could picture him waiting there all those years ago, checking his watch and searching for Therese’s face in the crowd or a glimpse of her powder-blue coat. She could feel the sickening panic blooming in his stomach like a drop of ink in a bowl of water as the minutes ticked by and still she didn’t come. But she could never know the blood-freezing, gut-twisting, breath-choking anguish he must have felt when he followed the wailing ambulance and found her crumpled and dead on the pavement. He had remembered every detail; the girl in the bright blue hat who had smiled at him on the corner of Great Russell Street; 11:55 A.M. on his watch when he first heard the siren; the smell of burning from the bakery; and the rows of cakes and pastries in the window. He could remember the sound of the traffic, the hushed voices, the white blanket that covered her face, and that even as the greatest darkness fell on him, the merciless sun kept shining. The details of Therese’s death once shared, forged an intimacy between Anthony and Laura that both honored and unsettled her. But why now? Why, after almost six years, had he told her now? And there was something else, she was sure. Something that had been left unsaid. He had stopped before he had finished.

  Anthony swung his legs onto the bed and lay back staring at the ceiling, remembering the cherished nights he had spent there with Therese. He turned onto his side and formed his arms in an empty embrace, willing himself to remember when the space was filled with her warm, living flesh. Outside, the thunder cracked and growled as the silent tears he so rarely allowed streamed down his cheeks. He was finally exhausted by a lifetime of guilt and grieving. But he could not regret his life without Therese. He would a thousand times rather have spent it with her, but to give up when she died would have been the greatest wrong; to throw away the gift that had been snatched from her would have been an act of appalling ingratitude and cowardice. And so he had found a way to carry on living and writing. The dull ache of dreadful loss had never left him, but at least his life had a purpose which gave him a precious, if precarious, hope for what might follow it. Death was certain. Reunion with Therese was not. But now, at last, he dared to hope.

  He had spoken to Laura that afternoon, but he still hadn’t told her that he was leaving. He meant to, but one look at her worried face and the words had dissolved in his mouth. Instead, he had told her about Therese and she had wept for them both. He had never seen her cry before. It wasn’t at all what he had intended. He wasn’t looking for sympathy or, God forbid, pity. He wa
s just trying to give her a reason for what he was about to do. But at least her tears were testament to the fact that he had made the right choice. She was able to feel the pain and joy of others and give them value. Contrary to the impression that she often gave, she wasn’t a mere spectator of other people’s lives; she had to engage. Her capacity to care was instinctive. It was her greatest asset and her greatest vulnerability; she had been burned and he knew it had left a mark. She had never told him, but he knew anyway. She had made a different life, grown a new skin, but somewhere there was a hidden patch, still red and tight and puckered, and sore to the touch. Anthony stared at the photograph that lay on the pillow next to him. There were no smudges on the glass or frame. Laura saw to that. She cared for every part and piece of the house with a pride and tenderness that could only be born from love. Anthony saw all of this in Laura and knew that he had chosen well. She understood that everything had a value far greater than money; it had a story, a memory, and most importantly a unique place in the life of Padua. For Padua was more than just a house; it was a safe place to heal. A sanctuary for licking wounds, drying tears, and rebuilding dreams—however long it took. However long it took a broken person to be strong enough to face the world again. And he hoped that by his choosing her to finish his task, it might set Laura free. For he knew she was in exile at Padua—comfortable and self-imposed, but an exile nonetheless.

  Outside, the storm was spent and the garden washed clean. Anthony undressed and crept beneath the cool embracing covers of the bed that he had shared with Therese for one last time. That night, the dream stayed away and he slept soundly until dawn.

  CHAPTER 8

  Eunice

  1975

  Bomber grabbed Eunice’s hand and gripped it tightly as Pam recoiled in horror at the rather unusual furniture. It appeared to be made from human bones. She turned to flee but the grumpy Leatherface caught her, and just as he was about to impale the poor girl on a meat hook, Eunice woke up.