The Keeper of Lost Things

by Ruth Hogan

  Eunice sat back down, intrigued. Baby Jane, who was sitting on the sofa next to Bomber, crawled onto his lap, as though to lend moral support.

  “Right-ho. Here goes.” Grace squeezed her son’s hand and gave it a little shake.

  “Darling, I’ve always known since you were a little boy that you were never going to be the sort of chap who got married and provided me with any grandchildren. I think that, secretly, your father knew that too, but of course we never spoke about it. Now I want you to know that I don’t give a jot about any of that. I’ve always been proud to have you as my son, and as long as you’re happy and leading a decent life, well, that’s all that matters.”

  Bomber’s cheeks were growing very pink, although whether it was his tears or Grace’s words that were to blame Eunice couldn’t tell. She was deeply moved by Grace’s sentiments, but fighting a fit of the giggles at her peculiarly British way of trying to say something without actually saying it.

  “Last week, Jocelyn took me to the cinema. It was supposed to be a little treat, to take my mind off your father for a bit.” There was the tiniest catch in Grace’s voice, but she swallowed hard and carried on.

  “We didn’t pay too much attention to what was on; just bought the tickets and some mint imperials and went and sat down.”

  Baby Jane wriggled in Bomber’s lap to get comfortable. This was taking a little longer than she had expected.

  “The film was Philadelphia with that nice Tom Hanks, Paul Newman’s wife, and that Spanish fellow.”

  She thought carefully about her next words and finally settled upon:

  “It wasn’t very cheerful.”

  She paused, hoping perhaps that she had said enough, but the puzzled expression on Bomber’s face forced her to continue. She sighed.

  “I just want you to promise me that you’ll be careful. If you find a ‘special friend’ or”—the thought just occurring to her—“you have one already, just promise me that you won’t get Hives.”

  Eunice bit down hard on her lip, but Bomber couldn’t hold back a smile.

  “It’s HIV, Ma.”

  But Grace wasn’t listening. She just wanted to hear him promise.

  “I couldn’t bear to lose you as well.”

  Bomber promised.

  “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

  CHAPTER 36

  “It wasn’t me, I promise,” said Sunshine.

  They had come into the study to put some more things onto the website, and had found Anthony’s treasured fountain pen lying in a pool of black ink in the middle of the table. It was a handsome Conway Stewart and Sunshine had admired it many times, lovingly stroking its shiny scarlet-and-black surface before reluctantly returning it to its drawer.

  Laura saw the worried look on Sunshine’s serious face and gave her a reassuring hug.

  “I know it wasn’t, sweetheart.”

  She asked Sunshine to rinse the pen carefully under the tap and then put it back where it belonged while she cleaned up the mess on the table. When Laura returned to the study after washing her ink-stained hands, Sunshine was busy choosing more things from the shelves.

  “It was the Lady of the Flowers, wasn’t it?” she asked Laura.

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” Laura bluffed. “Perhaps I left it there and forgot about it, and somehow it leaked.”

  She knew how unlikely it sounded, and the expression on Sunshine’s face confirmed that she was completely unconvinced. Laura had been thinking about what Freddy had said, and the more she thought about it, the more concerned she became. If all these things were Therese’s doing, and a physical demonstration of her pain at still being apart from Anthony, then surely the longer it went on, the worse it would get? She remembered Robert Quinlan’s description of Therese as “having a wild streak, and a fiery temper when roused.” Good God, at this rate she’d soon be setting fires and smashing up the place, and Laura was already a little tired of clearing up after a grumpy ghost.

  “We should try and help her,” said Sunshine.

  Laura sighed, slightly shamed by Sunshine’s generosity of spirit.

  “I agree. But how on earth do we do that?”

  Sunshine shrugged her shoulders, her face crumpling into a perplexed frown.

  “Why don’t we ask her?” she eventually suggested.

  Laura didn’t want to be unkind, but it was hardly a practical suggestion. She wasn’t about to hold a séance or buy a Ouija board on eBay. They spent the rest of the morning adding things to the website while Carrot snored contentedly in front of the fire.

  After lunch, Sunshine and Freddy took Carrot for a walk, but Laura stayed behind. She was thoroughly unsettled. Normally the task of entering data onto the website was a therapeutic distraction, but not today. She could only think about Therese. Like a creature whose fur has been brushed against the nap, her skin prickled and her thoughts skimmed and zigzagged like a water boatman across the surface of a pond. She needed to do something about Therese. There had to be what Jerry Springer and his fellow reality-TV ringmasters called “an intervention.” If only she knew what the hell it ought to be.

  Outside, gauzy sunlight seeped through clear patches in a gray marbled sky. Laura took her jacket from the hall and went out into the garden for some air. In the shed, she found Freddy’s “secret” packet of cigarettes and helped herself to one. She was only a high days and holidays smoker really, but today she thought it might help. She wondered if Therese had smoked.

  As Laura strolled aimlessly round the rose garden, puffing like a guilty schoolgirl, Sunshine’s words slipped back into her head.

  “Why don’t we ask her?” It might not be very practical, but nothing about this whole situation was exactly run-of-the-mill and there was no point in Laura trying to deal with it as though it were. So maybe Sunshine was right. If it was Therese doing all these things—and some days Laura clung on to that “if” like a passenger on the Titanic to a life jacket—then leaving her to her own devices would only mean more and more trouble. “Why don’t we ask her?” Laura was embarrassed even to be considering it. But what else could she do? Put up or shut up until . . . Laura didn’t want to think about the possible endings to that sentence. She took a final puff on her cigarette and then, glancing round furtively to make sure that she couldn’t be seen or heard, she let her words escape out loud into the chill of the afternoon air.

  “Therese,” she began, just to clarify whom she was talking to, and just in case any other ghosts happened to be listening, she joked to herself, “you and I need to have a serious chat. Anthony was my friend, and I know how desperately he longed to be with you again. I want to help, and if I possibly can I will, but wrecking the house, locking me out of my bedroom, and keeping me awake all night with your music isn’t exactly appealing to my better nature. Clearly ghostbusting isn’t my area of expertise, so if you know how I can help, then you’ll have to try and find a way of sharing that with me.”

  Laura paused, not expecting an answer, but feeling somehow that she should leave a gap for one anyway.

  “I don’t have the patience for puzzles and riddles, and I’m hopeless at Cluedo,” she continued, “so you’ll have to try and make it as clear and simple as you can. Preferably without breaking or setting fire to anything . . . or anyone,” she added, under her breath.

  Once again, she waited. Nothing. Except for the cooing and canoodling of two amorous pigeons on the shed roof, practicing for spring. She shivered. It was getting colder.

  “I meant what I said, Therese. I’ll do whatever I can.”

  She marched back down the garden, feeling a little foolish and in need of a cup of tea and a consoling chocolate biscuit. Back in the kitchen, she put the kettle on and opened the biscuit tin. Inside was Anthony’s pen.

  CHAPTER 37

  “Well, if that’s her idea of ‘clear and simple,’ I dread to think what her ‘cryptic’ would be like.”

  Laura was walking hand in hand with Freddy and they were mu
lling over the mystery of Anthony’s pen. Carrot was trotting along in front of them, sniffing and marking his territory at alternate lampposts. They had been to the Moon Is Missing for a few drinks. Freddy had thought it might take Laura’s mind off Therese for a bit, but the entire cast of Blithe Spirit was reliving the triumph of their first night in the bar. Marjory Wadscallop was still in full Madame Arcati hair and makeup and wasted no time in pointing out to Winnie the arrival of Laura and Freddy together. It had hardly been the quiet drink that Freddy had been hoping for.

  “Are you sure that Sunshine put the pen back in the drawer?”

  “Well, I didn’t actually see her do it, but I’m sure she would have. Why? You don’t think she’s playing games, do you?”

  Freddy smiled and shook his head.

  “No, I don’t. I really don’t. Sunshine’s probably the most honest out of all of us, including you,” he said to Carrot as he clipped the lead to his collar, ready to cross the road.

  Back at Padua, Laura poured them both another drink and Freddy livened up the fire that was barely smoldering in the garden room.

  “Now,” said Freddy, snuggling up to Laura on the sofa, “let’s see if the wine has aroused our deductive juices.”

  Laura giggled.

  “That sounds positively smutty.”

  Freddy raised his eyes in feigned surprise and took a swig from his glass.

  “Right. Let’s look at the clue again—a pen in a biscuit tin.”

  “Not just any pen—Anthony’s best, beloved Conway Stewart fountain pen; red-and-black marbled shaft with an eighteen-karat gold nib,” Laura added.

  “Thank you, Miss Marple, but does that really help our investigation?”

  “Well, it was the pen that Anthony used to write his stories.”

  They sat in contemplative silence, listening to the spit and crackle of the fire. Carrot groaned blissfully as he stretched his spindly legs nearer to the hearth. Freddy nudged him with his toe.

  “Watch it, mister. If you get any closer, you’ll roast your toes.”

  Carrot ignored him and wriggled infinitesimally nearer.

  “Have you read all of Anthony’s stories? Maybe the clue is in one of them.”

  Laura shook her head.

  “I told her I wasn’t any good at clues. I specifically asked her to make it clear and simple.”

  Freddy drained his glass and set it down on the floor.

  “Well, maybe it is clear and simple to her.”

  Laura resisted the temptation to point out that of course it was because Therese already knew the answer.

  “I read everything he asked me to type, obviously, and certainly all of the short stories. But that was years ago now. I can’t possibly remember all of them.”

  “What about that book you showed me? The collection of short stories?”

  “That was only the first of several that were published. I suppose he must have kept copies of the others somewhere, but I don’t remember seeing them.”

  Freddy grinned.

  “I bet they’re in the attic.”

  “Why?”

  Freddy pulled the face that Sunshine always pulled when she thought that they were being particularly obtuse.

  “Because that’s where everyone always puts the stuff they don’t know what else to do with,” he said triumphantly. “Although if I’d had a book published, I’d have it on my bookshelf in pride of place.”

  Laura thought about it for a moment.

  “But he wasn’t proud of all the short stories that were published. Remember, I told you? His publisher wanted insipid, simple happy-ever-afters and they fell out over it in the end.”

  Freddy nodded.

  “I do remember. Bruce wanted lemonade and Anthony gave him absinthe.”

  Laura smiled.

  “You would remember that. Anything to do with alcohol . . .” she teased.

  “But I suppose it’s worth a try. I haven’t really had a proper look in the attic, and even if the books aren’t there, there might be something else . . .”

  “Tomorrow,” said Freddy, standing up and dragging her to her feet. “We’ll look tomorrow.”

  He kissed her firmly on the lips.

  “Now, what was that you said about being smutty . . . ?”

  Laura woke with a jolt that broke her fall. Was she dreaming about falling or falling out of the dream? She could never tell. It was still dark and the silence was barely rippled by the hushed duet of Freddy and Carrot’s breathing. The back of Freddy’s warm hand rested on the outside of her thigh, and as her eyes grew accustomed to the dark, she could just about make out the rise and fall of his chest. She wondered what Anthony would think. She hoped he would approve; be pleased for her. After all, he had told her to be happy and she was. Mostly. She still worried about returning the lost things. The website was coming along nicely, thanks to Freddy, and though her fear of failing Anthony was deeply rooted in the fertile tract of her self-doubt, now courage grew alongside. Finally, she had found the guts to try. Therese was a constant shadow, but the general sweep of her life, the day-to-day at Padua, was definitely happy.

  Oh, and of course she worried about Freddy. But surely that was an occupational hazard in a new relationship, particularly at her age? She worried that he hadn’t yet seen the full horror of her treacherous stretch marks and her crow’s-feet in the unforgiving glare of the midday sun. She worried that he might not yet have noticed the insidious creep of cellulite crumpling her once pert bottom and threatening her thighs. And she was sorry too that Freddy had not seen her bottom at the peak of its pertness. Instead, it had been wasted on Vince. If only she had met Freddy when she was young. Younger, even. If only she had married Freddy. She smiled to herself at her foolishness and then stopped, mindful of the crow’s-feet, and vowed to wear enormous sunglasses and a wide-brimmed hat should she ever be foolish enough to venture outside in the sunlight again. And she wasn’t even going to think about the menopause. The clue was in the name, wasn’t it? But not so much a pause as a bloody great full stop as far as being remotely attractive to men was concerned. She was even breaking out in a sweat not thinking about it. She turned her pillow over and buried her face in the cool, fresh cotton. Get a grip, Laura! she told herself. She reached for Freddy’s hand and took it in her own. Instinctively he squeezed it, and Laura lay there in the darkness, blinking away the tears until eventually she drifted back to sleep.

  Things always look better in the morning. It wasn’t the sunlight that poked fun at Laura’s imperfections, but the darkness with its looming doubts that mocked her in the sleepless spells that broke the night. After breakfast, she went out into the garden, hatless, and squinted into the morning sun. Freddy had gone into town and she was going up into the attic. She fetched the stepladder from the shed and carted it upstairs with some difficulty. Carrot had decided to help by running up and down the stairs barking excitedly in an attempt to ward off the invasion of the clanking, rattling metal legs that were clearly an instrument of the devil. As Laura propped the fully extended ladder against the wall, she could already hear Freddy scolding her for not waiting.

  “We’ll do it when I get back,” he had said.

  But she was too impatient to wait. Besides, Sunshine would be here soon, and she was perfectly capable of calling an ambulance. As she pushed open the hatch into the attic, the musty smell of warm dirt and dust wafted out to greet her. She flicked on the light switch and, at once, her hand was sticky with cobwebs. Where to start? There were a few bits of old furniture, a large rug rolled into a sausage, and a variety of boxes. She lifted the lids on those closest to her. They contained the general household flotsam and jetsam: an unused tea service, a canteen of silver-plated cutlery, and various pieces of useless but decorative china. One contained books, but as far as she could see, none had been written by Anthony. Laura made her way cautiously across the joists, stooping awkwardly under the pitch of the rafters. A child’s push-along horse on wheels stood lonely in a cor
ner next to a large brown cardboard suitcase and a box from a dressmaker in London. Laura stroked the soft teddy-bear fur of the horse’s nose.

  “Well, you’re not staying up here,” she promised him.

  The suitcase was thick with dust, but not locked, and a quick peek inside told Laura that it was probably her best hope of finding something useful or interesting. She clipped its rust-freckled fasteners shut and dragged it over to the hatch. How on earth was she going to get it down? It was heavy, and she doubted if she could manage its weight and the ladder at the same time. The answer, of course, was to wait for Freddy, but if she did that, she might just as well have waited for him before going up there. Perhaps she could just let it slide down the ladder on its own. It looked pretty robust, and from what she had seen, it didn’t appear to contain anything breakable. The “slide down the ladder” turned out to be more of a sheer drop. As Laura let it go, it crashed onto the landing with an almighty thump and an explosion of dust. Laura went back for the horse, which was light enough for her to carry down the ladder. Having given him a softer landing than the suitcase, she went back up and fetched the box from the London dressmaker.

  By the time Freddy returned, the ladder was back in the shed, Sunshine was in the garden brushing the dust out of the horse, and Laura had the suitcase open on the table in the study and was going through the contents. There were several old photograph albums, with thick pages the color of dark chocolate and interleaved with crispy embossed tissue papers, a couple of typed manuscripts, and some letters and assorted paperwork. The albums contained the first years of Anthony’s life, long before Therese. A curly-haired toddler sat, legs splayed, on a tartan rug in a summer garden. A sturdy little boy rode astride a push-along horse on a neatly clipped lawn. A gangling youth with a shy grin wore oversized shin pads and wielded a cricket bat. It was all there; a parade of seaside holidays, country picnics, birthdays, christenings, weddings, and Christmases. At first they were three; but then only two. The tall, dark man, so often in uniform, disappeared from their pictures as he did from their lives. Laura carefully unhooked one of the photographs from the brown paper corners that fixed it into the album. The man stood straight-backed and proud; so very handsome in his dress uniform. His arm was wrapped fondly round the shoulder of the woman; soignée in a Schiaparelli evening gown. And between them was a little boy wearing his pajamas. A picture-perfect happy family.