by Ruth Hogan
“The Very Thought of You.”
Laura could hear the music playing in her head, or perhaps it was in the garden room. She wasn’t always sure these days that she could tell the difference. This was the photograph; the evening that Robert Quinlan had described when he had come to read the will. This was the last time that Anthony had seen his father. The last dance, the last kiss, the last photograph. She would put it in a silver frame beside the photograph of Therese in the garden room.
“Found anything interesting yet?”
Freddy had brought her a cup of coffee and a sandwich. He rummaged around in the suitcase beneath the papers and took out a small, velvet-covered box.
“Aha! What’s this? Hidden treasure?”
He flipped open the lid to reveal a white gold ring set with an exquisite star sapphire and sparkling diamonds. He set it down in front of Laura, who took it out of the box and held it up to the light. The star across the cabochon of cornflower blue was clearly visible.
“It was hers. Her engagement ring.”
“How do you know?” Freddy took it from her to inspect it more closely. “It could have been Anthony’s mother’s.”
“No. It was hers, I’m sure. Therese wasn’t a humdrum diamond solitaire type of woman,” she said, smiling ruefully at the thought of her own half carat set in nine-karat gold. “She was, by all accounts, extraordinary, like this ring.”
Freddy slipped it back into the velvet box and handed it to Laura.
“Well, it’s yours now.”
Laura shook her head.
“It will never be mine.”
Freddy went outside to help Sunshine. He had promised to give the horse’s wooden hooves a fresh coat of varnish. Laura continued emptying the contents of the suitcase onto the table. She found a bill of sale for fifty rosebushes; “Albertine” x 4, “Grand Prix” x 6, “Marcia Stanhope,” “Mrs. Henry Morse,” “Étoile de Hollande,” “Lady Gay”—the list went on—and a pamphlet on how to plant and care for them. The manuscripts were collections of Anthony’s short stories that Laura had typed. As she flicked through the pages, she recognized them. Attached to the front was a harsh rejection letter from Bruce, the publisher.
“. . . entirely inappropriate for our readership . . . unnecessarily complex and self-indulgently ambiguous . . . dark and depressing subject matter . . .”
Someone had scribbled across the insulting comments with a red pen, and written “Arse!” over Bruce’s extravagant signature. It was Anthony’s handwriting. “Quite right too,” Laura agreed. She would reread the manuscripts thoroughly later, but somehow she didn’t think they would contain the answer she was looking for.
There was a rattle of metal wheels across the hall floor and Sunshine entered the study pushing the horse, followed by Freddy and a curious Carrot.
“He looks like a different horse!” Laura exclaimed, and Sunshine grinned proudly.
“He’s called Sue.”
Laura looked at Freddy to see if he could provide an explanation, but he simply shrugged his shoulders. “Sue” it was, then. Sunshine was eager to examine the contents of the suitcase and was spellbound by the ring. As she slipped it onto her middle finger, turning it this way and that to “catch the sparkles,” Laura had an idea.
“Perhaps it’s the ring Therese wants us to find. Maybe that’s what it’s all about.”
Freddy was uncertain. “Hmm, but what’s the connection with the pen?”
Laura ignored the flaw in her argument, instead warming to her theory.
“It was her engagement ring. Don’t you see? It’s all about their connection, the bond between them. That’s what an engagement is.”
Freddy was still doubtful. “But so is a wedding, and that didn’t work when we gave them one.”
The face that Sunshine was pulling clearly showed that not only was she totally unconvinced but that she thought that they were both being particularly obtuse once again.
“The pen was for the clue. That means writing,” she said.
She picked up the photograph of Anthony and his parents.
“That’s why she plays the music,” she said, handing Freddy the picture. It was his turn to look to Laura for an explanation.
“It’s Anthony and his parents. Robert Quinlan told us about it. His parents were going out one evening while his father was home on leave, and he came down to say good night and found them dancing to the Al Bowlly song. It was the last time he saw his father before he was killed.”
“And then when St. Anthony met the Lady of the Flowers”—Sunshine was eager to tell the rest of the story—“he told her all about it and so she danced with him in the Convent Gardens to stop him being sad.” She twisted the ring, which was still on her finger, and added, “And now we have to find a way to stop her being sad.”
“Well, I think the ring’s worth a try,” said Laura, holding out her hand to Sunshine, who reluctantly took it off and gave it to her. “We’ll put it in the garden room next to her photograph. Now, where shall we put this splendid steed?” she added in an attempt to distract Sunshine. But Sunshine had seen the box from the dressmaker and carefully removed the lid. Her gasp of astonishment drew both Laura and Freddy to her side. Laura lifted from the box a stunning dress made of cornflower-blue silk chiffon. It had clearly never been worn. Sunshine stroked the delicate fabric lovingly.
“It was her wedding dress,” she said, almost in a whisper. “It was the Lady of the Flowers’ wedding dress.”
Freddy was still holding the photograph.
“What I don’t understand is why all these things were shoved into a suitcase and hidden away in the attic? It seems to me these were some of the things that must have been most precious to him; the ring, the photo, the dress, the beginnings of the rose garden. Even the manuscripts. He stood by them, refusing to change them, and so he must have been proud of them.”
Sunshine traced circles in the dust on the lid of the suitcase.
“They made him hurt too much,” she said simply.
Carrot poked his head round the door of the study and whined. It was time for his tea.
“Come on,” said Laura. “Let’s put the ring and the dress in the garden room and find a home for this horse.”
“Sue,” said Sunshine, following behind Laura and Freddy. “And it’s not the ring, it’s the letter.” But Laura and Freddy had already gone.
CHAPTER 38
Eunice
1997
“I’m damn sure the ruddy man’s just doing it to be bloody awkward!”
Bruce flounced across the office and flung himself into a chair like the tragic heroine of a silent black-and-white film. Eunice quite expected him to raise the back of his hand to his forehead to better illustrate his anguish and frustration. He had arrived, uninvited, and begun his rant before he had even reached the top of the stairs.
“Steady the Buffs, old chap,” said Bomber, fighting to keep his amusement from contaminating his platitudes. “You’ll do yourself an unpleasantness.”
Baby Jane viewed Bruce from her vantage point, perched majestically on a new faux-fur cushion, and concluded that his presence was unworthy of any acknowledgment.
“Would you like a cup of tea?” Eunice asked him, through gritted teeth.
“Only if it’s accompanied by a large whiskey,” Bruce retorted rudely.
Eunice went to put the kettle on anyway.
“Now, what’s brought all this on?” Bomber was genuinely interested to find out who had managed so thoroughly to infuriate Bruce. Bruce’s hair, in the style of Barbara Cartland, but the color and consistency of cobwebs, quivered his indignation.
“Damn that Anthony Peardew! Damn and blast the man to hell.”
Bomber shook his head.
“I say. That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it? Unless, of course, he’s passed the port to the right or ravished your only daughter.”
When first confronted by a man as camp as Bruce, Eunice had assumed that he was gay. But Bruce w
as married to a large German woman with Zeppelin breasts and the suggestion of a mustache, who bred fancy mice and entered them into mouse shows. Astonishingly, Bruce and Brunhilde had managed to produce offspring; two boys and a girl. It was one of life’s great mysteries, but not one upon which Eunice was inclined to dwell.
“He’s gone completely round the bend,” expostulated Bruce, “deliberately writing the kind of subversive codswallop he knows I won’t publish, full of dark deeds and weird endings, or no proper endings at all. I suppose he thinks it’s clever or fashionable or some sort of catharsis for his personal grief. But I’m not having any of it. I know what normal, decent people like, and that’s good, straightforward stories with a happy ending where the baddies get their comeuppance, the guy gets the girl, and the sex isn’t too outré.”
Eunice plonked a cup of tea down in front of him, deliberately sploshing some of the dishwater-colored liquid from the cup into the saucer.
“So you don’t think that any of your readers might like to be challenged at all? Flex their intellectual muscles, so to speak? Form their own opinions or extrapolate their own conclusions for once?”
Bruce lifted the cup to his lips, and then seeing its contents close to, changed his mind and set it down again with an irritated clatter.
“My dear, the readers like what we tell them they will like. It’s as simple as that.”
“Then why can’t you tell them to like Anthony Peardew’s new stories?”
Bomber kept the “touché” under his breath. Just.
“Anthony Peardew. Wasn’t he the chap whose collection of stories did rather well for you?”
Bruce raised his eyebrows so high in exasperation that they disappeared into his cobweb coiffure.
“For God’s sake, Bomber! Do try and keep up. That’s what I’ve been saying. The first lot did really well; happy stories, happy endings, happy bank balances all round. But not anymore. He’s gone from The Sound of Music to The Midwich Cuckoos. But I’ve drawn the line. I’ve told him. It’s either ‘Doh, a deer’ or out on your ear!”
Bruce had once worked from offices in the same building as Bomber, and still visited for a free cup of tea and a gossip if he was passing. However, failure to enlist Bomber in his condemnation of the villainous Anthony Peardew and scant sympathy from Eunice meant that, on this occasion, Bruce’s visit was a short one.
“I wish we’d managed to sign poor Anthony before Bruce did.” Bomber sighed. “I liked his first collection, but his new stories sound intriguing. I wonder if I should try a spot of poaching . . .”
Eunice took a small parcel from the drawer in her desk and handed it to Bomber. It was wrapped in thick, charcoal-gray paper and tied with a bright pink ribbon.
“I know it’s not your birthday until next week”—Bomber’s face lit up like a small boy’s; he loved surprises—“but I thought that after a visit from Bruce the Bogeyman, you could do with cheering up.”
It was a copy of The Birdcage. They had been to see it on Bomber’s birthday the previous year, and he had laughed so hard that he had almost choked on his popcorn.
“I wish Ma could have seen it,” he had said. “It’s a damn sight more cheerful than Philadelphia.” Grace had been dead for eighteen months now. She had survived Godfrey by just over a year, and then died suddenly but peacefully in her sleep at Folly End. She had been buried next to Godfrey in the grounds of the church where they had been members of the congregation and stalwarts of the flower-arranging team, and Summer Fête and Harvest Supper Committees, for almost half a century. As Bomber and Eunice had stood side by side in the sun-and-shade-dappled churchyard on the day of Grace’s funeral, their thoughts had turned to their own leaving ceremonies.
“I’m for burning not burial,” declared Bomber. “Less room for error,” he added.
“And then I want you to mix my ashes with Douglas’s and Baby Jane’s, providing, of course, that I outlive her, and scatter us somewhere fabulous.”
Eunice watched as the funeral party wandered slowly back to their cars.
“What makes you so sure that you’ll die before me?”
Bomber took her arm as they too began to make their way out of the churchyard.
“Because you’re a good few years younger than me, and you’ve led a purer life.”
Eunice snorted her contention, but Bomber continued.
“And because you’re my faithful assistant and you must do as I command.”
Eunice laughed.
“‘Somewhere fabulous’” isn’t a very specific command.”
“When I think of somewhere specific, I’ll let you know.”
Just before they reached the lych-gate, Bomber had stopped and squeezed her arm.
“And one more thing.”
He had held her in his gaze with eyes that shone with unspilled tears.
“Promise me that if I ever end up like Pa, mad as a box of frogs and stuck away in a home, you’ll find a way to . . . you know what. Get. Me. Out.”
Eunice had forced a smile, though at that moment someone walked across her grave.
“Cross my heart and hope to die.”
Bomber showed his present to Baby Jane, but once she had ascertained that it was inedible and didn’t squeak or bounce, she lost what little interest she had mustered.
“So, what do you want to do for your birthday?” Eunice asked, twirling the pink ribbon around her fingers.
“Well,” said Bomber, “how about combining my birthday with our usual annual outing?”
Eunice grinned. “Brighton it is!”
CHAPTER 39
“It’s not the ring.”
Laura kicked one of Carrot’s many tennis balls across the lawn in frustration. Freddy stopped digging and leaned on his spade, ready to commiserate as required. Laura had come out into the garden, where Freddy was digging compost into the rose garden, with little purpose other than to vent her frustration. Freddy grinned at her.
“Never mind. We’ll sort it out eventually.”
Laura was in no mood for platitudes. Therese and Sunshine were both sulking; no doubt for very different, but for the moment equally unfathomable reasons; she was running behind with the data input for the website, and Carrot had got completely overexcited when the new postwoman had called to deliver a parcel, and had weed on the Chinese rug in the hall. She took another petulant swing at a tennis ball, missed, and nearly fell over. Freddy resumed his digging in order to disguise his laughter. Laura had had high hopes that the sapphire ring might be the perfect panacea. She had replaced the broken glass in Therese’s photograph, placed the picture of Anthony and his parents beside it, and the ring in its box in front of her. She had even tried to play the Al Bowlly song for her.
“How do you know that Therese is sulking?”
Freddy had recovered himself sufficiently by now to try to be helpful.
“Because the bedroom door’s still locked and because of that damn record!”
Freddy frowned.
“But I can’t remember hearing it for days now.”
Laura raised her eyebrows in exasperation.
“For God’s sake, Freddy! Do try and keep up. That’s what I’ve been saying.”
Freddy ditched the spade and came and gave her a hug.
“Well, not very clearly, I’m afraid. I’m not very good at clues. You’ll have to make it ‘clear and simple,’” he said, bracketing the phrase in the air with his fingers.
“Touché.” Laura grinned in spite of herself.
“Right,” said Freddy, “how does Therese not playing dear old Al signify that she’s sulking?”
“Because now, instead of playing it morning, noon, and night, she won’t allow it to be played at all.”
Freddy looked skeptical.
“I’m not sure I understand.”
Laura sighed. “I’ve tried to play it over and over, but it simply won’t. At first, I did it to be nice. I set up the photographs and the ring, and then, as a finishing touch, I thoug
ht I’d play the music; their song. But it won’t play. She won’t let it.”
Freddy chose his next words very carefully.
“Well, it is an old record and an old player. Maybe the needle needs changing or the record has been scratched . . .”
One look at Laura’s face was enough to derail his argument.
“Okay, okay. You’ve checked. Of course you have. They’re both fine.”
Laura picked up yet another tennis ball and threw it at him. But this time with a laugh.
“Oh God, I’m sorry. I’m such a grumpy cow, but I’m doing my best to help her and now she’s just being bloody awkward. Come on, I’ll make you a cup of tea. There might even be a chocolate biscuit if Sunshine hasn’t finished them.”
Freddy took her hand.
“I shan’t raise my hopes.”
In the kitchen, Sunshine had just put the kettle on.
“Perfect timing!” said Freddy. “We just came in for the lovely cup of tea.”
Sunshine set out two more cups and saucers in ominous silence as Freddy washed his hands at the sink.
“Are there any chocolate biscuits left?” he asked her with a wink.
An unsmiling Sunshine placed the biscuit tin in front of him without a word, and then turned away to watch the kettle boil. Freddy and Laura exchanged puzzled glances and then began discussing the progress of the website. They had decided that in order to create more interest, people who claimed back their lost possessions could post their stories on the website if they wanted to. Freddy had come up with an online form people had to complete, giving very specific details of where and when they lost whatever it was that they were claiming. The website simply displayed a photograph of each item, the month and year, and the general location where it was found. The specific details on Anthony’s labels were withheld in order that they could be sure that the people who came forward were the legitimate owners. Laura still had hundreds more items to photograph and post on the website, but enough had been completed to justify the site going live. It was, in any case, always going to be a “work in progress,” if they continued to gather things that other people had lost. There was going to be an item in the local newspaper that week, and Laura had already given an interview to the local radio station. There were now only days to go before the website went live.
