by Ruth Hogan
“What if no one comes forward to claim anything?” worried Laura, chewing nervously on her fingernail. Freddy playfully slapped her hand away from her mouth.
“Of course they will!” he said. “Won’t they, Sunshine?”
Sunshine shrugged her shoulders dramatically, her bottom lip pouting like a ship’s prow. She poured the tea and plonked the cups and saucers down in front of them hard. Freddy raised his hands in surrender.
“Okay, okay. I give up. What’s up, kid?”
Sunshine put her hands on her hips and treated them both to her sternest look.
“No one ever listens to me,” she said quietly.
They were now. Her words dropped into the air and hung there, expectantly, waiting for a response. Neither Freddy nor Laura knew what to say. Each felt a prickle of guilt that Sunshine might actually have a point. With her diminutive stature and ingenuous features, it was easy to slip into the habit of treating her like a child and weighting her opinions and ideas accordingly. But Sunshine was a young woman—albeit a “dancing drome”—and perhaps it was about time that they started treating her as such.
“We’re sorry,” said Laura.
Freddy nodded, for once without a trace of a smile on his face.
“We’re sorry if you’ve tried to talk to us and we haven’t listened.”
“Yes,” said Freddy, “and if we do it again, just bash us.”
Sunshine thought about it for a moment and then clipped him round the ear, just for good measure. Then, serious again, she addressed them both.
“It’s not the ring. It’s the letter.”
“Which letter?” said Freddy.
“St. Anthony’s dead letter,” she replied. “Come on,” she said.
They followed her from the kitchen into the garden room, where she picked up the Al Bowlly record and placed it on the turntable.
“It’s the letter,” she said again, and with that she set the needle down onto the disk and the music began to play.
CHAPTER 40
Eunice
2005
“The thought of you publishing that . . .”—Eunice consulted her inner omnibus of obscenities and finding nothing suitably disparaging expostulated her final word like a poisonous blow dart—“thing!”
The hardback floozy of a book, with its trashy red-and-gold cover, languished half undressed in its brown paper wrappings alongside a bottle of champagne that Bruce had sent with it, according to the card, “as some consolation for not having the wit to publish it yourself.” Bomber shook his head in bewildered disbelief.
“I haven’t even read it. Have you?”
Portia’s latest book had topped the bestseller lists for the past three weeks, and Bruce and his swaggering peacockery knew no restraint. His self-importance was index-linked to his bank balance, which, thanks to Portia, now warranted a platinum credit card and first-name terms with the branch manager.
“Of course I’ve read it!” Eunice exclaimed. “I had to in order to slander it from an informed perspective. I’ve also read all the reviews. You do realize that your sister’s book is being hailed as ‘a searing satire on the saccharine clichés of contemporary commercial fiction’? One critic called it ‘a razor-sharp deconstruction of the sexual balance of power in modern relationships, pushing the boundaries of popular literature to exhilarating extremes and giving the finger to those luminaries of the literary establishment who habitually kowtow to the conventions of Man Booker and its staid stablemates.’”
Despite her fury, Eunice couldn’t keep a straight face, and Bomber was in stitches. He eventually composed himself sufficiently to ask:
“But what’s it about?”
Eunice sighed. “Do you really want to know? It’s so much worse than anything else she’s ever done.”
“I think I can cope.”
“Well, as you are already painfully aware, it goes by the intriguing title of Harriet Hotter and the Gobstopper Phone.”
Eunice paused for effect.
“Harriet, orphaned at an early age and raised by a dreadful aunt and a clinically obese and very sweaty uncle, vows to leave their home as soon as she can and make her own way in the world. After her A levels, she gets a job in a pizza and kebab shop, ‘Pizzbab,’ near King’s Cross, where she is constantly mocked for her posh voice and her bifocal spectacles. One day, an old man with a very long beard and a funny hat comes into the shop to buy a kebab and chips, and tells her that she is ‘very special.’ He hands her a business card and tells her to call him. Fast-forward six months and Harriet is earning a small fortune from phone sex. Her customers love her because she has a posh voice ‘as though her cheeks were stuffed with gobstoppers’—and so the ingenious title is explained. Our heroine, not satisfied with mere financial reward, seeks self-fulfillment and enhanced job satisfaction. In partnership with the beardy old man, aka Chester Fumblefore, she sets up a training school for aspiring phone sex workers called Snog Warts; so called because Harriet teaches her students to speak to every customer as though he were a handsome prince, even though most of them are more likely to be warty toads. Among her first pupils are Persephone Danger and Donna Sleazy, who become her best friends and training assistants. Between them, they set up a vast call center where their pupils can earn an honest living while they are training. Harriet invents a game called Quids In to increase productivity and raise morale in the workplace. The winner, who receives a cash bonus and a month’s supply of gobstoppers, is the worker who satisfies the most customers in one hour while cunningly introducing the words ‘brothel,’ ‘todger’ (twice), and ‘golden snatch’ into each phone sex liaison.”
Bomber laughed out loud.
“It’s not funny, Bomber!” exploded Eunice. “It’s an absolute bloody disgrace. How can anybody give such utter drivel shelf room? Millions of people are paying hard-earned money for this excrement! It’s not even well-written excrement. It’s execrable excrement.
“And if it’s not enough that Portia’s being interviewed on every poxy chat show that’s aired, there’s a horribly tenacious rumor doing the rounds about her being invited to speak at Hay this year.”
Bomber clapped his hands in glee.
“Now that I should gladly pay good money to see.”
Eunice shot him a warning look and he shrugged his shoulders in reply.
“How could I resist? I’m just thankful that Ma and Pa aren’t around to witness the whole ruddy circus. Especially what with Ma being the chairwoman of the local Women’s Institute.”
Bomber chuckled to himself at the thought of it, but then donned a more appropriately serious expression for his next question.
“Now, I’m almost afraid to ask, but I probably need to know. Is it terribly . . . explicit?”
Eunice let out a hoot of derision.
“Explicit?! Remember that time when Bruce was here ranting on about that Peardew chap and lecturing us on the key components of a bestseller?”
Bomber nodded.
“And he told us, and I quote, that the sex should never be too ‘outré’?”
Bomber nodded again, more slowly this time.
“Well, unless he and Brunhilde are far more adventurous in the carnal compartment of their marriage than we ever gave them credit for, and that informs his definition of ‘outré,’ I think he’s changed his mind.”
Bomber placed his hands on the small wooden box that stood next to Douglas’s on his desk and warned:
“Cover your ears and don’t listen to this, Baby Jane.”
Eunice smiled a little sadly and continued.
“One of Harriet’s customers has sex with a breadmaking machine, another lusts after women with beards, hairy backs, and ingrowing toenails, and yet another has his testicles bathed in surgical spirit and then stroked with the mane of a My Little Pony. And that’s only chapter two.”
Bomber picked up the book from its wrappings and opened the front cover to be greeted by a glossy photograph of his sister wearing a self-satisf
ied smile and a silk negligee. He snapped it shut again with a resounding thump.
“Well, at least she didn’t simply steal someone else’s plot wholesale this time. She did make some of it up herself.”
“Let’s hope so,” said Eunice.
The next day all thoughts of Portia were purged by the glittering aquamarine waves and warm, salty wind of Brighton seafront. It was the “annual outing,” and this was the first without Douglas or Baby Jane. They had been coming every year since Eunice’s twenty-first birthday trip with Bomber, and the day followed a familiar pattern that had been fine-tuned over the years to provide enjoyment and entertainment to all members of their small party. First they walked along the promenade. In the past, when Douglas and then Baby Jane had accompanied them, the dogs had gloried in the compliments and cosseting of passersby that they inevitably attracted. Then a visit to the pier and an hour frittered away on the flashing, clanging, jangling slot machines. Then lunch of fish and chips and a bottle of pink fizz, and finally the Royal Pavilion. But as they strolled toward the pier, other worries were washing away Eunice’s happiness. Bomber had asked her twice in the space of ten minutes if they’d been there before. The first time, she hoped he was joking, but the second time she looked at his face and her world tipped sharply on its axis when she saw an expression of innocence and genuine inquiry. It was horribly, gut-wrenchingly familiar. Godfrey. He was following his father’s painful footsteps to a destination Eunice couldn’t bear to think about. So far, it was barely noticeable; a hairline crack in his solid, dependable sanity. But Eunice knew that in time he would be as vulnerable as a name written in the sand at the mercy of an incoming tide. As yet, Bomber seemed unaware of his gentle unravelings. Like petit mals, he passed through them blithely oblivious. But Eunice lived them all, second by second, and her heart was already breaking.
The colored lights and bells and buzzers of the pier’s amusement arcade welcomed them in to waste their money. Eunice left Bomber standing by a two-penny slot machine, watching lanes of tightly packed coins shunting back and forth to see which would tip over the edge, while she went to fetch some change. When she returned, she found him, like a lost child, coin in hand, staring at the coin slot on the machine but completely unable to fathom the connection between the two. Gently, she took the coin from him and dropped it into the slot, and his face lit up as he watched a pile of coins tip and fall, rattling into the metal tray beneath.
The rest of the day passed happily and uneventfully. For the first time, as they were without a canine companion, they were able to sample the exotic delights of the Pavilion interior together, where they oohed and aahed their amazement at the chandeliers and clucked their disgust at the spit roaster in the kitchen which was originally driven by an unfortunate dog. As they sat on a bench in the gardens, basking in the coral light of the late afternoon sun, Bomber took Eunice’s hand and let out a sigh of blissful contentment Eunice remembered to treasure.
“This place is utterly fabulous.”
CHAPTER 41
The navy-blue leather glove belonged to a dead woman. Not the most promising of starts for the Keeper of Lost Things. The day after the website launched, a retired reporter had e-mailed. For many years she had worked for the local newspaper and she remembered it well. It was the first proper news item she had covered.
It made the front page. The poor woman was only in her thirties. She threw herself in front of a train. The train driver was in a terrible state, poor bloke. He was new to his job too. He’d only been driving solo for a couple of weeks. Her name was Rose. She was ill; what they called bad nerves back then. I remember she had a little girl; such a pretty little thing. Rose had a picture of her in her coat pocket. They printed it in the paper with the story. I wasn’t very comfortable with that, but I was overruled by the editor. I went to her funeral. It was a gruesome business altogether; not much of a body left to bury. But the photo was still in the pocket of her coat and she was only wearing one glove. It’s such a small detail, but it seemed so poignant. And it was so cold that night. That must be why I’ve remembered it for all these years.
It was the glove Sunshine had dropped in horror when it had fallen out of the drawer. She had said at the time “the lady died” and “she loved her little girl.” Laura was dumbfounded. It seemed that Sunshine was right and once again they had been guilty of underestimating her. Clearly she had an unusual gift and they would do well to listen to her a bit more carefully. Sunshine had read the e-mail impassively. Her only comment had been “Perhaps her little girl will want it back.”
Sunshine was out with Carrot. She went out most days now to gather more lost things for the website, carrying a small notebook and pencil so that she could jot down the details for the labels before she forgot. Freddy was out laying a new lawn for one of his customers, so Laura was alone. Except for Therese.
“I know, I know!” she said out loud. “I’m going to look for it today, I promise.”
Since Sunshine’s revelation that Anthony’s letter was the clue they needed, Laura had been trying to remember where she had put it. At first she thought that she might have left it in the dressing table in Therese’s room, but the door remained locked, so she hadn’t been able to check. In any case, it hardly seemed likely that Therese would be preventing her from finding the very thing that she wanted her to find. Even she couldn’t be that awkward. Laura went into the study. She would just check the e-mails first. The website was proving popular with hundreds of hits already. There were two e-mails. One was from an elderly lady who said that she was eighty-nine years of age and a silver surfer of two years thanks to her local retirement center. She had heard about the website on the radio and decided to take a look. She thought that a jigsaw puzzle piece found years ago in Copper Street might be hers. Or rather, her sister’s. They hadn’t got on, and one day when her sister had been particularly vicious she had taken a piece from the puzzle her sister was working on. She went for a walk to get out of the house and threw the piece into the gutter. “Childish, I expect,” she said, “but she could be the very devil. And she was livid when she found that it was missing.” The old lady didn’t want it back. Her sister was long dead anyway. But it was nice, she said, to have something to practice her e-mails on.
The second was from a young woman claiming a pair of lime-green hair bobbles. Her mum had bought them for her to cheer her up, the day before she started a new school she was feeling nervous about. She’d lost them in the park on the way home from a day out with her mum, and it would be nice to have them back as a memento.
Laura replied to both e-mails and then set about searching for Anthony’s letter. By the time Sunshine returned with Carrot, she was poring over the letter at the kitchen table. She had found it tucked away in the writing desk in the garden room. As soon as she had found it, she had helpfully remembered that, of course, that was where she had placed it for safekeeping. Sunshine made the lovely cup of tea for them and then sat down next to Laura.
“What does it say?” she asked.
“What does what say?” said Freddy, bursting through the back door, his boots covered in mud. Laura and Sunshine both looked at his feet and commanded in unison, “Off!”
Freddy laughed as he struggled out of his boots and left them outside on the doormat.
“Talk about henpecked!” he exclaimed. “Now, what’s all this?”
“It’s St. Anthony’s dead letter and now we’re going to find the clue,” Sunshine exclaimed with far more confidence than Laura felt. She began to read out loud, but resurgent grief choked his generous words in her throat before she could even finish the first line. Sunshine took the letter gently from her and began again, reading slowly and deliberately, helped by Freddy with some of the more difficult words. When she reached the final paragraph, where Anthony asked Laura to befriend her, her face lit up with a smile.
“But I asked you first!” she said.
Laura took her hand. “And I’m very glad you did,” she
replied.
Freddy slapped his palms on the table.
“Enough with the mushy stuff, you girls,” he said, rocking his chair backward on two legs. “What’s the clue?”
Sunshine looked at him with dutiful amusement, which quickly withered into undisguised scorn when she realized that he wasn’t joking.
“You cannot be serious,” she said, looking to Laura for support.
“Well, it could be anything . . .” Laura ventured uncertainly.
Freddy was studying the letter again.
“Well, come on, John McEnroe,” he said to Sunshine, “Enlighten us.”
Sunshine sighed, and like a schoolteacher sorely disappointed with her class, she shook her head slowly before announcing, “It’s so obvious.”
And when she explained, they realized that, of course, it was.
CHAPTER 42
Eunice
2011
Today was a good day. But the term was only relative. No day now was truly good. The best that Eunice could hope for were a few bewildered smiles, an occasional recollection of who she was, and most of all, no tears from the man she had spent most of her adult life in love with. She strolled arm in arm with Bomber around the bleak patchwork of bare earth and concrete paving slabs that the officer-in-charge of the Happy Haven care home grandiosely termed “the rose garden.” The only trace of the roses were a few bent, brown sticks poking out of the earth like the detritus of a bushfire. Eunice could easily have wept. And this was a good day.
