by Ruth Hogan
CHAPTER 12
Shelves and drawers; shelves and drawers; shelves and drawers; three walls were completely obscured. The lace panels at the French windows lifted and fell in rhythm with the evening air which breathed gently through the crack in the frame. Even in the half-light Laura could see that every shelf was packed, and without looking, she knew that every drawer was full. This was a life’s work.
She walked around the room peering at its inhabitants in astonishment. So this was Anthony’s secret kingdom; a menagerie of waifs and strays meticulously labeled and loved. Because Laura could see that these were so much more than things; much more than random artifacts arranged on shelves for decoration. They were important. They really mattered. Anthony had spent hours every day in this room with these things. She had no idea why, but she knew he must have had a very good reason, and somehow, for his sake, she would have to find a way to keep them safe. She slid open the drawer nearest to her and picked up the first thing she saw. It was a large dark blue button which looked as though it belonged on a woman’s coat. Its label noted when and where it was found. Memories and explanations began to coalesce in Laura’s consciousness; tentacles grasping for connections that she could sense but not yet substantiate.
Laura reached for the back of a chair to steady herself. Despite the open window and the drafts, the room was stuffy. The air was thick with stories. Was that what this was all about? Were these the things that Anthony had written his stories about? She had read them all and she distinctly remembered one about a blue button. But where had all these things come from? Laura stroked the soft fur of a small teddy slumped forlornly against the side of a biscuit tin on one of the shelves. Was this a museum for the missing pieces of people’s real lives or the furnishings for Anthony’s fiction? Perhaps it was both. She picked up a pair of lime-green hair bobbles on a loop of elastic that lay next to the teddy on the shelf. They would have cost only a few pence when new, and one of them was badly chipped, and yet they had been carefully kept and properly labeled like every other object in the room. Laura smiled at the memory of her eleven-year-old self with swinging plaits adorned with bobbles much the same as these.
LIME-GREEN PLASTIC FLOWER-SHAPED HAIR BOBBLES—
Found, on the playing field, Derrywood Park, 2nd September . . .
It was the last day of the summer holidays and Daisy’s mum had promised her a special treat. They were going for a picnic. Tomorrow Daisy would start at her new school; big school. She was eleven now. Her old school had not been a success. Well, at least not for her. She was pretty enough, with beautiful long, dark hair; clever enough, but not too clever; didn’t wear glasses or braces on her teeth. But it wasn’t enough to keep her camouflaged. She saw the world through a slightly different lens from other children; nothing too obvious, just a fraction out of kilter. The faintest fontanelle in her character. But Baylee-Ashlyanne Johnson and her posse of apprentice bitches soon sniffed it out. They pulled her plaits, spat in her lunch, urinated in her school bag, and ripped her blazer. It wasn’t what they did that upset her the most; it was how they made her feel. Useless, weak, scared, pathetic. Worthless.
Her mum had gone mad when she had found out. Daisy had kept quiet for as long as she could, but when the bed-wetting started she had to come clean. But it only proved how pathetic she was; a big girl of eleven wetting the bed. Her mum went straight to the headmistress and scared her half to death. After that, the school did what they could, which wasn’t much, and Daisy set her sights on the end of term with gritted teeth and hair cut short. She had chopped the plaits herself with the kitchen scissors, and when her mum saw her she had cried. But over the summer her hair had grown again; not long enough for plaits, but just about for ponytails. And today she had new hair bobbles for her newly grown ponytails. They were bright green and shaped like flowers. “Daisies for Daisy,” her mother had said. As she sat admiring them in the mirror her stomach lurched like the gears slipping on a bicycle. What if tomorrow her new classmates looked at the face of the girl in the mirror and didn’t like what they saw?
Annie zipped the cool bag closed, satisfied that she had included all her daughter’s favorites in their picnic; cheese and pineapple sandwiches (brown bread with seeds), salt and vinegar crisps, custard donuts, Japanese rice crackers, and ginger beer to drink. She could still feel the need for physical violence smoldering inside her, stoked rather than soothed by the reaction of that idiot fairy-fart of a headmistress who could barely control a basket of sleeping kittens, let alone a school full of chip-fed, benefits-bred kids, most of whom already believed that the world owed them a Council flat, a baby, and the latest pair of Nike trainers. After Daisy’s dad had left, Annie had worked bloody hard as a single mother to bring Daisy up. She had two part-time jobs, and the flat they lived in might not be in the best area, but it was clean and homely and it was theirs. And Daisy was a good kid. But good was bad. In the world of school where Daisy had to survive, the things that Annie had taught her were not enough. Common decency, good manners, kindness, and hard work were treated as peculiarities at best, but in gentle Daisy they were seen as weaknesses; faults for which she was cruelly punished. So Annie had one more lesson to teach her daughter.
The sun was already high and hot by the time they reached the park, and the grass was littered with groups of young women accessorized with pushchairs, wailing toddlers, cans of cider, and Marlboro Lights. Daisy’s mother took her hand and they walked straight across the grass playing field toward the woods at the back of the park. They weren’t just strolling, they were striding; going somewhere specific. Daisy didn’t know where, but she could feel her mother’s sense of purpose. The woods were another world; cool and quiet and empty, save for the birds and the squirrels.
“I used to come here with your dad.”
Daisy looked up at her mother with innocent eyes.
“Why?”
Her mother smiled, remembering. She put down the cool bag and looked up toward the sky.
“We’re here,” she said.
The cool bag was at the foot of a huge oak tree; bent and twisted like an old man racked with arthritis. Daisy looked up through its branches, glimpsing flecks and flashes of blue through the flickering canopy of leaves.
Twenty minutes later she was sitting in the canopy looking down at the cool bag.
When her mother announced that they were going to climb the tree, Daisy thought she must be joking. In the absence of a punch line or a laugh, Daisy took refuge in fear.
“I can’t,” she said.
“Can’t or won’t?”
Daisy’s eyes filled with tears, but her mother was resolute.
“You don’t know you can’t until you try.”
The silence and the stillness that followed seemed eternal. Eventually her mother spoke.
“In this world, Daisy, we are tiny. We can’t always win and we can’t always be happy. But the one thing that we can always do is try. There will always be Baylee-Trashcan Johnsons”—a twitch of a smile crossed Daisy’s face—“and you can’t change that. But you can change how she makes you feel.”
Daisy wasn’t convinced.
“How?”
“By climbing this tree with me.”
It was the scariest thing Daisy had ever done. But somewhere before they reached the top, a strange thing happened. Daisy’s fear blew away like feathers in the wind. At the bottom of the tree, she was tiny and the tree an invincible giant. At the top, the tree was still huge, but tiny though she was, she had climbed it.
It was the best day of the summer holidays. By the time they walked home across the playing field, the park was nearly empty and a man riding a mower was about to cut the grass. As Daisy got ready for bed that night, with her new school uniform hanging on the wardrobe door, she noticed in the mirror that one of her hair bobbles was missing. It must have fallen out as they walked home across the park. But the face in the mirror was a new face; happy and excited. Today Daisy had learned how to conquer a g
iant, and tomorrow she was going to big school.
Laura replaced the hair bobbles on the shelf and came out of the study closing the door behind her. Her reflection in the hall mirror was of the face that belonged to the old Laura before Anthony and Padua; hollowed out, defeated. The clock struck nine. She would have to go. She picked up her keys from the small Maling bowl on the hall table where she always left them. But there was one extra. Underneath her bunch of house and car keys was a large single internal-door key. Suddenly Laura understood, and the face in the mirror was transformed by a slow smile. Anthony had left the door to his secret kingdom unlocked for her. His trust in her resurrected the resolve that his death had dissipated. Today she had been left a kingdom and tomorrow she would begin unraveling its secrets.
CHAPTER 13
Eunice
1976
Arrogantly sprawled across Eunice’s desk, Portia flicked cigarette ash into a pot of paper clips. Eunice had nipped across the road with Douglas to fetch donuts from Mrs. Doyle’s, and Bomber was seeing a client out. Portia yawned and then sucked greedily on her cigarette. She was tired, bored, and hungover. Too many Harvey Wallbangers with Trixie and Myles last night. Or rather this morning. She hadn’t got in until 3 A.M. She picked up a manuscript from the top of the pile which she had carelessly tumbled as she arranged spiky limbs into praying mantis posture.
“Lost and Found: A Collection of Short Stories by Anthony Peardew,” she read aloud, with singsong derision. As she flipped over the title page it ripped free of its treasury tag.
“Oopsy!” she sneered, Frisbee-ing it across the room. She peered at the first page as though she were sniffing milk to see if it had turned.
“Good God! What a load of drivel. Who wants to read a story about a large blue button which fell off the coat of a waitress called Marjory! And to think he wouldn’t publish me; his own sister.”
She threw the manuscript back onto the desk with such violent disdain that it toppled a half-empty cup, soaking the pages with coffee-colored scorn.
“Shag and shit a pig!”
Portia cursed as she retrieved the soggy sheaf of papers and hastily hid it halfway down the precarious stack of the “slippery slope” just before Bomber bounded back into the room.
“Absolutely tipping it down out there now, sis. You’ll get soaked. Would you like to borrow an umbrella?”
Portia looked up and about as though trying to locate an irksome bluebottle, and then addressed the room in general.
“Firstly, do not call me ‘sis.’ Secondly, I don’t do umbrellas, I do cabs. And thirdly, are you trying to get rid of me?”
“Yes,” called Eunice, bundling back up the stairs; a muddle of mackintosh, damp Douglas, and donuts. She dumped Douglas on the floor, the donuts on Bomber’s desk, and hung up her dripping mackintosh.
“I think we might need a bigger boat,” she muttered, tipping her head ever so slightly in Portia’s direction. Bomber bit back the laugh that threatened to escape. Eunice saw that he was teetering and started “duh-da-ing” the soundtrack from Jaws.
“What is that ridiculous girl going on about now?” Portia squawked from her perch.
“Just a cinematic reference to the inclement weather,” Eunice replied cheerfully.
Portia was unconvinced, but more concerned by the fact that Douglas had wheeled himself as close to her as he could manage and was about to shake his wet fur in her direction.
“Get that blasted rat away from me,” she hissed, retreating, and promptly fell backward onto Eunice’s desk, scattering pens, pots, and paper clips in all directions onto the floor. Eunice swept Douglas into the kitchen and soothed his hurt feelings with a donut. But Portia’s rudeness had finally toppled even Bomber’s extraordinary equanimity. His customary geniality slipped from his face like a landslide after a storm. Thunderstruck, he grabbed Portia by the wrists and heaved her from Eunice’s desk.
“Clear it up,” he commanded, gesturing at the mess she had made.
“Don’t be silly, darling,” she replied, picking up her bag and searching inside it for her lipstick in an attempt to disguise her surprise and embarrassment. “I have people to do that sort of thing.”
“Well, they’re not here now, are they?” fumed Bomber.
“No, darling, but you are. Be a sweetie and call me a cab.”
Red-faced, she dropped her lipstick back inside her bag and clip-clopped downstairs in her ridiculous heels to wait for the car she knew her brother would order. Portia hated it when he was cross with her but she knew that she deserved it, and the fact that he was right made her worse. She was like a toddler stuck in an eternal tantrum. She knew that she behaved badly, but somehow couldn’t seem to stop herself. She sometimes wished that they could go back to when they were children and he was the big brother who doted on her.
As Bomber watched her go, he tried and failed to recognize in this brittle woman even the faintest trace of the affectionate little girl that he had once loved so dearly. For years now he had mourned the sister he had lost so long ago, who had hung on his every word, ridden on the crossbar of his bicycle, and carried his maggots when he went fishing. In return he had eaten her sprouts, taught her to whistle, and pushed her “as high as the sky” on her swing. But she belonged to the distant past, and his present was poisonous Portia. He heard the cab door slam and she too was gone.
“Is it safe to come in?” Eunice poked her head around the kitchen door.
Bomber looked up and smiled apologetically.
“I’m so sorry about this,” he said, gesturing at the floor around her desk.
Eunice grinned.
“Not your fault, boss. Anyway, no harm done.”
They gathered the things up from the floor and restored them to their proper places.
“I spoke too soon,” said Eunice, cradling a small object in her hand. It was a picture of a lady holding flowers, and the glass inside the gold-colored frame was smashed. She had found it on the way home from her interview and had kept it on her desk from her first day. It was her lucky charm. Bomber surveyed the damage.
“I’ll soon have that fixed,” he said, taking the picture from her and placing it carefully in an envelope. He disappeared downstairs without another word. Eunice finished rescuing her things from the floor and swept up the cigarette ash. Just as the kettle boiled, Bomber returned both in body and spirit; soaking wet again, but his broad smile and good humor restored.
“The watchmaker on Great Russell Street has assured me that the glass will be replaced by tomorrow afternoon at the latest.”
They sat down to their very belated tea and donuts, and Douglas, finally assured of Portia’s departure, wheeled himself back into the room hoping for seconds.
“She wasn’t always like this, you know,” said Bomber thoughtfully, stirring his tea.
“I know it’s hard to believe, but as a little girl she was really quite sweet; and for a little sister, tremendous fun.”
“Really?” Eunice was understandably skeptical. “What happened?”
“Great-Aunt Gertrude’s trust fund.”
Elevated eyebrows registered Eunice’s curiosity.
“She was my mother’s aunt; rich, pampered, and cantankerous as hell. She never married but always longed for a daughter. Unfortunately, Ma wasn’t her idea of a girl at all; couldn’t be bought with expensive dolls and pretty dresses. Might have had more luck with a pony or a train set . . . but anyway . . .” Bomber bit into his donut and squirted jam onto his chin.
“Portia was a different matter. Ma tried to intervene; withheld some of the more lavish gifts; remonstrated with the termagant Gertrude, face to gargoyle face. But as Portia grew up Ma’s influence inevitably diminished. Furious at what she called Ma’s jealous meddling, when the Great Gertie died she took her revenge. She left the lot to Portia. And it was a lot. Of course Portia couldn’t touch it until she was twenty-one, but it didn’t matter. She knew it was there. She stopped bothering to make a life for herself and s
tarted waiting for one to happen to her. You see Great Gertie’s legacy was a tainted tiara; the worst gift of all. It made Portia rich, but robbed her of any sense of purpose.”
“Thank goodness I’m not filthy rich if that’s what it does to a girl,” Eunice joked. “Just how filthy, exactly?”
“Feculent.”
Eunice cleared away the tea things and went back to work.
Bomber was clearly still fretting over the effect of Portia’s tantrum.
“I hope you’re not sorry that you came to work here.”
Eunice grinned manically.
“I must be nuts to be in a loony bin like this,” she quoted in her best Jack Nicholson voice.
Bomber laughed his relief as he picked up a loose sheet of paper from the floor by his desk and screwed it into a ball. Eunice leaped to her feet, arms in the air.
“Hit me, Bomber, I got the moves!”
They had been to see One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest that week for the third time. They spent so much time together now both in and out of work that Bomber couldn’t imagine life without her. The film had made an indelible mark and the ending had them both in tears. Eunice knew the script almost by heart.
“So you’re not about to hand in your notice and leave me to the mercy of my sister?”
Bomber’s eyes almost filled with tears again as she replied with a line from the end of the film.
“I’m not goin’ without you, Bomber. I wouldn’t leave you this way . . . You’re coming with me.”
And then she winked.
“Now, about my pay rise …”
CHAPTER 14
The girl watched as the tiny scarlet dome on black legs crawled across the back of her hand toward the curl of her little finger.
“Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home,
Your house is on fire, your children have gone.
“All except one, and she is called Anne,
And sorry but she died.”