by Ruth Hogan
The young man found his way back into the kitchen just as Edna was pouring the tea.
“Just how I like it,” he said, gulping it down. He seemed to be in a hurry.
“Everything’s shipshape upstairs.”
He took a quick look under the sink in the kitchen and then rinsed his mug under the tap. Edna was impressed. He was a good boy like her David. His mum had obviously brought him up well.
Early that afternoon, the doorbell rang again. Two visitors in one day was almost unheard of. The crack revealed a small, smartly dressed black woman who appeared to be somewhere in her sixties. She was wearing a navy-blue suit with a blouse so white it dazzled. Perched on her concrete-set coiffure of brandy snap curls sat a navy-blue hat with a wisp of spotted net that just covered the top half of her face. Before either of them could speak, the woman appeared to buckle at the knees and clutched at the doorframe to prevent herself from falling. Moments later, she was sitting in Edna’s kitchen, fanning her face with her hand and apologizing profusely in a rich Jamaican accent.
“I’m so sorry, my dear. It’s just one of my funny turns. The doctor says it’s to do with my sugars.” She lurched forward in her chair and almost fell off it before recovering herself.
“I feel so bad imposing myself on you like this.”
Edna flapped away her apologies.
“What you need is a hot, sweet cup of tea,” she said, filling the kettle once again. To be honest, she was glad of the company. The woman introduced herself as Sister Ruby. She was knocking on doors offering her skills as a spiritual healer, reader, and adviser. She told Edna that she could read palms, cards, and crystals, and was a practitioner of Obeah, Jadoo, and Juju. Edna had no idea about Obidiah, Jedi, or Judy, but she had always been fascinated by fortune-tellers and the like, and was deeply superstitious. Hers was a house where new shoes were never put on the table, umbrellas were never opened indoors, and nobody crossed on the stairs. Her Irish grandmother had read tea leaves for all the neighbors, and one of her aunts made her living as Madame Petulengra, giving crystal-ball readings on Brighton Pier. When Sister Ruby, revived by her tea, offered to read Edna’s palm, she was only too willing. Sister Ruby took Edna’s hand, palm upward, in her own, and passed her other hand over it several times. She then spent a full minute studying the crinkled topography of Edna’s palm.
“You have two children,” she said, at last. “A boy and a girl.”
Edna nodded.
“Your husband passed . . . eight years ago. He had a pain, here.” Sister Ruby clutched at her chest with her free hand. Ted had died of a heart attack on the way home from the pub. Family flowers only, but donations, if desired, to the British Heart Foundation. Sister Ruby tipped Edna’s hand this way and that, as though she were trying to decipher a particularly complex message.
“You are worried about your home,” she finally announced.
“You want to stay, but someone wants you to leave. It’s a man. Is it your son? No.” She peered closely at Edna’s hand and then leaned back and closed her eyes as though trying to picture the man in question. Suddenly she sat bolt upright and slapped her hands flat on the table.
“He is a businessman! He wants to buy your house!”
Over a second cup of tea and a newly opened packet of Bourbons, Edna told Sister Ruby all about Julius Winsgrave; property developer, entrepreneur, and sleazy, greedy gobshite (except she didn’t use the word “gobshite” what with Ruby being a sister and all). He had been trying to get her to sell for years, having bought most of the other houses in the street and made a killing on them. In the end, his bullyboy tactics had forced David to consult his solicitor and take out an injunction against Julius to prevent any further harassment. But Edna always felt the threat of him circling above like a vulture, waiting for her to die. Sister Ruby listened carefully.
“He sounds like a bad and dangerous man.”
She reached down and picked up her capacious, well-used handbag and began rifling through its contents.
“I have something here that can definitely help you.”
She placed on the table a small, flat piece of wood in the shape of the front of a house. It was crudely painted with four windows and a blue front door. The same color as Edna’s.
“What number is your house please?” Sister Ruby asked.
“Thirty-two.”
Sister ruby took a pen from her bag and drew a large “32” on the front door of the house.
“Now,” she said, “this is the most powerful Juju and it will protect you as long as you do exactly as I say.”
She held the house tightly in both hands and closed her eyes. Her lips worked furiously in silent incantation for several minutes before she finally placed the house in the center of the kitchen table.
“Here it must stay,” she said decisively. “This is the center of your home and from here it will protect you. But you must know that now this house” she said, pointing to the wooden model, “has become your house. All the while you keep it safe, so too will your house be safe. But if you allow harm to come to it, the same and more will come to the bricks and mortar around you; whether it be fire, water, breaking, whatever. Nothing can undo the magic and nothing can undo the curse.”
Edna looked at the little wooden house and wondered if it could really protect her from Julius Winsgrave. Well, it certainly couldn’t do any harm to try it. Sister Ruby took her cup and saucer to the sink, and despite Edna’s protests, washed them thoroughly before setting them on the draining board to dry. As Edna turned her back to put the biscuits in their tin, Sister Ruby shook a wet hand over the wooden house and three drops of water splashed onto its painted facade.
“There now,” she said, picking up her bag, “I’ve taken up quite enough of your time.”
Edna was searching for her purse, but Sister Ruby refused to take any payment for her services.
“It was a pleasure chatting with you,” she said as she made her way toward the front door.
As the makeup came off, the face in the mirror grew younger. Under the fat curls of the wig was black hair, ironed straight. In jeans, boots, and a leopard-print coat, Sister Ruby disappeared into Simone Le Salle. She checked her designer watch and grabbed her designer bag. At the restaurant, Julius was already waiting; drumming his fingers impatiently on the immaculate linen tablecloth.
“Champagne, please,” she told the passing waiter in confident Estuary English.
Julius raised his eyebrows.
“Do you deserve it?”
Simone smiled.
“What do you think?” she said. “It went like clockwork. My boy went this morning and sorted the stopcock. As luck would have it, the bathroom was directly above the kitchen.”
She checked her watch again.
“The kitchen ceiling should be down by now.”
Julius smiled.
“Mother and son make a good team.”
He pushed a fat, brown envelope across the table. Simone checked the contents and then slid it into her bag. The waiter brought the champagne and filled both their glasses. Julius made the toast.
“It’s been a pleasure doing business with you.”
After seeing Sister Ruby out, Edna went for a little lie-down on the sofa. Two visitors in one day were lovely but a little tiring. When she woke about an hour later it was raining. In the kitchen. The wooden house on the table was soaked. The paint had run and the windows had all but washed away, but the number 32 was still plainly visible. Edna looked up and saw a dark patch creeping horribly across the ceiling. The last thing she heard was the groan of lathe and plaster surrendering.
“Okay! Okay! I surrender.” Laura stroked the warm head that had been gently butting her knee for the last five minutes. Carrot was hungry and he needed a wee. It was long past lunchtime. Laura surveyed the sea of objects dotted with gold stars in front of her on the table and then checked her watch. It was nearly three o’clock.
“Poor Carrot,” she said. “I bet you�
�ve been keeping your legs crossed.”
It was still pouring with rain, but fortunately Carrot had been given (among a great many other things) a waterproof coat for Christmas. He trotted out into the garden while Laura made their lunch. He was soon back, padding a pattern of wet paw prints across the floor tiles. After lunch, Laura went upstairs to sort out her outfit for that evening. She embarrassed herself with how long it took to choose appropriate underwear. Appropriately inappropriate. Searching for a favorite pair of earrings, she wondered if she might have left them in Therese’s bedroom and went to look. She turned the cold, brass doorknob. The door was locked. From the inside.
CHAPTER 32
Freddy poked Carrot with his toe from underneath the bedcovers.
“Get up, you lazy hound, and go and make us a cup of tea.”
Carrot snuggled deeper into his duvet nest and groaned contentedly. Freddy looked at Laura pleadingly and she promptly hid her head under the pillow.
“I suppose it’s down to me, then,” he said, hopping out of bed and searching for something to put on for the sake of warmth rather than modesty. Laura’s dressing gown was hardly fit for purpose but conveniently to hand. Freddy threw open the curtains onto a new year and a blue-sky-and-sunshine day. Laura stretched out, naked under the warm covers, and wondered if she had time to nip to the bathroom and make herself look a little more presentable; a little less middle-aged. But then, what was the point? Freddy had already seen her. Laura raked through her hair with her fingers and checked in the small mirror on the bedside table to see if she had any of last night’s mascara smudged underneath her eyes. At least she had nice teeth.
It was a full two hours later before they were up, dressed, and eating beans on toast when Sunshine arrived. They had promised her that if it was a nice day, they would all take Carrot for a walk on the nearby common. Laura and Freddy strolled arm in arm as Sunshine ran ahead with Carrot, throwing a ball-on-a-rope (another Christmas present) for him to retrieve.
“I get the distinct impression that young Carrot is only going along with this for Sunshine’s amusement rather than his own,” said Freddy.
Laura watched as Carrot dutifully returned the ball to Sunshine only to have her fling it away in a random direction and command that he “fetch!”
“I suspect that he’ll only play along for so long before he finds something more interesting to do.”
Sure enough, after the very next throw, Carrot watched as the ball descended into a gorse bush and then wandered off to look for rabbits. Poor Freddy was designated by Sunshine as Carrot’s second and was soon elbow-deep in gorse spines.
“Leave it,” said Laura as Freddy risked multiple puncture wounds. “We’ll get him another one.”
“No!” wailed Sunshine. “It was the Christmas present to him. He’ll be really upsetted and he’ll hate me because I can’t throw straight-in-a-line because I’m a ming-mong.”
Sunshine was close to tears.
“You most certainly are not a ming-mong!” said Freddy, finally surfacing from the depths of the gorse bush, triumphantly waving the ball-on-a-rope. “Who on earth called you that?”
“That’s what Nicola Crow used to call me at school when I dropped the ball in rounders.”
“Well, Nicola Crow was an ignoramus and you, young lady, are dancing drome. And don’t you forget it.”
He handed her the toy, smoothing away the pain from her face. But a smile was still too much to hope for. Tired of rabbits and having missed all the drama, Carrot wandered back and sniffed at his toy. Then he licked Sunshine’s hand. The price of a smile.
As they walked on, Laura now holding Carrot’s toy for safekeeping and Freddy inspecting his wounds, Sunshine pounced on a small, shiny object trodden into the grass.
“Look,” she said, digging it out of the mud with her fingers.
“What is it?” Freddy took it from her and rubbed the dirt away. It was a brass key ring in the shape of a baby elephant.
“We should take it home,” said Sunshine. “We should write it a label and put it on the webside.”
“Don’t you think that we’ve got more than enough lost things already?” said Laura, picturing the study crammed with things still waiting on shelves or in boxes for their gold stars. But Freddy agreed with Sunshine.
“Listen, I’ve been thinking about how we get people interested in the website. Putting all the stuff on there is only half the job. Getting the right people to look at it is the other. Now, Anthony’s is a great story, and I’m sure we’ll be able to get the local press, maybe even radio and television, interested, but if we have some really recent things that have been lost and found as well as all the old stuff, I think it could really help.”
And what really helped Laura was that Freddy had said “we.” She was no longer facing Anthony’s daunting legacy alone; she had help. Help that she had been too proud or too afraid to ask for.
Back at Padua, Sunshine went straight to the study to find a label for the key ring. They had all been invited to tea by Sunshine’s mum and dad, but she was determined to have the label written and the key ring on a shelf or in a box before they left. Laura went upstairs to get changed and Freddy rubbed the worst of the mud from Carrot’s feet and legs with an old towel in the kitchen. On the way past, Laura tried the door handle of Therese’s room. It was still locked. Back in the kitchen, she wrote a label for the key ring under Sunshine’s watchful eye.
“Sunshine?”
“Um?” She was concentrating hard to make out what Laura was writing.
“You know the other day when you said that the Lady of the Flowers was upset?”
“Yep.”
Laura put the pen down and blew on the wet ink. As soon as she put the label down, Sunshine picked it up and blew on it some more. Just to be sure.
“Well, do you think that she’s upset with me?”
Sunshine adopted her how-can-you-be-so-stupid expression and stance, which involved rolling her eyes, huffing, and jamming her hands onto her hips.
“She’s not upsetted with just you”—the “of course” was understood—“she’s upsetted with everyone.”
That was not an answer that Laura was expecting. If she believed what Sunshine was saying (and the jury was still having a latte break on that one), then she was relieved not to be the sole target of Therese’s anger, but still absolutely none the wiser as to what she could do appease her.
“But why is she angry?”
Sunshine shrugged. She had lost interest in Therese for the moment and was looking forward to her tea. She studied her watch. She could do all of the “o’clocks” and most of the “half-pasts,” and anything in between became a “nearly.”
“It’s nearly four o’clock,” she said “and tea’s at four o’clock on the spot.”
She went and stood by the door.
“This morning I made fairy cakes, scones, the even lovelier mince pies, and prawn folly fonts. For our tea.”
Freddy grinned. “Which explains why you didn’t get here until nearly half-past eleven.” He winked at Laura and mouthed, Lucky for me.
“And Dad made sausage rollovers,” said Sunshine, pulling on her coat.
CHAPTER 33
Eunice
1991
“These sausage rolls are not a patch on Mrs. Doyle’s,” said Bomber, bravely soldiering on through his second. Since Mrs. Doyle’s retirement to a seafront flat in Margate, the bakery had been taken over by a franchise, and the handmade cakes and patisseries had been replaced with ready-made, mass-produced imitations. Eunice passed him a paper napkin as flakes of pastry fluttered down his front and into his lap.
“I’m sure Baby Jane will happily help with any leftovers,” she said, glancing across at the little pug’s eager face. Baby Jane was out of luck. Despite its inferior quality, Bomber finished his lunch and did his best to redistribute the flakes of pastry he was wearing in the general direction of the wastepaper bin. Eunice had bought him two sausage rolls as a s
pecial treat, for once forsaking her concern for his health and waistline. They were going to see Grace and Godfrey later and visits to Folly End had become increasingly difficult over the past year. She wished that there was something, anything, that she could do to lessen Bomber’s pain as he watched the man he once knew as his father recede inexorably toward some far-distant, inaccessible horizon. Godfrey’s physical salubrity was a bitter irony cruelly yoked, as it was, to his mental fragility, leaving him like an overgrown, frightened, and angry child. “Body like a buffalo, mind like a moth” was how Grace described him. His plight was a dreadful punishment to those who loved him. To Godfrey, his friends and family were now strangers to be feared and, if possible, avoided. Any attempts at physical affection—a touch, a kiss, a hug—were met with a fist or a kick. Grace and Bomber both had the bruises to prove it. Grace was stoical as ever, but now, almost two years after they had moved to Folly End, she no longer shared a room with her husband. These days it was only safe to love him from a distance. Portia kept her distance entirely. Her visits had stopped when the violence began.
Bomber shook his head in disbelief as he slipped a heavy manuscript from a brown envelope that had arrived with that morning’s post.