Over tea and biscuits (Douglas drank his from a saucer) Eunice learned that Bomber had found Douglas abandoned as a puppy after he had been hit by a car. The vet had advised that he be put to sleep, but Bomber had brought him home instead.
“I made the jalopy myself. It’s more Morris 1000 Traveller than Mercedes, but it does the job.”
They agreed that Eunice would start the following week on a salary that was perfectly adequate rather than “woeful,” and that her duties would include just about anything that needed doing. Eunice was euphoric. But just as she was gathering her things to leave, the door burst open and the unfolded paper-clip woman strode into the room. She was an inelegant zigzag of nose, elbows, and knees; unsoftened by any cushioning flesh and with a face which had, over the years, sunk into a permanent sneer.
“I see that deformed little rat of yours is still alive,” she exclaimed, gesturing at Douglas with her cigarette as she flung her bag down onto a chair. As she caught sight of Eunice, a twisted smile flitted across her face.
“Good God, brother! Don’t tell me that you’ve found yourself a paramour.”
She spat the word out as though it were a grape pip.
Bomber addressed her with weary patience.
“This is Eunice, my new assistant. Eunice, this is my sister, Portia.”
She looked Eunice up and down with her cold gray eyes, but didn’t offer her hand.
“I should say that I’m pleased to meet you, but it would probably be a lie.”
“Likewise,” Eunice replied. It was barely audible and Portia had already turned her attention to her brother, but Eunice could have sworn that she saw the tip of Douglas’s tail wag. She left Bomber to his odious sister and tripped downstairs into the bright afternoon sunshine. The last thing she heard as she closed the door behind her was from Portia in an altogether changed, but still unpleasant, wheedling tone.
“Now, darling, when are you going to publish my book?”
At the corner of Great Russell Street she stopped for a moment, remembering the man she had smiled at. She hoped that the person he was meeting hadn’t left him waiting for too long. Just then, in among the dust and dirt at her feet, the glint of gold and glass caught her eye. She stooped down, rescued the small, round object from the gutter, and slipped it safely into her pocket.
CHAPTER 4
It was always the same. Looking down and never turning his face to the sky, he searched the pavements and gutters. His back burned and his eyes watered, full of grit and tears. And then he fell; back through the black into the damp and twisted sheets of his own bed. The dream was always the same. Endlessly searching and never finding the one thing that would finally bring him peace.
The house was filled with the deep, soft darkness of a summer night. Anthony swung his weary legs out of bed and sat shrugging the stubborn scraps of dream from his head. He would have to get up. Sleep would not return tonight. He padded down the stairs, their creaking wood echoing his aching bones. No light was needed until he reached the kitchen. He made a pot of tea, finding more comfort in the making than the drinking, and took it through to the study. Pale moonlight skimmed across the edges of the shelves and pooled in the center of the mahogany table. High on a shelf in the corner, the gold lid of the biscuit tin winked at him as he crossed the room. He took it down carefully and set it in the shimmering pool of light on the table. Of all the things that he had ever found, this troubled him the most. Because it was not a “something” but a “someone”; of that he was unreasonably sure. Once again, he removed the lid and inspected the contents, as he had done every day for the past week since he brought it home. He had already repositioned the tin in the study several times, placing it higher up or hidden from sight, but its draw remained irresistible. He couldn’t leave it alone. He dipped his hand into the tin and gently rolled the coarse, gray grains across his fingertips. The memory swept through him, snatching his breath and winding him as surely as any punch to the gut. Once again, he was holding death in his hands.
The life they could have had together was a self-harming fantasy in which Anthony rarely indulged. They might have been grandparents by now. Therese had never spoken about wanting children, but then they had both assumed that they had the indubitable tenure of time. A tragic complacency, as it turned out. She had always wanted a dog. Anthony had held out for as long as he could, blustering about damage to the rose garden and excavations in the lawn. But she had won him round in the end, as she always did with a fatal cocktail of charm and sheer bloody-mindedness. They were due to collect the dog from Battersea the week after she died. Instead Anthony spent the day wandering through the empty house desperately gathering in any traces of her presence; the indent of her head on a pillow; titian strands in her hairbrush, and a smudge of scarlet lipstick on a glass. Paltry but precious proof of a life now extinguished. In the miserable months that followed, Padua fought to keep the echoes of her existence within its walls. Anthony would come into a room, feeling that she had, only moments before, left it. Day after day he played hide-and-seek with her shadow. He heard her music in the garden room, caught her laughter in the garden, and felt her kiss on his mouth in the dark. But gradually, imperceptibly, infinitesimally she let him be. She let him make a life without her. The trace that lingered, and still remained to this day, was the scent of roses in places where it could not be.
Anthony brushed the gray powder from his fingertips and replaced the lid on the tin. One day this would be him. Perhaps that was why the ashes troubled him so much. He must not be lost like this poor soul in the tin. He had to be with Therese.
Laura lay wide-awake with her eyes clenched shut in fruitless pursuit of sleep. The worries and doubts that daytime activity kept at bay came sneaking back under cover of darkness, unpicking the threads of her comfortable life like moths on a cashmere sweater. The slam of a front door and loud voices and laughter from the neighboring flat crushed any fragile hope of sleep that remained. The couple who had moved in next door enjoyed a busy and rowdy social life at the expense of their fellow residents. Within minutes of their return, accompanied by a dozen or so fellow party animals, the thin walls of Laura’s flat began to pulse to the relentless throb of drum and bass.
“Sweet Jesus—not again!”
Laura swung her legs out of bed and drummed her heels against the side of the divan in frustration. It was the third time this week. She had tried reasoning with them. She had threatened them with the police. In the end, and rather to her shame, she had resorted to yelling expletives. Their response was always the same: gushing apologies laced with empty promises followed by no change whatsoever. They simply ignored her. Perhaps she should consider letting down the tires on their Golf GTI or shoving horse manure through their letter box. She smiled to herself in spite of her anger. Where on earth would she get horse manure from?
In the kitchen, Laura warmed milk in one saucepan to make hot chocolate, and with another she beat an exasperated tattoo on the party wall. A chunk of plaster the size of a dinner plate dislodged and smashed onto the floor.
“Shit!”
Laura scowled accusingly at the saucepan still clenched in her hand. There was a hiss of burning milk as the contents of the other saucepan boiled over.
“Shit! Shit! Shit!”