The Keeper of Lost Things Read online

  Unhappy years later, Laura often wondered what it was that Vince had seen in her. She was a pretty girl, but not beautiful, and certainly not the teeth, tits, and arse combination he usually favored. The kind of girls Vince normally dated dropped their knickers as naturally as they dropped their aitches. Perhaps he had seen her as a challenge. Or a novelty. Whatever it was, it was enough for him to think that she would make him a good wife. Eventually, she came to suspect that his marriage proposal was driven as much by his desire for status as it was by physical desire. Vince had plenty of money, but alone it wasn’t enough to get him into the Freemasons or elected chair of the golf club. With her beautiful manners and private school education, Laura was intended to bring a sheen of social sophistication to his brass. He was to be bitterly disappointed. But not as much as Laura.

  When she first found out about Vince’s affair, it had been easy to blame him for everything; to cast him as some Austenesque cad about town with Laura as the virtuous heroine left at home to knit spare toilet-roll covers or sew ribbons on her bonnet. But somewhere deep down Laura knew that that was really fiction. Desperate for refuge from an unsatisfactory reality, she had asked her doctor for antidepressants, but he had insisted that she see a counselor before handing over the drugs. For Laura it was a means to an end. She fully expected to run rings round a mousy, middle-aged, polyester Pamela to procure her prescription. What she got was a sassy, sharp-suited blonde called Rudi who forced her to face some rather unpalatable facts. She told Laura to listen to the voice inside her head; the one that pointed out inconvenient truths and raised uncomfortable arguments. Rudi called it “engaging with her internal linguistics” and said that it would be “a very gratifying experience” for Laura. Laura called it consorting with the Truth Fairy and found it as gratifying as listening to her favorite record with a deep scratch in it. The Truth Fairy had a very suspicious nature. She accused Laura of buckling under the weight of parental expectations, of marrying Vince in part to avoid going to university. In her opinion, Laura was afraid of going to university in case she failed; afraid to stand on her own two feet in case she fell flat on her face. She also raised the unhappy memory of Laura’s miscarriage and subsequent, almost obsessive, and ultimately unsuccessful quest for a baby. In truth, the Truth Fairy unsettled Laura. But when she got her Prozac she had stopped listening.

  The clock in the hallway struck one and Laura began gathering ingredients for lunch. She beat eggs and cheese together with fresh herbs from the garden, tipped the mixture into a hot pan on the stove, and watched it froth and bubble and then settle into a fluffy, golden omelet. The tray was set with a crisp, white linen napkin, a silver knife and fork, and a glass of elderflower cordial. At the door of the study, she swapped it with Anthony for the remains of his morning coffee. The biscuits were untouched.

  CHAPTER 3

  Eunice

  FORTY YEARS EARLIER . . . MAY 1974

  She had decided on the cobalt-blue trilby. Her grandmother had once told her that one could blame ugliness on one’s genes and ignorance on one’s education, but there was absolutely no excuse whatsoever for being dull. School had been dull. Eunice had been a clever girl, but restless; too bored in lessons to do well. She wanted excitement; a life less lifeless. The office where she worked was dull, full of dull people, and so too was her job; endless typing and filing. Respectable, her parents called it, but that was just another word for dull. Her only escape was in films and books. She read as though her life depended on it.

  Eunice had seen the advertisement in The Lady:

  Assistant required for established publisher. Wages woeful but work never dull!

  The job was obviously meant for her and she applied the same day.

  Her interview was at 12:15 P.M., and she had allowed herself plenty of time to get there, so now she could walk the remainder of the way at her leisure, gathering in the sights and sounds of the city to furnish future memories. The streets were crowded and Eunice drifted through the homogeneous flow of humanity, occasionally struck by a figure who, for some reason, bobbed above the surface of the indeterminate tide. She nodded at the whistling waiter sweeping the pavement outside the Swish Fish restaurant, and swerved to avoid an unpleasant collision with a fat and sweaty tourist too busy studying her A–Z to watch where she was going. She noticed and smiled at the tall man waiting on the corner of Great Russell Street because he looked nice, but worried. In the moment she passed him, she gathered in everything about him. He was well built and handsome with blue eyes and the bearing of a good man. He was anxiously checking his watch and looking up and down the street. He was clearly waiting for someone, and they were late. Eunice was still early. It was only 11:55 A.M. She strolled on. Her thoughts drifted to the approaching interview and interviewer. She hoped that he would look like the man she had left waiting on the corner. But perhaps it would be a woman; a sharp, spiky unfolded paper clip of a woman with black bobbed hair and red lipstick. As she reached the glossed green door of the address she had been given on Bloomsbury Street, she barely noticed the crowd gathered on the pavement opposite and the distant keen of a siren. She pressed the buzzer and waited; back straight, feet together, head held high. She heard the sound of footsteps bounding down stairs and the door was flung open.

  Eunice fell in love with the man as soon as she saw him. His physical components were individually unremarkable; medium height, medium build, light brown hair, pleasant face, two eyes and ears, one nose and mouth. But in composition they were magically transformed into a masterpiece. He grasped her hand as though to save her from drowning and pulled her up the stairs behind him. Breathless with exertion and enthusiasm, he greeted her on the way up with

  “You must be Eunice. Delighted to meet you. Call me Bomber. Everyone does.”

  The office that they burst into at the top of the stairs was large and light and very well organized. Shelves and drawers lined the walls and three filing cabinets stood beneath the window. Eunice was intrigued to see that they were labeled “Tom,” “Dick,” and “Harry.”

  “After the tunnels,” Bomber explained, following her gaze and registering the query on her face. The query remained.

  “The Great Escape? Steve McQueen, Dickie Attenborough, bags of dirt, barbed wire, and a motorbike?”

  Eunice smiled.

  “You have seen it, haven’t you? Bloody marvelous!” He began whistling the theme music.

  Eunice was resolute. This was definitely the job for her. She would chain herself to one of the filing cabinets if necessary to secure it. Fortunately it wasn’t. The fact that she had seen The Great Escape and was a fan was apparently enough. Bomber made them a pot of tea in the tiny kitchen that adjoined the office to celebrate her appointment. A strange rolling rattle followed him back into the room. The sound was made by a small tan-and-white terrier with one ear at half-mast and a brown patch over his left eye. He was seated on a wooden trolley affair with two wheels and pulled himself along by walking with his front legs.

  “Meet Douglas. My right-hand man. Well, dog.”

  “Good afternoon, Douglas.” Eunice greeted him solemnly. “Bader, I presume.”

  Bomber thumped the table with delight.

  “I knew right away that you were the one. Now, how do you like your tea?”

  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!”

  Having cleared up the mess and heated some more milk, Laura sat at the table cradling her warm mug. She could feel the clouds gathering about her and the ground slipping beneath her feet. There was a storm coming, of that she was certain. It wasn’t just the neighbors who were troubling her, it was Anthony too. Over the past weeks something had changed. His physical decline was gradual, inevitable with age, but there was something else. An indefinable shift. She felt as though he was pulling away from her like a disenchanted lover secretly packing a suitcase, preparing to leave. If she lost Anthony, then she would lose Padua too, and together they offered her asylum from the madness that was the real world.

  Since her divorce from Vince, the precious few bearings that had set her course through life had drifted away. Having given up university and the chance of a writing career to marry Vince, she had hoped for children and all that motherhood would bring, and later, perhaps, an Open University degree. But none of these had happened. She had fallen pregnant just once. The prospect of a child had temporarily shored up their already crumbling marriage. Vince had spared no expense and completed the nursery in a single weekend. The following week Laura had miscarried. The next few years were spent doggedly trying to replace the child that was never born. The sex became grim and dutiful. They subjected themselves to all the necessary invasive and undignified medical interventions to determine where the problem lay, but the results were all
normal. Vince became angry more than sad that he couldn’t have what he thought he wanted. Eventually, and by then to Laura’s relief, the sex stopped altogether.

  It was then that she began to plan her escape. When she had married Vince, he insisted that she had no need to work, and by the time it became clear that she was not going to be a mother, Laura’s lack of experience and qualifications were a significant problem when she began looking for a job. And she had needed a job, because she needed money. She needed money to leave Vince. Laura just wanted enough to get a flat and be able to keep herself; to slip away one day when Vince was at work and then divorce him from a safe distance. But the only job she could get was part-time and low paid. It wasn’t enough and so she started writing, dreaming of a best seller. She worked on her novel every day for hours, always hiding any evidence from Vince. In six months it was complete, and with high hopes Laura began submitting it to agents. Six months later, the pile of rejection letters and e-mails was almost as thick as the novel itself. They were depressingly consistent. Laura’s writing had more style than substance. She wrote “beautifully” but her plot was too “quiet.” In desperation, she answered an advertisement in a women’s magazine. It guaranteed an income for writers who could produce short stories to a specific format for a niche publication which was enjoying a rapidly expanding readership. The deposit for Laura’s flat was eventually paid for by an embarrassing and extensive catalog of cloying erotica written for Feathers, Lace and Fantasy Fiction—“a magazine for hot women, with burning desires.”