“What’s that when it’s at home?”
“Italian,” said Marjory, dabbing at her mouth with a napkin. “I had it in a restaurant once.”
CHAPTER 20
Sunshine set the needle onto the spinning licorice disk and was rewarded with the mellifluous tones of Etta James; hot and rich like smoked paprika.
In the kitchen, Freddy was sitting at the table, and Laura was making sandwiches for lunch.
“She’s got great taste.”
Freddy tipped his head in the direction of the music.
Laura smiled.
“She’s choosing the music for when we scatter Anthony’s ashes. She says it’s like the film where the dog gets a bone and the clocks stop because St. Anthony’s dead but he’ll be together forever with Therese. But she calls her ‘The Lady of the Flowers.’ And your guess is as good as mine.”
She sliced cucumber into translucent slices and drained a tin of salmon.
“She wants to make a speech as well, although I’m not sure we’ll make head or tail of it.”
“I’m sure we’ll make it out just fine.”
Freddy spun a teaspoon that was idling on the table.
“She just has her own way of saying stuff, that’s all. She knows the words that we all use, but I suppose she just likes hers better.”
Laura licked a smudge of butter from her finger. She wasn’t used to having actual conversations with Freddy. His way of saying stuff was usually a combination of nods, shrugs, and grunts. But Sunshine wasn’t having any of that. With her solemn eyes and soft, fluty voice, she coaxed the words from him like a snake charmer.
“But isn’t she just making life harder; setting herself further apart . . .”
Laura’s voice trailed off along with her train of thought, stymied by political correctness. Freddy weighed her words carefully and without judgment.
“Further apart from ‘normal’ people, you mean?”
It was Laura’s turn to shrug. She didn’t really know what she meant. She knew that Sunshine had made few friends at school, and had been mercilessly taunted by the feral teenagers who hung around in the local park drinking cheap cider, vandalizing the swings, and having sex. Were they normal? And if they were, why should Sunshine want to be like them? Freddy balanced the neck of the teaspoon on the tip of his index finger. Laura went back to the sandwiches and began cutting them viciously into triangles. Now he would think she was a . . . A what? Bigot? Idiot? Maybe she was. The more she saw of Freddy, the more it mattered what he thought of her. Laura’s idea of inviting Freddy to take his breaks in the kitchen in order to facilitate a more relaxed relationship between them could not yet be deemed a success, but the time they spent together was the part of the day she looked forward to most.
Freddy placed the teaspoon carefully down in front of him and leaned back in his chair, rocking the two front legs off the floor. She fought the urge to tell him to sit properly at the table.
“I think it’s a sort of camouflage”—he rocked back onto four legs—“the way she speaks. It’s like a Jackson Pollock. There’s so many specks and splashes of paint that if one of them happens to be a mistake, no one can tell. If Sunshine does get a word wrong, we’ll never know.” He shook his head, smiling to himself. “It’s genius.”
At that moment the genius came into the kitchen looking for her lunch. Laura was still thinking about what Freddy had said. A gardener using the art of Jackson Pollock as a linguistic metaphor was a little unexpected, and another intriguing insight into the kind of man he really was. It made Laura both eager and determined to find out more.
“By the way,” said Freddy to Laura, “the film. It’s Four Weddings and a Funeral.”
Sunshine grinned and sat down next to her newest friend.
After lunch, they all went through to the study. Sunshine was desperate to show Freddy Anthony’s museum of missing things, and Laura was toying with the idea of asking if he had any bright ideas about returning them to their rightful owners. Each time she came into the study it seemed to Laura that the room was filling up; less space, more things. And she felt smaller; shrinking, sinking. The shelves seemed to groan, threatening collapse, and the drawers creak, dovetails about to fly open and burst. She feared she would be buried under an avalanche of lost property. For Sunshine it was a treasure trove. She stroked and held and hugged the things, talking softly to herself—or perhaps the things themselves—and reading their labels with obvious enchantment. Freddy was appropriately astonished.
“Who’d have thought it?” he whispered, peering at his surroundings. “So that’s why he always carried his bag.”
The frail October sunlight struggled to permeate the trellis of flowers and leaves on the lace panels and the room was dark and stained with shadows. He drew back the lace, shooting a meteorite shower of shimmering dust motes spinning across the room.