“Do you want me to come over? I’ll come now if you like. Don’t be daft, Ma, of course it’s no trouble.”
It would be about Godfrey. The lovely, kind, funny, gentlemanly Godfrey, whose dementia was casting him adrift. A once majestic galleon whose sails had worn thin and tattered, no longer able to steer its own course but left to the mercy of every squall and storm. Last month he had managed to flood the house and set fire to it at the same time. He had started to run a bath and then forgot about it, going downstairs to dry his shirt, which he left on the hot plate of the AGA before setting off for the village to buy a paper. By the time Grace had come in from the greenhouse, the water leaking through the kitchen ceiling had put out the fire started by the shirt. She hadn’t known whether to laugh or cry. But she refused to accept that she needed help. He was her husband and she loved him. She had promised “in sickness and in health.” Till death do us part. She couldn’t bear to think of him in a home where the interior design included armchairs with in-built commodes. And yet . . . This time he had run away. Well, wandered off, more like. After an hour of frantically searching the village, Grace had come home to telephone the police. She was met at the gate by the local vicar, who, on his way to visit a parishioner, had found Godfrey walking in the middle of the road, with a broom held up against his shoulder like a rifle and Grace’s red beret stretched onto his head. He told the Reverend Addlestrop that he was returning to his regiment after a weekend pass.
Bomber dropped the phone back into its cradle with a resigned sigh.
“Do you want me to come with you, or stay here and hold the fort with Baby Jane?”
Before he could answer, the buzzer went.
Portia received the news of her father’s latest escapade with horrible tranquillity. She refused to join Bomber and go and see her parents, let alone offer any kind of help or support. Bomber tried in vain to crack the surface of her callous composure.
“This is serious, sis. Ma can’t be expected to watch over him every minute of the day and night, and he’s a danger to himself. And before long, God forbid, he may be to her as well.”
Portia inspected her scarlet fingernails. She’d just had them done and she was quite pleased. She’d even tipped the girl a pound.
“Well? What do you expect me to do about it? He belongs in a home.”
“He is in a home,” Eunice hissed. “His home.”
“Oh, shut up, Eunuch. It’s none of your business.”
“Well, at least she gives a damn!” snapped Bomber.
Stung by Bomber’s painful reprimand and secretly terrified by her father’s illness, Portia responded in the only way she knew how to; with insults.
“You heartless bastard! Of course I care about him. I’m just being honest. If he’s dangerous, he needs to be locked up. At least I’ve got the guts to say it. You always were completely spineless; always sucking up to Ma and Pa and never once standing up to them like me!”
Baby Jane could see that things were getting out of hand, and she wasn’t having her friends spoken to in that manner. A low growl rumbled her displeasure. Portia sought out the source of the admonishment and set eyes on the feisty little pug for the first time.
“What on earth is that revolting-looking cushion-pisser doing here? I should have thought you’d have had enough when that other little monster finally died.”
Eunice glanced across to where Douglas’s ashes sat safe in a box on Bomber’s desk and offered a silent apology. She was just wondering how to inflict appropriate and excruciating pain on this execrable woman, when she realized that Baby Jane had already decided. Leaving her cushion with the prowling menace of a lion who has just spotted a dithering gazelle, she fixed Portia with her fiercest stare and turned up the volume until her whole body vibrated. Her lips curled back, revealing a small but businesslike set of teeth. Portia flapped her fingers ineffectually at her, but Baby Jane continued her advance, eyes fixed firmly on her prey and growl now punctuated by dramatic snarls.
“Shoo! Shoo! Sit! Down!”
Baby Jane kept coming.
Halfway across the floor, Portia capitulated with an undignified retreat and an unladylike barrage of expletives.
Bomber began gathering his things.
“I’ll come with you if you want me to.”
Eunice repeated her offer of help. He smiled gratefully but shook his head.
“No, no. I’ll be fine. You stay here and look after Madam,” he said, reaching down to fondle Baby Jane’s ears while she gazed up at him adoringly.
“At least we know now that it’s true,” he added with a mischievous grin.
“What’s that? That Portia’s a complete waste of hot air and high heels?”
He shook his head and gently lifted a blond paw in his hand.
“Nobody puts Baby Jane in a corner!”
Eunice hooted with laughter.
“Get out of here, Patrick Swayze!”
CHAPTER 23