“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 special 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.
“I’m sure she only does it to wind me up.”
It was his sister’s latest manuscript.
“Does she send them to anyone else?”
Eunice peered over his shoulder and helped herself to the synopsis sheets.
“I’m sure she does. I’m beyond embarrassment now. She definitely sent the last one to Bruce. He said he was almost tempted to publish it just to see the look on my face.”
Eunice was already engrossed in the pages she was holding, shaking with silent mirth. Bomber leaned back in his chair and tucked his hands behind his head.
“Well, come on, then. Put me out of my misery.”
Eunice wagged her finger at him, grinning.
“It’s funny you should say that, but I was just thinking that maybe we could get Kathy Bates to kidnap Portia, tie her to a bed in a remote woodland cabin, break both her legs thoroughly with a lump hammer, and then give her some top tips on how to write a novel.”
When they had first seen the film Misery, they had amused themselves over dinner afterward by compiling a list of writers who might benefit from a term at the Kathy Bates school of creative writing. Eunice couldn’t believe that they had forgotten Portia.
“Might be simpler if she just broke all her fingers, and then she wouldn’t be able to write at all.”
Eunice shook her head at Bomber in mock disapproval.
“But then we would be deprived of such literary gems as this,” she said, waving the synopsis in the air. She cleared her throat and paused for dramatic effect. Baby Jane yapped at her to get on with it.
“Janine Ear is a young orphan being raised by her cruel, wealthy aunt, Mrs. Weed. She is a strange child who sees ghosts, and her aunt tells everyone that she is ‘on drugs’ and sends her to a private rehab clinic called High Wood. The owner of High Wood, Mr. Bratwurst, spends all the fees on heroin, and only feeds the girls bread and lard. Janine makes friends with a kind and sensible girl called Ellen Scalding, who dies when she chokes on a crust of dry bread because there is no nominated First Aider on duty and Janine doesn’t know how to do the Heimlich maneuver.”
Eunice paused to check that Bomber wasn’t in need of such assistance himself. He was convulsed with silent laughter and Baby Jane was sitting at his feet looking vaguely puzzled. Eunice waited for him to compose himself a little before continuing.
“Mr. Bratwurst is sent to prison for failing to meet the requirements of the Health and Safety legislation, and Janine accepts the position of Au Pair at a stately home called Pricklefields in Pontefract, where her charge is a lively little French girl named Belle, and her employer is a dark, brooding man with hidden troubles called Mr. Manchester, who shouts a lot but is kind to the servants. Janine falls in love with him. One evening, he wakes up to find that his hair is on fire and she saves his life. He proposes. The wedding day is a disaster.”
“It’s not the only thing,” spluttered Bomber.