She slipped off her sandals and wriggled her toes in the cool grass. Sunshine studiously followed suit.
“It was raining that afternoon and Mum was already running late for her next appointment, so she wasn’t in the best of tempers, but I was beyond excited. I ran off ahead of her, and when I got to the sculpture, there was this huge strange-looking black guy with dreadlocks and big boots giving away umbrellas. He bent down and shook hands with me and I can still remember his face. It was a mixture of kind and sad, and he was called Marvin.”
Alice drained her cup and helped herself to another from the pot with confident teenage ease.
“My favorite story at the time was ‘The Selfish Giant’ by Oscar Wilde, and to me Marvin looked like a giant. But he wasn’t selfish. He was giving things away. Free umbrellas. Anyway, when Mum caught up with me she dragged me away. But it wasn’t just that. She was rude to him. Really horrible. He tried to give her an umbrella and she was an absolute bitch.”
Sunshine’s eyebrows hiccuped in astonishment at the casual use of an expletive, but her expression was one of admiration.
“I only met him for a moment, but I’ve never been able to forget the look on his face as she dragged me away.”
She sighed heavily, but then smiled as another memory eclipsed the last.
“I blew him a kiss,” she said, “and he caught it.”
The date on the umbrella’s label matched the exact day of Alice’s visit to Central Park and the umbrella was found on the sculpture. Laura was delighted.
“I think it must have been meant for you.”
“I really hope so,” said Alice.
For the rest of the day Carrot lay guarding the door of the shed, and Sunshine talked about her new friend Alice. Alice was at university studying English Litter Tour and Drama. Alice liked David Bowie, Marc Bolan, and Jon Bon Hovis. And “the lovely cup of tea” had been summarily supplanted by the Builder’s variety.
That evening over a late supper of spaghetti Bolognese, Laura told Freddy all about their visitor.
“It’s working, then,” said Freddy. “The website. It’s doing what Anthony wanted you to do.”
Laura shook her head.
“No. Not really. Not yet, anyway. Remember what the letter said: ‘If you can make just one person happy, mend one broken heart by returning to them what they have lost . . .’ And I haven’t done that yet. Of course Alice was pleased to find the umbrella, but we can’t be absolutely sure that it was meant for her. And the girl with the hair bobbles; her heart wasn’t exactly broken when she lost them.”
“Well, at least it’s a start,” said Freddy, pushing back his chair and getting up to take Carrot for a final stroll around the garden before bed. “We’ll get there in the end.”
But it wasn’t just about the lost things. There was the clue; the one that was so obvious once Sunshine had pointed it out. The thing that had started all this. Anthony had called it “the last remaining thread” that had bound him to Therese, and when he lost it on the day she died, that final thread was broken. If her Communion medal really was the key to reuniting Therese with Anthony, how on earth were they supposed to find it? Freddy had suggested that they post it on the website as a lost item needing to be found, but as they had no idea what it looked like or where Anthony had lost it, there was very little useful information that they could share.
Laura cleared the plates from the table. It had been a long day and she was tired. The satisfaction that she had felt after Alice’s visit had gradually dissipated only to be replaced by a familiar feeling of unease.
And in the garden room the music began again.
CHAPTER 44
Eunice
2013
In the residents’ lounge at Happy Haven the music began again. Mantovani’s “Charmaine.” Quietly at first, and then louder and louder. Too loud. Edie turned the volume up as high as it would go. Soon she would be gliding round the ballroom to the strings’ glissandos in a froth of net and sparkles. Her feet would spin and sweep in her best gold dancing sandals and the glittering lights would swirl around her like a snowstorm of rainbows.
As Eunice and Bomber passed through the lounge on the way to Bomber’s room, they saw a ragged bundle of nightclothes barely inhabited by a thin, whiskery old woman with a greasy straggle of gray hair and tartan slippers. She was stumbling round the room with her eyes closed and her arms lovingly wrapped around some invisible partner. Suddenly there was an explosion of sticks and expletives from one of the armchairs.
“Not again! Jesus fucking Christ and Jehovah! Not again! Not again! Not again!”