The Secret Keeper (25 page)

Jimmy groaned, leaned to kiss her, his hand firm now on her breast, but she shifted her lips to whisper in his ear, ‘You said you’d do anything I asked?’

He nodded against her neck and answered, ‘Yes.’

‘How about you walk a girl home and put her safely to bed?’

Jimmy sat up long after Dolly had fallen asleep. The night had been exhilarating and he didn’t want it to be over yet. He didn’t want anything to break the spell. A heavy bomb crashed some-where nearby and the framed pictures rattled on the wall. Dolly stirred in her sleep, and Jimmy laid a hand gently on her head.

They’d hardly spoken on the walk back to Campden Grove, each of them too aware of the weighted meaning in her words, of the fact that a line had been crossed and they were now on a course that couldn’t be reversed. He’d never been to the place she lived and worked, Dolly was funny about it—he old woman had rather definite ideas on the matter, she’d said, and Jimmy had always respected the fact.

When they arrived at number 7, she’d led him past the sand-bags and through the front door, closing it softly behind her. It was dark inside the house, even blacker than out due to the curtains, and Jimmy had almost stumbled before Dolly switched on a small table lamp at the bottom of the staircase. The bulb threw a fluttery circle of light across the carpet and up the wall, and Jimmy glimpsed for the first time how grand this house of Dolly’s really was. They didn’t linger, and he was glad—the grandeur was unsettling. It was evidence of everything he wanted to give her but couldn’t, and to see her so comfortable in it made him anxious.

She’d unbuckled the straps of her high-heeled shoes, hooked them over one finger, and taken him by the hand. With a finger to her lips, and a tilt of her head, she’d started up the stairs.

‘I’ll take care of you, Doll,’ Jimmy had whispered when they made it to her bedroom. They’d run out of things to say to one another and were standing together by the bed, each waiting for the other to do something. She’d laughed when he said it, but there’d been a nervous edge to her voice and he’d loved her all the more for the hint of youthful uncertainty that the laugh betrayed. He’d felt a bit on the back foot ever since she’d propositioned him in the alley, but now, hearing her laugh like that, sensing her apprehension, Jimmy was back in charge and the world was suddenly set to rights.

There was a part of him that wanted to tear the dress from her body, but instead he reached out to slip his finger beneath one of her fine straps. Her skin was warm, despite the cold night, and he felt her tremble at his touch. The slight sudden movement made his breath catch in his throat. ‘I’ll take care of you,’ he said again, ‘I always will.’ She didn’t laugh this time, and he leaned to kiss her. God it was sweet. He unbuttoned the red dress, slid the straps from her shoulders and let it fall lightly to the ground. She stood, staring at him, her breasts rising and falling with each short breath, and then she smiled, one of those half-smiles of Dolly’s that teased him and made him ache, and before he knew what was happening she’d pulled his shirt loose from his trousers …

Another bomb exploded, and plaster dust sifted down from the mouldings high above the door. Jimmy lit a cigarette as the anti-aircraft guns fired their replies. Still Dolly slept, her eye-lashes black against her dewy cheeks. He stroked her arm lightly. What a fool he’d been—what an absolute fool—refusing to marry her when she’d all but pleaded with him. Here he’d been fretting about the distance he sensed between them without stopping for a minute to consider his part in creating it. The old ideas he’d been clinging to about marriage and money. Seeing her tonight, though, glimpsing as he hadn’t before, just how easily he could have lost Dolly to this new world of hers, had made everything clear. He was just lucky she’d waited for him; that she still felt the same way. Jimmy smiled, smoothing her dark, glossy hair; that he was lying here beside her was proof of that.

They’d have to live in his flat at first—not what he’d dreamed of for Dolly, but his dad was settled and there wasn’t much point in moving while the war was still going on. When it was all over they could look at leasing something in a better area, maybe even talk to the bank about borrowing for their own place. Jimmy had some money set aside, he’d been saving for years, every spare penny in a jar, and his editor was very encouraging about his photographs.

He drew on his cigarette.

For now though they’d have a war wedding, and there was nothing shameful in that. It was romantic, he thought—love in a time of strife. Dolly would look gorgeous no matter what, she could have her friends as bridesmaids—Kitty, and the new one, Vivien, whose mention gave him an uneasy feeling—and Lady Gwendolyn Caldicott, perhaps, in place of her mother and father; and Jimmy already had the perfect ring to give her. It had been his own mother’s and was stored now in a black velvet box at the back of his bedroom drawer. She’d left it when she went, with a note explaining why, on the pillow where his father slept. Jimmy had been looking after it ever since; at first so he could give it back when she returned; later, to remember her by; but increasingly, as he grew older, so he could some day make a new start with the woman he loved. A woman who wouldn’t leave him.

Jimmy had adored his mother when he was a boy. She’d been his enchantment, his first love, the great silvery moon whose wax and wane held his own small human spirit in its thrall. She used to tell him a story, he remembered now, when-ever he couldn’t sleep. It was about the Nightingale Star, a boat, she said, a magical boat—a great old galleon with wide sails and a strong, trusty mast, that sailed through the seas of sleep, night after night, in pursuit of adventure. She used to sit right by him on the side of the bed, stroking his hair and weaving tales of the mighty ship, and her voice as it spoke of the wondrous journeys would soothe him like nothing else could. Not until he was floating on the edge of sleep, the ship pulling him towards the great star in the east, would she lean down to whisper softly in his ear, ‘Off you go now, my darling. I’ll see you tonight on the Nightingale Star. Wait for me, won’t you? We’ll have ourselves a great adventure.’

He’d believed it for such a long time. After she left with the other fellow, that rich man with his silver tongue and his big expensive motorcar, he’d told himself the story each night, certain he would see her in his sleep, take hold of her and make her come back home.

He’d thought there’d never be another woman he could love that much. And then he’d met Dolly Jimmy finished his cigarette and checked his watch; it was almost five. He’d better leave now if he was going to be home in time to put an egg on for his dad’s breakfast.

He stood up as quietly as he could, pulled on his trousers and did up his belt. He lingered for a moment, watching Dolly, and then he leaned to plant the lightest of kisses on her cheek. ‘I’ll see you on the Nightingale Star,’ he whispered. She stirred, but didn’t wake, and Jimmy smiled.

He slipped down the stairs and out into the freezing grey of wintry pre-dawn London. There was snow on the air, he could smell it, and he blew out great puffs of mist as he walked, but Jimmy wasn’t cold. Not this morning. Dolly Smitham loved him, they were going to be married, and nothing would ever be wrong again.

Thirteen

Greenacres, 2011

IT STRUCK LAUREL, as she sat down to a dinner of baked beans on toast, that this was very likely the first time she’d ever been alone at Greenacres. No mother or father going about their business in another room, no excitable sisters making the floor-boards creak upstairs, no baby brother, no pets. Not so much as a hen roosting in the boxes outside. Laurel lived by herself in London, she’d done so on and off for the better part of forty years; to be frank she was rather fond of her own company. To-night, though, surrounded by the sights and sounds of child-hood, she felt a loneliness the depths of which surprised her.

‘Are you sure you’ll be all right?’ Rose had asked that after-noon before she left. She’d lingered in the entrance room, twisting the end of her long strand of African beads and inclining her head towards the kitchen—‘because I could stay, you know. I wouldn’t mind a bit. Perhaps I should stay? I’ll just call Sadie and tell her I won’t be able to make it.’

It was a strange turn up for the books, Rose to be worried about Laurel, and Laurel had been taken aback. ‘Nonsense,’ she’d said, perhaps a little sternly, ‘you’ll do no such thing. I’ll be perfectly fine by myself.’

Rose remained unconvinced. ‘I don’t know, Lol, it’s just, it’s not like you to phone like that, out of the blue. You’re usually so busy, and now …’ The beads threatened to snap their bonds. ‘I’ll tell you what, why don’t I just ring Sadie and tell her we’ll catch up tomorrow? It’s really no bother.’

‘Rose, please—’ Laurel did a lovely line in exasperation—‘for the love of God, go and see your daughter. I told you, I’m just here to have a little down time before I start filming Macbeth. To be honest, I’m rather looking forward to the peace and quiet.’

She had been, too. Laurel was grateful that Rose had been able to meet her with the keys, but her head was buzzing with the list of what she knew and what she still needed to find out about her mother’s past, and she’d been eager to get inside and put her thoughts in order. Watching Rose’s car disappear down the driveway had filled her with a sense of enormous anticipation. It had seemed to mark the beginning of something. She was here at last; she’d done it, left her life in London in order to get to the bottom of her family’s great secret.

Now, though, alone in the sitting room with an empty dinner plate for company and a long night stretching ahead, she found her certainty waning. She wished she’d given Rose’s offer a little more thought; her sister’s gentle patter was just the thing to keep one’s mind from drifting someplace dark, and Laurel could’ve used the help right now. The problem was the ghosts, for of course she wasn’t really alone at all, they were everywhere: hiding behind corners, drifting up and down the stairs, echoing against the bathroom tiles. Little girls in bare feet and smocks and various lanky states of growing up; the tall lean figure of Daddy whistling in the shadows; but most of all Ma, who was everywhere all at once, who was this house, Greenacres, whose passion and energy infused each plank of wood, each pane of glass, each stone.

She was in the corner of the room right now—Laurel could see her there, wrapping a birthday present for Iris. It was a book about ancient history, a children’s encyclopedia, and Laurel could remember being struck at the time by the beautiful illustrations inside, black and white and somehow mysterious in their depictions of long-ago places. The book, as an object, had seemed distinctly important to Laurel and she’d felt jealous when Iris unwrapped it on their parents’ bed next morning, when she started turning the pages with proprietorial care and readjusting the ribbon bookmark. There was something about a book that inspired dedication and a swelling desire to possess it, especially in Laurel, who hadn’t many of her own.

They hadn’t been a particularly bookish family—it always surprised people to hear that—but they’d never gone without stories. Daddy had been full of dinner table anecdotes, and Dorothy Nicolson was the sort of mother to invent her own fairy tales rather than read them out of books. ‘Did I ever tell you,’ she’d said once when Laurel was small, and resistant to sleep, ‘about the Nightingale Star?’

Laurel had shaken her head eagerly. She liked Mummy’s stories. ‘Have I not? Well, that explains it then. I did wonder why I never saw you there.’

‘Where, Mummy? What’s the nightingale star?’

‘Why, it’s the way home of course, little wing. And it’s the way there, too.’

Laurel was confused. ‘The way where?’

‘Everywhere—anywhere—’ She smiled then, in that way she had that always made Laurel feel glad to be near her, and leaned closer, as if to tell a secret, her dark hair falling forwards over one shoulder. Laurel loved to hear secrets; she was very good at keeping them too, so she listened closely when Mummy said, ‘the Nightingale Star is a great ship that leaves each night from the rim of sleep. Have you ever seen a picture of a pirate ship, one with billowing white sails and rope ladders that swing and sway in the wind?’

Laurel nodded hopefully.

‘Then you’ll know her when you see her, for she looks just like that. The straightest mast you can imagine, and a flag at the very top, silver cloth with a white star and a pair of wings at its centre.’

‘How do I get aboard, Mummy? Will I have to swim?’ Laurel wasn’t a very good swimmer.

Dorothy laughed. ‘That’s the best part of all. The only thing you have to do is wish, and when you fall asleep tonight, you’ll find yourself on her warm decks, about to set sail on a grand adventure.’

‘Will you be there, too, Mummy?’

Dorothy had a faraway look on her face; a mysterious expression she wore sometimes, as if remembering something that made her feel a little bit sad. But then she smiled, and ruffled Laurel’s hair. ‘Of course, I will, poppet. You didn’t think I’d let you go alone, did you?’