The Secret Keeper (13 page)

Constable Basil Suckling had been perambulating the promenade all morning, keeping an eye fixed firmly on his beach. He’d noticed the dark-haired girl as soon as she arrived, and had been watching her closely ever since. He’d turned away only briefly over that blasted business with the donkey, but when he looked back the girl was gone. It had taken Constable Suckling a tense few minutes to find her again, behind the bathing huts, engaged in what looked to him suspiciously like heated discussion. Her companion, none other than the rough young man who’d been lurking beneath his hat at the back of the bandstand all morning.

Hand on his truncheon, Constable Suckling jostled across the beach. The sand made progress more ungainly than he’d have liked, but he did his best. As he drew near he heard her say, ‘That dress isn’t yours.’ ‘Everything all right then?’ said the constable now, holding his stomach in a little tighter as he came to a stop. She was even prettier up close than he’d imagined. Bowtie lips with up-turned outer corners. Peachy skin—smooth, he could tell just by looking, yielding. Glossy curls around a love-heart face. He added, ‘This fellow’s not bothering you is he, Miss?’

‘Oh. Oh, no, sir. Not at all.’ Her face was flushed and Constable Suckling realised she was blushing. Not every day she met a man in uniform, he supposed. She really was quite charming. ‘This gentleman was just about to return something to me.’

‘Is that right?’ He frowned at the young man, taking in the insolent expression, the jaunty way he carried himself, the high cheekbones and arrogant black eyes. They gave the lad a distinctly foreign look, an Irish look, those eyes, and Inspector Suckling narrowed his own. The young man shifted his weight and made a small sighing noise, the plaintive nature of which made the constable improbably cross. Louder this time, he said again, ‘Is that right?’

Still there came no answer, and Constable Suckling’s grip settled on his truncheon. He tightened his fingers around its familiar shaft. It was, he sometimes thought, the best partner he’d ever had, certainly the most abiding. His fingertips itched with pleasant memories and it was almost a disappointment when the young man, cowed, gave a nod.

‘Well then,’ the constable said; ‘Hurry it up. Return the young lady’s item to her. ’

‘Thank you, Constable,’ she said, ‘it’s so kind of you.’ And then she smiled again, setting off a not unpleasant shifting sensation in the constable’s trousers. ‘It blew away, you see.’

Constable Suckling cleared his throat and adopted his most policeman-like expression. ‘Right then, Miss,’ he said, ‘Let’s get you home, shall we? Out of the wind and out of danger’s way.’

Dolly managed to extricate herself from Inspector Suckling’s dutiful care when they reached the front door of Bellevue. It had looked a little hairy for a while—there’d been talk of walking her inside and fetching her a nice cup of tea to ‘settle her nerves’—but Dolly, after no small effort, convinced him that his talents were wasted on such menial tasks and he really should be getting back to his beat. ‘After all, Constable, you must have so many people needing you to rescue them.’

She thanked him profusely—he held her hand a little longer than was strictly necessary in parting which was uncomfortable, for his skin was sticky—and then Dolly made a great show of opening the door and heading inside. She closed it almost but not quite completely and watched through the gap as he strutted back to the promenade. Only when he’d become a pinprick in the distance did she tuck the silver dress beneath a cushion for safekeeping and sneak back out, doubling back the way they’d come along the prom.

The young man was loitering, waiting for her, leaning against the pillar outside one of the smartest guesthouses. Dolly didn’t so much as glance sideways at him as she passed, only kept walking, shoulders back, head held high. He followed her down the road, she could tell he was there, and into a small laneway that zigzagged away from the beach. Dolly could feel her heartbeat speeding up and, as the sounds of the seaside deadened against the cold stone walls of the buildings, she could hear it too. She kept walking, faster than before. Her plimsolls were scuffing on the tarmac, her breaths were growing short, but she didn’t stop and she didn’t look behind her. There was a spot she knew, a dark juncture where she’d become lost once as a little girl, hidden from the world as her mother and father called her name and feared the worst.

Dolly stopped when she reached it, but she didn’t turn around. She stood there, very still, listening, waiting until he was right behind her, until she could feel his breath on the back of her neck, his very closeness heating her skin.

He took her hand and she gasped. She let him turn her slowly to face him, and she waited, wordless, as he lifted the inside of her wrist to his mouth and brushed across it the sort of kiss that made her shiver from way down deep inside.

‘What are you doing here?’ she whispered.

His lips were still touching her skin. ‘I missed you.’

‘It’s only been three days.’

He shrugged, and that lock of dark hair that refused to stay put fell forward across his forehead.

‘You came by train?’

He gave a slow single nod.

‘Just for the day?’

Another nod, half a smile.

‘Jimmy! But it’s such a long way.’

‘I had to see you.’

‘What if I’d stayed with my family on the beach? What if I hadn’t headed back alone, what then?’

‘I still would’ve seen you, wouldn’t I?’

Dolly shook her head, pleased but pretending not to be. ‘My father will kill you if he finds out.’

‘I reckon I can take him.’

Dolly laughed, he always made her laugh. It was one of the things she liked best about him. ‘You’re mad.’

‘About you.’

And then there was that. He was mad about her. Dolly’s stomach turned a somersault. ‘Come on then,’ she said. ‘There’s a path through here that leads out into fields. No one will see us there.’

‘You realise, of course, that you could’ve got me arrested.’

‘Oh, Jimmy! You’re being too serious.’

‘You didn’t see the look on that policeman’s face—he was ready to lock me up and throw away the key. Don’t get me started on the way he was looking at you.’ Jimmy turned his head to face her, but she didn’t meet his eyes. The grass was long and soft where they were lying and she was staring up at the sky, humming some dance tune beneath her breath and making diamond shapes with her fingers. Jimmy traced her profile with his gaze—the smooth arc of her forehead, the dip between her brow that rose again to form that determined nose, the sudden drop and then the full scoop of her top lip. God she was beautiful. She made his whole body yearn and ache, and it took every bit of restraint he had not to jump on top of her, pin her arms behind her head and kiss her like a madman.

But he didn’t, he never did, not like that. Jimmy kept it chaste even though it damn near killed him. She was still a schoolgirl, and he a grown man, nineteen years to her seventeen. Two years might not seem a lot, but they came from different worlds, the two of them. She lived in a nice clean house with her nice clean family; he’d been out of school since he was thirteen, taking care of his dad and working at whatever lousy job he could get to make ends meet. He’d been a lather boy at the barber’s for five shillings a week, the baker’s lad for seven and sixpence, a heavy lifter on the construction site out of town for whatever they would give him; then home each night to put the butcher’s gristly odds and ends together for his dad’s tea. It was a life, they did fine. He’d always had his photographs for pleasure; but now, somehow, for reasons Jimmy didn’t understand and didn’t want to unravel for fear of wrecking everything, he had Dolly too, and the world was a brighter place; he sure as hell wasn’t going to move too fast and spoil things.

God it was hard though. From the first moment he’d seen her, sitting with her friends at a table in the street corner cafe, he’d been a goner. He’d looked up from the delivery he was making for the grocer, and she’d smiled at him, just like they were old friends, and then she’d laughed and blushed into her vanilla cup of tea, and he’d known that if he lived to be a hundred years old he’d never see a more beautiful vision. It had been the electric thrill of love at first sight. That laugh of hers that made him feel the pure joy he remembered from being a kid, the way she smelled of warm sugar and baby oil, the swell of her breasts beneath her light cotton dress—Jimmy shifted his head with frustration, and concentrated on a noisy gull as it flew low overhead towards the sea.

The horizon was a faultless blue, the breeze was light, and the smell of summer was everywhere. He sighed and with it let the whole thing drift away—the silver dress, the policeman, the embarrassment he’d felt at being cast as some sort of danger to her. There was no point. The day was too perfect to argue, and no harm had come of it anyway, not really. No harm ever did. Dolly’s games of ‘let’s pretend’ confused him, he didn’t understand the urge she had to make believe and he didn’t especially like it, but it made her happy so Jimmy went along with it.

As if to prove to Dolly that he’d put the whole thing behind him, Jimmy sat up suddenly and dug out his faithful Brownie from his haversack. ‘How about a picture?’ he said, winding on the spool of film. ‘A little memento of your seaside rendezvous, Miss Smitham?’ She perked up, just as he’d hoped she would—Dolly loved having her photograph taken—and Jimmy glanced about for the sun’s position. He walked to the far side of the small field in which they’d had their picnic.

Dolly had pushed herself to sitting and was stretching like a cat. ‘Like this?’ she said. Her cheeks were flushed from the sun, and her bow lips plump and red from the strawberries he’d bought at a roadside stall.

‘Perfect,’ he said, and she really was. ‘Nice light.’

‘And what exactly would you like me to do in the nice light?’

Jimmy rubbed his chin and pretended to consider this deeply. ‘What do I want you to do? Answer carefully now, Jimmy boy, this is your chance, don’t blow it … Think damn it, think …’

Dolly laughed and he did too. And then he scratched his head and said, ‘I want you to be you, Doll. I want to remember today exactly as it is. If I can’t see you for another ten days, at least I can carry you round in my pocket.’

She smiled, a small enigmatic twitch of the lips, and then nodded. ‘Something to remember me by.’

‘Exactly,’ he called. ‘Won’t be a minute now, I’ll just fix the settings.’ He dropped down the Diway lens and, because the sunshine was so bright, pulled up the lever for a smaller aperture. Better to be safe than sorry. By the same token, he took the lens cloth from his pocket and gave the glass a good rub.

‘All right,’ he said, closing one eye and looking down into the viewfinder. ‘We’re read—’ Jimmy fumbled the camera box, but he didn’t dare look up.

Dolly was staring at him from the middle of the viewfinder. Her chestnut-coloured hair fell in wind-loosened waves that kissed her neck, but beneath it she’d unbuttoned her dress and slipped it from her shoulders.

Without taking her eyes from the camera she started peeling the strap of her bathing suit slowly down her arm.

Christ. Jimmy swallowed. He should say something; he knew he should say something. Make a joke, be witty, be clever. But in the face of Dolly, sitting there like that, her chin lifted, her eyes issuing him a challenge, the curve of her breast exposed—well, nineteen years of speech evaporated in an instant. Without his wit to help him, Jimmy did the one thing he could always rely on. He took his shot.

‘Just make sure you develop them yourself,’ said Dolly, buttoning up her dress with trembling fingers. Her heart was racing and she felt bright and alive, strangely powerful. Her own daring, the look on his face when he’d seen her, the way he was still having trouble meeting her eyes without blushing—it was intoxicating, all of it. More than that, it was proof. Proof that she, Dorothy Smitham, was exceptional, just as Dr Rufus had said. She wasn’t destined for the bicycle factory, of course she wasn’t; her life was going to be extraordinary.

‘You think I’d let any other man see you that way?’ said Jim-my, paying extravagant attention to the straps of his camera.

‘Not on purpose.’

‘I’d kill him first.’ He said it softly, and his voice cracked slightly under a burden of possession that made Dolly swoon. She wondered if he would. Did such things really happen? They didn’t where Dolly came from, the semi-detached mock Tudors standing proud in their soulless new suburbs; she couldn’t imagine Arthur Smitham rolling up his sleeves to defend his wife’s honour; but Jimmy wasn’t like Dolly’s father. He was the opposite: a working man with long, strong arms and an honest face and the sort of smile that came from nowhere to make her stomach turn back flips. She pretended not to hear, taking the camera from him and staring at it with a show of thoughtfulness.