The Secret Keeper (54 page)

‘Ma wanted them to be friends—from what I read, it was al-most as if she wanted to be Vivien Jenkins She became obsessed with the idea that they were inseparable—“two of a kind”, were his exact words, but it was all in her head.’

‘But … I don’t …’

‘And then something happened—it wasn’t clear what exactly—but Vivien Jenkins did something that made it evident to Mummy that they weren’t close friends at all.’

Laurel thought of the argument Kitty Barker had spoken of: something happening between the two of them that had put Dorothy in a terrible mood and spurred her desire for revenge. ‘What was it, Gerry?’ she said. ‘Do you know what Vivien did?’ Or took.

‘She—hang on. Bugger, I’m out of coins.’ There came the fierce sound of pockets being shaken, the phone receiver being fumbled. ‘It’s going to cut me off, Lol—’

‘Call me back. Find some more coins and ring me back.’

‘Too late, I’m out. I’ll talk to you soon, though; I’m coming to Green- ac—’

The tone sounded flatly and Gerry was gone.

Twenty-seven

London, May 1941

JIMMY HAD BEEN embarrassed the first time he brought Vivien home to visit his dad. Their small room looked bad enough through his eyes, but seeing it through hers made the half-measures he’d taken to make it homely seem truly desperate. Had he really thought draping an old tea towel across the wooden chest made it a dining table? Apparently, he had. Vivien, for her part, did a marvellous job of acting like there was nothing remotely odd in drinking black tea out of mismatched cups while perched beside a bird on the end of an old man’s bed, and it had gone off rather well, all things considered.

One of those things was his father’s insistence on calling Vivien ‘your young lady’ the whole time, and then asking Jim-my—in the pipingly clearest of voices—when the pair of them planned on getting married. Jimmy had corrected the old man at least three times before shrugging his shoulders apologetically at Vivien and giving the whole thing up for a joke. What else could he have done? It was just an old man’s mistake—he’d only met Doll once before, back in Coventry before the war—and there was no harm in it. For her part, Vivien didn’t seem to mind and Jimmy’s dad was made happy. Exceedingly happy. He got on a treat with Vivien. In her, it seemed, he’d found the audience he’d been waiting for all his life.

There were times when Jimmy watched the pair of them, laughing together at some remembrance of his dad’s, trying to teach Finchie a new trick, arguing cheerfully over the best way to bait a fish hook, and he thought his heart might burst with gratitude. It had been a long while, he realised—years—since he’d seen his father without the worry line that pulled between his brows when he was trying to remember who and where he was.

Occasionally, Jimmy caught himself attempting to picture Doll in Vivien’s place, imagining it was her fetching a fresh cup of tea for his dad, stirring in the condensed milk just the way he liked, telling stories that made the old man shake his head with surprise and pleasure … but he couldn’t envisage it somehow. He chided himself even for trying. Comparisons were irrelevant, he knew, and unfair to both women. Doll would have come to visit if she could. Her hours at the munitions factory were long and she was always so tired afterwards—she wasn’t a lady of leisure—it was only natural she’d choose to fill her rare free evenings catching up with friends.

Vivien, on the other hand, seemed genuinely to relish the time she spent in their small room. Jimmy had made the mistake of thanking her once, as if she did him a great personal favour, but she’d only looked at him like he’d lost his mind and said, ‘For what?’ He’d felt foolish in the face of her perplexity and changed the subject by making a joke, but he found himself considering later that perhaps he’d got it all turn about and it was only for the old man’s company that Vivien kept up his acquaintance. It seemed as likely an explanation as any. What other reason could there be for her to change her tune so remarkably?

He still reflected on it sometimes, wondering why she’d said yes that day at the hospital when he’d asked her to walk with him. He didn’t need to wonder why he’d asked her: it was having her back after she was ill, the brightening of everything when he’d opened the attic door and seen her there unexpectedly. He’d hurried to catch up with her when she left, opening the front door so quickly she’d still been standing on the step, straightening her scarf. He hadn’t expected her to say yes, he knew only that he’d been thinking about it all through the rehearsal; he wanted to spend time with her, not because Dolly had told him to, but because he liked her; he liked being with her.

‘Do you have children, Jimmy?’ she’d asked him as they walked together. She was moving more slowly than usual, still delicate after the illness that had kept her at home. He’d noticed a certain reticence all day—she’d laughed with the kids as usual, but there’d been a look in her eyes, a caution or reservation that he wasn’t used to. Jimmy had felt sad for her, though he didn’t know why exactly.

He’d shaken his head, ‘No.’ And he’d felt his face colour, remembering how he’d upset her when he’d asked the same question. This time, though, she was steering the conversation and she pressed on.

‘But you want them one day.’

‘Yes.’

‘Just one or two?’

‘For starters. Then the other six.’

She’d smiled at that.

‘I was an only child,’ he said by way of explanation. ‘It was lonely.’

‘I was one of four. It was noisy.’

Jimmy had laughed then, and he was still smiling when he realised what he hadn’t before. ‘The stories you tell at the hospital,’ he said, as they turned the corner, thinking of the photograph he’d taken for her, ‘the ones about the wooden house on stilts, the enchanted forest, the family through the veil—that’s your family, isn’t it?’

Vivien nodded.

Jimmy wasn’t sure what had made him tell her about his dad that day—something in the way she’d looked when she spoke about her own family, the stories he’d heard her tell that crack-led with magic and longing and made time disappear, the need he suddenly felt to let somebody in. Whatever the case, he had told her, and Vivien had asked questions and Jimmy was re-minded of the day he’d first seen her with the children, that quality he’d noticed in the way she listened to them. When she said she’d like to meet the old man, Jimmy thought it was just one of those things that people say when they’re thinking about the train they’ve got to catch and wondering if they’ll get to the station in time. But at the next rehearsal she said it again. ‘I’ve brought something for him,’ she added, ‘something I think he might like.’

She had too. And the following week, when Jimmy finally agreed to take her to meet his dad, she’d presented the old man with a fine piece of cuttlefish, ‘For Finchie’. She’d found it on the beach, she said, when she and Henry were visiting his publisher’s family.

‘She’s a lovely one, Jim-boy,’ Jimmy’s dad had said loudly. ‘Very pretty—like something out of a painting. Kind, too. Will you wait and have your wedding when we get to the seaside, do you think?’

‘I don’t know, Dad,’ Jimmy said, glancing at Vivien who was pretending great interest in some of his photographs pinned to the wall. ‘Let’s just wait and see, eh?’

‘Don’t wait too long, Jimmy. Your mum and me, we’re not getting any younger.’

‘Right-o, Dad. You’ll be first to know—promise.’

Later, when he was walking Vivien back to the underground station, he explained about his dad’s confusion, hoping she hadn’t been too embarrassed.

She seemed surprised. ‘You mustn’t apologise for your father, Jimmy.’

‘No, I know. I just—I didn’t want you to feel uncomfortable.’

‘On the contrary. I haven’t felt so comfortable in a long time.’

They walked a bit further without conversation, and then Vivien said, ‘Are you really going to live at the seaside?’

‘That’s the plan.’ Jimmy flinched. Plan. He’d said the word without thinking and he cursed himself. There was something enormously uncomfortable in outlining for Vivien the selfsame future scenario that had become bound up in his mind with Dolly’s scheme.

‘And you’re going to be married.’

He nodded.

‘That’s wonderful, Jimmy, I’m pleased for you. Is she a nice girl?— No, of course she is. Silly question.’

Jimmy smiled faintly, hoping that was an end to the subject, but then Vivien said,

‘Well?’

‘Well?’

She laughed. ‘Tell me about her.’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘I’m not sure, the usual sorts of things, I suppose—how did you two meet?’

Jimmy’s mind went back to the cafe in Coventry. ‘I was carrying a sack of flour.’

‘And she was powerless to resist.’ Vivien teased him gently. ‘So evidently she’s partial to flour. What else does she like? What’s she like?’ ‘Playful,’ Jimmy said, his throat tight, ‘full of life, full of dreams.’ He wasn’t enjoying the conversation one bit, but he found his mind drawn to thoughts of Doll; the girl she’d been, the woman she was now. ‘She lost her family in the Blitz.’

‘Oh, Jimmy.’ Vivien’s face fell. ‘The poor girl. She must’ve been devastated.’

Her sympathy was deep and sincere, and Jimmy couldn’t bear it. His shame at the deceit; the part he’d already played; his heart-sickness at the duplicity—all drove him now to honesty. Perhaps, in the back of his mind, he even hoped the truth might sabotage Doll’s plan in some way. ‘I think you might know her actually.’

‘What?’ She shot him a glance, seemingly alarmed by the idea. ‘How?’

‘Her name’s Dolly.’ He held his breath, remembering how badly things had gone between the two of them; ‘Dolly Smitham.’

‘No.’ Vivien was visibly relieved. ‘No, I don’t think I know anybody by that name.’

Now Jimmy was confused. He knew they were friends, that is they had been once, Dolly had told him all about it. ‘You worked at the WVS together. She used to live across the road from you in Campden Grove. Lady Gwendolyn’s companion.’

‘Oh!’ Realisation dawned on Vivien’s face and, ‘Oh, Jimmy,’ she said, stopping to grip his arm, her dark eyes wide with panic. ‘Does she know we’ve been working together at the hospital?’

‘No,’ Jimmy lied, hating himself.

Her relief was palpable, a smile tried to form only to be dimmed quickly by renewed concern. She sighed with regret, pressing her fingers lightly to her lips. ‘God, Jimmy, she must hate me.’ Her eyes scanned his. ‘It was the most awful thing—I don’t know if she mentioned it to you—she did me a great favour once, returning my locket when I’d lost it, but I—I’m afraid I was rather rude to her. I’d had a bad day, something unexpected had happened; I wasn’t feeling well and I was unkind. I went to see her, to apologise and explain; I knocked on the door of number 7, but nobody answered. Then the old woman died and everyone moved away; it all happened very quickly.’ Vivien’s fingers had fallen to her locket as she spoke; she was twisting it, turning it over in the hollow of her throat. ‘Will you tell her, Jimmy? Will you tell her I didn’t mean to treat her so un-kindly?’

Jimmy said that he would. Hearing Vivien’s explanation had made him unaccountably pleased. It confirmed Dolly’s account; but it also proved that the whole thing, Vivien’s seeming coldness, had been a huge misunderstanding.

They walked a little further in silence, each of them away with their thoughts, until Vivien said, ‘Why are you waiting to get married, Jimmy? You’re in love, aren’t you? You and Dolly?’

His gladness fell away. He wished to God she’d drop the subject. ‘Yes.’

‘Then why not do it now?’

The words he found to mask the lie were trite. ‘We want it to be perfect.’

She nodded, considering, and then she said, ‘What could be more perfect than marrying the person you love?’

Perhaps it was the unpleasant haze of shame he was feeling that made him leap to justify himself; perhaps it was the latent memories of his dad waiting in vain for his mother to return, but Jimmy echoed her question—‘What could be more perfect than love?’—and then he laughed bitterly. ‘Knowing you can provide enough to keep your loved one happy, for starters. That you can put food on the table, pay to keep the rooms warm, keep a roof over your heads. For those of us with nothing to spare that’s no small matter. Not as romantic as your idea, I admit, but that’s life, isn’t it?’

Vivien’s face had paled; he’d hurt her, he could tell, with his acerbity, but Jimmy’s own temper was flashing red hot by then, and although he was upset with himself and not with her at all, he didn’t apologise. ‘You’re right,’ she said finally. ‘I’m sorry, Jimmy. I spoke out of turn; it was insensitive of me. It’s none of my business anyway. You just paint such a vivid picture—the farmhouse, the seaside—it’s all so wonderful. I was caught up vicariously in your plans.’