The Secret Keeper (60 page)

‘He said …’ Ma’s eyes shot open; her grip tightened on Laurel’s hand. ‘He said he was going to destroy everything I loved—’

‘Oh, Ma.’

‘Just as I … just as I’d done to him.’

As her mother released her grip, exhausted, Laurel could have wept; she was overwhelmed by an almost crushing sense of relief. Finally, after weeks of searching, after years and years of wondering, everything was explained: what she’d seen; the menace she’d felt as she watched the man in the black hat walking up the driveway; the secrecy afterwards that she couldn’t understand.

Dorothy Nicolson killed Henry Jenkins when he came to Greenacres in 1961 because he was a violent monster who used to beat his wife; who’d killed her lover; who’d spent a decade trying to track her down and, when he found her, threatened to destroy the family she loved.

‘Laurel …’

‘Yes, Ma?’

But Dorothy didn’t say more, her lips moved soundlessly as she searched the dusty corners of her mind, grasping at lost threads she might never catch.

‘There now, Ma,’ Laurel stroked her mother’s forehead. ‘Everything’s all right. Everything’s all right now.’

Laurel fixed the sheets, and stood for a time watching her mother’s face, peaceful now, asleep. All this time, she realised, this whole search she’d been on, had been driven by a yearning need to know that her happy family, her entire childhood, the way her mother and father had looked at one another with such rare abiding love, was not a lie. And, now she did.

Her chest ached with a complex blend of burning love, and awe, and yes, finally, acceptance. ‘I love you, Ma,’ she whispered, close by Dorothy’s ear, feeling, as she did, the end to her quest. ‘And I forgive you, too.’

Iris’s voice was growing typically heated in the kitchen and Laurel itched, suddenly, to join her brother and sisters. She gathered Ma’s blankets up smoothly and placed a kiss on her forehead.

The thank-you card was sitting on the chair behind her and Laurel picked it up, intending to stow it in her bedroom for safe-keeping. Her mind was already downstairs fixing a cup of tea, so she couldn’t have said later what it was that made her notice then the small black marks on the envelope.

But notice them, she did. Her steps faltered halfway across Ma’s room and she stopped. She went to where the lamplight was brightest, slipped on her reading glasses and brought the envelope close. And then she smiled, slowly, wonderingly.

She’d been so distracted by the stamp that she’d nearly missed the real clue staring her in the face. The cancellation mark was decades old and it wasn’t easy to read, but it was clear enough to make out the date the card had been posted—June 3rd, 1953—and, better yet, where it had been sent from: Kensington, London.

Laurel glanced back towards her mother’s sleeping form. It was the very place Ma had lived during the war, in a house on Campden Grove. But who had sent her a thank-you card over a decade later, and why?

Thirty

London, May 23rd, 1941

VIVIEN GLANCED at her wristwatch, the cafe door, and finally the street outside. Jimmy had said two, but it was almost half past and there was still no sign of him. He might have run into trouble at work, or maybe with his dad, but Vivien didn’t think so. His message had been urgent—he needed to see her—and he’d delivered it by such cryptic methods; Vivien couldn’t believe he’d have let himself get caught up. She bit her bottom lip and checked her watch again. Her gaze shifted to the full cup of tea she’d poured half an hour ago, the chip on the saucer’s rim, the dried tea in the dip of the spoon. She glimpsed outside the window again, saw no one she knew, and then tilted her hat to hide her face.

His message had been a surprise, a wonderful, terrible heart- pounding surprise. Vivien had truly believed when she gave Jimmy the cheque that she wouldn’t see him again. It hadn’t been a trick, a way to bluff him into making fevered contact; Vivien valued his life, if not her own, too much for that. Her intention had been the opposite. After hearing Dr Rufus’s story, after realising the repercussions—for all of them—should Henry learn of the friendship she’d formed with Jimmy, the work she’d been doing at Dr Tomalin’s hospital, it had seemed the only way. The perfect way, in fact. It delivered money to Dolly, and the sort of insult to Jimmy that would most offend a man like him, an honourable man, a kind one, and that way be sufficient to keep him away—to keep him safe—forever. She’d been reckless in letting him get so close; she ought to have known better; Vivien had brought this whole situation on herself.

In some way, giving the cheque to Jimmy had also delivered to Vivien what she most wanted in the world. She smiled now, just a little, thinking of it. Her love for Jimmy was selfless: not because she was a good person but because it had to be. Henry would never ever allow them to be anything to one another, and so she let her love take the form of wanting for Jimmy the best life he could have, even if she couldn’t be a part of it. Jim-my and Dolly were free now to do everything he’d always dreamed of: to leave London, to be married, to live happily ever after. And by giving away money Henry guarded so jealously, Vivien was striking at him, too, in the only way she could. He would find out, of course. The strict rules of her inheritance weren’t easily circumvented, but Vivien had no great interest in money and what it could buy—she signed over whatever amount Henry demanded and needed very little for herself. Nonetheless, he made it his business to know precisely what was spent and where; she would pay a hefty price, just as she had over the donation to Dr Tomalin’s hospital, but it would be worth it. Oh, yes, it pleased her greatly to know the money he craved so dearly, would go elsewhere.

Which wasn’t to say telling Jimmy goodbye hadn’t been one of the most agonising things Vivien had ever done, because it had been. Faced with seeing him now, the joy that pulsed beneath her skin when she pictured him arriving through that door, the fall of dark hair over his eyes, the smile that suggested secret things, that made her feel under- stood—recognised, before he said a single word—she couldn’t believe she’d found the strength to go through with it.

Now, in the cafe, she looked up as one of the waitresses arrived at the edge of her table and asked if she’d like to order food; Vivien told her no, that she was fine with tea at the moment. It occurred to her that Jimmy might’ve come and gone al-ready, that perhaps she’d just missed him—Henry had been unusually tense over the past few days, it hadn’t been easy getting away—but when she asked the waitress, the girl shook her head. ‘I know the fellow you’re talking about,’ she said. ‘Handsome man with the camera.’ Vivien nodded. ‘Haven’t seen him in a couple of days—sorry.’

The waitress left and Vivien watched out the window again, checking up and down the street for Jimmy, and for anybody else who might be watching too. She’d been shocked initially by what Dr Rufus told her on the telephone, but as she’d made her way to Jimmy’s place, Vivien had thought she understood: Dolly’s hurt when she imagined herself rejected, her impulse for revenge, her burning desire to reinvent herself and start again. There were people, Vivien was sure, who’d find such a scheme inconceivable, but she wasn’t one of them: she found nothing particularly difficult in believing that a person might go to such lengths if they thought the ends made possible an escape; especially someone like Dolly, who’d been cut adrift by the loss of her family.

The only aspect of Dr Rufus’s story that cut like a knife was Jimmy’s part in it. Vivien refused to believe that everything they’d shared had been pretend. She knew it hadn’t. No matter what had brought Jimmy to her on the street that day, the feelings between them were real. She knew it in her heart, and Vivien’s heart was never wrong. She’d known it that very first night in the canteen, when she’d seen the photograph of Nella, and exclaimed, and Jimmy had looked up and their eyes had met. She knew it, too, because he hadn’t stayed away. She’d given him the cheque—everything Dolly wanted and more—but he hadn’t walked away. He’d refused to let her go.

Jimmy had sent word with a woman Vivien didn’t know, a funny little thing who’d knocked on the front door at 25 Camp-den Grove with a tin in her hand for donations to the Soldiers’ Hospital Fund. Vivien had been about to collect her purse, when the woman shook her head and whispered that Jimmy needed to see her, that he’d meet her here in this railway cafe at two o’clock on Friday. And then the woman had gone and Vivien had felt hope flare inside her before she knew how to stop it—

But—Vivien checked her watch—it was almost three thirty now; he wasn’t coming. She knew it. She’d known it for the past thirty minutes.

Henry would be home in an hour and there were things she had to take care of before he arrived, things that he expected. Vivien stood and tucked the chair beneath the table. Disappointment now was a hundred times worse than it had been the last time she’d left him. But she couldn’t wait longer; she’d already stayed beyond what was safe. Vivien paid for her cup of tea, and with a last glance around the cafe at the other patrons, she pushed her hat down low and hurried back towards Campden Grove.

‘Been out for a walk, have you?’

Vivien stiffened in the entrance hall; she glanced over her shoulder, through the open door to the sitting room. Henry was in the armchair, legs crossed, black shoes gleaming, as he watched her over the top of a thick Ministry report.

‘I …’ Her thoughts swam; he was early. She was sup-posed to greet him at the door when he arrived home, hand him his whisky and ask about his day. ‘It’s such lovely weather. I couldn’t resist.’

‘Go through the park?’

‘Yes.’ She smiled, trying to still the rabbit in her chest. ‘The tulips are in bloom.’

‘Are they?’

‘Yes.’

He lifted his report again, covering his face, and Vivien let herself exhale. She remained where she was but only for a second, only to be sure. Careful not to move too quickly, she set her hat down on the stand, removed her scarf, and walked as smoothly as she could, away.

‘See any friends while you were out?’ Henry’s voice stopped her as she reached the bottom step.

Vivien turned slowly; he was leaning, casually, against the sitting- room doorjamb, smoothing his moustache. He’d been drinking; there was something in his manner, a looseness that she recognised, that made her stomach swoop with dread. Other women, she knew, found Henry attractive, that dark, almost sneering expression, the way his eyes refused to let theirs go; but Vivien didn’t. She never had. Ever since the night they met, when she’d thought herself alone by the lake at Nordstrom and looked up to find him leaned against the pool house, staring at her while he smoked. There’d been something in his eyes as he watched her, lust, of course, but something besides. It had made her skin crawl. She saw it in them now. ‘Why, Henry, no,’ she said, as lightly as she could; ‘Of course not. You know I haven’t time for friends, not with my canteen work.’

The house was still and silent, no cook downstairs rolling out pastry for the dinner pie, no maid wrestling with the vacuum cord. Vivien missed Sarah; the poor girl had cried, embarrassed and ashamed, when Vivien came across the two of them together that afternoon; Henry had been livid, his pleasure spoiled and his dignity wrinkled. He’d punished Sarah’s compliance by letting her go; he’d punished Vivien’s timing by making her stay.

And so here they were, just the two of them. Henry and Vivien Jenkins, a man and his wife. Henry was one of my brightest students, her uncle had said when he told her what the two men had discussed in his smoke-filled study He’s a distinguished gentleman. You’re very lucky that he’s interested in you. ‘I think I’ll go upstairs and lie down,’ she said, after a time that seemed interminable.

‘Tired, darling?’

‘Yes.’ Vivien tried to smile. ‘The raids. The whole of London’s tired, I suppose.’

‘Yes.’ He came towards her with lips that smiled and eyes that didn’t. ‘I suppose they probably are.’

Henry’s fist hit her left ear first and the ringing was deafening. The force sent her face into the entrance-hall wall and she fell to the floor. He was on top of her then, grabbing at her dress, shaking her, his handsome face twisting with anger as he hit her. He was shouting too, spittle coming from his mouth, landing on her face, her neck, his eyes glinting as he told her over and over that she belonged to him and she always would, she was his prize, that he’d never let another man touch her, he’d sooner see her dead than let her go.

Vivien closed her eyes; she knew it drove him wild with rage when she refused to look at him. Sure enough he shook her harder, gripped her by the throat, shouted closer to her ear.

In the black of her mind, Vivien looked for the creek, the shining lights …

She never fought back, even when her fists clenched hard at her sides, and that balled-up part of her, the essence of Vivien Longmeyer that she’d tucked away so long ago, wrestled for release. Her uncle might have struck the deal in his smoky study, but Vivien had had her own reasons for being so compliant. Katy had tried her best to change her mind, but Vivien had always been stubborn. This was her penance, she knew, it was what she deserved. Her fists were the reason she’d been punished in the first place; the reason she’d been left at home; the reason her family had hurried back from the picnic and been lost.