The Secret Keeper (61 page)

Her mind was liquid now; she was in the tunnel, swimming down and down, her arms and legs strong as they pulled her through the water towards home …

Vivien didn’t mind being punished; she just wondered when it would end. When he would put an end to her. Because he would one day, of that she was certain. Vivien held her breath, waiting, hoping, this might be it. For each time she woke and found herself still here in the house on Campden Grove, the well of despair inside her deepened.

The water was warmer now; she was getting closer. In the distance, the first twinkling lights. Vivien swam towards them …

What would happen, she wondered, when he did kill her? Knowing Henry he’d have the wherewithal to make sure some-one else took the blame. Or else he’d have it seem she’d died by accident—an unfortunate fall, bad luck in the air raids. Wrong place, wrong time, people would say, shaking their heads, and Henry would be cast evermore as the devoted grieving husband. He’d probably write a book about it, about her, a fantasy version of Vivien, just like the other one, The Reluctant Muse, about that horrid pliable girl she didn’t recognise, who worshipped her author husband and dreamed of dresses and parties.

The lights were bright now, nearer, and Vivien could make out shimmering patterns. She looked beyond them though, it was what lay beyond that she had come to find …

The room tilted. Henry was finished. He picked her up and she felt her body slump like a rag doll, limp in his arms. She ought to do it herself. Take rocks, or bricks—something heavy—and put them in her pockets; walk into the Serpentine, one step at a time, until she saw the lights. He was kissing her face, smothering it with wet kisses. His ragged breaths, his smell of hair grease and alcohol turned to sweat: ‘There now,’ he was saying. ‘I love you, you know I do, but you make me so angry—you shouldn’t get me angry like that.’

Tiny lights, so many lights, and on the other side, Pippin. He turned towards her, and for the first time it seemed he could see her …

Henry carried her up the stairs, a ghastly groom with his bride, and then he laid her gently on the bed. She could do it herself. It was so clear to her now. She, Vivien, was the final thing she could take from him. He peeled off her shoes and fixed her hair so it fell evenly over each shoulder. ‘Your face,’ he said sadly; ‘your beautiful face.’ He kissed the back of her hand and set it down beside her. ‘Have a rest now,’ he said, ‘You’ll feel better when you wake up.’ He leaned close, his lips against her ear. ‘And don’t you worry about Jimmy Metcalfe. I’ve had him taken care of; he’s dead now, rotting at the bottom of the Thames. He won’t come between us any more.’

Heavy footsteps; the door closing; the key being turned in the lock. Pippin lifted his hand, half a wave, half a beckoning motion, and Vivien went towards him …

She woke an hour later, in her bedroom at 25 Campden Grove, with afternoon sunlight streaming through the window onto her face. Immediately Vivien closed her eyes again. She had a throbbing headache behind her temples, in the back of her eye sockets, at the base of her neck. Her whole head felt like a ripe plum that had fallen onto tiles from somewhere high. She lay as still as a plank, trying to remember what had happened and why she ached so terribly.

It came back to her in waves, the whole episode, mixed, as always, with impressions from the watery salvation of her mind. Those were the hardest memories to bear—the shadowy sensations of supreme well-being, of eternal longing, more febrile than real memories, and yet so much more potent.

Vivien winced as slowly she shifted each part of her body, trying to ascertain the damage. It was part of the process; Henry would expect her to be ‘neatened up’ by the time he got home; he didn’t like it when she took too long to heal. Her legs seemed unharmed, that was good— limping prompted awkward questions; her arms were bruised but not broken; it was her jaw that throbbed, her ear was still ringing and the side of her face burned. That was unusual. Henry didn’t usually touch her face; he was careful, keeping the blows always below the neckline. She was his prize, nothing should mark her but him, and he didn’t like to be confronted by the evidence; it reminded him of how angry she’d made him, how disappointing she could be. He liked her injuries to remain safely beneath her clothing, there for only her to see, to remind her how much he loved her—he would never hit a woman if he didn’t care so damned much.

Vivien cleared her mind of Henry. Something else had been trying to get to the surface, something important; she could hear it like a lone mosquito in the dead of night, buzzing close before skirting away, but she couldn’t catch it. She waited very still as the hum came near, and then—Vivien gasped for air; she remembered, and she reeled. Her own suffering paled. Don’t you worry about Jimmy Metcalfe. I’ve had him taken care of; he’s dead now, rotting at the bottom of the Thames. He won’t come between us any more.

She couldn’t breathe. Jimmy—he hadn’t come to meet her today. She’d waited but he hadn’t come. Jimmy wouldn’t have left her there; he’d have come if he could.

Henry knew his name; he’d found out somehow, he’d had Jimmy ‘taken care of’. There’d been others before; people who’d dared get between Henry and the things he wanted. He never did it himself, it wouldn’t have been seemly—Vivien was the only one who knew the cruelty of Henry’s fists. But Henry had his men, and Jimmy hadn’t come.

A keening noise, the terrible sound of an animal in pain, and Vivien realised it was her. She curled onto her side and pressed her hands against her skull to ease the ache, and she didn’t think she’d ever move again.

Next time she woke the sun had lost its bite and the room had taken on the blue of early evening. Vivien’s eyes stung. She’d been crying in her sleep, but she didn’t cry now. She was empty inside, desolate. All that was good in the world had gone; Henry had seen to that.

How had he known? He had his spies, she knew, but Vivien had been careful. She’d gone to Dr Tomalin’s hospital for five months without incident; she’d broken contact with Jimmy so this exact thing wouldn’t happen; as soon as Dr Rufus told her about Dolly’s intentions, she’d known—

Dolly.

Of course, it was Dolly. Vivien forced her mind back to the details of her conversation with Dr Rufus, straining to remember; he’d told her Dolly planned to send a photograph of Vivien and Jimmy with a letter saying she’d tell Vivien’s husband all about the ‘affair’ unless Vivien paid for her silence.

Vivien had thought the cheque would be enough, but no, Dolly must have sent the letter after all, and in it, along with the photograph, she’d named Jimmy. The foolish headstrong girl. She’d imagined herself the inventor of a clever scheme; Dr Rufus said she’d thought it was harmless, she’d been convinced that no one would get hurt; but she hadn’t known with whom she was dealing. Henry, who got jealous if Vivien stopped to say good morning to the old man who sold newspapers on the street corner; Henry, who wouldn’t allow her to make friends or have children, for fear they’d take her time away from him; Henry, who had contacts in the Ministry and could find out anything about anybody; who’d used her money to have others ‘taken care’ of in the past.

Vivien sat up carefully—shooting stars of pain behind her eyeballs, inside her ear, in the crown of her head. She took a breath and pushed herself to standing, relieved to find she could still walk. She caught her face in the mirror and stared: there was blood dried down one side and her eye had started to swell. She turned her head gently to the other side, everything hurting as she did so. The tender spots were not yet purple; she would look worse tomorrow.

The longer she spent on her feet, the better she was able to stand the pain. The bedroom door was locked, but Vivien had a secret key. She went slowly to the hidey-hole behind her grandmother’s portrait, struggled a moment to remember the combination, and then turned the dial. A hazy memory came of the day some weeks before her wedding when Vivien’s uncle had brought her to London to visit the family lawyers and, after-wards, the house. The caretaker had pulled her aside when they were alone in the second bedroom and pointed out the portrait, the safe behind. ‘A lady needs a place for her secrets’, she’d whispered, and although Vivien hadn’t liked the sly look on the old woman’s face, she’d always craved a place of her own and had remembered the advice.

The safe door sprung open and she retrieved the key she’d had cut last time—she took the picture Jimmy had given her, too; it was inexplicable, but she felt better for having it near her. As carefully as she could, Vivien closed the door and hung the painting straight.

She found the envelope on Henry’s desk. He hadn’t even bothered to hide it. It was addressed to Vivien, postmarked two days before, and had been sliced open. Henry always opened her post—and therein lay the terrible flaw in Dolly’s great scheme.

Vivien knew what the letter would say, but her heart still pounded as she skimmed its contents. All was as she’d expected; the letter written almost in a kindly tone; Vivien just thanked God the silly girl hadn’t signed her name, that she’d written only, ‘A Friend’, at the bottom.

Tears threatened when Vivien looked at the photograph but she forced them back. And when her memory tossed up tantalizing echoes of precious moments in Dr Tomalin’s attic, of Jimmy, of the way he’d made her feel almost as if she might have a future to look forward to, she quashed them. She knew better than anyone that there was no going back.

Vivien turned the envelope over and she could have wept tears of despair. For there, Dolly had written: A Friend, 24 Rillington Place, Notting Hill.

Vivien tried to run, but her head thumped and her thoughts swam and she had to stop at each looming lamp post, steadying herself as she made her way through the navy-dark streets towards Notting Hill. She’d stayed in Campden Grove long enough only to rinse her face, hide the photograph, and scratch out a hurried letter. She dropped it in the first postbox she passed and continued on her way. There was a single thing left she had to do, her final penance before everything was set right.

Once she’d realised that fact, everything else had come into glorious focus. Vivien shed desolation like an unwanted coat, and stepped towards the shining lights. It was all so simple really. She had brought about her family’s death; she had brought about Jimmy’s death; but now she was going to make sure Dolly Smitham was saved. Then, and only then, she would go to the Serpentine and make her pockets heavy with stones. Vivien could see the end and it was beautiful.

Speed of light and limb, her father used to say, and although her head throbbed, although she had to clutch the railings sometimes to stop from falling, Vivien was a good runner, and she refused to stop. She imagined herself a wallaby, scooting through the bush; a dingo, slinking in the shadows; a lizard, sneaking in the dark …

There were planes in the distance and Vivien glanced at the black sky every so often, stumbling when she did. A part of her willed them to fly overhead, to drop their load if they dared; but not yet, not yet, she still had work to do.

Night had fallen when she reached Rillington Place, and Vivien hadn’t brought a torch. She was struggling to find the right number when a door slammed shut behind her; she glimpsed a figure coming down the steps of the nearby house.

Vivien called, ‘Excuse me?’

‘Yes?’ A woman’s voice.

‘Please—can you help me? I’m looking for number 24.’

‘You’re in luck. It’s right here. No rooms free at the moment, I’m afraid, but there will be soon.’ The woman struck a match then and brought it to her cigarette so that Vivien saw her face.

She couldn’t believe her luck, and thought at first she must be seeing things. ‘Dolly?’ she said, rushing closer to the pretty woman in the white coat. ‘It is you, thank God. It’s me, Dolly. It’s—’

‘Vivien?’ Dolly’s voice was filled with surprise.

‘I thought I might’ve missed you, that I was too late.’

Dolly was immediately suspicious. ‘Too late for what? What is it?’ ‘Nothing—’. Vivien laughed suddenly. Her head was spinning and she faltered. ‘That is, everything.’

Dolly drew on her cigarette. ‘Have you been drinking?’

Something moved in the dark beyond; there were footsteps. Vivien whispered, ‘We have to talk—quickly.’

‘I can’t, I was just—’

‘Dolly, please—’ Vivien glanced over her shoulder, terrified she’d see one of Henry’s men coming towards her—‘it’s important.’

The other woman didn’t answer at once, wary of this unexpected visit. Finally, grudgingly, she took Vivien’s arm and said, ‘Come on, let’s go back inside.’

Vivien breathed a tentative sigh of relief as the door shut be-hind them; she ignored the curious glance of an elderly woman in glasses, and followed Dolly up the stairs, along a corridor that smelled of old food. The room at its end was small, dark and stuffy.