Now he was angry. “Nor should you have. We don’t believe in all that business of tying each other down, we’ve been through this. Love isn’t about making rules—thou shalt not do this or do that…”
“And love certainly isn’t about going off to France with whatever bit of stuff you’re sleeping with nowadays.”
“Lena, you’re disgusting. Ring the Dryden, ask them am I doing an exchange, ask them.”
“Give me credit for something, for some bloody bit of dignity. Do you think I’d lower myself to make a call like that to check on you?”
“See, you have it every way now. You want proof, I give you proof, you won’t take it.”
“Go to Paris. I’m sick of you, Louis, go there and stay there.”
“I just might,” he said. “And if I do…you sent me.”
The afternoon was stifling. Jessie looked at her several times, but always Lena waved away any question or sympathy.
“Not bad news, was it?” Dawn asked,
“Absolutely not. Louis is going to France, I may join him there at the weekend.”
“Aren’t you a lucky couple,” Dawn said in genuine admiration.
At six o’clock with a great sense of relief, she put her cover on her typewriter, locked her files into her drawer, and left the office. Louis would be out of the flat by now. He would have gone straight home and packed his things. The only problem was how much he had packed. Enough for ten days in France, or enough for a longer time away from her. And as he had said, it was she who sent him.
She put off the evil moment of arriving home, and went to a pub.
“You’re too good-looking to drink alone,” the barman said as Lena bought her gin and tonic.
“Chat me up at your peril,” she said to him.
He laughed but he moved away smartly. There was something about her eyes that made him know she wasn’t joking.
Ivy made tea for the strikingly attractive Irish girl in her fresh yellow blouse and tartan skirt. She was a younger version of Lena, with the same shiny curly hair, and big dark eyes.
“I thought you’d be different, Mrs. Brown. I’ve been sending you letters for years, I didn’t know you’d be…” She paused.
“I’d be what?” Ivy had a mock threatening look.
“Well, young and kind of fun. I got the impression you were old and sort of making people be quiet in front of you.”
“Is that what Lena wrote about me?”
“No. She wrote nothing about you, she wrote always about me. I know so little of her life here, but all about her time with my mother. And she’s so interested in everything I do it makes me a bit selfish in my letters, I’m afraid…”
“She loves to hear from you, I do know that.”
“What a pity she isn’t here.”
Kit sounded so bereft, Ivy found herself swallowing. “Yes…well, you can’t have let her know you were coming. I’m sure she’d have stayed.”
“I wanted it to be a surprise.”
“And didn’t you know she was going away? She didn’t tell you?”
“Yes, she did. But you know this is very odd, I got the feeling that she might not be going, that it wasn’t really definite. I thought she might still be here.”
“And now you’ve had a wasted journey.”
“No it’s not, I’ve met you. I know where she lives. She’s the only person who ever made sense of anything about my mother to me, they were great friends. And I can see why. Lena’s such a letter writer, she makes it like a conversation.”
“Yes, I’m sure,” Ivy said.
“I don’t suppose you could show me their flat. You know, I bet she wouldn’t mind.”
“No love, I’d better not. People rent from me and they have absolute privacy. It wouldn’t be right.”
“But you have all the keys hanging on the wall here.”
“Yes, but that’s only for an emergency.”
“Am I not an emergency?”
“No darling. You’re just someone she’ll be heartbroken to miss, and she’ll say…” Ivy’s voice broke off. Behind Kit there was a hammering on the door.
“Sorry love, just a moment.” Ivy leaped to the door with a speed Kit wouldn’t have suspected her capable of. Just before Ivy pulled the door behind her Kit saw a very handsome man in an open-necked white shirt and gray flannels standing there. He looked like a film star.
“Ivy…” he began.
“I’ll talk to you farther down the corridor if that’s all right.”
“Hey, where’s the fire…?” Kit saw him being dragged out of view.
She looked around Ivy’s amazing room. Every inch of wall was covered with pictures and posters, programs, beer mats, and little clippings from magazines. You could never get bored in this room, Kit thought, it would be a comforting place to stay. But she must not wear out her welcome. She would have to leave when she finished the tea. She could write a letter to Lena, and leave it.
The voices outside seemed to be raised. The handsome man, whoever he was, did not seem to meet with Ivy’s approval. “Listen here, let me leave the box in here out of the way. You don’t want people falling over it, breaking their necks and suing you, do you?”
“I’ll take it in later, I said it’s all right.”
But he would hear nothing of it. A big wooden chest was pushed in the door and then the man looked up and saw Kit. “Well, for heaven’s sake,” he said.
“Hallo,” she smiled.
Ivy seemed very anxious to get him out. “So if that’s everything,” she said.
“I’ll give you my key, Ivy, hang it up there with the others. The box will be collected later.”
“Fine, fine,” Ivy cut across him. “Yes, I understand everything. Safe journey.”
“And who’s this?” His smile was so warm.
“That’s a friend of mine, her name is Mary Katherine.”
Kit opened her mouth amazed.
“Lovely to meet you, Mary…” he said.
“And you?” She had an upward lilt on the words as if asking him to give his name.
There was a hoot from the street. “Your taxi won’t wait forever,” Ivy said.
And he was gone. They spoke in the hall and through the glass door. Kit could see the man was trying to kiss Ivy on the cheek and noticed she recoiled from him.
“Who was he? He’s gorgeous.”
“He was trouble, Kit. A lot of trouble.”
“Why did you call me Mary Katherine?”
“Your mother…” Ivy began, and managed to change the sentence by going on “…your mother’s friend always said that this was your baptismal name and that this was how you were known at school.”
“Imagine you all knowing about me over in London.” Kit clasped her hands with pleasure.
Ivy hadn’t the heart to shoo her out. The girl had no where else to go. And if Lena wasn’t home by now she probably would be late. They had an agreement anyway that Lena would not pause at her door.
“Kit sweetheart, will you hold on a moment. I have to leave something upstairs, I’ll be right back.” Ivy ran up the stairs with a pencil and paper. She’s here, she wrote, and slipped it under the door. Then she came down the stairs two at a time. Kit hadn’t moved. She hadn’t read the label on the box that Louis had left, the label saying that it was to be collected, the label giving his own name.
“We’ll have another cup of tea,” Ivy said.
“If you’re sure I’m not keeping you.”
“No my love, I’m happy with the company.” And since Lena was going to come home to a life without Louis it would be good if at least there were details for her about the visit from her child.
The hall door opened. Ivy looked up. There was something about her glance that made Kit look too, the sense of anxiety, the frown. All she could see was the outline of a dark-haired woman through the glass door. The curtain obscured a better view.
“It’s all right,” Ivy called in a high, unnatural voice. “I’ve left
a note in your room, no need to come in.” She couldn’t hear what was being said outside. It sounded a bit strangled. “I’ll go up and talk to you later. I have a visitor just now.” It was said like the lines from a very bad actress.
Kit never knew afterward what made her do it, but she went to the door. She had a feeling it was Lena, home unexpectedly. The woman who was about to go up the stairs turned as the door opened.
There she stood. A woman in a cream dress with a cream jacket, loose over her shoulders, a long blue and gold scarf around her neck. Her dark curly hair was like a frame around her face.
Kit gave a cry, it sounded strangled in her throat. The moment lasted forever. The woman on the stairs, Ivy Brown in the doorway behind, and Kit with her hand to her throat.
“Mother!” she cried. “Mother!”
Nobody said anything.
“Mother,” Kit said again.
Lena stretched out her hand—but Kit backed away.
“You didn’t die—you ran away. You’re not drowned—you just left us—you left us.”
She was white as she looked at the figure on the stairs.
“You let us think you were dead,” she cried in horror, and with her eyes full of tears made for the front door out into the street.
Chapter Six
IVY reached her as she got to the traffic lights. “Please,” she begged. “Please come back.”
Kit’s face was ashen, all the life and vitality had gone from her. This was not the bright girl who had sat chatting in Ivy’s room a few minutes before. But then, she was a girl who had seen a ghost.
“I beg you to come back.” Ivy reached out but Kit shrank back. “It’s been a terrible shock. Don’t stay here in the street.”
“I must go…I must go.” Kit looked around her wildly at the traffic swirling in every direction, the big red buses so unfamiliar, people who looked different to the people back home. The thud and pound of a London evening.
Ivy didn’t touch, didn’t grab her wrist, she was afraid that Kit would break free and run headlong into the traffic.
“Your mother loves you so much,” Ivy said, hoping it was the right thing.
“My mother is dead,” Kit flared.
“No, no.”
“She’s dead, she drowned in the lake…she drowned herself. I know that, I’m the only one who knows it. She can’t be here, she drowned herself…” Kit’s voice had the high tinge of hysteria.
Ivy realized it was time to take control. She put a small, wiry arm around Kit’s shoulders. “I don’t care what you say, you can’t be allowed to be alone. I’m taking you back with me now.” And she half led, half supported the girl back to number 27 and in the door of her own flat.
Lena wasn’t there. It was as the place had been not ten minutes before, the walls covered in their idiotic decorations. Kit sat on the same chair where she had been sitting when she had heard the woman on the stairs and gone out to investigate.
What had drawn her there? Suppose she had not gone? Her head felt very strange, as if the top of it had turned into paper. Then she heard a roaring in her ears and felt the floor rise up toward her. Everywhere it seemed there were voices shouting, shouting from a distance.
Then she felt something jabbing at her face and a strange terrible smell that nearly choked her. Ivy’s face came into focus, big now and anxious, very near her. She had a small bottle in her hand.
“Don’t speak, just sniff it.”
“What? What?”
“It’s smelling salts, sal volatile they call it…you fainted.”
“I never faint,” Kit said indignantly.
“You’re fine now. Here, let me help you onto the sofa…”
“Where is she?” Kit asked. The whole thing had come back to her with all its enormity.
“She’s upstairs, she won’t come down until I tell her.”
“I don’t want to see her.”
“Shush, shush…all right. Put your head between your knees for a bit to get the blood back.”
“I don’t want…”
“Did you hear me, I said I won’t get her until you’re ready.”
“I won’t be ready…”
“Right. Now for a cup of very sweet tea.”
“I don’t take sugar…” Kit began.
“You do today,” Ivy said in a voice that was not going to be argued with.
The strong, sweet tea began to bring back some of the color.
Eventually Kit spoke. “Was she here from the start…? From the very beginning when we thought she was dead?”
“She’ll tell you herself.”
“No.”
“More tea…another biscuit…please, Kit, it’s what we did in the war when people had a shock. It worked then, it will work now.” The woman was trying so hard.
She had a lined face, and bright eyes like buttons. She looked a little like a friendly inquisitive monkey that Kit had seen in the zoo. Was that the time they had gone with Mother or was it the next year, when Father had brought Emmet and herself as a treat, as something to take their minds off the tragedy that had happened to them all?
She had been about to refuse the second cup but suddenly she realized that it was the only thing this woman had to give; so she took it.
“How did she know to come to you?” Kit asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Were you friends already?”
“I rent flats, rooms. That’s all.”
“But you’re friends now.”
“Yes, we’re friends now.”
“Why?” Kit asked, her face was full of misery and incomprehension.
“Why? Because she’s such a great person, who wouldn’t be friends with her?” Ivy was brisk and cheerful and deliberately misunderstanding the question. She wasn’t going to attempt to answer that one.
They could hear the clock ticking on Ivy’s wall, and outside the muffled sound of traffic. There were footsteps on the stairs but it was not Lena. It was the couple from the third floor going out. Kit and Ivy strained to see through the net curtain.
When they heard the hall door click Ivy said almost triumphantly, “I told you she said she wouldn’t come down until you wanted to see her here.”
A silence.
“Or to go up to her even?”
“I can’t.”
“Take your time.”
“No, not anytime.”
There was another silence, then Ivy asked, “Do you mind if I go up and tell her that you’re all right…No, I promise I won’t fetch her downstairs. It’s just that she’ll want to know.”
“What does she care whether we’re all right or not…?” Kit said.
“Please, Kit, don’t let me leave her sitting there not knowing. I won’t be a minute.” Kit said nothing. “Don’t run away.”
“I’m not the one that ran away,” Kit said.
“She’ll tell you.”
“No.”
“When you want to hear,” Ivy said, and was gone.
Kit went to the door after she heard Ivy’s footsteps go upstairs.
This was the room where her letters had arrived for all those years, letters to Lena Gray, saying private secret things about her mother, talking about the grave and the flowers they had planted around it. She had told this Lena secrets she had told no one, and all the time she had been deceived. A wave of anger and shame rose in her. She would not leave it like this, slip quietly away from this house and pretend that it hadn’t happened. Mother was alive, Father must be told, and Emmet and everyone.
It was almost too huge to grapple with. She felt dizzy once more, as if she were about to faint again. But she steeled herself. She would go up the stairs and speak to her mother. She would find out what had happened and why. Why her mother had left them all like that to come here and live in this place in London, letting them hunt for her in the lake.
Kit went out and climbed the stairs. She would knock at doors until she found them. But she didn’t need to.
&n
bsp; She heard Ivy’s voice on the first floor. “I’ll go back down to her, Lena. The child has had such a shock, she shouldn’t be on her own…” Then Ivy saw Kit on the stairs. She stood aside silently to let the girl walk into the room.
“Kit?” Her mother was sitting in a chair with a small rug around her shoulders. She was shivering, Ivy had obviously put it around her. She had a glass of water in her hand.
Ivy closed the door softly behind her and they were alone.
Mother and daughter.
“Why did you do it?” Kit said. Her eyes were hard and her voice was cold. “Why did you let us think you were dead?”
“I had to.” Lena’s voice was flat.
“You didn’t have to. If you wanted to go away from us, from Daddy and Emmet and me, you could have gone…you could have told us you were going, not have us hunting for you, praying for you and thinking you were in hell.” Kit’s voice was breaking up with the emotion of what she was saying.
Lena said nothing. Her eyes were wide in horror. Everything had turned out in the worst possible way. Her daughter had found her. She was filled with loathing and contempt. Must Lena speak now? Tell the girl that it was her father who had done the real betrayal? Or should she protect him? Let Kit think that she had at least one trustworthy parent instead of being saddled with two who had let her down?
The girl was so fiery and strong. And Lena knew the secrets of her heart from her letters. Now she would never hear any more. It was as bad a pain as the open cupboard which had once held Louis Gray’s suits.
Lena indicated a chair but the girl would not sit down. Instead she looked around the room, her face working, trying to get control of herself possibly. Lena’s eyes followed her, wondering how she saw the place, wishing she could read the thoughts that were darting around inside Kit’s head.
She took a breath as if to speak and then changed her mind. She went over to one of the windows and pulled back the heavy curtain to look at the street beneath. Again it was as if she were struggling to work something out before she trusted herself to speak.
Lena sat there, eyes enormous, hand shaking as she laid down her glass of water. Everything seemed to have gone into slow motion. “Say something,” Lena said.