‘She sounds tremendous.’
‘She is.’
‘I’d like to meet her.’
‘Well,’ Dolly stammered, ‘of course—one of these days.’ She drew hard on her cigarette, wondering why the suggestion made her feel a sort of dread. Vivien and Jimmy meeting was not among the many future scenarios she’d envisaged; for one thing Vivien was extremely private, for another, well, Jimmy was Jimmy. Very sweet, of course, kind and clever—but not exactly the sort of person Vivien would approve of, not as a boyfriend for Dolly. It wasn’t that Vivien was unkind; she was just of a different class—from both of them, really, but Dolly, having been taken under Lady Gwendolyn’s wing, had learned enough to be accepted by someone like Vivien. Dolly hated lying to Jimmy, she loved him; but she certainly wasn’t about to hurt his feelings by putting it to him straight. She reached out and rested her hand on his arm, picking a piece of lint from the fraying cuff of his suit jacket. ‘Everyone’s just so busy with the war at the moment, aren’t they? There’s simply no time for being social.’
‘I could always—’
‘Jimmy, listen—they’re playing our song! Shall we dance? Come on, do let’s dance.’
Her hair smelt of perfume, that intoxicating scent he’d noticed when she first arrived, almost shocking in its strength and thrill, and Jimmy could have stayed that way forever, his hand in the small of her back, her cheek pressed against his, their bodies moving slowly together. He was tempted to forget the way she’d come over all evasive when he mentioned meeting her friend; the flash he’d had that the distance between them lately wasn’t all about what happened to her family, that this Vivien, the rich lady across the road, might have something to do with it. In all probability there was nothing to it—Dolly liked to have secrets, she always had. And what did it matter anyway, right here and now, so long as the music kept playing?
It didn’t, of course; nothing lasts forever and the faithless song ended. Jimmy and Dolly pulled apart to clap, and that’s when he noticed the man with a thin moustache watching them from the edge of the dance floor. This in itself would have been no cause for alarm, but the man was also in conversation with Rossi, who was scratching his head with one hand, making extravagant hand gestures with the other, and consulting some sort of list.
A guest list, Jimmy realised with a jolt. What else would it be?
It was time to make a discreet exit, stage right. Jimmy took Dolly’s hand and made to lead her away, casual as you please. There was every chance, he figured, if they went quickly and quietly, they’d be able to duck beneath the red cord, meld into the crowd and make a silent escape, no harm done.
Dolly, unfortunately, had other ideas; having made it to the dance floor, she was now rather reluctant to leave it. ‘Jimmy, no,’ she was saying, ‘no, listen, it’s “Moonlight Serenade”.’
Jimmy started to explain, glancing back towards the man with the thin moustache, only to find that he was almost upon them, cigar clenched between his teeth, hand outstretched. ‘Lord Sandbrook,’ the man was saying to Jimmy, with the wide confident smile of a man with pots of money hidden under his bed, ‘so glad you could make it, old man.’
‘Lord Dumphee.’ Jimmy took a stab, ‘Congratulations to you and … your fiancee. Great party.’
‘Yes, well, I’d have rather kept it small, but you know Eva.’
‘I do indeed.’ He laughed nervously.
Lord Dumphee puffed his cigar so it smoked like a train engine; his eyes narrowed ever so slightly, and Jimmy realised his host was also flying blind, doing his best to call to mind the provenance of his mysterious guests. ‘You’re friends of my fiancee,’ he said.
‘Yes, that’s right.’
Lord Dumphee was nodding, ‘Of course, of course.’ And then, there came more puffing, more smoke, and just as Jimmy thought they might be safe—. ‘Only, it must be my memory—quite appalling it is, old chap, I blame the war and these blasted nights without sleep—but I can’t think Eva mentioned a Sand-brook. Old friends, are you?’
‘Oh, yes. Ava and I go way back.’
‘Eva.’
‘Precisely.’ Jimmy tugged Dolly forward. ‘Have you met my wife, Lord Dumphee, have you met—’
‘Viola,’ Dolly said, smiling like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. ‘Viola Sandbrook.’
She lifted a hand and Lord Dumphee took out his cigar to kiss it. He pulled back but didn’t let go, holding Dolly’s hand aloft and letting his eyes roam greedily over her dress and every curve beneath it.
‘Darling!’ The trill call came from across the floor. ‘Darling Jonathan.’
Lord Dumphee dropped Dolly’s hand at once. ‘Ah,’ he said, like a schoolboy caught by Nanny looking at nudie pictures, ‘Here comes Eva now.’
‘Is that the time?’ Jimmy said. He clasped Dolly’s hand and squeezed it to signal his intent. She squeezed right back. ‘Excuse me, Lord Dumphee,’ he said, ‘Many congratulations, but Viola and I have a train to catch.’
And with that, they were flying. Dolly could hardly keep from laughing as they dashed and weaved through the crowded nightclub, paused at the cloakroom for Jimmy to thrust forward the ticket and seize Lady Gwendolyn’s coat, before hurrying up the stairs, two at a time, and into the dark cool of night-time London.
There’d been someone behind them in the 400 as they ran, Dolly had glanced back to see a red-faced man puffing like an overfed hound, and Jimmy didn’t stop until they’d crossed Litchfield Street, blended with the theatre crowd coming out of St Martin’s, and ducked into tiny Tower Lane. Only then did they collapse against the bricks, both of them breathless and laughing.
‘His face—’ Dolly managed to say, ‘Oh, Jimmy, I don’t think I’ll ever forget it as long as I live. When you said about the train, he was so . .
. so flummoxed.’
Jimmy laughed too, a warm sound in the dark. It was pitch black where they were standing; even the full moon hadn’t managed to spill over the eaves to flood the narrow laneway with its silvery light. Dolly was giddy, infused with life and happiness and the peculiar energy that came from having slipped inside another skin. There was nothing that made her spin quite like it, the invisible moment of transition when she stopped being Dolly Smitham, and became instead Someone Else. The details of that Someone Else weren’t particularly important; it was the frisson of performance she adored, the sublime pleasure of masquerade. It was like stepping into another person’s life. Stealing it for a time.
Dolly looked up at the starlit sky. There were so many more stars in the blackout; it was one of the most beautiful things about the war. There were great rumpling eruptions in the distance, anti-aircraft guns giving it back as best they could; but up there, the stars just kept on twinkling for all they were worth. They were like Jimmy, she realised, faithful, steadfast, some-thing you could count on in your life. ‘You really would do any-thing for me, wouldn’t you?’ she said with a contented sigh.
‘You know I would.’
He wasn’t laughing any more and, swift as the wind, the mood in the lane changed. You know I would. She did know it too, and in that instant the fact both thrilled and frightened her. Rather her reaction did. To hear him say it, Dolly felt a string pluck deep down low within her belly. She trembled. Without thinking, she reached for his hand in the dark.
It was warm, smooth, large, and Dolly lifted it to brush a kiss along his knuckles. She could hear him breathing and she matched her own breaths to his.
She felt brave and grown up and powerful. She felt beautiful and alive. Heart racing, she took his hand and placed it on her breast.
A soft sound in his throat, a sigh. ‘Doll—’
She silenced him with a delicate kiss. She couldn’t have him talking, not now; she might not find the nerve again. Calling to mind everything she’d ever heard Kitty and Louisa laughing about in the kitchen at number 7, Dolly reached her hand down to rest it on his belt. She let it slide further.
Jimmy groaned, leaned to kiss her,
his hand firm now on her breast, but she shifted her lips to whisper in his ear, ‘You said you’d do anything I asked?’
He nodded against her neck and answered, ‘Yes.’
‘How about you walk a girl home and put her safely to bed?’
Jimmy sat up long after Dolly had fallen asleep. The night had been exhilarating and he didn’t want it to be over yet. He didn’t want anything to break the spell. A heavy bomb crashed some-where nearby and the framed pictures rattled on the wall. Dolly stirred in her sleep, and Jimmy laid a hand gently on her head.
They’d hardly spoken on the walk back to Campden Grove, each of them too aware of the weighted meaning in her words, of the fact that a line had been crossed and they were now on a course that couldn’t be reversed. He’d never been to the place she lived and worked, Dolly was funny about it—he old woman had rather definite ideas on the matter, she’d said, and Jimmy had always respected the fact.
When they arrived at number 7, she’d led him past the sand-bags and through the front door, closing it softly behind her. It was dark inside the house, even blacker than out due to the curtains, and Jimmy had almost stumbled before Dolly switched on a small table lamp at the bottom of the staircase. The bulb threw a fluttery circle of light across the carpet and up the wall, and Jimmy glimpsed for the first time how grand this house of Dolly’s really was. They didn’t linger, and he was glad—the grandeur was unsettling. It was evidence of everything he wanted to give her but couldn’t, and to see her so comfortable in it made him anxious.
She’d unbuckled the straps of her high-heeled shoes, hooked them over one finger, and taken him by the hand. With a finger to her lips, and a tilt of her head, she’d started up the stairs.
‘I’ll take care of you, Doll,’ Jimmy had whispered when they made it to her bedroom. They’d run out of things to say to one another and were standing together by the bed, each waiting for the other to do something. She’d laughed when he said it, but there’d been a nervous edge to her voice and he’d loved her all the more for the hint of youthful uncertainty that the laugh betrayed. He’d felt a bit on the back foot ever since she’d propositioned him in the alley, but now, hearing her laugh like that, sensing her apprehension, Jimmy was back in charge and the world was suddenly set to rights.
There was a part of him that wanted to tear the dress from her body, but instead he reached out to slip his finger beneath one of her fine straps. Her skin was warm, despite the cold night, and he felt her tremble at his touch. The slight sudden movement made his breath catch in his throat. ‘I’ll take care of you,’ he said again, ‘I always will.’ She didn’t laugh this time, and he leaned to kiss her. God it was sweet. He unbuttoned the red dress, slid the straps from her shoulders and let it fall lightly to the ground. She stood, staring at him, her breasts rising and falling with each short breath, and then she smiled, one of those half-smiles of Dolly’s that teased him and made him ache, and before he knew what was happening she’d pulled his shirt loose from his trousers …
Another bomb exploded, and plaster dust sifted down from the mouldings high above the door. Jimmy lit a cigarette as the anti-aircraft guns fired their replies. Still Dolly slept, her eye-lashes black against her dewy cheeks. He stroked her arm lightly. What a fool he’d been—what an absolute fool—refusing to marry her when she’d all but pleaded with him. Here he’d been fretting about the distance he sensed between them without stopping for a minute to consider his part in creating it. The old ideas he’d been clinging to about marriage and money. Seeing her tonight, though, glimpsing as he hadn’t before, just how easily he could have lost Dolly to this new world of hers, had made everything clear. He was just lucky she’d waited for him; that she still felt the same way. Jimmy smiled, smoothing her dark, glossy hair; that he was lying here beside her was proof of that.
They’d have to live in his flat at first—not what he’d dreamed of for Dolly, but his dad was settled and there wasn’t much point in moving while the war was still going on. When it was all over they could look at leasing something in a better area, maybe even talk to the bank about borrowing for their own place. Jimmy had some money set aside, he’d been saving for years, every spare penny in a jar, and his editor was very encouraging about his photographs.
He drew on his cigarette.
For now though they’d have a war wedding, and there was nothing shameful in that. It was romantic, he thought—love in a time of strife. Dolly would look gorgeous no matter what, she could have her friends as bridesmaids—Kitty, and the new one, Vivien, whose mention gave him an uneasy feeling—and Lady Gwendolyn Caldicott, perhaps, in place of her mother and father; and Jimmy already had the perfect ring to give her. It had been his own mother’s and was stored now in a black velvet box at the back of his bedroom drawer. She’d left it when she went, with a note explaining why, on the pillow where his father slept. Jimmy had been looking after it ever since; at first so he could give it back when she returned; later, to remember her by; but increasingly, as he grew older, so he could some day make a new start with the woman he loved. A woman who wouldn’t leave him.
Jimmy had adored his mother when he was a boy. She’d been his enchantment, his first love, the great silvery moon whose wax and wane held his own small human spirit in its thrall. She used to tell him a story, he remembered now, when-ever he couldn’t sleep. It was about the Nightingale Star, a boat, she said, a magical boat—a great old galleon with wide sails and a strong, trusty mast, that sailed through the seas of sleep, night after night, in pursuit of adventure. She used to sit right by him on the side of the bed, stroking his hair and weaving tales of the mighty ship, and her voice as it spoke of the wondrous journeys would soothe him like nothing else could. Not until he was floating on the edge of sleep, the ship pulling him towards the great star in the east, would she lean down to whisper softly in his ear, ‘Off you go now, my darling. I’ll see you tonight on the Nightingale Star. Wait for me, won’t you? We’ll have ourselves a great adventure.’
He’d believed it for such a long time. After she left with the other fellow, that rich man with his silver tongue and his big expensive motorcar, he’d told himself the story each night, certain he would see her in his sleep, take hold of her and make her come back home.
He’d thought there’d never be another woman he could love that much. And then he’d met Dolly Jimmy finished his cigarette and checked his watch; it was almost five. He’d better leave now if he was going to be home in time to put an egg on for his dad’s breakfast.
He stood up as quietly as he could, pulled on his trousers and did up his belt. He lingered for a moment, watching Dolly, and then he leaned to plant the lightest of kisses on her cheek. ‘I’ll see you on the Nightingale Star,’ he whispered. She stirred, but didn’t wake, and Jimmy smiled.
He slipped down the stairs and out into the freezing grey of wintry pre-dawn London. There was snow on the air, he could smell it, and he blew out great puffs of mist as he walked, but Jimmy wasn’t cold. Not this morning. Dolly Smitham loved him, they were going to be married, and nothing would ever be wrong again.
Thirteen
Greenacres, 2011
IT STRUCK LAUREL, as she sat down to a dinner of baked beans on toast, that this was very likely the first time she’d ever been alone at Greenacres. No mother or father going about their business in another room, no excitable sisters making the floor-boards creak upstairs, no baby brother, no pets. Not so much as a hen roosting in the boxes outside. Laurel lived by herself in London, she’d done so on and off for the better part of forty years; to be frank she was rather fond of her own company. To-night, though, surrounded by the sights and sounds of child-hood, she felt a loneliness the depths of which surprised her.
‘Are you sure you’ll be all right?’ Rose had asked that after-noon before she left. She’d lingered in the entrance room, twisting the end of her long strand of African beads and inclining her head towards the kitchen—‘because I could stay, you know. I wouldn’t
mind a bit. Perhaps I should stay? I’ll just call Sadie and tell her I won’t be able to make it.’
It was a strange turn up for the books, Rose to be worried about Laurel, and Laurel had been taken aback. ‘Nonsense,’ she’d said, perhaps a little sternly, ‘you’ll do no such thing. I’ll be perfectly fine by myself.’
Rose remained unconvinced. ‘I don’t know, Lol, it’s just, it’s not like you to phone like that, out of the blue. You’re usually so busy, and now …’ The beads threatened to snap their bonds. ‘I’ll tell you what, why don’t I just ring Sadie and tell her we’ll catch up tomorrow? It’s really no bother.’
‘Rose, please—’ Laurel did a lovely line in exasperation—‘for the love of God, go and see your daughter. I told you, I’m just here to have a little down time before I start filming Macbeth. To be honest, I’m rather looking forward to the peace and quiet.’
She had been, too. Laurel was grateful that Rose had been able to meet her with the keys, but her head was buzzing with the list of what she knew and what she still needed to find out about her mother’s past, and she’d been eager to get inside and put her thoughts in order. Watching Rose’s car disappear down the driveway had filled her with a sense of enormous anticipation. It had seemed to mark the beginning of something. She was here at last; she’d done it, left her life in London in order to get to the bottom of her family’s great secret.
Now, though, alone in the sitting room with an empty dinner plate for company and a long night stretching ahead, she found her certainty waning. She wished she’d given Rose’s offer a little more thought; her sister’s gentle patter was just the thing to keep one’s mind from drifting someplace dark, and Laurel could’ve used the help right now. The problem was the ghosts, for of course she wasn’t really alone at all, they were everywhere: hiding behind corners, drifting up and down the stairs, echoing against the bathroom tiles. Little girls in bare feet and smocks and various lanky states of growing up; the tall lean figure of Daddy whistling in the shadows; but most of all Ma, who was everywhere all at once, who was this house, Greenacres, whose passion and energy infused each plank of wood, each pane of glass, each stone.