The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets

  I must not lose my head over pop singers. I must be myself at smart dinners, love Rocky.

  I gave a half-cry and clutched the ticket to my chest. I must not lose my head over strangers on the 5.35 from Paddington, I whispered. I went to bed that night with my fingers still covered in black ink.

  Chapter 12

  INIGO VERSUS THE WORLD

  I wanted desperately to tell Charlotte all about my encounter with Rocky (was that really his name?) but I did not dare to make a phone call to her until six o’clock the following evening, when, at last, Mama vanished for a bath and I could be sure she was not in earshot. Mama had ears like a bat, and the matters up for discussion that night were especially delicate. Were Mama to hear me telling Charlotte that a strange man (oh, and an American too) had paid my fare home, and that I was planning on going to see Johnnie at the Palladium in exchange for pretending to be Harry’s lover, I don’t think she would have been too delighted.

  ‘Charlotte!’ I hissed.

  ‘Oh, hello. You’re late calling today.’

  ‘We need to meet tomorrow. Urgent matters to discuss.’

  ‘I can come to Magna. Aunt Clare’s given me the day off’ Charlotte was hard pushed to keep the glee from her voice.

  ‘I’m working in the shop until lunchtime. Shall we meet for lunch in Bath?’

  ‘Bliss.’

  ‘Twelve-thirty at Coffee on the Hill? You can get the early train, can’t you?’

  ‘Yet more ~expense,’ said Charlotte cheerfully. ‘Of course I can.

  ‘Oh, and I’ve two essays to complete by tomorrow night,’ I said quickly. ‘You’ll have to help me.’

  ‘What are we talking about here?’

  ‘Tennyson.’

  ‘The curse is come upon me,’ quoted Charlotte.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The Lady of Shalott. Really. Penelope, you are hopeless.’

  ‘You’ll help me then?’

  ‘I can certainly do your handwriting. I’m getting rather good at it. What are the urgent matters we need to discuss, anyway?’

  ‘I can’t possibly tell you now,’ I said, but I was bursting inside with the need to talk about Rocky and Johnnie Ray and what Harry had proposed.

  ‘Harry’s been horribly smug all day.’ said Charlotte, reading my mind. ‘It’s nothing to do with him, is it?’

  ‘It might be. I’ll tell you tomorrow.

  ‘Penelope!’ came Mama’s voice from behind me.

  ‘There’s my cue,’ I muttered. ‘See you tomorrow.

  ‘You’re far too mysterious. It doesn’t suit you, Penelope, ‘Charlotte complained.

  Inigo was home from school that night, and Mary had made an insipid stew for our dinner.

  ‘So warming on a cold night,’ Mama said stoutly. ladling it onto her plate, but earlier on I had noticed the first daffodils of the year outside the kitchen door and I had cried out loud with delight. Daffodils packed a glorious punch at Magna, such bright, assured successors to the exquisitely shy snowdrops that crept up the verges of the drive with heads bowed at the end of January. I loved them for the confidence they instilled; their merry sunshine heads bobbing in the wind seemed to make a mockery of the idea that Magna could not survive. Winter was being edged out of the picture by spring — lovely. lovely spring — and that evening I felt it all around us, crouching in the wings, waiting to burst out and trample the dark evenings to the ground.

  ‘Good week at school?’ I asked Inigo automatically.

  ‘Pretty horrific. I got lines.’

  Mama dropped her fork with a clatter onto her plate. She always overreacted to Inigo’s misadventures, and he got a strange thrill from relating them to her. ‘What on earth for?’

  ‘Listening to the radio after lights out.’

  ‘You’re a silly boy.’ said Mama angrily. ‘Why on earth did you get caught?’

  ‘It was that dronesome prefect, Williams-May. I got off lightly. actually. Thorpe was caught doing the same thing last night and got caned before breakfast.’

  ‘What’s wrong with you two?’ demanded Mama. ‘You’re always so damn careless. Your father would be horrified!’

  ‘You’re always telling us how radical Papa was at school!’ complained Inigo, edging a watery onion to the side of his plate. He hated onions; even as I watched him, he unobtrusively spat another into his napkin.

  ‘But he was never caught! And he was captain of every team!’ Mama’s voice got higher and higher with excitement.

  ‘Except for hockey,’ chorused Inigo and I together.

  ‘Except for hockey. And who on earth wants to play hockey?’

  ‘I can’t think, Mama. All I want to play is the guitar.’ Inigo stood up and pushed away his chair and crossed the room to the window. Mama looked at me with a see-how-I-suffer expression on her face.

  ‘Do sit down,’ she sighed, changing tack.

  Inigo paced a bit and eventually sat down on the window seat and stared out into the night. ‘Pass me my lighter, will you, Penelope?’ He fished in his pockets and pulled out a squashed packet containing only one miserable-looking cigarette.

  ‘Won’t you sit down with us and finish your stew, darling?’ asked Mama reproachfully. She didn’t really like getting cross with Inigo, but I could sense her discomfort. She was unequipped to cope with any scenes not instigated by herself.

  ‘No thank you,’ said Inigo. ‘I find Mary’s stew unutterably depressing.’

  There was a silence and I felt like screaming with laughter and sobbing at the same time.

  ‘You used to love stew,’ said Mama in a wobbly voice. ‘It used to be a treat, something we all looked forward to— ‘During the war, when we looked forward to Papa coming home, too,’ I said.

  ‘But he never did come home, did he?’ Inigo finished, rubbing his hand up and down the back of his head as he did when he was talking about Papa.

  That’s done it, I thought, waiting for tears, but for once Mama did not cry. She looked weary, older suddenly. crushed. Then her face hardened and she rounded on Inigo. ‘And I suppose you think playing the guitar will make you rich? Will save Magna from the tax collectors? Will pay to reopen the Long Gallery? You think singing will keep the place standing? You think—’

  ‘Yes I do!’ Inigo shouted. He stood up and shook his hands out at us in frustration, and the ash from the end of his cigarette floated gently to the floor. ‘I do!’ he repeated. Mama gave me a despairing look yet I looked back at her full of triumph, for I believed everything that Inigo said.

  ‘You see, Mama!’ I cried. ‘He’s thinking of Magna! He’ll sing and play for Magna! I know he will!’

  Inigo ran forward to Mama and actually fell at her feet. ‘Please, Mama,’ he said. ‘You have to believe me.

  ‘How many people do you know who’ve made a record? How on earth would you do it?’ asked Mama, but I could tell she was softening a little. Inigo stood up again.

  ‘I could go out to Memphis, to Uncle Luke’s friend Sam Phillips’s place. He could get me into his studio for a day or two. I could start off there, just like Elvis Presley—’

  ‘How on earth would you get to Memphis in the first place?’ demanded Mama.

  ‘Aeroplane.’

  Mama laughed, without mirth. ‘And I suppose you’ve made enough money selling booze and cigarette cards to do just that? Afford yourself a trip to America and back on an aeroplane?’

  ‘I don’t have to come back.’

  Mama burst into noisy sobs. The house felt so quiet around her, I almost hated the place for not providing more noise, more distraction from this most awful sound. I felt rooted to the spot, a spectator watching my own drama. I badly wanted to help Mama, but there was a part of me that hated her for crying, that hated her for wanting to keep Inigo and me here with her, trapped as she was.

  ‘How did this happen? It must be my fault! It must be me!’ she wailed.

  Everything, even Inigo’s obsession with music, had to come back to her.
br />   ‘It must be me!’ she repeated. ‘I’m an awful mother! I’m a terrible person!’ She reached out for something to clean herself up with, but, distressingly for everyone, she chose the napkin that Inigo had spat his onion into. With eyes blinded by tears, she drew it to her face and blew heavily. thereby squashing the onion onto her delicate nose. For the next few seconds, she teetered on the brink of further tears, but, being Mama, soon found it impossible to do anything but throw back her head and laugh and laugh. I think she despaired of her sense of humour sometimes, for it was something uncontrollable that was inclined to interrupt perfectly good misery. She had no idea of the power her laughter had over Inigo and me. When Mama laughed, really laughed, nothing else in the entire world mattered.

  Later that night, after Mama had gone to bed, Inigo and I played a hand of rummy in the library.

  ‘Were you serious?’ I asked him. ‘About going to America?’

  ‘To Memphis?’ said Inigo. ‘To make a record? Of course I was serious.’

  ‘But you? Little old sixteen-year-old you? Making a record? In America? No one we know makes records. It isn’t possible, is it?’

  ‘Elvis Presley makes records.’

  ‘But we don’t know him. He’s just some singer Uncle Luke’s met!’

  ‘Good enough for me.’

  ‘What’s so great about him anyway?’

  ‘Everything. You’re just frightened because he’s even better than Johnnie and you know it.’

  ‘Of course he’s not!’

  ‘I’m sorry, Penelope, but there it is.

  ‘Why don’t we hear him on the radio, then? How come he’s not playing the Palladium next month?’ I heard my voice growing hysterical, but Inigo just grinned at me infuriatingly and rearranged his cards.

  ‘When Elvis Presley makes it, he’s going to kick everyone else out of the picture,’ he said, not even bothering to raise his voice. ‘It really is that simple.’

  ‘Show me a photograph and I’ll be the judge of that,’ I snapped. ‘It’s not as if he could possibly look more dreamy than Johnnie.’

  ‘He doesn’t need to wear a hearing aid, if that’s what you mean. Uncle Luke’s sending me pictures of him.’

  ‘Uncle Luke says he looks weird.’

  ‘Weird is only ever a good thing.’ Inigo yawned.

  ‘Oh, you’re impossible!’

  ‘Not at all. I can just see that there’s life after Johnnie Ray.’

  ‘But who’s going to remember Elvis Presley in twenty years’ time?’ I cried. ‘No one! But everyone will remember Johnnie! You’ve only heard him singing four songs!’

  ‘You can believe what you want,’ said Inigo, ‘but I know .that there’s something different about Elvis Presley. I just know it. Can’t say why or how. I just do.’

  We played the next round of cards without talking.

  ‘I’m not saying I don’t like him,’ I admitted grudgingly as we stomped up the stairs to bed, ‘it’s just that he’s not like Johnnie.’

  ‘He’s certainly not like Johnnie,’ agreed Inigo. ‘He’s not like anyone. He’s just Elvis Presley. That’s enough.’

  The next day I left for work before Mama had even surfaced for breakfast. She claimed to dislike the fact that I had a job in town, saying that she hated the thought of anyone she knew entering the shop and seeing me behind the counter, yet privately I felt that she was glad to get me out of the house for a few hours. She was so lost in her own self sometimes, so completely immersed in memories of Papa and her youth, that on occasion I felt my presence clanging out of synch with her; I seemed to belong to a time that she did not want to be a part of at all. I was too modern for her, perhaps, and if there was one thing that Mama did not want to understand, it was modern.

  It was one of those abnormally warm February mornings that shocks the system into thinking that winter has fled overnight. I cycled to the station on the Golden Arrow, my ancient but reliable bicycle, and jumped on the train to Bath. Fifteen minutes later, I arrived at the shop and removed my coat and sweater and sat on the stool behind the counter, dangling my legs and thinking about Rocky while waiting for Christopher to arrive. I liked the hours that he and I spent in his shop. We talked about very little of any importance — we just sat drinking Robinson’s lemon barley water, which he said was good for the soul. I liked him because he was a piece of Papa that I could reach out and touch, and he liked me for the same reason. That morning as we wrote splodgy price tags for four new tea sets that had arrived the day before, I knew it would only be a matter of time before Charlotte came into the conversation. I had also vowed that today would be the day that I would ask him about Aunt Clare and Rome.

  ‘Price them all as high as you dare,’ Christopher advised me.

  ‘People are drinking tea as if it’s going out of fashion at the moment. He pretended to be concentrating very hard on refilling his ink pen. ‘Does Charlotte drink tea?’

  ‘She does.’

  ‘She does?’ repeated Christopher. ‘Well, there we have it. Perhaps you could offer her first refusal on the green and white set in the window? Wouldn’t she like that? She could have it half price. I always felt green was her colour — don’t ask me why. Perhaps it’s to do with that ghastly coat she always wears.’

  ‘I like her coat.

  ‘Oh, it must be me, then. I’m too old.’

  ‘Never. Oh help, I’ve forgotten how many I’ve done now. Christopher looked at me curiously. ‘You’re terribly distracted this morning. Is something wrong?’

  ‘Not really.’ I said. ‘Just thinking.’

  ‘Well don’t think, dearest. We’ve too much to get through.’ We were interrupted by the tinkling of the bell as the front door opened and our first customer, an elderly lady carrying a basket of needlework, entered the shop.

  ‘I’d like to look at the green and white tea set in the window, please,’ she said, removing her hat.

  ‘Oh, good heavens, I’m frightfully sorry but it’s already reserved,’ said Christopher pleasantly. ‘Remove it from the display. please, Penelope.’

  The woman turned to leave but Christopher was one step ahead. ‘Now. A lady like you,’ he said, guiding her back into the shop, ‘should really be serving tea from a mauve set.’

  ‘Mauve?’

  ‘Or china blue,’ considered Christopher, ‘to match those marvellous twinkling eyes.

  ‘Oh!’ she squeaked.

  I giggled to myself Christopher was successful because he believed every word he said. I wrapped the green and white tea set in newspaper and vowed to offer it to Aunt Clare, not Charlotte.

  ‘Of course, Victorian tea cosies are so attractive,’ Christopher was saying with the air of one discussing Chanel’s latest collection. ‘I simply can’t get enough of them.’

  I watched him cross the shop to what I called the trinket drawer. For a man who had spent so much time in the air force, Christopher was still fabulously pretty — his face was unlined and his hands were so soft that it was impossible to imagine him doing anything out-of-doorsy at all. He dressed in a manner that verged on dandyish (stopping just short of pink neckties) and was nothing short of obsessed with his shoes, yet he was equally interested in beautiful women, never failing to comment on the appearance of every female who entered the shop. He had been very brave during the war, Mama had admitted to me one evening last summer, braver than any of us would ever know, but she didn’t like to see him too much now, claiming that he reminded her of Papa. As absolutely everything in life reminded her of Papa, I felt it was rather silly of her to block out Christopher whose joie de vivre and ability to find silver linings in both clouds and smoking jackets never failed to make me feel better about just about everything. As soon as we were alone again, I took a deep breath.

  ‘So you have been to Rome? Once upon a time?’

  He gave me a knowing sort of look. ‘Yes, as well you know, I have been to Rome. And before you carry on with this unsubtle probing, I might as well tell you that
yes, I adored Clare Delancy for the ten days that I knew her, and yes, I know she’s Charlotte’s aunt.

  I was stunned. ‘How did you know?’

  Christopher took off his glasses. ‘The moment Charlotte first walked into the shop she reminded me of someone, and I spent the next few days trying to work out who that someone was. Then it came to me. Lovely Clare Delancy. Rome 1935.’ His eyes misted over. ‘I always thought Clare had the most glorious hair I had ever seen. And that perfect nose! Charlotte is the only other woman I’ve ever known with that perfect, Roman profile. I guessed right away that they must be related. When I heard her talking about Aunt Clare last week, I put two and two together.’ He looked quite smug. ‘Good bit of detective work there for you.’ He bent his knees up and down. ‘Just call me Dixon of Dock Green.’

  I laughed. ‘Well, Charlotte’s aunt asked me to remember her to you,’ I said.

  ‘She did?’ He was so stunned, he actually stopped moving for a second, which was so unlike him that I felt slightly alarmed. ‘I’m amazed she has any recollection of my existence.’ He was trying hard not to sound too pleased. ‘The day after I left for England, she took up with some Austrian count. The following month, I heard she was dining out every night with an eye doctor from Bristol. And all the time she was married to some good-looking bore with a club foot. Yet she was so entertaining, so rare and so damned beautiful, she was quite beyond blame.’

  ‘Do you think she ever had her heart broken? You know, really smashed into pieces?’

  ‘Heavens, your generation talk a lot of rubbish, Penelope. Hearts smashing into pieces, indeed.’

  ‘Well, answer the question,’ I said impatiently.

  Christopher blew his nose on a huge square of blue and pink silk. He always had the most extravagant handkerchieves.