The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets

‘High as a kite,’ echoed Charlotte. ‘And Harry packed a small case and disappeared with her. He said he thought they might go to the coast for a few days, somewhere away from London where Marina won’t be recognised. Brighton, probably.’

  ‘Anyone would think she was Marilyn Monroe!’ I couldn’t resist saying.

  ‘Well she’s not. The Monroe woman always looks rather vulnerable to me,’ said Aunt Clare. ‘Nothing vulnerable about Marina. You know what she did, Penelope? She and Harry raided the wine cellar before they left. A whole case of Liebfraumilch they took with them. Liebfraumilch! I ask you!’

  I wanted to giggle.

  ‘How vulgar can one be?’ went on Aunt Clare. ‘I suppose they did me a favour; I’d been trying to get rid of the stuff ever since I was given it last summer. I would have thought Marina might know a little better. Still, one man’s poison et cetera, et cetera. She coughed.

  ‘Do you think Marina’s drunk it all by now?’ asked Charlotte. I pictured her and Harry on the sea front in Brighton, which was hard as I had never been to the place, but I had always imagined it as being rather romantic in the windswept, pebbles-in-your-shoes way that English beaches can be. Something in me felt irritated that Harry had taken Marina there — he could at least have driven me to the sea on one of our planning meetings …

  ‘Harry’s always thought of Brighton as a rather romantic place,’ said Charlotte. ‘He likes pebble beaches and hot drinks and watching the seagulls steal people’s ice-cream cones.

  ‘What do you think they’ll do next?’ I asked. ‘When they tire of Brighton?’

  ‘When he tires of Marina,’ corrected Aunt Clare darkly. ‘which he will, he will come home, tail between his legs, begging you to take him back, Penelope.’

  ‘I’ve never seen Harry with his tail between his legs,’ observed Charlotte.

  So we talked on, as we always talked at tea, yet there was something new with us in Aunt Clare’s study that afternoon. Something I couldn’t define, but something odd that I sensed in the ticking of the clock and the rays of dappled sunlight that crept into the room and shot bright into Aunt Clare’s eyes.

  ‘Do pull the curtains, Charlotte,’ she ordered. ‘It’s too bright.’ I never imagined that the sun could be too bright for Aunt Clare. At times, she had seemed too bright for the sun.

  Twenty minutes later, I excused myself and left Kensington Court for Paddington. ‘I hope Harry’s all right,’ I said to Charlotte as we stood on the doorstep.

  ‘Do you?’ she asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do you really hope he’s all right?’

  ‘Well, yes,’ I admitted. ‘I mean, I know that the whole idea was to get Marina back, but now that’s happened I find it difficult to imagine what’s going to happen next.’

  ‘It’s just as I thought, then,’ said Charlotte with a huge grin. She no longer looked tired.

  ‘What is? Why are you being so odd, Charlotte?’

  ‘You love him, of course.’

  ‘What?’ I breathed. For a split second, everything seemed to fit into place and the uncomfortable sensation that I had felt for as long as I could remember, of everything’s moving too fast, of not being able to hold on to myself at all, vanished. Then, just as suddenly, it was back again.

  ‘You’re wrong,’ I said crossly. ‘I don’t understand you, Charlotte.’

  ‘Nothing to understand. It couldn’t be simpler.’ .

  ‘But it’s not true! I wish you’d stop coming out with big statements that bear absolutely no relation to the truth. I think you do it for fun.’

  I sounded angry. I was angry. Charlotte just laughed. ‘Methinks the lady—” she began.

  ‘Yes. The lady is bloody well protesting,’ I snapped. ‘You think you know me so well, don’t you? Well you don’t. This just proves it.

  I turned and walked down the steps of Kensington Court, round the corner and onto Kensington High Street, then all the way up to Notting Hill, Queens Road and Paddington without looking back.

  Chapter 19

  SUCH A NIGHT

  In the five months that I had known her, I had never fallen out with Charlotte and the prospect of not being her friend appalled me. Equally. her suggestion that I was secretly in love with Harry filled me with a fury so violent that I refused to telephone her for four days. With every new morning, I felt convinced that she was going to call me, but the telephone remained horribly, wilfully mute, and I began to wonder if she had simply decided that she had had enough of me. It was not a good time. I sat at the dining-room table, and ploughed through yet another essay, this time on the perceived notion of the Lady of Shalott as a coquettish, shallow temptress — adjectives that only served to remind me of Marina — and I wondered for the fortieth time where she and Harry were.

  I think everything would have been bearable if Rocky had called, or written, or even whizzed up the drive in his lovely car for tea. I don’t know what it was in me that assumed I would see him again — dumb optimism probably — but I found it impossible to imagine that he might have vanished back to America without saying goodbye. I had begged Mary not to tell Mama about Rocky and Marina’s visit, and although she had pursed her lips up very tight, she had agreed that it would be beneficial for everyone if not a word was spoken. I expect she thought that Mama would blame her for allowing strangers into the house. Personally. I felt certain that the only person likely to get into any trouble would be me. Mary, who had always pretended to disapprove of Americans to appease Mama, was finding it hard to forget Rocky.

  ‘Such a presence!’ she said to me, wiping away a tear as she chopped an onion. ‘And such smart shoes!’

  Mama had been spending every waking hour in the garden, doing very little of any worth. Her financial concerns filled me with frustration. She was prepared to acknowledge that we couldn’t go on as we were, and yet that was exactly what we were doing. Yet her fear of money was everywhere. Sometimes, when she opened her purse her hands would tremble as though what was inside was contaminated. On another occasion, when I asked her for two shillings to buy stamps from the post office, her eyes shone with defiance and she gave me a ten shilling note and told me to treat myself and Inigo to an ice and a magazine.

  ‘But—’ I began.

  ‘Penelope, you take what you’re given,’ she said ominously. I didn’t enjoy my ice cream that day. Inigo did. He was quite capable of divorcing extravagance from guilt — a quality that I envied in him.

  ‘You seem irritated, darling. Is anything wrong?’ Mama asked me on day four of my Not Speaking to Charlotte campaign.

  ‘No,’ I said quickly. ‘I’ve got rather a lot of work to get through.’

  ‘Isn’t Charlotte helping you?’ asked Mama slyly.

  ‘We’ve had a slight row,’ I found myself admitting.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I think she thinks she knows me better than I know myself,’ I said, anger at Charlotte making me say more than I wanted to. Mama laughed.

  ‘Oh, she probably does, darling,’ she said lightly. ‘Girls like Charlotte always do.’

  I was fairly speechless. Part of me was maddened by Mama, but another part of me was itching to pick up the telephone, so I waited until Mama had drifted off before stealing out of the dining room and into the hall. (I expect you are thinking that I spent most of my life making telephone calls — Mama certainly thought this — but before I met Charlotte I don’t think that I had ever made more than a handful of calls to friends. She was the first person I had ever met who I can safely say was addicted to the telephone, and the addiction was catching. It made her lack of communication over the last few days even more irksome.)

  Charlotte answered straight away. ‘Hello?’

  ‘It’s me. Penelope.’

  ‘Goodness, you sound serious, Penelope. Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m not in love with Harry!’ I blurted. ‘I think you were jolly unfair to hurl that at me. I’ve never been in love with him. Surely you can see that, Char
lotte?’

  There was a silence while both of us digested what I had just said.

  ‘Hmmm,’ said Charlotte. ‘I think we’ll have to agree to disagree.’ She often came up with these little phrases, and she put on an irritatingly good American accent when she used them.

  ‘It’s not a case of agreeing or disagreeing!’ I hissed. ‘It’s the truth and I’m sorry if that disappoints you in any way.’

  ‘The only thing that’s disappointing is that you can’t see it yet. Still, there’s time.’

  I felt myself flushing with annoyance. ‘Why is it that you think you can dictate who I can and can’t fall in love with?’

  ‘Oh, I can’t,’ said Charlotte quickly.

  ‘What about Rocky?’ I asked. ‘Do I love him too?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘What do you mean, of course not?’

  ‘I mean, of course not. Oh, there’s no doubt you’ve got a thumping great crush on him, but then so have I. So would the whole country if they could only see the way he pours champagne, or the way he looks at you when he’s talking, as if he doesn’t care about anything else in the world. He’s absolutely unavoidably delicious. It doesn’t mean were in love with him. We just like being with him and we like the idea of him paying us attention. That’s quite different.’

  I tried to grasp what she was saying, but none of it seemed to make any sense.

  ‘I’ve missed you,’ went on Charlotte. ‘Aunt Clare’s been crippled by a terrible stomach ache — too much talking, I’d say —so I’ve been roaming the streets staring at beautiful jewellery and wishing I was rich. Not much fun on one’s own, I can tell you.’

  ‘Why didn’t you telephone me?’

  ‘I thought you needed some time to think.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About you and Harry, of course.

  ‘Can we stop talking about me and Harry?’

  Charlotte laughed. ‘You are easy to tease,’ she said. ‘I won’t mention it again if it upsets you that much. Oh, except to say that he sent me a postcard from Brighton.

  ‘What did it say?’ I asked, curiosity getting the better of me.

  ‘It just said please feed Julian. I suppose he thinks he’s funny.’

  ‘It is rather snidge,’ I admitted.

  ‘You know there’s only one thing on my mind at the moment,’ said Charlotte.

  ‘I know. Me too.’ I felt a shiver of excitement.

  ‘Johnnie,’ we both said together and exploded into giggles.

  So Charlotte and I were friends again, and Harry was alive and still in England. The fact that he had mentioned Julian in his postcard was strangely uplifting — as if he was trying to let us know that Marina hadn’t changed him as we feared she would. As long as Harry was happy. I thought, the world could breathe out again.

  The next morning I woke up at seven o’clock with the sun in my eyes and my head full of birdsong. I pulled on a slip of a dress that Charlotte had made that was too big for her (and thus perfect for, me) and walked with Fido to the village stores for a pint of milk and a packet of Force and some pear drops. Dew sparkled along the verges and the fierce sunlight of the April morning heightened the whiteness of my arms and legs in the frail material of Charlotte’s dress and I felt alien; a creature of the winter coming out of the underworld. As I passed the village green, I saw three girls of around my age sitting on the old bench and eating white bread sandwiches and sipping milk from a pint bottle. They looked to me as if they had been up for the whole night. Having been sent away to board for five years, I had always rather envied the freedom of the girls who went to the school in the village — who always seemed part of a gang, always seemed to be laughing at some private joke. Fido, scenting cheese and ham, ran over to the girls and started begging for food.

  ‘Fido!’ I hissed, desperately conscious of Charlotte’s dress. If Mama knew that I had ventured outside the grounds wearing so little, she would have been mortified. Fido ignored me. ‘Bloody dog!’ I muttered under my breath and called his name again. By now, he almost had his nose in their food. The prettiest of the girls laughed and fed him a crust.

  ‘Careful! Nearly got my hand!’ She giggled.

  I marched up to Fido and grabbed him by the collar. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘He’s never been very well mannered.’

  ‘We all love dogs,’ announced the second girl, a cheerful-looking blonde with saucer-round eyes and a smoky voice.

  ‘Sweet,’ said the third, a mousy-looking type wearing acres of pink lipstick, and as she patted Fido I noticed she was wearing a Johnnie Ray Fan Club badge on the lapel of her coat.

  ‘Oh!’ I cried. ‘You like Johnnie Ray!’

  Six beady eyes fixed on me. ‘You like Johnnie?’ demanded the mouse.

  ‘I love him,’ I corrected her automatically. ‘I’m going to see him next week.’ .

  ‘So are we,’ said the blonde quickly. ‘Where you sitting?’

  ‘Oh — I — I don’t know,’ I said, embarrassment preventing me from admitting that I had front row seats.

  ‘You don’t know?’ The mousy girl looked at me in amazement. ‘You’re going to see Johnnie and you don’t know where you’re sitting?’

  They looked puzzled, almost disgusted.

  ‘Are you all going?’ I asked them.

  ‘Of course,’ said the blonde, not without hauteur. ‘We never miss Johnnie.’

  ‘Maybe we’ll see you there,’ giggled the pretty one. ‘I’ve got me sister lookin’ after Kevin that week, after all.’

  ‘Kevin?’

  ‘Her son,’ explained the mousy one sagely.

  I was a bit shocked.

  ‘We always wait for Johnnie afterwards,’ went on the mousy one. ‘Last time he kissed Sarah.’

  The blonde blushed and covered her face with her hands. ‘It’s true!’ she wailed. ‘I never washed for a week afterwards!’

  ‘He kissed you!’ I whispered incredulously. So it was possible. Charlotte was right.

  ‘We wait at the side door, sometimes the front. We never know which one he’s goin’ to leave by so we look out at both. He has to get out some’ow, after all,’ said Sarah. She pulled a packet of cigarettes from her coat pocket and they all took one. Then they sat there, lighting up and leaving lipstick over their cigarettes while I stood by as if I were interviewing them. Behind the bench where they sat squinting and smoking stood the church and behind the church stretched the fields that Mama had rented out for half the price that she should have. The bleating of newborn lambs and a sudden onslaught of fit-to-burst birdsong from the silver birches on the green made me heady with the shock of spring. Someone had altered the scenery overnight, and the village was another planet from what it had been yesterday. The blonde girl was offering me a cigarette.

  ‘Oh, no thank you,’ I said quickly.

  ‘Don’t you smoke?’

  ‘Oh, sometimes. Not this early in the morning.’

  I could hear a batsqueak of disapproval from Mama sound in my head. Was it right to sit on the village green and smoke with these girls? I feared Johns or Mary or Mama herself emerging and looking horrified. I knew that Charlotte would have had no such reservations.

  ‘We’re just standin’ at the back of the Palladium this time,’ admitted the mouse. ‘We couldn’t get the money for our tickets in time so we just pay a couple of shillings to stand. Better than nothing. Still get to see ‘im. And maybe get a kiss on his way out the building.’

  Sarah picked at the peeling paint on the bench. ‘Your dog’s eaten my sandwich,’ she observed coolly.

  ‘Oh, rats. I am sorry,’ I gasped, pulling Fido away.

  ‘He’s spat out the tomato, Sarah,’ giggled the one with the big eyes.

  ‘At least I’ll be thinner for Johnnie.’

  ‘I’m Penelope,’ I said, aware of my smart voice and my long name.

  ‘I’m Lorraine,’ said the mouse, sticking out her hand for me to shake.

  ‘Deborah,’ said the pr
ettiest.

  ‘Maybe see you at the Palladium, then,’ I said awkwardly. For some reason all the girls started to giggle and look preoccupied by something and I realised that it was time for me to go. I dragged Fido away as, on the other side of the green, a gang of fifteen-year-old Teds appeared, suits immaculate, hair perfect. I kept my head down and walked on — and hated myself for doing so.

  ‘Hey!’ I heard one of the girls yell, and automatically I turned round. ‘Say hello to your brother from us!’

  They laughed some more, leaving me stunned. While Inigo had always been fairly famous in the village (he was too good-looking not to be) I was amazed that they knew I was his sister. I wandered back over to them.

  ‘You know my brother?’ I asked.

  ‘Kind of,’ said Deborah.

  ‘What’s your brother into?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Does he like Johnnie?’

  ‘Oh no!’ I laughed. ‘He won’t listen to anyone but Elvis Presley.’

  ‘Who?’ asked Lorraine.

  ‘Elvis Presley,’ I repeated. The name, now so familiar to me, must have sounded odd .to them. ‘He’s big in Memphis, Tennessee,’ I explained. ‘Inigo — my brother — thinks he’ll be big over here too before the end of the year.’ I felt quite smug, dispensing this information.

  ‘What’s he sound like?’ asked Lorraine suspiciously.

  ‘Like no one,’ I admitted. ‘Like no one at all.’

  They said nothing, just looked into space as if they were all wondering what no one sounded like. I smiled again and moved away, and just before I got to the edge of the green they called out again. I swung round.

  ‘We like your dress!’ shouted Lorraine.

  ‘Thank you!’ I shouted, uncertain.

  ‘Where’d you get it from?’ called Deborah.

  I remembered what Charlotte had said to me. Girls will understand these dresses. Girls will want to wear them.

  ‘My friend makes them!’ I called back. ‘She’s going to be a famous clothes designer!’ I awaited more giggles but they never came, they just nodded and stubbed out their cigarettes. They didn’t laugh. I suppose that meant they believed me.