The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets

  ‘There simply isn’t enough time for me to discuss exactly what’s wrong with your coat. I will try your gloves, however.’

  So we sat there, watching Charlotte try Deborah’s gloves, and Deborah manoeuvre herself into Charlotte’s shoes — not an easy task when one is as drunk as she was. I think another half an hour must have passed before the stage door opened again, and a man stepped out of the shadows.

  ‘Johnnie!’ cried Sarah weakly.

  ‘No. He’s gone, girls. You should get yourselves home to bed; it’s gone half-past midnight,’ said the man, small and dressed in uniform and about as far from resembling Johnnie as it was possible to be.

  ‘Why didn’t he come and say goodnight?’ wailed Lorraine. ‘We’ve come all the way to London to see him.’

  ‘You girls’ll catch your death,’ said the man kindly. ‘Shall I help you to find yourselves a taxi cab?’

  We staggered to our feet like newborn fawns, struggling to stay upright and holding on to one another as we started to sway.

  ‘You tell him from us that we came all the way from Wiltshire to see him,’ said Deborah.

  ‘You tell him—” began Sarah, but the man had already left us again. ‘People are so——’ she began, but her words were drowned out by the low throb of a car engine, and round the corner, blinding us all in the glare of the headlamps, came the huge, angular beauty of a foreign car. A car that belonged to the silver screen, a car that looked so out of place in London, it might as well have been a spacecraft. An American car.

  ‘Christ!’ offered Deborah, clasping her hand to her forehead. ‘The aliens have landed!’

  ‘It’s bloody Jimmy Dean!’ yelled Lorraine.

  Charlotte reacted faster than I, which was not surprising, as my reflexes were steeped in gin.

  ‘Shit! That’s Rocky’s car!’

  ‘Rocky?’ I repeated, my jaw dropping. ‘No!’

  The car stopped just in front of us, and the driver’s door opened.

  ‘Maybe it’s Johnnie’s getaway vehicle?’ cried Deborah hopefully, stumbling towards the vehicle, arms outstretched like a zombie.

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ said that blissfully familiar American voice. ‘Penelope, Charlotte — what on earth are you doing?’

  ‘Rocky!’ I cried, and stumbled towards him. He caught me before I fell.

  ‘Gin!’ he said drily. ‘How extravagant of you, girls.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I demanded, unable to wipe the silly smile off my face, as my eyes drank in the beauty of his dinner jacket, the dark shadow of stubble across his jaw and the wonder of his moustache.

  ‘I just finished a dinner at Claridges,’ he said. ‘The people on the table next door to ours were talking about Johnnie Ray at the Palladium and saying ‘how there were queues of girls thronging around the stage door waiting to see him. I had a strange feeling I’d find you here.’

  Sarah hiccuped.

  ‘But I didn’t think I’d find you so damn drunk,’ continued Rocky, glaring at her. ‘Come on, then. You had better get in.’

  ‘What do you mean? We’re waiting for Johnnie,’ I said petulantly. ‘Then we’re going back to Charlotte’s aunt’s house.’

  ‘Not likely,’ muttered Charlotte. ‘I’ve just realised I’ve forgotten my keys.’

  ‘Waiting for Johnnie, my ass,’ said Rocky tersely. ‘If the guy has any sense, he will have left the theatre before you guys even got out of your seats.’

  ‘But—” began Deborah.

  ‘No buts. And who are this lot?’ demanded Rocky of Deborah, Sarah and Lorraine.

  ‘They live in the village. They love Johnnie too,’ was the best I could manage.

  ‘Right. You can all squeeze in but let me warn you — if any of you throw up, you can get straight out again.’ I sensed he wasn’t joking.

  ‘Where’s he taking us?’ asked Sarah, gleefully piling into the back.

  ‘He’s quite safe, we know him,’ said Charlotte smugly. ‘Red leather seats!’ squeaked Lorraine. ‘Hey! The wheel’s on the wrong side of the car!’

  It was quite some feat, getting five drunk Johnnie Ray fans into the car, but Rocky managed it. Deborah, Lorraine and Sarah got the most terrible giggles and asked Rocky a series of ridiculous questions, the answers to most of which I was agog to hear.

  ‘Who d’you have to bump off to get a car like this?’ He ignored that one.

  ‘What kind of car is this, anyway?’

  ‘It’s a Chevrolet.’

  ‘Lord, I’d love Kevin to see this.’

  ‘Kevin?’ asked Rocky.

  ‘My son.’ Deborah blushed. ‘Gone to stay this week with me sister up north. She’s got a little boy called Jack. Gets on with Kevin, does Jack. They like Johnnie Ray. too, but London’s no place for kids.’

  ‘How old are you, Deborah?’ asked Charlotte, on behalf of me, Rocky and herself.

  ‘Eighteen. And Kevin’s only a baby, before you go thinkin’ bad things about me.’

  I looked at her with a funny sort of respect. Through a mist of gin, she seemed much wiser than me. Yet Mama was the same age as Deborah when she had me, I realised with a sudden jolt. Both babies with babies, no matter what your background or the size of your house.

  ‘Is this the same car that Johnnie has?’ demanded Lorraine, who obviously felt Kevin and Jack were not gripping topics of conversation for the back of a Chevrolet.

  ‘I have no idea, nor do I care.’

  ‘How can you not care about Johnnie?’

  ‘I don’t like the guy’s wailing, all that continual weeping, sounding sad on the radio, breaking hearts in mono — it drives me crazy after a while.’

  Deborah laughed. ‘Breaking hearts in mono!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘How’d you get the car ‘ere in the first place then?’ persisted Lorraine.

  ‘I had it shipped here from New York.’

  ‘Do you live in New York?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘Do you have a wife?’

  I sharpened my ears for the answer to this one.

  ‘No,’ Rocky replied evenly. ‘Nor do I have any grandparents, pets or children. And after tonight, I thank the Lord for that.’

  ‘Who do you most admire in the movie business?’ asked Sarah conversationally. She seemed to be sobering up faster than the rest of us.

  ‘Myself,’ said Rocky automatically.

  ‘Why are you here and not in America?’

  ‘Business. Why are you?’

  ‘We live here!’ said Lorraine who was as stupid as Deborah was sharp. She looked at him curiously. ‘Are you famous?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Are you rich?’

  ‘Rich enough to be driving five girls all the way from London to Wiltshire in the middle of the night.’

  Charlotte and I, side by side in the front passenger seat, nudged each other.

  ‘And what, may I ask, would you have done if ‘I hadn’t driven past the theatre?’ Rocky asked us without glancing our way.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Charlotte dreamily. ‘Sold our bodies and souls to the cruel night, I suppose.’

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ I said primly. I saw Rocky fighting a smile.

  We reached Westbury at five in the morning. The trio in the back had fallen asleep for the last hour of the journey. as had Charlotte beside me, her head lolling about on my shoulder. I stayed awake, if only because I knew that I would curse myself for ever if I forgot any moment of a drive from London to Magna with Rocky.

  ‘Wake up,’ I whispered to the back seat. ‘We’re here!’

  ‘Where do you girls live?’ Rocky asked a sleepy-eyed Deborah. ‘Oh, we’ll get out on the green,’ she yawned. Giving a stretch, she dug into her bag. ‘Can we give you anything?’ she asked.

  ‘You’ve been so kind, driving us all the way home in your lovely car. I feel like a film star or something.’

  ‘Just promise me you won’t go hanging arou
nd after singers for the rest of your lives,’ said Rocky, opening the door for them.

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t promise that,’ said Deborah.

  The village green was eerily still. An owl hooted from the depths of the cherry tree and the shadow of a fox crossed the road in front of us. Now that we were out of London, the night was alive with stars and the moon looked as if it had been through one of Mary’s vigorous washes; it glowed as white as Marina Hamilton’s teeth. Charlotte climbed into the back seat of the car for the last part of our long journey. Rocky and I said nothing for the five minutes that it took to drive back to Magna. Why is he doing this, I thought. He doesn’t have to be here with us.

  ‘You should stay the night,’ I said.

  ‘First sensible thing you’ve said tonight, kid.’

  Rocky bundled us out of the car and we crept into the hall —Mama never locked any doors, which Rocky found horrifying.

  ‘I’ll show you to the Wellington room,’ I said, stumbling over a cricket bat. ‘Charlotte, you know where you’re sleeping.’

  ‘Sure do.’

  I was achingly conscious of Rocky following me upstairs and I wished with all my heart that I had not drunk quite so much gin. I felt terribly weary and unaccountably sad all of a sudden, as if I had been smacked in the head. Rocky, sharp as a razor, sensed the horror of my hangover.

  ‘Gin will make you feel more disgusting than any other spirit,’ he said, sitting down on the bed. ‘I suggest you get some sleep and drink a stack of black coffee tomorrow morning.’ He looked exhausted all of a sudden, his kind brown eyes small with tiredness. He gave a great yawn, like a lion. I wanted to collapse into his arms and say how sorry I was for putting him so far out of his way with such a long drive, but instead I hovered at the door like a child looking for approval.

  ‘I expect Mama will jump out of her skin when she sees you tomorrow,’ I said in a high voice. ‘Don’t worry, I shall explain everything to her. Once she realises that you were our knight in shining armour, she’ll forgive you everything.’

  ‘As far as I’m aware, I don’t have reason to beg her forgiveness,’ said Rocky evenly.

  ‘You’re American,’ I explained.

  ‘Ah,’ said Rocky. ‘So the fact that I rescued her daughter from the streets of Soho won’t come into it at all.’

  I grinned. ‘Not at all.’

  There was a pause, and I supposed I should leave and make my way back to my room, but something in me went on to ask:

  ‘How’s Marina?’

  Rocky looked surprised. ‘Marina? You didn’t know?’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘Well, she’s back with George, of course. Just like I said. Decided that she couldn’t live without him. They’ve already taken off to the States. So your magician might come back to you after all. I’d give him another chance if I were you. Marina’s a powerful drug but I don’t believe he ever stopped loving you. How could he?’

  ‘Oh,’ I whispered, too dumbstruck to say anything else.

  When I awoke the next morning, I convinced myself that I had dreamed that last part of our conversation. After all, if Marina was with George, where was Harry? Rocky must have it wrong, I thought. But somehow, I couldn’t imagine Rocky ever having anything wrong. He was simply the most right person I had ever encountered.

  Although I set my alarm clock for eight, which was only three hours after I had gone to bed, I must have slept right through, for when I awoke the sun was streaming through the window in a triumphant caught-you-out-there way. Horrors, I thought, fixing together the events of the night before. It was eleven o’clock. I dressed quickly and padded across the landing to Charlotte’s room. There was no response when I knocked, and when I pushed open the door she was still curled up in bed.

  ‘Leave me alone. I’m dying,’ she croaked.

  ‘You’d better hurry up about it. It’s gone eleven and Mama must have met Rocky by now.’ I crossed the room and pulled open the curtains. ‘It’s raining!’ I cried in surprise for the sunlight had been infused by a heavy downpour, the sort that you get in April, falling at a slant and lightning bright in the sunlight.

  I raced downstairs and into the dining room. For a moment or two, I stood at the door, looking in at the scene before me. I knew instantly. Rocky had been lost to Mama. I supposed it had to happen, but that didn’t stop it from hurting, and it started to hurt straight away, because I knew that there was no questioning it. She was laughing at something he had said, her whole body rocked forward towards him instead of recoiling back, away from everything, which was the stance in which I had known Mama for as long as I could remember. They were sitting together on the window seats, framed by the newly rich green of the lawn, while unbelievably, behind them, in the brilliant morning sky, shone the faint curve of a rainbow.

  ‘Look!’ I heard myself exclaiming, and I rushed over to join them, pointing at the sky.

  ‘How glorious!’ said Mama. She turned back to Rocky. ‘Do you get wonderful rainbows in America?’

  He laughed at her, which was something that ordinarily she couldn’t handle at all. ‘We sure do,’ he said.

  ‘Penelope, darling, Rocky’s been telling me all about last night,’ said Mama, smiling at me and taking my hand. ‘How lucky that he happened to drive past the theatre when he did! He says the place was awash with drunks.’

  I blushed. ‘Sort of. We were fine. We just wanted to meet Johnnie.’

  ‘Won’t you stay for lunch?’ Mama asked Rocky. ‘We’re not having much, just a chicken pie, but we’d love to have you.

  Rocky looked at me and I knew that he was asking for my approval. There was a light but friendly challenge in his eyes, as if to say go on! You said she hated Americans but I’m doing pretty well so far!

  ‘Of course you should stay. Rocky,’ I said.

  Knowing that I couldn’t have Rocky for myself was one thing, but knowing that the reason for this was because he was falling in love with my mother was quite another. He took Charlotte to the station in time to catch the 12.45 to Paddington, but he returned for lunch and I tried not to stare as he held Mama’s eyes in his for longer than he had ever held mine, and she actually blushed for the first time in living memory. There was something fascinating about Mama that day. She was like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon, fluttering towards Rocky’s light with hesitant new wings. Shattered by Johnnie and gin, I excused myself after lunch, saying that I was going to have a lie-down. Upstairs, Marina the guinea pig rushed out to greet me and I fed her one of Mary’s carrots and stared out of my window until the light faded from the sky and the sunset spilled an inky pink and red over the horizon. At four o’clock, I turned on my bedside lamp, opened my notepad and began to write. I didn’t stop until eight, when I was called for supper. I called the story ‘Cry’ after Johnnie’s song, and I felt, somewhere deep inside me, that it was the best thing I had ever written. It was certainly the most true. I folded it into an envelope and walked down to the post box in the village straight away. The day that I always knew would arrive was here, but it didn’t hurt the way I thought it would. Certainly, it ached, but it was a peculiarly sweet ache, like giving away your last pear drop to someone you know will appreciate it more than you. Not that I’m comparing Rocky to a pear drop, really, but — oh, I think you understand what I mean. That evening, Charlotte telephoned me.

  ‘You’ll never guess what’s happened,’ she said.

  ‘What is it this time?’

  ‘Marina’s vamoosed back to America with George.’

  Although I had already heard this from Rocky, it still shocked me. ‘I don’t believe it.’

  ‘I do. Harry hasn’t reappeared. I suppose he can’t face us all after this. I feel rather sorry for him, which is saying something. I don’t think I’ve ever felt sorry for Harry before in my whole life.’

  He and I both with broken hearts, I thought. It was never supposed to be like this.

  The following week was a revelation for me, for Mama and
for Magna. Rocky, who had been booked to fly back to America the day after he dropped me home, postponed his flight and said that he would be in England until the end of the month. He telephoned us every other day, and he came down to see us for dinner on Saturday night. Not once did Mama and I talk about him when he was not with us. It felt forbidden, as if talking about it was recognising the one fact that Mama was too frightened to admit to. He was replacing Papa. He was making her happy. What did I do? I wrote a great deal in my diary. and walked through the bluebell woods thinking hard about it all, and found that I could see the picture far more clearly now than I had done that day on the train when I first encountered Rocky, or that evening at the Ritz or even the night that he had driven us all home only a week ago. I could see, for the first time, that there had never been any serious possibility of Rocky’s falling for me. I was too young (though when one is eighteen and delirious about a man of forty-five one feels terribly. terribly grown up, and not the guileless ingénue that he sees one as at all) — but more than that, Rocky understood very little about what was important to me, and I to him. The twenty-seven years between us had included a war that I could barely remember and he would never forget. But Mama … she instinctively understood things that I couldn’t begin to comprehend. And I suppose, above almost everything was the fact that had always been there, staring me in the face. She was just too beautiful for him not to fall in love with. I felt, for all this, oddly proud of Mama. It amazed me, how little it actually hurt. Then I started to realise that the reason it hurt so little was because it wasn’t actually Rocky that I was missing. It was somebody else. Only once I realised who it was, it started to hurt more than ever.

  I invited Charlotte to Magna on Saturday night when I knew Rocky was coming for dinner again. I wanted her to see for herself what I had told her about on the phone. Of course. I was also hoping for news of Harry and I hated myself for hoping. Inigo was also home, and full of excitement at Rocky’s presence. Rocky had barely taken off his coat before- Inigo ushered him into the ballroom.