101 Pieces of Me (20 page)

Now I knew the reason behind his warning that day in the dressing room.
Be careful of yourself
, he had said. His mother had not, perhaps, been careful enough of herself. “Oh, Aidan…” My feelings had rolled themselves up into such a tight ball that my stomach ached. Instinct made me lean against him, my head in the hollow under his chin. “I understand. This is vital, isn’t it?”

Like a string unravelling, the tension left his body. I could feel the drumming of his heart. He put his arm around me and squeezed my shoulder. Emotions and memories crowded within me: Da, my dear silly old Da, had always squeezed me like that when I did something he approved of, like coming first in a spelling test at school. Frank, who rarely touched me, had put his arm around me as we stood together at Grandma Freebody’s funeral last year. I had been sobbing; he was prevented from doing so by the necessity of appearing manly. But his emotion flowed down his arm; I felt it, just as I felt Aidan’s emotion now.

“It’s the most important thing I’ve ever done,” he said.

My decision seemed to make itself. “Then tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it.”

I
had nothing to wear. I had packed for two nights in Brighton: two clean blouses, a spare slip, a nightdress, two sets of underwear and the beaded evening dress. The silver evening shoes and bag I had brought to go with it were hardly suitable for going about London in the daytime, so I had no change of shoes. I had no cardigan or sweater to put over my silk blouses, only my tweed jacket and skirt, and a raincoat. And I had run out of stockings, though a pair I’d rinsed out in Aidan’s bathroom were drying on the curtain rail in the bedroom.

“Aidan,” I said sheepishly the next morning, “I need some clothes.”

He gave an exaggerated moan and clapped his hand to his forehead. “Of course you do!” He began to gather his wallet, cigarettes and outdoor clothes in a businesslike way. “Look, we’ve got to go to Somerset House this morning anyway, so let’s go via Oxford Street and buy you some new things. And we need to go to the post office in Trafalgar Square when we’ve finished all that, so I’ll set up a poste restante address and we can get your possessions sent from the Thamesbank.”

I had so many questions. I did not know which to ask first, so I said nothing.

“Come on, get your hat,” said Aidan, already halfway out the door. “We’ll have some breakfast on the way. Do you like muffins?”

I followed him down the stairs, struggling into my coat. “But I haven’t got all that much—”

“Don’t worry, I can write a cheque.” He stopped, one hand on the door and the other held up, palm out. “And don’t say, ‘Oh, Aidan, you mustn’t!’ I know you don’t want to be beholden to me, and you’re not. You can pay me back when you are able. Now, come under my umbrella. It’s raining stair-rods out there.”

The Aidan of last night, who had so openly laid bare the painful events of his past, was gone and the playful façade had returned. His feelings were back in the place he normally kept them: locked deep inside his heart. I felt privileged to be one of the very few who had glimpsed something more profound. “Thank you,” I said. “Thank you for everything.”

He took a large black umbrella from the stand, opened the door, crammed his hat on his head and regarded the weather with a grimace. “And thank
you
.”

He took my arm and we hurried out of Raleigh Court and into Bayswater Road, huddled under the umbrella. “What are you thanking me for?” I asked. “I haven’t done anything.”

“Of course you have!”

“What?”

“Well, Miss Clara Hope…” He paused while we crossed a busy road, dodging puddles and horse dung. When we got to the other side he pulled me so close I could feel his breath on my face. “The clue is in your name. You’ve given me hope, Clara. Hope that there may be an end to the guilt David Penn’s conduct has inflicted on me. Or at least” – he pushed the door of a café advertising freshly baked muffins – “a lessening of it, which is probably the best I can get.”

I
looked out of the cab window at Oxford Street; it was not very crowded on this Monday morning. The shop windows spilled light onto the wet pavement. Selfridges, where I had purchased the fur and several evening dresses, seemed to stand in blank-faced admonishment of my folly. I turned to Aidan. “Let’s go down to Marshall & Snelgrove, shall we? They have nice dresses and things, not too expensive.” I regretted this as soon as I had said it. “Not that I mean, you know…”

“It’s all right.” He patted my hand. “I’m not completely broke, actually. And anyway, I’ve got this new job.”

“Oh, yes!” I had forgotten that Aidan had a part in a new film. “You must tell me all about that!”

“I will, but let’s get you kitted out first.”

He bought me two medium-weight wool dresses, some underwear and stockings and an adorable vertically striped cardigan with a deep V-neck. It was pricey; I tried not to show Aidan how much I liked it, but he saw through me immediately and insisted on buying it. Once we had added a nightdress and a pair of soft leather pumps, the amount rung up by the assistant was alarming. Aidan paid without comment, and it was not until we were back out in the street that either of us spoke. We began at the same time, then stopped, then both tried again. Aidan laughed. “You first.”

“I was only going to say thank you, again, and promise you again that I will pay you back.”

“And I was going to say that you will need some more clothes soon. Summer ones.”

“But my summer things will be sent from the Thamesbank, won’t they?”

“Yes, they will.” It had stopped raining. He used the furled umbrella to hail another cab. “But they might be too warm for where you’re going.”

I did not understand. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Yes you are.”

The cab stopped. “Somerset House,” said Aidan to the driver. Then, to me, “That’s where they store the records of births, marriages and deaths.”

“I know that. So where am I going that will need cool clothes?”

“Italy.”

“Italy?”

He helped me and my packages into the back seat and squeezed into the small remaining space. “It’s a place in Europe. It looks like a boot.”

“Aidan, do not tease me, just tell me what you mean!”

He sat back with satisfaction and took out his cigarettes. “My new film is being made on location, which means the outdoor scenes will be filmed in a real place, out of doors. And that place is … Italy.”

I was so surprised that if I had not been wedged into the corner of the taxi, I might have fallen on the floor. “So do you mean we could have gone to Paris and filmed our outdoor scenes?” I gasped. “Instead of pretending, with those stupid painted walls?”

“No, no!” Aidan shook his head. “David Penn Productions has not the funds for location filming; it costs an absolute fortune. But the director who’s making this picture, Giovanni Bassini, is very keen on filming outdoors, and his backers seem to have tons of money.”

I had begun to recover my composure. “So it’s like when the newsreel people came to Haverth, is it?” I ventured. “They brought their cameras, and lights and cables, and goodness knows what.”

“Yes, but this is on a much larger scale. The film company won’t cart all the stuff over to Italy, they’ll hire an Italian company’s equipment.”

I stared at the back of the cab driver’s head without seeing it. My mind was crowded with so many thoughts and questions, it was hard to find a sensible way through them. “So where exactly are we going?” I asked eventually.

“To Castiglioncello, on the north west coast of Italy. Giovanni, who is a
very
good friend of David Penn, has a villa there. If there’s one thing David likes to do when he’s finished a picture, it’s to be entertained at Giovanni’s villa. I would stake my life on his turning up there before long.”

“And where do I come in?”

“You will be introduced as my Welsh cousin, who has come to Italy to learn Italian.” He gave me a shy look. “I’m afraid, Clara, you will actually have to do so, for verisimilitude. And no one in Castiglioncello, except David, of course, will know who you really are.”

“D
avid Maurice Penhaligon, bachelor, to Catherine Ann Melrose, spinster, in the parish of St Pancras, fifteenth of June, 1915,”
read Aidan. “His age is given as twenty-four and hers as eighteen.” He turned to me. “Good grief, Clara,
eighteen
!”

This fact had hit me so hard, it was colouring my face. I said nothing.

“That was eleven years ago,” observed Aidan thoughtfully. “So she’s twenty-nine now, and he’s thirty-five.”

Thirty-five. Almost twice my age. To cover my confusion, I bent over the entry in the register more closely. And something caught my eye. “Look at this, Aidan. It says that David was born in London, but Catherine Melrose was born in New York, and her address at the time of her marriage was in West 86th Street. She’s American.”

We looked at each other, and I saw realization in Aidan’s eyes. “So he married an American citizen and scuttled off to the USA, did he?” He gave a soft, humourless laugh. “Well, in 1915 that was an excellent way to avoid being conscripted into the forces! And I thought he’d just bribed someone!”

My discomfort had increased. “Aidan,” I confessed, “I am so very ashamed of myself.”

He hurried to comfort me. “Nonsense! David is the one who should be ashamed of himself! And he does look younger than his years. I would have put him at no more than thirty-one or -two, and I’ve known him much longer than you have.” He heaved the enormous book closed. “Anyway, it’s hardly your fault that he likes girls who are much younger than him. Lots of men do,” he said seriously. “I mean, I’m forty-two, and here I am in Somerset House with an eighteen-year-old girl.”

I smiled weakly. “How old are you, really?”

“Twenty-five on my birth certificate, twenty-three to the public. I split the difference and consider myself twenty-four.”

“Oh!”

We had begun to make our way to the exit. I followed Aidan between shelves and desks, tiptoeing on the polished floor. The Public Records Office wasn’t a library, but it looked and felt like one.

“You sound surprised,” he said. “Did you think I was older, or younger?”