The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets (30 page)

‘Charlotte,
will you be quiet and let me talk!’

‘Go on
then.’ She sucked the remains of her lemonade loudly through a straw.

I took
a deep breath. ‘Harry wants ~ me to pose as his — his —friend — again,’ I said
primly. ‘At the dinner that George is giving for Marina. He says you’ve been
invited too.’

‘Hmm. I
have, worse luck.’

‘Well,
in exchange, he’s got us both tickets to see Johnnie. He thinks that my
presence will rile Marina to such an extent that he’ll win her back, once and
for all. He says that this will be the last of it, one way or another. I don’t
know what to think. I can’t think of anything worse, but then I keep on
thinking about Johnnie and all my fears vanish.’

Charlotte
called the waitress over. ‘One pot of coffee, please,’ she ordered. ‘And make
it strong.’

‘Not
too strong,’ I added and the waitress raised her eyes to heaven.

‘Now,’
said Charlotte briskly. ‘I think he’s jolly silly to think that this plan of
his will work. He’s not competing with George, he’s competing with his money
and his connections, neither of which Harry could ever hope to match in a
million years. So I suggest that you humour him and turn up at the party. act
like his lover, then take the tickets and run for the Palladium as fast as your
legs will carry you.

‘But I’m
living a lie! I’m
not
Harry’s lover! I wouldn’t know how to be anyone’s
lover, worse luck.’

‘It’s
not something that anyone learns. One makes it up as one goes along,’ said Charlotte
airily.

‘Quite
literally in my case.

‘Nobody’s
expecting you to do anything ghastly like spend the night with him.’ Charlotte
liked saying this sort of thing to me because it always made me blush.

‘It’s
not that,’ I said, frantically wiggling my toes, ‘it’s just the false pretences
of the thing. Then if Marina does leave George, I’m the one who’s left on the
sidelines, heartbroken.’

‘But
you wont
really
be heartbroken.’

‘I know
I won’t — not really — but everyone else will
think
I am. I’ll be seen
as Harry’s cast-off.’

‘Could
be worse,’ mused Charlotte. ‘Men adore a cast-off.’

‘Funny,
that’s what Harry said too.’

We
paused while the waitress poured our coffee.

‘You
must know, already, what it is you’re going to do,’ said Charlotte. ‘You must
have known from the moment Harry talked to you about it all. What’s the
decision? Yes or no?’

I took
a scalding gulp of coffee. It was sweet and strong and filled me with courage. ‘Well,
yes, of course.

‘I knew
it,’ said Charlotte. ‘You won’t regret it. Anyway, I’ll be there to make sure
that nothing gets out of hand. I think it’ll be rather fun. And we get to see
Johnnie,’ she breathed, ‘in the flesh! I must make certain that Harry hands
over the tickets before the party,’ she said. ‘No tickets, no lover.’

‘Good
idea.’ Buoyed up by Charlotte’s encouragement and dizzy with the kick of
caffeine, I felt my heart crashing against my ribs. ‘Oh, and another thing—’

‘Yes?
Gosh,
another
thing?’

I had
planned to tell Charlotte about Rocky, planned to ask her opinion, share my
story of how we met on the train, and how he had written his name down on the
back of the opera ticket, but all of a sudden the words caught in my throat and
I realised, to my astonishment, that Rocky was something I wanted to keep to
myself for the moment. He wasn’t absurd like Inigo’s friends, or too young and
dangerous like the Teds from the caff, nor was he out of reach like Johnnie Ray
— he was a real live man, someone who had listened to me, and made me think.

‘I
haven’t anything to wear to the party,’ I said.

When I got home that
evening, I pulled on my wellingtons and walked out to Banjo’s field with an
apple. Banjo crunched it up into little pieces and spat much of it out again —
his teeth were pretty ineffectual in his old age — and I put my arm round him
and smelled that lovely pony smell and stared back at Magna, which from a
distance looked not at all weary, but tall and strong, like a phantom ship on
the horizon. A great lump came to my throat at the idea of Inigo leaving us and
going to America, and Mama disintegrating even further without him, and Papa
never coming back, and I realised how horribly fragile everything was, and I
closed my eyes tight and prayed for something to save us all. When I opened my
eyes again, Banjo had dribbled the remains of the apple over my blouse, and I
thought how unlike books life is, and how absurd Charlotte had been to imagine
that I could be in love with Harry. The only reason that he had got right under
my skin was because he had dangled tickets to see Johnnie under my nose. I
wandered back home, hitting down nettles with a stick and singing Johnnie Ray
and wondering if I would ever see Rocky again. Boys, I thought, were more
trouble than they were worth. Really. one should stick to books where one sees
the hero coming a mile off.

Chapter
13

THE
LONG GALLERY

Charlotte telephoned me to
say that Harry had shown her the tickets to Johnnie’s concert but that he was
not prepared to give them to us until the dinner was over.

‘Did
you really see them?’ I asked her in a loud whisper, for Mama was lurking.

‘Of
course,” said Charlotte. ‘They’re genuine, all right. He must have pulled a
fair few strings to get hold of them.’

I
remembered what Harry had said about the roulette wheel and rich gamblers. ‘You’re
absolutely sure they’re real?’

‘As
sure as I’ve ever been. April the twenty-fifth, nineteen fifty-five, Johnnie
Ray at the Palladium. Doors open at seven-thirty.’

I
shivered, uncontrollably. with the excitement of it all. ‘George’s party takes
place on Friday night at eight o’clock,’ went on Charlotte. ‘Oh, and your date
wants you to dress demure.’

‘Oh he
does, does he?’ I said grimly.

‘I said
to him that you’ve only ever dressed demure, and who on earth does he think you
are? If I were you, I’d head straight for the nearest corset and suspenders.
Oh! Hang on, darling, he’s grabbing the—’

‘Hello?
Hello?’ Harry sounded amused and very slightly drunk.

‘Yes?’
I said, as icily as I could manage.

‘I’m so
pleased you’re coming with me, sweetheart. We’re going to have a terrific
night. Just relax and I’ll take care of you.’.

‘Somehow
those words don’t fill me with confidence.’

‘Listen,
would you mind awfully if we turned up separately? I feel we could manufacture
much more of a scene if you arrived after me, you know, just as everyone’s
sitting down to dinner?
My face softens with delight at the sight of my lady
love.’

I could
hear Charlotte protesting in the background. ‘Anything else?’ I asked
sarcastically. ‘A kiss at the end of every course?’

‘Perfect.’

I
stifled a giggle. He was preposterous.

‘Oh,
and Penelope?’

‘Yes?’

‘Sweetheart,
you’re far too tall to wear heels. I meant to say that to you last time, only I
was too distracted by the American to talk. Now, I’ll see you at the Ritz. I’ll
be there by eight, and I’ll expect you there at twenty past. Remember, demure
but delightful. I’ll do the rest.’

‘Who
else will be there?’ I bleated,’ suddenly panicked. ‘Oh, everybody you will
have read about this year in all the gossip columns but nobody that you
actually know.’

I fell
silent, imagining the horror of it all.

‘Penelope?’
I heard Harry’s voice soften. I couldn’t help liking the way he said my name.
He hung longer than most on the ‘el’ bit in the middle, and even longer when he
was a little bit over the top with wine.

‘What?’

‘If it’s
too awful, I can turn the whole lot of them into rats.’ I allowed myself to
laugh. ‘Pity you can’t send me a fairy godmother too.’

‘Can’t
I? We’ll see about that. Listen, I’m going to stay with an old school friend
the night after next. He lives about three miles away from you.

‘Name?’

‘Loopy
Turner. Well, Lorne Turner’s his real name. Deafeningly loud, has a fearfully
pretty sister called Isobel?’

‘I know
who you mean. They live in Ashton St Giles. He’s very short, isn’t he?’ I
gulped as soon as I had said this, realising that he was probably a little
taller than Harry.

‘To
you, every man is short. What do you say to my plan?’

‘Oh all
right,’ I consented. ‘Shall I see you on Wednesday afternoon?’

‘I’ll
get to you at about three,’ he said.

‘Very
well. Oh, and Harry, just so you know — Isobel Turner’s the most awful girl.
She came to Sherborne for a couple of terms. She used to eat chalk.’

‘Just
the way I like them,’ sighed Harry.

I replaced the telephone
and ran straight into Mama, who was conveniently arranging some daffodils in
the hall.

‘What
was all that about, darling?’

‘Oh,
nothing much. I’m going to a party with Harry on Friday. He’s coming here on
Wednesday afternoon to go through plans.’

‘Plans?’
demanded Mama, and I cursed myself for saying too much.

‘Oh,
just talking me through the evening. It’s a smart affair,’ I said hurriedly.

‘What
on earth are you going to wear?’

‘I don’t
know. I’ll find something. Maybe the dress I wore to the Hamilton party?’ But I
knew that I couldn’t possibly face Marina in the same outfit.

‘You
should have something new,” said Mama. ‘Something new and sensational. How on
earth do you expect anyone to notice you if you’re always wearing the same
thing at every occasion? There’s nothing for it. Aunt Sarah’s watercolour must
go.

‘Oh,
Mama! It’s not worth it!’ I wailed.

‘It
will be if you get yourself a suitable husband,’ said Mama grimly.

‘Oh,
for goodness’ sake!’ I said, starting to lose my temper.

‘I don’t
know why I bother,’ said Mama. ‘If you want to look like a bag lady. that’s
quite all right with me. I shan’t be there to pick up the pieces when you’re
unmarried at thirty!’

‘Just
because you were married before you were whelped!’

‘I beg
your pardon?’

I would
have cried if it hadn’t been wildly funny at the same time. I saw Mama’s mouth
twitching but I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of seeing me giggling.

‘Inigo’s
package from Uncle Luke has arrived,’ Mama announced. ‘Photographs of this
Ellis Presley. I don’t think it’s right that he should be sending him such
things. It encourages this teenage wildness I keep reading about in the papers.

‘Elvis
Presley,’ I corrected her. ‘And don’t you think Inigo deserves a bit of
wildness, Mama? Gosh, I think we all do.’

I shook
my head and left her standing there in the hall holding a daffodil to her
chest. Poor Mama, I thought. Like so many women of her generation, she was ill
prepared for teenagers. She was still three years off forty, and looking back
she was more beautiful at that time in her life than she was even on her
wedding day. yet she had lost so much, suffered so much, that it had aged her
very soul.

Inigo came home from
school the next day and ripped open the brown parcel that contained his
yearned-for photographs. There were five pictures in all, and in four of them
he was smiling —standing next to Uncle Luke and his friend Sam Phillips — even
holding up a bottle of beer with Loretta. He had the most amazing hair, pale
brown and shiny like a shampoo advertisement, and the most beautiful eyes that
seemed to laugh into the camera, full of light and life. But the fifth image
was different. He was on stage, and he had a guitar round his neck, and his
legs stuck out at odd angles, and there was a sneer on his lips and just
looking at that picture made me uncomfortable; there was something unsettling
but thrilling about the fire in his eyes that made me feel as if he was staring
right at me and might at any moment climb right out of the photograph and into
the room to kiss me. Inigo put on the new record that Uncle Luke had sent him,
and we ploughed our way through a bag of apples and studied Elvis as he sang.