The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets (37 page)

I
laughed. ‘Didn’t you like the way he talked?’

‘He’s
very charming. But underneath all that chat, he thinks we’re little girls,
Penelope. Heavens, get him out of your head, for goodness’ sake.’

‘He’s
about the only man I’ve ever met who
hasn’t
treated me like a little
girl,’ I said huffily.

‘Ah,
that’s his great talent. Making girls like us feel old and sophisticated is a
very clever thing.’

‘Why
should he want to bother doing that, anyway?’

‘Because
we’re his target market, of course!’ said Charlotte instantly. She sounded so
close, it was as if she were in the next room. ‘We’re the ones watching the
films he produces and buying the records he makes. I don’t blame him for his
interest in our lives — in fact I think it’s jolly flattering. But really, Penelope,
you mustn’t get any other ideas about him. That would be too silly for words.’

There
wasn’t much I could think of to say to this.

‘When
shall we meet?’ demanded Charlotte. ‘I’m suffering Magna withdrawal symptoms of
the most violent nature.

‘Come
down on Saturday. Mama’s going off to stay with my godmother Belinda again.’

I could
hear Mama shuffling around loudly in the drawing room. This was a tactic that
she frequently used when I was on the telephone — make me think that she was
settling down in front of the fire, when she was actually stealing into the
hall to eavesdrop.

‘I have
to go,’ I hissed.

Replacing
the receiver, I wished that Inigo was with us and not at dreary school. He was
much better at diffusing Mama’s moods than I was. One of his most successful
diffusion tactics was simply to turn on the wireless, because Mama, quite out
of character, was utterly seduced by the BBC. No sooner had I sat down with my
book (no chance of anything of any importance sinking in of course), than the
telephone bell rang again. Mama looked up, eyes sharp.

‘Mary
won’t want to trail back from the kitchen again,’ I said. ‘You’d better get it,
Mama.’ I felt certain that if it was Rocky, he would know how to charm her.

She
threw me a suspicious glance, and I watched her flounce out of the room and
heard the delicate clatter of her little shoes on the hall floor.

‘Hello,
Milton Magna… Oh, darling! What on earth are you doing on the telephone? …
Suspended! … What does
that
mean?…
What
were you doing?.. Oh,
Inigo… I’ll have to send Johns and you know how difficult he’s being at the
moment … It’s just too careless, it really is … How long will you be at
home for? … Ooh, but that means you
could
come with me to the theatre
tomorrow night, darling. Every cloud …’

She
replaced, the receiver without saying goodbye and I heard her hurrying back
into the drawing room. Her face was flushed and animated, her eyes full of
fire.

‘Well?’
I demanded.

‘Inigo’s
been suspended from school. He’s going to explain everything when he gets here.
I imagine he’s been answering back Mr Edwards again.’

And I
imagine he’s been caught listening to the radio again, I thought.

‘He’s
on his way home now,’ said Mama.

‘Are
you happy?’ I asked her, straight out. She bit her bottom lip in an attempt to
halt the broad grin that was spreading across her face and answering my
question more effectively than any words.

‘He’s a
very irresponsible little boy,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Go and tell Mary that it’ll
be a family supper tonight. Goodness knows how long he’ll be here for,’ she
went on. ‘I suppose we should wait and see what the inevitable letter from the
headmaster says. I thought we could all go to the theatre tomorrow night?
Tickets for
Salad Days
are on offer this week.
We’re looking for a
P-I-A-N-O!
‘ she sang loudly.

‘Shouldn’t
Inigo be made to stay at home and think about the error of his ways?’ I asked slyly.
I felt certain that had
I
been suspended from school, Mama’s reaction
would have been quite different.

‘I
think he knows he’s gone too far,’ said Mama, assuming a serious expression. ‘But
if the school is silly enough to think that sending him home is some sort of
punishment—’’

‘You’re
supposed to feed him bread and water and make him deliver food packages to the
aged poor or something,’ I said, slightly irritated.

‘Aged
poor my foot,’ scoffed Mama.
‘I’m
the aged poor. She honestly believed
that, too.

Inigo arrived home just
before supper looking sheepish, hair combed forward like Elvis Presley. Mama
tried to be stand-offish, but of course it was Inigo so this lasted for about
twenty seconds.

‘I’m to
stay home for a week,’ he announced, trying desperately to keep from sounding
too gleeful.

‘Are
you sure they’re going to let you back in at all?’ I asked. I couldn’t imagine
for one moment that Inigo contributed anything positive to academic life.

‘Course
they will. They need me for the First Eleven.’ He ran a few paces into the hall
and bowled an imaginary ball at the portrait of Great-Uncle John. I giggled. ‘What’s
for supper, Mama?’ he demanded.

‘Fish
pie.’

‘Grim.
I should have stayed at school.’

‘Well,
how about toast and anchovy paste and cocoa?’ ventured Mama.

‘And
the wireless!’ I added. ‘Hancock’s on at seven!’

‘Go and
tell Mary she can leave early then.’

Inigo
and I raced off together, and for that moment all thoughts of Rocky and Harry
and kissing at the Ritz felt a million miles away. I felt small again.

Like the rest of the
country, we were brought up listening to the wireless, and I know now, as I did
then, that wartime existence without the crackly familiarity
of Listen With
Mother
would have been unbearable. When the television first opened its
doors, most people were unconvinced. Mama, for example, was reluctant to
embrace it, and deeply admired people like Winston Churchill who claimed that
it was a ‘peep show’ that would destroy proper family time and the art of
conversation. As our family had already been destroyed by the war and the three
of us rarely talked about anything that extended outside the parameters of
Magna, I was hard pushed to agree with this philosophy. Inigo, hot off the mark
a ever, was determined that we should watch the Coronation, and succeeded in
persuading Mama that we were doing our duty to Queen and Country by flocking to
Mrs Daunton’s niece in the next village to watch our new queen being crowned,
and by the time everyone had finished wiping their eyes and saying, ‘Isn’t it
wonderful? Oh, it can’t have been better from inside the Abbey itself,’ Mama
had been quite converted. But still she refused to let us have a television
set, sticking resolutely with the wireless — her first love, and ours too. We
were gripped weekly by
Hancock’s Half Hour
(Mama in particular) and
nothing could have been more blissful, nor more of a comfort, than toast and
the wireless. Sometimes we wouldn’t talk for hours on end, all three of us
riveted by a play. and yet we would say goodnight feeling far closer than we
would on an ordinary evening. The wireless was part of the family. as
comforting as an old friend. That night we didn’t talk much, but we listened,
and crunched our toast, and outside the night sky darkened and I heard an owl
hooting, and I felt that warmth that comes from being inside and safe with one’s
family. When we finally switched the radio off, Mama forced Inigo to confess
why he had been suspended, saying that if he didn’t tell her then she would
only find out from the headmaster.

‘I was
listening to Radio Luxembourg when I should have been in prep,’ he said. ‘I’ve
been caught three times now. They don’t understand—”

But
Mama’s mood had changed. Now that Inigo’s suspension was to do with pop music,
a different light had been cast on the situation. She shook her head.

‘I don’t
need
school,’ he said quietly. ‘I want to leave
now,
and get
myself to Memphis—’

‘No. I
won’t hear this again, Inigo.’

‘I feel
so trapped, Mama. Can’t you see that? There’s so much music inside me, I feel
as if I could explode with it all. But it’s no good, is it?’

‘Nobody’s
trapped,’ said Mama. ‘Stop being so dramatic!’
Oh!
I had to stop myself
from shouting out things about pots and kettles when she said that.

‘But
there could be a way. Mama,’ persisted Inigo. ‘There could be a way that I
could save Magna—”

‘Singing?
You could save Magna by
singing?
Inigo, I won’t listen to this any more,
do you understand? I won’t hear it any more!’ She stood up and actually loomed
over him, something that I had never seen her do before. ‘The best thing you
could do is try to finish school without being expelled. Try not to be sent
home for doing silly things. Try to pass your exams and get a good report at
the end of term. Give me something to feel proud of, for God’s sake.’

She
delivered this little speech in a most un-Talitha way. She spoke through
gritted teeth, voice steady, eyes steely hard. Inigo and I, who had heard it
before through tears and hysteria, felt uncomfortable. It was the first time
that we felt she really meant it. She crossed the room to the drinks tray,
poured herself an enormous brandy and left the room.

‘I
could do it, you know,’ said Inigo quietly. His dark hair fell forward over his
pretty eyes and he pulled out his comb and swept it back again. He had got so
good at these self-conscious gestures that I had almost ceased to notice them;
they had become part of his make-up.

‘You
can understand why Mama worries,’ I said.

‘But
what choice have we? I can’t see you marrying a rich man in the next two years.
The house is crumbling, Penelope. You do realise that, don’t you?’

‘Of
course I do!’ I cried, close to tears. ‘You think I don’t notice? Sometimes
when I’m lying in bed at night I imagine I can hear the place groaning, like a
dying patient.’

Inigo
winced. ‘So no rich husbands emerging?’

‘No, of
course not. Although I did have a lovely chat last night with an American
called Rocky Dakota. He’s—’

Inigo’s
eyes widened. ‘Rocky Dakota? The film producer?
You
met Rocky Dakota?’

‘Well,
yes. And why do you have to sound so surprised?’

‘I need
to meet him.’

‘Why?’

‘He’s
rich and he knows people. Why else?’ Inigo stood up. ‘He could help me. He
could help
us.
Don’t tell me that the thought hasn’t entered you mind,
Penelope.’

‘Well,
I suppose it did, briefly. I told him about you. I said you played the guitar
and sang—

‘You
get me to meet Rocky Dakota, Penelope. Get me to him and I’ll make enough money
for us to save Magna fifty times over.

He was
so certain. I don’t think it mattered to me terribly whether he was right or
wrong. All that made sense was that he believed it. It was good enough for me.

‘I’ll
see what I can do,’ I said.

For the next three days, Ingio, Mama and
I lived in comparative peace. We avoided certain topics of conversation — school,
Elvis Presley, the state of the ceilings at Magna, Americans and film producers
— and concentrated instead on the garden and the wireless. We went to church,
we picked flowers, we read the papers and I ploughed through an essay on
Tennyson with Charlotte’s help. Over the telephone she told me that Marina was
being hounded by the press, and that George was telling everyone that he would
fight to win her back, come hell or high water. Harry, on the other hand, had
temporarily vanished.

‘I
think he’s a bit shocked by what he’s started,’ said Charlotte.

‘Aunt
Clare keeps on saying how
infra dig
it is to be the third party in a
break-up like this. She’s convinced you’re dying of a broken heart.’

‘I am,’
I said sadly. ‘Rocky hasn’t called.’

I
thought of him every night before I went to sleep, and he filled my head from
the moment I awoke. The telephone tortured me — sometimes with its silence,
other times with the thudding disappointment that accompanied the ringing that
was never him.