The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets (45 page)

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 prettiest.

‘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.

‘Send
our love to Indigo!’ yelled Sarah.

Charlotte and I decided
not to congregate at Aunt Clare’s before we went to see Johnnie. Instead, we
arranged to meet at the Lyon’s tea shop before the show. Johns was driving to
London to fetch some spare parts for the car, so I had a lift all the way there
and arrived twenty minutes before Charlotte. The whole of London seemed to be
on fire that night. It was as if everything had altered because the city knew
that I, Penelope Wallace, was going to see Johnnie Ray in the flesh for the
first time. I had agonised over what to wear, taking into consideration the
fact that I wanted Johnnie to notice me over every other girl in the audience,
but also that I was not confident in anything very different from what every
girl of my age liked to wear — a neat little blouse and stacks of lipstick and
a full skirt, nipped in as tight as you dared at the waist. At the last minute,
I decided to wear the pearls that my great-grandmother had left me in her will
and Mama had stipulated were only to be worn on special occasions. If this wasn’t
a special occasion, then nothing was. I carried the little evening bag that my
fairy godmother had left me for my night at the Ritz, which made me think of
Harry, and I smiled, knowing that wherever he was, and whatever he was doing
with Marina, he would be thinking of me tonight, and wondering how my seats
were and if I cried when Johnnie walked on stage. I fancied that Harry would
have given anything to be with Charlotte and me. He so admired our devotion to
Johnnie. It utterly fascinated him.