The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets (9 page)

‘Good
cheekbones,’ intoned Vivienne. ‘She’s very tall,’ she added accusingly.

‘Six
foot,’ agreed Mama.

‘She
looks even taller,’ said Vivienne.

‘Well I’m
not. I’m six foot nothing,’ I snapped.

Vivienne
looked as if she didn’t believe me, but showed me to the fitting room and took
my measurements while my mother stalked around the floor, her exquisite,
spidery fingers reaching out to feel every dress she passed. I could hear her
murmuring away to herself as I stripped down to my underwear. Beautiful,
ghastly,
too old.
I thought of Charlotte in my coat and how much better she had
looked than I did.

Vivienne
handed me a red and black satin dress with lace edging. ‘These colours are all
the rage in America right now,’ she said. ‘Truly. You’ll look like a film star.’

I had
my suspicions about that one. The dress felt tiny in my hands, like doll’s
clothing.

‘I
think the size may be a bit small,’ I called, treading my foot down heavily on
the hem.

‘For
goodness’ sake, just try it and see,’ barked my mother impatiently.

Of
course, I couldn’t do it up, and nor could the wretched Vivienne.

‘The
dress is too short and too narrow for me. I’m too big for it, Mama,’ I mumbled,
hot with annoyance.

‘You’re
what they call big-boned,’ diagnosed Vivienne with all the sympathy of the
terminally petite.

‘Nonsense,’
snapped my mother. ‘Get her the dress in a larger size.

Vivienne
scuttled
off.

‘Vivienne,
my foot,’ snorted my mother. ‘I heard that woman over there calling her Dora. I
don’t know what’s wrong with young girls of today.’

This
sounded comic coming from one who looked no older than Vivienne herself.
Occasionally, I think my mother’s youth frightened her. It reminded her of how
much more living she had to do without my father.

‘I’ll
tell you what,’ said Mama. ‘Why don’t I try the dress on too? That way you can
see how it looks on. It’s the only way to view a dress really.’ She shot into
the fitting room before I could demur and emerged a minute later in the same
red dress that I had discarded. Vivienne, arriving back with the larger size,
stood transfixed.

‘You
look absolutely beautiful,’ she announced. ‘Nobody would think you had a
daughter as old as she is,’ she added with a nod in my direction. ‘You look
more like sisters.’

‘Give
me strength,’ I muttered under my breath.

‘It is
a wonderful colour,’ agreed my mother, turning round in front of the long
mirror to view herself from all angles, an immodest smile on her face.

‘You
don’t think I look too old for this fashion?’ she asked. I did not bother to
answer her, knowing perfectly well that Vivienne’s sighs of envy were enough to
quash that particular fear.

‘Maybe
I should try it in green,’ mused Mama.

‘Or we
have it in a lovely pink,’ Vivienne said encouragingly.

‘Good
God, no. Not pink.
Never
pink.’

‘I’d
like to look around the shop for a while,’ I interrupted. ‘I promised Inigo
that I would try to find that new record he wants.’

‘Don’t
be long, darling. Oh, and please don’t encourage him by buying him anything
silly.’

I think I knew that I was
going to bump into Aunt Clare. Of course it’s easy to say that now, but when I
saw her, writing a cheque in the menswear department, it did not surprise me in
the least. She looked big, as she had looked in her study, yet eye-poppingly
elegant in a beautifully cut bottle-green skirt and blouse. For the first time,
I noticed how surprisingly tiny her feet and ankles were and I wondered how on
earth she didn’t topple over the whole time. I pretended to be terribly
interested in mannequins of a suave-looking cricketer and a laughing golfer and
waited for her to look around and notice me. She certainly took her time. To
give myself some excuse for being there, I reached up and removed the cap from
the cricketer’s head and examined the label. I caught the end of her
conversation with the salesman.

‘My son
will be thrilled,’ she was saying. ‘He does need a new tie. And cerise is such
a
different
colour, isn’t it?’

‘You’ve
made an excellent choice. It’s one of our most popular designs this season.

‘Oh is
it? How disappointing.’

‘I wish
your son the very best of luck with his interview. I would
love
to work
in the aeroplane business.’

‘It
is
a thrill.’

If I am
giving the impression that I regularly eavesdropped on people’s private
chatter, then I am very sorry. It was not something I was used to doing and what
happened next was punishment enough for my behaviour. It pains me to recall
that I lost my balance while standing on tiptoes and wobbled forward at the
wrong moment, sending the unfortunate cricketer crashing to the ground. Aunt
Clare’s assistant sprang into action.

‘Excuse
me, madam, but someone seems to have upset our “Man for All Seasons” display,’
he cried, leaping over to the scene of the crime where I was trying to heave
the cricketer back into place.

‘I’m so
sorry,’ I gasped. ‘I lost my balance.’

‘These
displays are very fragile. Our customers are not advised to handle the goods
worn by our models.’ He pointed to a sign with precisely this message.

‘I
know,’ I said sulkily.

‘Are
you interested in anything you’ve knocked over?’

‘Well,
I—’

‘Of
course she is. We’ll take the cap.’ It was Aunt Clare, hot on the scene. She
winked at me.

‘Oh! I
really don’t need it. I was just looking—’

‘The
cap
has
been slightly squashed,’ lied the assistant.

‘Put it
on my bill,’ said Aunt Clare airily.

He
nodded and oozed off and Aunt Clare and I were left alone. I was struck by how
different she looked outside the confines of her drawing room, though it was
hard to say exactly why.

‘You
really don’t have to buy the cap. I was just looking. It’s expensive, and I
truly don’t need it.’

‘Ah!
You shouldn’t have said that. No sooner has one announced that one does
not
need
something, than the occasion arises when one does. If I don’t buy this for you
now, you are almost certain to find yourself at silly-mid-on without adequate coverage.’

I
laughed. ‘But I don’t play cricket.’

‘Your
brother does, I suppose?’

‘Yes,
but—’

‘Well,
that settles it.

‘You
could give it to Harry.’

‘Harry?
Playing cricket? Pigs might fly,’ said Aunt Clare bitterly.

So
might he, by all accounts, I thought.

‘What a
treat to see you again so soon,’ she went on kindly, squeezing my arm. ‘We so
enjoyed having you over for tea. I must apologise for Harry’s behaviour; he can
be so difficult. Still, I have arranged an interview with a family friend who
works in the aviation trade. Building planes, that sort of thing. I think it
would suit him rather well.’

From my
brief encounter with Harry, I could not imagine anything suiting him less.

‘He and
Charlotte are coming to stay next weekend,’ I said brightly.

‘Of
course!’ said Aunt Clare. I could not tell whether she already knew about their
visit and I suddenly regretted telling her in case it was something that Harry
did not want her to know.

‘I was
on my way to the record department,’ I went on. ‘I’m looking for something for
my brother, Inigo. He likes the new pop sounds, you know, Bill Haley and all
the American singers—’

Aunt
Clare looked horrified. ‘How shattering. Are you here alone?’

‘I’ve
left my mother trying on half of Christian Dior’s collection.’

‘She’s
here?’

‘On the
second floor, yes.

For a
split second, Aunt Clare looked momentarily taken aback. ‘You must send her my
very best regards. Darling child, I must be going. I only came here to collect
a vase, and I seem to be leaving with half the shop.’ She kissed me on both
cheeks. ‘Do look after Harry,’ she added.

‘Oh, of
course we will.’

I
watched her stride out of the shop, parting crowds of shoppers as she went. I
knew that I would not mention her to my mother.

We left in high spirits.
My mother, fat with Vivienne’s adulation and only too willing to put our
financial crisis on hold, had bought herself three new frocks. Vivienne, to her
eternal credit, had found me a sparkly mint-green dress that suited my ‘difficult’
colouring. It sat next to me on the train, wrapped in white tissue, and
enshrined in a huge, black Selfridges bag. That dress seemed half alive to me.

When we
arrived back at Magna we found Inigo in a state of great excitement as the
second post had delivered a package from Uncle Luke in Louisiana, USA. Just the
sight of the American stamps was enough to send Inigo (and me too) into a bit
of a frenzy. Everything good, everything exciting and everything worth talking
about came from across the Atlantic, and we had the good fortune of having bagged
an American uncle.

My mother’s older sister
Loretta married an American soldier called Luke Hanson and had moved to the
United States after the war. Now, eight years on, Loretta was nearly as much of
a Yankee as her husband. My mother liked to give the impression of being
appalled by her sister’s willingness to embrace a country she considered deeply
vulgar, but secretly she was as envious as hell, and who could blame her? She
and I were fascinated by stories of refrigerators in every kitchen, proper washing
machines and spin dryers, drive-in movies and Coca-Cola. Inigo, obsessed by the
new wave of American music, found having a contact in the promised land itself
a considerable bonus, and Luke greatly enjoyed irritating my mother by feeding
Inigo’s desire for all things new and shiny from across the’ Atlantic. We had
barely walked through the door and put down our bags before he started.

‘Uncle
Luke’s sent me the new Guy Mitchell record!’ he announced.

‘He’s
not your uncle,’ sighed my mother.

‘He’s
married to my aunt. That makes him my uncle. And he sends me records. That
makes him the closest thing to God around here.’

‘Inigo!’

‘Let me
see,’ I demanded, dropping my bags on the floor.

‘Oh no
you don’t. I don’t want your grubby little fingers on my records. You can look
but you can’t touch.’

‘Oh,
don’t be unfair!’

‘Let
her see it, Inigo.’

He shot
me a warning look and handed over the sacred item. ‘What a funny size for a
record,’ I said, examining its unfamiliar shape.

‘It’s a
forty-five,’ he explained. ‘Soon the old seventy-eights will be done for.’

‘I don’t
believe you.’

‘It’s
true.’

‘Who on
earth does Luke think he is?’ snapped Mama, who feared change.

‘You
wait till I show this to Alexander,’ said Inigo. (I had been more than slightly
in love with Inigo’s best friend until last summer when he drank too much at my
birthday party and threw up in the asparagus beds. You can imagine what my
mother had to say about
that.)

‘How
can you play it? Surely it won’t work on our old gramophone?’ I asked quickly.

‘Course
it will. It just plays at a different speed, that’s all. Forty-five revolutions
per minute instead of seventy-eight. It couldn’t be easier. I’ve already
listened to it about twenty times waiting for you two to get back.’

Mama
looked at me and raised her eyes to heaven.

‘Oh,
come on, Mama, we
must
hear the record. Just think, we’re probably the
first people in England to play it!’

‘Oh,
all right,’ sighed Mama. She hesitated for a moment, then said, ‘That reminds
me, darling. I won’t be here next weekend.’

‘You
won’t?’

‘I’m
going to Salisbury to stay with your godmother. Three nights, I’ll be gone.’

‘Aunt
Belinda? But we haven’t seen her for years!’

‘Exactly.
Too, too long. You’re quite capable of looking after your guests yourself You
must have a word with Mary about food.’

At that
moment, Inigo’s new record blasted out from the drawing room.

‘Tell
him to turn it down, Penelope,’ groaned Mama. ‘My poor head!’

Inigo and I sat up for two
hours that night listening to the new record after Mama had gone to bed. We
kept the volume so low that it was hard to hear at all. Inigo was in raptures,
studying the sleeve, trying to make out every word Guy Mitchell was singing,
occasionally even imitating his voice. He was remarkably good.