The Secret Keeper (38 page)

Only then, with her back pressed hard against the door, did Dolly finally surrender herself to the throbbing pain that had built inside her chest all night. Without even dropping her handbag to the floor, she began to cry as freely as a child; hot spurting tears of shame and pain and anger. She looked down at her filthy clothing, her messed-up knee, the blood that had mixed with dirt and spread across everything; she blinked through her scalding tears to take in the ghastly, bare little room, the bedspread with holes in it, the sink stained brown around the plughole; and she realised with crashing certainty the absence of anything in her life that was good or precious or true. She knew, too, that it was all Vivien Jenkins’s fault—all of it: the loss of Jimmy, Dolly’s destitution, her tedious job in the factory. Even the mishap to- night—her torn-up knee and damaged stockings, being locked out of the boarding house, having to suffer the insult of breaking in to a place where she paid good money to stay—would never have happened if Dolly hadn’t laid eyes on Vivien, if she hadn’t volunteered to take that necklace back, if she hadn’t tried to be such a good friend to so unworthy a woman.

Dolly’s tearful gaze alit then on the shelf containing her Book of Ideas. She saw the book’s spine and grief swelled inside her to the point of exploding. Dolly pounced on the book. She sat cross-legged on the floor with it, fingers stumbling through the pages to arrive at the segment, a third of the way in, where she’d so lovingly collected and glued the Society photographs of Vivien Jenkins. They were pictures she’d once pored over, memorising and aspiring to every detail. She couldn’t believe how stupid she’d been, how badly misled.

With all the might she could find, Dolly tore those pages from the book. Ripping like a wild cat, she turned that woman’s image into the smallest shreds possible; every drop of rage was funnelled into the task. That stiff secretive way Vivien Jenkins regarded the camera—rip—nev- er smiling as broadly as she might—rip—see how she felt being treated like a piece of rubbish—rip.

Dolly was poised to shred further—she’d have gladly gone on all night—when something caught her eye. She froze, peering closer at the scrap in her hands, breathing heavily—yes, there it was.

In one of the photographs, the locket had slipped from beneath Vivien’s blouse and was clearly visible, sitting crookedly atop her silk ruffle. Dolly touched the spot with her fingertip and gasped as she felt the scald of the day she’d returned the locket.

Dropping the photograph fragment on the ground beside her, Dolly leaned her head back against the mattress and closed her eyes.

Her head was spinning. Her knee ached. She was spent.

Eyes still closed, she dug out her packet of cigarettes and lit one, smoking quietly.

It was still so fresh. Dolly saw the whole thing in her mind—the unexpectedness of being admitted by Henry Jenkins, the questions he’d asked her, his obvious suspicions about his wife’s whereabouts.

What might have happened, she wondered, if they’d been given a little longer together? It had been on the tip of her tongue to correct him that day, to explain about the shifts at the canteen. What if she had? What if she’d been allowed the chance to say, ‘Why no, Mr Jenkins, I’m afraid that’s not possible. I’m not sure what she tells you, but Vivien doesn’t report for duty at the canteen more than, oh, once a week.’

But Dolly hadn’t said it, had she, none of it. She’d wasted the one opportunity she’d had to let Henry Jenkins know he wasn’t imagining things; that his wife was indeed rather more engaged in other affairs than he’d have liked. She’d thrown away her only chance to put Vivien Jenkins right in the middle of a splendid mess of her own making. For she couldn’t very well tell him now, could she? Henry Jenkins wasn’t likely to give Dolly the time of day, not now that—thanks to Vivien— he thought her a thieving servant, not now that her circumstances were so reduced, and certainly not without any proof.

It was hopeless—Dolly let out a long deflating stream of smoke. Unless she happened to glimpse Vivien in a clinch with a man who wasn’t her husband, unless she then happened to procure a photograph of the pair of them together, an image that confirmed all of Henry’s fears, it was useless. And Dolly didn’t have time to hide in dark alleyways, talk her way into strange hospitals, and somehow be watching at the very right moment in the very right place. Perhaps if she knew where and when Vivien would be with her doctor, but what were the chances of— Dolly gasped and sat bolt upright. It was so simple she could have laughed. She did laugh. All this time she’d been stewing over how unfair it all was, wishing there were some way to put things right, and the perfect opportunity had been staring her in the face. Vivien Jenkins would get just what she deserved and, if everything played out, Dolly might just get a fresh start with Jimmy too.

Nineteen

Greenacres, 2011

‘SHE SAYS she wants to come home.’

Laurel rubbed her eyes with one hand and felt about on the bedside table with the other. Finally she found her glasses. ‘She wants what?’ Rose’s voice came down the line again, slower this time and overly patient, as if she were speaking to someone for whom English was a second language. ‘She told me this morning. She wants to come home. To Greenacres.’ Another pause. ‘Instead of the hospital.’

‘Ah.’ Laurel looped her frames on beneath the phone and squinted out of the bedroom window. Lord, but it was bright. ‘She wants to come home. And what about the doctor. What did he say?’

‘I’m going to speak with him when he’s finished his rounds, but— oh, Lol,’ her voice hushed, ‘the nurse told me she thought it was time.’ Alone in her girlhood bedroom, watching as the morning sunlight crept along the faded wallpaper, Laurel sighed. It was time. There was no need to ask what the nurse meant by that. ‘Well then.’

‘Yes.’

‘Home she must come.’

‘Yes.’

‘And we’ll look after her here.’ There came no reply and Laurel said, ‘Rose?’

‘I’m here. Do you mean it, Lol? You’re going to stay, you’re going to be there, too?’

Laurel spoke around the cigarette she was trying to light. ‘Of course I mean it.’

‘You sound funny. Are you … crying, Lol?’

She shook out the match and freed her mouth. ‘No, I’m not crying.’ Another pause and Laurel could almost hear her sister twisting her worry beads into knots. She said, more gently this time, ‘Rose, I’m all right. We’re both going to be all right. We’ll do this together, you’ll see.’ Rose made a small choked noise, possibly of assent, maybe of doubt, and then changed the subject. ‘You got in OK last night then?’

‘I did. Rather later than expected, though.’ In fact, it had been three in the morning when she finally let herself into the farmhouse. She and Gerry had gone back to his rooms after dinner and spent much of the night speculating about their mother and Henry Jenkins. They’d decided that while Gerry was chasing down Dr Rufus, it made sense for Laurel to see what she could learn about the elusive Vivien. She was the lynchpin between their mother and Henry Jenkins, after all, and the probable reason he came looking for Dorothy Nicolson in 1961.

The task had seemed perfectly achievable at the time; now though, in the clear light of day, Laurel didn’t feel so sure. The whole plan had the flimsy quality of a dream. She glanced at her bare wrist, wondering vaguely where she’d left her watch. ‘What time is it, Rosie? It seems rudely bright.’

‘It’s just gone ten.’

Ten? Lord. She’d slept in. ‘Rosie, I’m going to hang up now, but I’m coming straight to the hospital. Will you still be there?’

‘Until midday when I pick up Sadie’s youngest from nursery.’

‘Right. I’ll see you soon then—we’ll talk to the doctor together.’

Rose was with the doctor when Laurel arrived. The nurse on the desk told Laurel she was expected and pointed her in the direction of the cafeteria adjoining reception. Rose must’ve been looking out for her, because she’d started waving before Laurel even set foot inside. Laurel wove her way between the tables and as she got closer saw that Rose had been crying, not lightly. There were balled tissues scattered across the tabletop and smeary black smudges beneath her wet eyes. Laurel sat down next to her and said hello to the doctor.

‘I was just telling your sister,’ he spoke in precisely the sort of professional caring tone Laurel would have used to play a health worker delivering bad but inevitable news, ‘that in my opinion we’ve exhausted every avenue of treatment. It won’t come as a surprise to you, I think, when I tell you that it’s now just a matter of managing the pain and keeping her as comfort-able as we can.’

Laurel nodded. ‘My sister tells me our mother wants to come home, Dr Cotter. Is that possible?’

‘We wouldn’t have a problem with that.’ He smiled. ‘Naturally if she wanted to remain in the hospital, we’d be able to accommodate that wish, too—in fact, most of our patients stay with us until the end—’ The end. Rose’s hand reached for Laurel’s beneath the table.

‘But if you’re willing to care for her at home—’

‘We are,’ Rose said quickly. ‘Of course we are.’

‘—then I think now is probably the right time for us to talk about you taking her home.’

Laurel’s fingers itched for their lack of a cigarette. She said, ‘Our mother doesn’t have long.’ It was a statement rather than a question, a function of Laurel’s own processing of the fact, but the doctor answered nonetheless.

‘I’ve been surprised before,’ he said, ‘but in response to your question, no, she doesn’t have long.’

‘London,’ said Rose, as they walked together down the flecked-lino- leum hospital corridor towards their mother’s room. Fifteen minutes had passed since they’d bade farewell to the doctor but Rose was still clutching a soggy tissue in her fist. ‘A meeting for work then, is it?’ ‘Work? What work? I told you, Rose, I’m on a break.’

‘I wish you wouldn’t say that, Lol. You make me nervous when you say things like that.’ Rose lifted a hand to acknowledge a passing nurse.

‘Things like what?’

‘You, having a break.’ Rose stopped and shuddered; her wild and woolly hair shook with her. She was wearing denim overalls with a novelty brooch on the bib that looked like a fried egg. ‘It isn’t natural; it isn’t normal. You know I don’t like change—it makes me worry.’ Laurel couldn’t help laughing. ‘There’s nothing to worry about, Rosie. I’m simply popping up to Euston to look at a book.’

‘A book?’

‘Some research I’m doing.’

‘Ha!’ Rose started walking again. ‘Research! I knew you weren’t really taking a break from work. Oh, Lol, what a relief,’ she said, fanning her tear-stained face with her hand. ‘I have to say I feel so much better.’ Laurel couldn’t help but smile. ‘Well then,’ she said, ‘I’m glad to have been of service.’

It had been Gerry’s idea to start the search for Vivien at the British Library. A late-night Google session had led them only to Welsh rugby sites and other dead-ends in curious far-flung undulations of the Web, but the library, Gerry insisted, wouldn’t disappoint. ‘Three million new items every year, Lol,’ he’d said, as he filled in the registration details, ‘that’s six miles of shelf space; they’re bound to have something’. He’d grown excited when he described the online service—‘They’ll mail copies of whatever you find directly to your house’—but Laurel had decided (perversely, said Gerry, with a smile) that it was easier simply to make the trip in person. Perversity, be damned—Laurel had played in detective series before, she knew some-times there was nothing for it but to pound the pavement in a search for clues. What if the information she found led to more? Far better to be in situ than to have to make another electronic order and wait; far better to be doing than waiting.

They reached Dorothy’s door and Rose pushed it open. Their mother was asleep on her bed, seemingly thinner and weaker than she had been even the morning before, and it struck Laurel like a brick that her decline was becoming more rapid. The sisters sat together for a time, watching as Dorothy’s chest gently rose, gently fell, and then Rose took a dusting cloth from her handbag and started wiping around the display of framed photographs. ‘I suppose we ought to pack these up,’ she said softly. ‘Ready to take home.’

Laurel nodded.

‘They’re so important to her, her photos. They always have been, haven’t they?’

Laurel nodded again, but she didn’t answer. Mention of photos had got her thinking about the one of Dorothy and Vivien together in wartime London. It had been dated April 1941, only a month before their mother started work at Grandma Nicolson’s boarding house and Vivien Jenkins was killed in an air raid. Where had the photograph been taken? she wondered. And by whom? Was the photographer someone the girls had known—Henry Jenkins, perhaps? Or Ma’s boyfriend, Jimmy? Laurel sighed. So much of the puzzle seemed out of reach.