The Secret Keeper

by Kate Morton

  The air-raid siren began to wail right then and she cursed beneath her breath. It was the last thing they needed. The shelter here was a nightmare: all of them packed together like sardines; the damp bedding; the putrid smell; Mrs White’s hysterics; and now, with Vivien in this state—

  ‘Ignore it,’ Vivien said, as if reading Dolly’s mind. Her voice was suddenly that of the lady of the house, used to giving orders. ‘Stay. This is far more important.’

  More important than getting to the shelter? Dolly’s heart fluttered. ‘Is it the money?’ she said in a low voice. ‘Do you need it back?’

  ‘No, no, forget about the money.’

  The rise and fall of the siren was deafening and it spurred in Dolly a floating anxiety that refused to settle. She didn’t know why exactly, but she knew she was afraid. She didn’t want to be here, not even with Vivien. She wanted to be hurrying along the dark streets to where she knew Jimmy was waiting for her. ‘Jimmy and I—’, she began, before Vivien cut her off.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, face lighting as if she’d just remembered something. ‘Yes, Jimmy.’

  Dolly shook her head, confused. Jimmy, what? Vivien was making no sense. Perhaps she ought to take her, too—they could make a dash for it together while people were still scurrying to the shelters. They’d go straight to Jimmy—he’d know what to do—

  ‘Jimmy,’ Vivien said again loudly. ‘Dolly, he’s gone—’

  The siren cut out just then, and the word ‘gone’ bounced around the room. Dolly waited for Vivien to say more, but before she could a frantic knock came at the door: ‘Doll—are you in there?’ It was Judith, one of the other residents, breathless having run from upstairs. ‘We’re going down to the Andy.’

  Dolly didn’t answer, and neither she nor Vivien made a move to leave. She waited until the footsteps receded down the corridor, and then she hurried to sit beside the other woman. ‘You’ve got it mixed up,’ she said quickly. ‘I saw him yesterday, and I’m seeing him again tonight. We’re going together, he wouldn’t have gone without me …’ There was so much more she could have said, but she didn’t. Vivien was looking at her, and something in her gaze allowed a whisper of doubt to creep through the cracks in Dolly’s certainty. She fumbled a new cigarette from her bag, fingers shaking as she lit it.

  Vivien started talking then, and as the first bomber of the night chugged overhead, Dolly began to wonder if there was even the tiniest possibility that the other woman was right. It seemed unthinkable, but the urgency in her voice, her manner and the things she was now saying—Dolly started to feel dizzy; it was hot in here; she couldn’t manage to steady her breath.

  She smoked hungrily, and fragments of Vivien’s account mixed with her own racing thoughts. A bomb fell somewhere close, landing with a huge explosion, and a great swooshing sound filled the room making Dolly’s ears ache and every hair on her neck stand on end. There’d been a time when she’d en-joyed being out in the Blitz—she’d found it exciting, and not frightening at all. But she wasn’t that silly young girl any more, those carefree days seemed a long time ago. She glanced at the door; she wished Vivien would stop. They should get to the shelter or to Jimmy; they shouldn’t just sit here, waiting. She wanted to run, to hide; she wanted to disappear.

  As Dolly’s own panic rose, Vivien’s appeared to recede. She was speaking calmly now, low sentences that Dolly struggled to listen to, about a letter and a photograph, about bad men, dangerous men who’d set out to find Jimmy. The plan had all gone terribly wrong, Vivien said, he’d been humiliated; Jimmy hadn’t been able to get to the restaurant; she’d waited for him and he hadn’t come; that’s when she’d known he really had gone.

  And suddenly the disparate pieces came together through the haze and Dolly understood. ‘It’s my fault,’ she said, her voice little more than a whisper. ‘But I—I don’t know how—the photograph—we agreed not to, that there wasn’t any need, not any more.’ The other woman knew what she meant; it was be-cause of Vivien that the plans had been changed. Dolly reached for her friend’s arm. ‘None of this was meant to happen, and now Jimmy …’

  Vivien was nodding, her face a study in compassion and care. ‘Listen to me,’ she said. ‘It’s very important that you listen. They know where you live, and they will come after you.’

  Dolly didn’t want to believe it; she was frightened. Tears ran hot down her cheeks. ‘It’s my fault,’ she heard herself saying again. ‘It’s all my fault.’

  ‘Dolly—’ a new wave of bombers had arrived and Vivien had to shout to be heard as she clasped Dolly’s hands in hers—‘please. It’s as much my fault as yours. None of that matters now anyway. They’re coming. They’re probably on their way already. That’s why I’m here.’

  ‘But, I—’

  ‘You need to leave London, you need to do it now, and you mustn’t come back. They won’t stop looking for you, not ever—’

  A blast outside and the whole building juddered and shifted; the bombs were falling closer, and even though there were no windows an eerie flash of light came from somewhere, flooding the room—so much brighter than the glow of the dull single bulb.

  ‘Is there any family you could go to?’ Vivien pressed.

  Dolly shook her head, even as a picture of her family came into her mind; her mother and father, her poor little brother; the way things used to be, before. A bomb whistled by and the guns fired back from the ground.

  ‘Friends?’ Vivien shouted over the blast.

  Again Dolly shook her head. There was no one left, not that she could count on, no one except Vivien and Jimmy.

  ‘Anywhere at all that you could go?’ Another bomb, a Molotov bread basket by the sound of it, the impact so loud Dolly had to read Vivien’s lips when she pleaded, ‘Think, Dolly. You have to think.’

  She closed her eyes. She could smell fire; an incendiary must have hit nearby; the ARP officers would be at it now with their stirrup pumps. Dolly heard someone yelling, but she screwed her eyes tighter and tried to focus. Her thoughts were scattered like debris, her mind a dark maze; she could see nothing, the ground was jagged underfoot, the air too thick to breathe.

  ‘Dolly?’

  There were more planes, fighters now, not just bombers, and Dolly pictured herself on the rooftop at Campden Grove, watching as they ducked and swooped across the sky, the green tracer lights that swept after them, the fires in the distance. It had all seemed so exciting once.

  She remembered the night with Jimmy: when they’d met at the 400 Club and danced and laughed; when they’d gone home through the Blitz, the two of them together. She’d have given anything now to be back there, lying side by side, whispering in the dark while the bombs fell, making plans for their future, the farmhouse, the children they’d have, the seaside. The seaside …

  ‘I applied for a job,’ she said suddenly, lifting her head, ‘a few weeks ago. It was Jimmy who found it.’ The letter from Mrs Nicolson of Sea Blue boarding house was sitting on the small table by her pillow and Dolly snatched it up, handing it shakily to Vivien.

  ‘Yes—’ Vivien scanned the offer—‘Perfect. That’s where you must g°.’

  ‘I don’t want to go by myself. We—’

  ‘Dolly—’

  ‘We were supposed to go together. It wasn’t meant to be like this. He was going to wait for me.’

  Dolly was crying now. Vivien reached towards her, but the two women moved at the same time and the contact was unexpectedly sharp.

  Vivien didn’t apologise; her face was serious. She was frightened too, Dolly knew, but she put her own fears aside, just as a big sister might, adopting the sort of stern loving voice Dolly needed to hear most right then. ‘Dorothy Smitham,’ she said, ‘you need to leave London, and you need to go quickly.’

  ‘I don’t think I can.’

  ‘I know you can. You’re a survivor.’

  ‘But Jimmy—’ Another bomb whooshed down and exploded. A terrified cry escaped Dolly’s throat before she could stop it.
>
  ‘That’s enough.’ Vivien cupped Dolly’s face firmly between both hands, and this time it didn’t sting one bit. Her eyes were filled with kindness. ‘You love Jimmy, I know that; and he loves you, too—my God, I know that. But you have to listen to me.’

  There was something eminently calming about the other woman’s gaze and Dolly managed to block out the noise of a diving plane, the answering ack-ack fire, the horrible thoughts of buildings and people being crushed into pulp.

  The pair of them huddled together and Dolly listened as Vivien said, ‘Go to the railway station tonight and buy yourself a ticket. You’re to— ’. A bomb landed nearby with a thundering crump and Vivien stiffened before continuing quickly: ‘Get on that train and ride it all the way to the end of the line. Don’t look back. Take the job, move again, live a good life.’

  A good life. It was just what Dolly and Jimmy had talked about. The future, the farmhouse, the laughing children and the happy hens … Tears streamed down Dolly’s cheeks as Vivien said, ‘You have to go.’ She was crying now, too, because of course she’d miss Dolly— they’d miss each other. ‘Seize the second chance, Dolly: think of it as an opportunity After everything you’ve been through, after everything you’ve lost …’

  And Dolly knew then that, hard as it was to accept, Vivien was right—she had to go. There was a part of her that wanted to scream ‘No’, to curl up in a ball and weep for the things she’d lost, for everything in her life that hadn’t turned out the way she’d hoped, but she wouldn’t do that. She couldn’t.

  Dolly was a survivor; Vivien said so and Vivien ought to know— just look at the way she’d recovered from her own early hardships to create a new life for herself. And if Vivien could do it, so would Dolly She’d suffered so much, but she still had things to live for—she’d find things to live for. This was the time to be brave, to be better than she’d ever been before. Dolly had done things that made her ashamed to remember them; her grand ideas had been nothing but a young girl’s silly dreams, they’d all turned to ash in her fingers; but everybody deserved a second chance, everybody was worthy of forgiveness, even her—Vivien said so. ‘I will,’ she said, as a series of bombs landed with heavy crashes, ‘I’ll do it.’

  The light bulb flickered but didn’t die. It swung on its cord, throwing shadows across the walls, and Dolly pulled out her little suitcase. She ignored the deafening noise outside, the smoke that was seeping in from the fires in the street, the haze that made her eyes sting.

  There wasn’t much she wanted to take. She’d never had many possessions of her own. The only thing she really wanted from this room she couldn’t have. Dolly hesitated as she thought of leaving Vivien behind; she remembered what the other woman had written in Peter Pan—a true friend is a light in the dark—and tears threatened again.

  But there was no choice; she had to go. The future stretched ahead: a second chance, a new life. All she had to do was take it, and never look back. Go to the seaside, like they’d planned, and start again.

  She barely heard the planes outside now, the falling bombs, the ack- acks firing their response. The earth trembled with each blast and plaster dust sifted down from the ceiling. The chain on the door rattled, but Dolly noticed none of it. Her case was packed—she was ready to go.

  She stood, looking to Vivien, and despite her firm resolve she faltered. ‘What about you?’ Dolly said, and for a split second it occurred to her that perhaps they could go together, that maybe Vivien would come with her after all. In some odd way, it seemed the perfect answer, the only thing to do—they’d each played their part, and none of it would have happened if Dolly and Vivien hadn’t met.

  It was a foolish thought, of course—Vivien didn’t need a second chance. She had everything she could want right here. A lovely house, her own wealth, beauty to spare … Sure enough, Vivien handed Dolly Mrs Nicolson’s job offer and smiled a tearful farewell. Each woman knew in her heart it was the last time she’d see the other. ‘Don’t worry about me,’ said Vivien, as a bomber thundered overhead. ‘I’m going to be fine. I’m going home.’

  Dolly held the letter tightly, and with a final nod of resolution, started towards her new life, no idea what the future might bring, but determined, suddenly, to meet it.

  Four

  Suffolk, 2011

  THE NICOLSON SISTERS left the hospital in Iris’s car. Although she was eldest and traditionally favoured with front-seat privileges, Laurel sat in the back with the dog hairs. Her seniority was complicated by her celebrity and it didn’t do to let the others think she was getting above herself. She preferred the back anyway. Absolved from conversational duties she was free to keep company with her own thoughts.

  The rain had cleared and the sun was shining now. Laurel was itching to ask Rose about Vivien—she’d heard the name before, she was sure of it. More than that, she knew it was connected in some way to that awful day in 1961—but she kept quiet. Iris’s interest, once piqued, could be suffocating and Laurel wasn’t ready yet to face the inquisition. While her sisters made small talk in the front, she watched the fields skim by. The windows were up but she could almost smell the fresh- cut grass and hear the jackdaw’s call. The landscape of one’s childhood was more vibrant than any other. It didn’t matter where it was or what it looked like, the sights and sounds imprinted differently. They became part of a person, inescapable.

  The past fifty years evaporated and Laurel saw a ghosted version of herself flying alongside the hedgerows on her green Malvern Star, one of her sisters straddling the handlebars. Sun-browned skin, blonde leg hairs, scabbed knees. It was a long time ago. It was yesterday ‘Is it for television?’

  Laurel looked up to find Iris blinking at her in the rearview mirror. ‘I’m sorry?’ she said.

  ‘The interview, the one that’s been keeping you so busy.’

  ‘Oh, that. It’s a series of interviews really. I’ve still one more to shoot on Monday.’

  ‘Yes, Rose said you were going back to London early. Is it for television?’

  Laurel made a small noise of assent. ‘One of those biopic things, an hour or so long. It’ll include interviews with other people, too—direc- tors, actors I’ve worked with—cut together with old footage, childhood stuff—’

  ‘You hear that, Rose?’ said Iris tartly. ‘Childhood stuff.’ She lifted herself off the car seat to scowl more fully at Laurel in the mirror. ‘I’d thank you to hold back any of the family snaps in which I’m in a state of near or total undress.’

  ‘What a shame,’ said Laurel, picking a white hair off her black trousers. ‘There goes all my best material. Whatever will I talk about now?’ ‘Point a camera at you and I’m sure you’ll think of some-thing.’ Laurel masked a smile. People paid her so much earnest respect these days; it was comforting to bicker with an expert.

  Rose, however, who’d always preferred peace, was beginning to fret. ‘Look, look,’ she said, flapping both hands at a razed block on the edge of the town. ‘The site for the new supermarket. Can you imagine? As if the other three weren’t enough.’

  ‘Well, of all the ridiculous … !’

  With Iris’s irritation gracefully redirected, Laurel was free to sit back and look out of the window again. They passed through the town, stuck to the High Street as it tapered into a country lane, and then followed its gentle bends. The sequence was so familiar that Laurel could have closed her eyes and known precisely where she was. Conversation in the front fell away as the lane narrowed and the trees overhead thickened, until finally Iris flicked the indicator and turned into the driveway signed Greenacres Farm.

  The farmhouse sat where it always had at the top of the rise, looking out across the meadow. Naturally enough, houses had a habit of staying where they were put. Iris parked on the flat spot where Daddy’s old Morris Minor had lived until their mother finally consented to sell it. ‘Those eaves are looking rather the worse for wear,’ she said.

  Rose agreed. ‘They make the house look sad, don’t you thi
nk? Come and I’ll show you the latest leaks.’

  Laurel closed the car door but didn’t follow her sisters through the gate. She planted her hands in her pockets and stood firm, taking in the entire picture—garden to cracked chimney pots and everything in between. The ledge over which they used to lower Daphne in the basket, the balcony where they’d hung the old bedroom curtains to form a proscenium arch, the attic room where Laurel taught herself to smoke.

  The thought came suddenly: the house remembered her.

  Laurel did not consider herself a romantic, but the sense was so strong that for a split second she had no trouble believing that the combination before her of wooden boards and red chimney bricks, of dappled roof tiles and gabled windows at odd angles, was capable of remembrance. It was watching her now, she could feel it, through each pane of glass; casting back over the years to marry this older woman in a designer suit to the young girl who’d mooned over pictures of James Dean. What did it think, she wondered, of the person she’d become?

  Idiotic, of course—the house thought nothing. Houses did not remember people, they didn’t remember much of anything. It was she who remembered the house and not the other way around. And why shouldn’t she? It had been her home since she was two years old; she’d lived there until she was seven-teen. True, it had been some time since she’d come to visit—even with her semi-regular trips to the hospital, she never seemed to make it back to Greenacres—but life was busy. Laurel glanced towards the tree house. She’d made sure to keep herself busy.

  ‘It can’t have been so long you’ve forgotten where the door is,’ Iris called from the front hall. She’d disappeared inside the house, but her voice floated back behind her: ‘Don’t tell me—you’re waiting for the butler to come and carry your bags!’

  Laurel rolled her eyes like a teenager, collected her suitcase, and made her way up to the house. She followed the same stone path her mother had discovered on a bright summer’s day, sixty-odd years before …