by Kate Morton
‘There—’ she let out a relieved sigh—‘I did it.’
‘You did it,’ he said, his voice catching, and he couldn’t help himself, he traced the shape of her top lip with his finger.
She pressed her lips to kiss it lightly and then closed her eyes. Her lashes were dark and wet against her cheeks.
She stayed like that for a time, as if she, too, wanted some-how to stop the world from spinning onwards. When she finally pulled away she glanced up at him, shyly. ‘So,’ she said.
‘So.’ He took out his cigarettes and offered her one.
She took it gladly. ‘You read my mind. I’m all out.’
‘That’s not like you.’
‘No? Well, I’ve changed I suppose.’
She said it lightly but it tallied so completely with what he’d seen when he first arrived, that Jimmy frowned. He lit both cigarettes and then gestured with his in the direction from which he’d come. ‘We should go,’ he said, ‘we’ll be up on spying charges if we stand here whispering any longer.’
They walked back to where the gates used to stand, talking like polite strangers about nothing important. When they reached the road they stopped, each waiting for the other to decide what came next. Dolly took the initiative, turning towards him to say, ‘I’m glad you came, Jimmy. I didn’t deserve it, but thank you.’ There was a note of finality in her voice that at first he didn’t understand, but when she smiled bravely and held out a hand, he realised she was leaving. That she’d made her apology, done what she’d thought would please him, and now she was going to walk away.
And in that second, Jimmy saw the truth like a shining light. The only thing that would ever please him was to marry her, to take her with him and look after her and make things right again. ‘Doll, wait—’ She’d hooked her handbag over her arm and started to turn away, but she looked back when he said it.
‘Come with me,’ he continued, ‘I’m not working until later. Let’s get something to eat.’
Once upon a time Jimmy would’ve gone about things differently, planned it all out and tried to make things perfect, but not now. Pride, perfection be damned, he was in too much of a rush; he’d seen firsthand that moments in life didn’t last, one stray bomb and it was all over. He waited only as long as it took for them to put in an order with the waitress and then he steeled himself and said, ‘My offer, Doll, it still stands. I love you, I’ve always loved you. I want nothing more than to marry you.’
She stared at him, wide-eyed with surprise. And who could blame her; she’d only just finished contemplating the merits of eggs over rabbit, and now this. ‘You do? Even after—?’
‘Even after.’ He reached across the table and she placed her fine hands in his. Without her white fur coat, he could see scratches on her pale thin arms. He looked back to her face, more determined than ever to take care of her. ‘I can’t offer you a ring, Doll,’ he said, interlacing his fingers with hers. ‘My flat was bombed and I lost everything, I thought I’d lost Dad for a while.’ Dolly nodded slightly, apparently still stunned, and Jimmy continued. He had the vague sense he was veering off course, saying too much, not saying the right things, but he couldn’t seem to stop. ‘I didn’t, thank God. He’s a survivor, my dad, he’d found his way to the Red Cross by the time I got to him. He was making himself comfy with a hot cup of tea.’ Jimmy smiled briefly at the memory and then shook his head. ‘Anyway—my point is that the ring was lost. I’ll buy you a new one as soon as I can, though.’
Dolly swallowed, and her voice when she spoke was soft, sad, ‘Oh, Jimmy,’ she said, ‘how little you must think of me, to consider that I’d care about a thing like that.’
It was Jimmy’s turn for surprise. ‘You don’t?’
‘Of course not. I don’t need a ring to bind me to you.’ She squeezed his hands and her eyes glazed with tears. ‘I love you too, Jimmy I always have. What can I ever do to convince you of that?’
They ate quietly, taking turns to look up from their meal and smile at the other. When they had finished, Jimmy lit a cigarette and said, ‘I suppose your old lady will want you to marry out of Campden Grove?’ Her face fell when he said it.
‘Doll? What is it?’
She told him everything then, that Lady Gwendolyn had died, and that she, Dolly, was no longer at Campden Grove but living again in the tiny room on Rillington Place. That she’d been left with nothing and was working long shifts in a munitions factory to pay for her board.
‘But I thought Lady Gwendolyn had undertaken to leave you something in her will,’ said Jimmy. ‘Isn’t that what you told me, Doll?’
She glanced towards the window, a bitter expression washing away the happiness of moments ago. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘She promised me, but that was before. Before things changed.’
From the drawn look on her face, Jimmy knew that whatever it was that had happened between Dolly and her employer was responsible for the dispiritedness he’d sensed in her earlier. ‘What things, Doll? What changed?’
She didn’t want to recount the story, he could tell that much from the way she refused to look at him, but Jimmy needed to know. It was selfish but he loved her, he was going to marry her and he refused to let her off the hook. He sat silently, making it clear he’d wait as long as it took, and she must’ve realised he wouldn’t take no for an answer because finally she sighed. ‘A woman interfered, Jimmy, a powerful woman. She took against me and made it her business to make my life a misery.’ She glanced back from the window towards him. ‘I was all alone. I didn’t stand a chance against Vivien.’
‘Vivien? From the canteen? But I thought you were friends?’
‘So did I,’ Dolly said, and she smiled sadly. ‘We were, I think, at first.’ ‘What happened?’
Dolly shivered in her thin white blouse and glanced at the table; there was something measured in her countenance, and Jimmy wondered whether she was embarrassed by what she was about to tell him. ‘I was returning something to her, a neck-lace she’d lost, but when I knocked on her door she wasn’t home. Her husband let me in—I told you about him, Jimmy, the author—he asked me to come inside and wait, and I accepted.’ She bent her head and her curls shook gently. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have, I don’t know, because when Vivien arrived home and saw me, she was furious. I could see it in her face, she suspected us of … well … you can imagine. I tried to explain, I was sure I’d be able to make her see sense, but then …’ She turned her attention back to the window and a strain of weak sunlight caught her high cheekbone. ‘Well—let’s just say I was wrong.’
Jimmy’s heart had started to pound, indignation but also dread. ‘What did she do, Doll?’
Her throat moved, a quick up-and-down motion as she swallowed, and Jimmy thought she might be going to cry. She didn’t, though, she turned to face him, and her expression—so sad, so hurt—made something inside him break. Her voice was barely a whisper. ‘She invented terrible lies about me, Jimmy. She painted me as false in front of her husband, but then, far worse, she told Lady Gwendolyn I was a thief and couldn’t be trusted.’
‘But that’s, that’s—’. He was dumbfounded, outraged on her behalf. ‘That’s contemptible.’
‘The worst of it, Jimmy, is she’s a liar herself. She’s been having an affair for months now. Remember at the canteen when she told you about that doctor friend of hers?’
‘The fellow who runs the children’s hospital?’
‘It’s all a front—I mean, the hospital’s real enough, the doc-tor, too, but he’s her lover. She uses it as a cover so no one thinks twice when she goes to visit.’
She was shaking, he noticed, and who could blame her? Who wouldn’t be upset to discover that their friend had betrayed them in such a cruel way? ‘Doll, I’m sorry.’
‘There’s no need to pity me,’ she said, trying so hard to be brave it made him ache inside. ‘It hit pretty hard, but I promised myself I wouldn’t let her beat me.’
‘That’s my girl.’
‘It
’s just—’
The waitress arrived to clear their plates, glancing between them as she fumbled with Jimmy’s knife. She thought they were fighting, Jimmy realised; the way they’d fallen silent when she came near, the way Doll had quickly turned her back while Jimmy struggled to respond to the waitress’s practised chit-chat—‘Big Ben’s not skipped a beat, you know,’ ‘As long as St Paul’s is still standing.’ She was stealing glances now at Dolly, who was doing her best to hide her face. Jimmy could see her profile though and her bottom lip had begun to tremble. ‘That’s all,’ he said, trying to hurry the waitress along. ‘That’s all, thank you.’ ‘No pudding? I could tell you the—’
‘No, no, that’s all.’
She sniffed, ‘As you like—’ and turned on her rubber heel.
‘Doll?’ said Jimmy, when they were alone again. ‘You were saying something?’
Her fingers were pressed lightly against her mouth to stop from crying. ‘It’s just I loved Lady Gwendolyn, Jimmy, I loved her like a mother. And to think she went to her grave believing me a liar and a thief—’. She broke off and tears began to slip down her cheeks.
‘Shhh. There now, please don’t cry.’ He moved to sit beside her, kissing away each new tear as it fell. ‘Lady Gwendolyn knew how you felt about her. You showed her every day for years. And you know what?’ ‘What?’
‘You were right. You’re not going to let Vivien beat you. I’m going to make sure of it.’
‘Oh, Jimmy.’ She played with the loose button on his shirt, twisting it on its thread. ‘It’s so kind of you, but how? How will I ever win against someone like her?’
‘By leading a long and happy life.’
Dolly blinked at him.
‘With me.’ He smiled, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear. ‘We’re going to beat her together by getting married, and saving our pennies, and then moving away to the seaside or the country, whichever you prefer, just like we always dreamed of; we’re going to beat her by living happily ever after.’ He kissed the tip of her nose. ‘Right?’
A moment passed and then she nodded slowly, a little doubtfully it seemed to Jimmy.
‘Right, Doll?’
This time she smiled. It was slight though and slipped as quickly as it had come. She sighed, resting her cheek in her hand. ‘I don’t mean to be ungrateful, Jimmy, I just wish we could do it sooner, go away right now and make a fresh start. I sometimes think it’s the only way I’ll get better.’
‘It won’t be long, Doll. I’m working all the time, taking photo-graphs every day, and my editor’s positive about my future. I reckon if I—’ Dolly gasped and gripped his wrist. Jimmy stopped midway. ‘Photographs,’ she said, her breath catching. ‘Oh, Jimmy, you’ve just given me an idea, a way we can have everything, right now—the seaside and all the rest you were talking about—and we can teach Vivien a lesson at the same time. Oh, Jimmy.’ Her eyes were shining. ‘That’s what you want, isn’t it? To go away together, to start a new life?’
‘You know it is, but the money, Doll, I don’t have—’
‘You’re not listening to me. Don’t you see, that’s exactly what I’m saying, I know a way for us to get the money.’
Her eyes were fixed on his, bright now, almost wild, and although she hadn’t told him the rest of her idea, something inside him began to sink. Jimmy refused to let it. He wouldn’t let anything ruin this happy day.
‘Do you remember,’ she said, taking one of his cigarettes from the packet on the table. ‘You once said you’d do anything for me?’
Jimmy watched her strike the match. He remembered saying it, he’d meant it too. But something in the way her eyes were gleaming, her fingers fumbling with the matchbox, filled him with foreboding. He didn’t know what she was going to say next, only that he had the strongest sense he didn’t want to hear it.
Dolly drew hard on the cigarette, breathing out a rich stream of smoke. ‘Vivien Jenkins is a very wealthy woman, Jimmy. She’s also a liar and a cheat who went out of her way to hurt me, to turn my loved ones against me and steal the inheritance Lady Gwendolyn promised. But I know her, and I know she has a weakness.’
‘Oh?’
‘A suspicious husband who’d be devastated to learn she was being unfaithful.’
Jimmy nodded like some sort of machine, programmed to respond. Dolly continued. ‘I know it sounds funny, Jimmy, but hear me out. What if someone were to acquire an incriminating photograph, something showing Vivien and another man together?’
‘What about it?’ His voice sounded flat, not at all like his own.
She glanced at him, a nervous smile starting on her lips. ‘I have a feeling she’d pay rather a lot of money to have that photo for herself. Just enough that two young lovers who de-serve a break could run away together.’
It occurred to Jimmy then, as he struggled to wrap his head around what she was saying, that this was all part of one of Dolly’s games. That she was going to break character any minute and dissolve into laughter and say, ‘Jimmy—I’m joking, of course! What do you take me for?’
But she didn’t. Instead she reached across the leather bench seat, took his hand and kissed it gently. ‘Money, Jimmy,’ she whispered, pressing his hand to her warm cheek. ‘Just like you used to talk about. Enough money for us to get married and start again and live happily ever after—isn’t that what you’ve always wanted?’
It was, of course, she knew it was.
‘She deserves it, Jimmy. You said it yourself—she deserves to pay after everything she’s done.’ Dolly drew on her cigarette, speaking quickly through the smoke. ‘She was the one who convinced me to break it off with you, you know. She poisoned me against you, Jimmy. Made me think we shouldn’t be together. Can’t you see, she’s caused us both so much pain?’
Jimmy didn’t know how to feel. He hated what she was suggesting. He hated himself even more for not telling her so. He heard himself say, ‘I suppose you want me to take this photo-graph, is that it?’
Dolly smiled at him. ‘Oh no, Jimmy, that’s not it at all. There’s too much chance involved, far too much risk in waiting to catch them in the act. My idea’s much simpler than that, child’s play by comparison.’ ‘Well then,’ he said, staring at the metal strip around the tabletop. ‘What is it, Doll? Tell me.’
‘I’m going to take the photograph.’ She gave his button a playful tweak and it fell off in her fingers. ‘And you’re going to be in it.’
Twenty-one
Thursday, London, 2011
IT WAS A SMOOTH RUN down the motorway and Laurel was driving along Euston Road by eleven, scanning for car parks. She found one by the mainline station, and eased the little green Mini into a slot. Perfect—the British Library was only a hop, skip and a jump away, and she’d spied the black and blue awning of a Caffe Nero round the corner. All morning with no caffeine and her brain was threatening to melt.
Twenty minutes later a far more focused Laurel was making her way across the grey and white library foyer towards the Reader Registration Office. The young woman with a nametag that read ‘Bonny’ didn’t appear to recognise her, and having caught a glimpse of herself coming through the glass entry door, Laurel took that as a compliment. After tossing and turning most of the night, her thoughts tying themselves in knots as she wondered what her mother could possibly have taken from Vivien Jenkins, she’d slept late again this morning and given herself only ten minutes at Greenacres to make it from bed to car. Her speed had been commendable, but she couldn’t claim to have made the transition in prize peach condition. She tousled a little life into her hair and when Bonny said, ‘Can I help you?’ Laurel answered, ‘My dear, I most certainly hope so.’ She took out the piece of paper on which Gerry had written her reader number. ‘I believe there might be a book waiting for me in the Humanities Reading Room?’
‘Let’s have a look, shall we?’ Bonny said, typing something on her keyboard. ‘I’m just going to need some ID and proof of address to complete your registration.�
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Laurel handed over both and Bonny smiled. ‘Laurel Nicolson. Just like the actress.’
‘Yes,’ Laurel agreed. Quite.
Bonny sorted out the reader’s pass and pointed Laurel in the direction of the curved staircase. ‘You want the second floor. Go straight to the desk; you should find the book waiting for you.’
She did. That is, she found a most helpful gentleman—wearing a red knitted waistcoat and a tangled white beard—waiting for her. Laurel explained what she was looking for, passed him the print-out she’d been given downstairs, and within moments he’d gone to the shelves behind him and was sliding a slim, black leather-bound volume across the counter. Laurel read the title under her breath and experienced a frisson of anticipation: Henry Jenkins: An Author’s Life, Loves and Loss.
She found a seat in the corner and sat down, turning over the cover and breathing in the glorious dusty scent of papery possibility. It wasn’t a particularly long book, published by an imprint Laurel had never heard of and with a distinctly unprofessional look about it—something in the size and type of font, the lack of margins, and the few poorly reproduced photographs; it also seemed to rely rather heavily for augmentation on extracts from Henry Jenkins’s novels. But it was a starting point, and Laurel was eager to get started. She scanned the table of contents, her heart beginning to trip along swiftly when she found the chapter entitled ‘Married Life’ that had first sparked her interest when she saw it on the Internet listing.
But Laurel didn’t turn straight to page ninety-seven. Every time she closed her eyes lately, the dark shape of the strange man in a black hat was there, burned onto her retina as he walked up the sunlit driveway. She drummed her fingers lightly on the contents page. Here was her chance to find out more about him; to add colour and detail to the silhouette that made her skin shrink; maybe even to glimpse the reason for what her mother had done that day. Laurel had been frightened before, when she’d searched for Henry Jenkins on the Net, but this—this rather insignificant book—didn’t scare her in the same way. The information contained within it had been published for a long time (since 1963, she saw when she checked the copyright page), which meant—allowing for natural attrition—there were likely to be very few copies in existence, most of them lost in dim less-travelled places. This particular copy had been hidden for decades amongst miles and miles of other forgotten books; if Laurel found something inside she didn’t like, she could just close the cover again and send it back. Never speak of it again. She hesitated, but only briefly, before steeling herself. Fingers tingling, she opened quickly to the ‘Prologue’. With a deep breath of strange and sudden excitement, she began to read about the stranger on the driveway.