by Kate Morton
It came back to her in waves, the whole episode, mixed, as always, with impressions from the watery salvation of her mind. Those were the hardest memories to bear—the shadowy sensations of supreme well-being, of eternal longing, more febrile than real memories, and yet so much more potent.
Vivien winced as slowly she shifted each part of her body, trying to ascertain the damage. It was part of the process; Henry would expect her to be ‘neatened up’ by the time he got home; he didn’t like it when she took too long to heal. Her legs seemed unharmed, that was good— limping prompted awkward questions; her arms were bruised but not broken; it was her jaw that throbbed, her ear was still ringing and the side of her face burned. That was unusual. Henry didn’t usually touch her face; he was careful, keeping the blows always below the neckline. She was his prize, nothing should mark her but him, and he didn’t like to be confronted by the evidence; it reminded him of how angry she’d made him, how disappointing she could be. He liked her injuries to remain safely beneath her clothing, there for only her to see, to remind her how much he loved her—he would never hit a woman if he didn’t care so damned much.
Vivien cleared her mind of Henry. Something else had been trying to get to the surface, something important; she could hear it like a lone mosquito in the dead of night, buzzing close before skirting away, but she couldn’t catch it. She waited very still as the hum came near, and then—Vivien gasped for air; she remembered, and she reeled. Her own suffering paled. Don’t you worry about Jimmy Metcalfe. I’ve had him taken care of; he’s dead now, rotting at the bottom of the Thames. He won’t come between us any more.
She couldn’t breathe. Jimmy—he hadn’t come to meet her today. She’d waited but he hadn’t come. Jimmy wouldn’t have left her there; he’d have come if he could.
Henry knew his name; he’d found out somehow, he’d had Jimmy ‘taken care of’. There’d been others before; people who’d dared get between Henry and the things he wanted. He never did it himself, it wouldn’t have been seemly—Vivien was the only one who knew the cruelty of Henry’s fists. But Henry had his men, and Jimmy hadn’t come.
A keening noise, the terrible sound of an animal in pain, and Vivien realised it was her. She curled onto her side and pressed her hands against her skull to ease the ache, and she didn’t think she’d ever move again.
Next time she woke the sun had lost its bite and the room had taken on the blue of early evening. Vivien’s eyes stung. She’d been crying in her sleep, but she didn’t cry now. She was empty inside, desolate. All that was good in the world had gone; Henry had seen to that.
How had he known? He had his spies, she knew, but Vivien had been careful. She’d gone to Dr Tomalin’s hospital for five months without incident; she’d broken contact with Jimmy so this exact thing wouldn’t happen; as soon as Dr Rufus told her about Dolly’s intentions, she’d known—
Dolly.
Of course, it was Dolly. Vivien forced her mind back to the details of her conversation with Dr Rufus, straining to remember; he’d told her Dolly planned to send a photograph of Vivien and Jimmy with a letter saying she’d tell Vivien’s husband all about the ‘affair’ unless Vivien paid for her silence.
Vivien had thought the cheque would be enough, but no, Dolly must have sent the letter after all, and in it, along with the photograph, she’d named Jimmy. The foolish headstrong girl. She’d imagined herself the inventor of a clever scheme; Dr Rufus said she’d thought it was harmless, she’d been convinced that no one would get hurt; but she hadn’t known with whom she was dealing. Henry, who got jealous if Vivien stopped to say good morning to the old man who sold newspapers on the street corner; Henry, who wouldn’t allow her to make friends or have children, for fear they’d take her time away from him; Henry, who had contacts in the Ministry and could find out anything about anybody; who’d used her money to have others ‘taken care’ of in the past.
Vivien sat up carefully—shooting stars of pain behind her eyeballs, inside her ear, in the crown of her head. She took a breath and pushed herself to standing, relieved to find she could still walk. She caught her face in the mirror and stared: there was blood dried down one side and her eye had started to swell. She turned her head gently to the other side, everything hurting as she did so. The tender spots were not yet purple; she would look worse tomorrow.
The longer she spent on her feet, the better she was able to stand the pain. The bedroom door was locked, but Vivien had a secret key. She went slowly to the hidey-hole behind her grandmother’s portrait, struggled a moment to remember the combination, and then turned the dial. A hazy memory came of the day some weeks before her wedding when Vivien’s uncle had brought her to London to visit the family lawyers and, after-wards, the house. The caretaker had pulled her aside when they were alone in the second bedroom and pointed out the portrait, the safe behind. ‘A lady needs a place for her secrets’, she’d whispered, and although Vivien hadn’t liked the sly look on the old woman’s face, she’d always craved a place of her own and had remembered the advice.
The safe door sprung open and she retrieved the key she’d had cut last time—she took the picture Jimmy had given her, too; it was inexplicable, but she felt better for having it near her. As carefully as she could, Vivien closed the door and hung the painting straight.
She found the envelope on Henry’s desk. He hadn’t even bothered to hide it. It was addressed to Vivien, postmarked two days before, and had been sliced open. Henry always opened her post—and therein lay the terrible flaw in Dolly’s great scheme.
Vivien knew what the letter would say, but her heart still pounded as she skimmed its contents. All was as she’d expected; the letter written almost in a kindly tone; Vivien just thanked God the silly girl hadn’t signed her name, that she’d written only, ‘A Friend’, at the bottom.
Tears threatened when Vivien looked at the photograph but she forced them back. And when her memory tossed up tantalizing echoes of precious moments in Dr Tomalin’s attic, of Jimmy, of the way he’d made her feel almost as if she might have a future to look forward to, she quashed them. She knew better than anyone that there was no going back.
Vivien turned the envelope over and she could have wept tears of despair. For there, Dolly had written: A Friend, 24 Rillington Place, Notting Hill.
Vivien tried to run, but her head thumped and her thoughts swam and she had to stop at each looming lamp post, steadying herself as she made her way through the navy-dark streets towards Notting Hill. She’d stayed in Campden Grove long enough only to rinse her face, hide the photograph, and scratch out a hurried letter. She dropped it in the first postbox she passed and continued on her way. There was a single thing left she had to do, her final penance before everything was set right.
Once she’d realised that fact, everything else had come into glorious focus. Vivien shed desolation like an unwanted coat, and stepped towards the shining lights. It was all so simple really. She had brought about her family’s death; she had brought about Jimmy’s death; but now she was going to make sure Dolly Smitham was saved. Then, and only then, she would go to the Serpentine and make her pockets heavy with stones. Vivien could see the end and it was beautiful.
Speed of light and limb, her father used to say, and although her head throbbed, although she had to clutch the railings sometimes to stop from falling, Vivien was a good runner, and she refused to stop. She imagined herself a wallaby, scooting through the bush; a dingo, slinking in the shadows; a lizard, sneaking in the dark …
There were planes in the distance and Vivien glanced at the black sky every so often, stumbling when she did. A part of her willed them to fly overhead, to drop their load if they dared; but not yet, not yet, she still had work to do.
Night had fallen when she reached Rillington Place, and Vivien hadn’t brought a torch. She was struggling to find the right number when a door slammed shut behind her; she glimpsed a figure coming down the steps of the nearby house.
Vivien called, ‘Excuse m
e?’
‘Yes?’ A woman’s voice.
‘Please—can you help me? I’m looking for number 24.’
‘You’re in luck. It’s right here. No rooms free at the moment, I’m afraid, but there will be soon.’ The woman struck a match then and brought it to her cigarette so that Vivien saw her face.
She couldn’t believe her luck, and thought at first she must be seeing things. ‘Dolly?’ she said, rushing closer to the pretty woman in the white coat. ‘It is you, thank God. It’s me, Dolly. It’s—’
‘Vivien?’ Dolly’s voice was filled with surprise.
‘I thought I might’ve missed you, that I was too late.’
Dolly was immediately suspicious. ‘Too late for what? What is it?’ ‘Nothing—’. Vivien laughed suddenly. Her head was spinning and she faltered. ‘That is, everything.’
Dolly drew on her cigarette. ‘Have you been drinking?’
Something moved in the dark beyond; there were footsteps. Vivien whispered, ‘We have to talk—quickly.’
‘I can’t, I was just—’
‘Dolly, please—’ Vivien glanced over her shoulder, terrified she’d see one of Henry’s men coming towards her—‘it’s important.’
The other woman didn’t answer at once, wary of this unexpected visit. Finally, grudgingly, she took Vivien’s arm and said, ‘Come on, let’s go back inside.’
Vivien breathed a tentative sigh of relief as the door shut be-hind them; she ignored the curious glance of an elderly woman in glasses, and followed Dolly up the stairs, along a corridor that smelled of old food. The room at its end was small, dark and stuffy.
When they were inside, Dolly flicked the light switch and a bare bulb fired above them. ‘Sorry it’s so hot in here,’ she said, taking off the heavy white fur she’d been wearing. She hung it on a hook on the back of the door. ‘No windows, more’s the pity—makes the blackout easier but it’s not so handy for ventilation. No chair, either, I’m afraid.’ She turned and saw Vivien’s face in the light: ‘My God. What happened to you?’
‘Nothing.’ Vivien had forgotten how ghastly she must look. ‘An accident on the way. I ran into a lamp post. Stupid of me, rushing as usual.’
Dolly looked unconvinced, but she didn’t press the subject, indicating instead that Vivien should sit on the bed. It was narrow and low, and the bedspread was marked with the general creeping stains of age and over-use. Vivien wasn’t fussy though; to sit was a huge relief. She collapsed onto the thin mattress, just as the air-raid siren began to wail.
‘Ignore it,’ she said quickly, when Dolly moved to go. ‘Stay. This is more important.’
Dolly dragged nervously on her cigarette, and then folded her arms defensively across her front. Her voice tightened: ‘Is it the money? Do you need it back?’
‘No, no, forget about the money.’ Vivien’s thoughts had scattered and she fought to gather them back; to find the clarity she needed; everything had seemed so straightforward before, but now her head was heavy, her temples an agony, and the siren kept on with its caterwauling—
Dolly said, ‘Jimmy and I—’
‘Yes,’ Vivien said quickly, and her mind suddenly cleared. ‘Yes, Jimmy.’ She stopped then, struggling to find the words she needed to say the terrible fact out loud. Dolly, watching her closely, began to shake her head, almost as if she’d guessed somehow what Vivien had come to tell her. The gesture gave Vivien courage and she said, ‘Jimmy, Dolly—’ just as the siren stopped its cry—‘he’s gone.’ The word echoed in the room’s new quiet.
Gone.
A hasty knock on the door, and a shout of, ‘Doll—are you in there? We’re going down to the Andy’ Dolly didn’t answer; her eyes searched Vivien’s; she brought her cigarette to her mouth, smoking feverishly, fingers shaking. The person knocked again, but when there was still no response, ran along the corridor and down the stairs.
A smile flared, hopefully, uncertainly, on Dolly’s face as she sank down next to Vivien. ‘You’ve got it mixed up. I saw him yesterday, and I’m seeing him again tonight. We’re going together, he wouldn’t have gone without me …’
She hadn’t understood and Vivien said nothing further for a moment, held captive by the well of deep sympathy that had opened up inside her. Of course Dolly didn’t understand; the words would be like chips of ice, melting in the face of her hot disbelief. Vivien knew only too well what it was to receive such awful news, to learn from nowhere that one’s most treasured loves were dead.
But then a plane chugged overhead, a bomber, and Vivien knew there was no time to waste in pity, that she had to keep explaining, to make Dolly see she was telling the truth, to understand that she had to leave now if she wanted to save herself. ‘Henry,’ Vivien began, ‘my husband—I know he might not seem it, but he’s a jealous man, a violent man. That’s why I had to get you out of there that day, Dolly, when you brought back my locket; he doesn’t let me have friends—’ There was a tremendous explosion somewhere, not so far away, and a swishing sound went through the air above them. Vivien paused a second, every muscle in her body tensed and aching, and then she continued, faster now, more purposefully, sticking to the bare essentials. ‘He received the letter and photograph and they humiliated him—you made him seem a cuckold, Dolly, so he sent his men to put things right—that’s how he sees it; he sent his men to punish you and Jimmy both.’
Dolly’s face had turned as white as chalk. She was in shock, that was clear, but Vivien knew she was listening because tears had begun to stream down her cheeks. Vivien continued, ‘I was supposed to meet Jimmy in a cafe today but he didn’t come. You know Jimmy, Dolly—he never would have stayed away, not when he said he’d be there—so I went home and Henry was there, and he was angry, Dolly, so angry’ Her hand went absently to her throbbing jaw. ‘He told me what had happened, that his men had killed Jimmy for getting close to me. I wasn’t sure how he knew at first, but then I found the photograph. He opened it—he always opens my letters—and he saw us together in the photograph. It all went wrong, do you see—the plan all went terribly wrong.’
When Vivien mentioned the plan, Dolly clutched her arm; her eyes were wild and her voice a whisper: ‘But I don’t know how—the pho- tograph—we agreed not to, that there wasn’t any need, not any more.’ She met Vivien’s eyes and shook her head frantically. ‘None of this was meant to happen, and now Jimmy—’
Vivien waved further explanation aside. Whether or not Dolly meant to send the photograph was neither here nor there as far as she was concerned; she hadn’t come here to rub Dolly’s nose in her own mistake; there was no time now for guilt. God willing, Dolly would have plenty of time to reproach herself later. ‘Listen to me,’ she said. ‘It’s very important that you listen. They know where you live and they will come after you.’
Tears slipped hot down Dolly’s face. ‘It’s my fault,’ she was saying. ‘It’s all my fault.’
Vivien seized the other woman’s thin hands. Dolly’s grief was natural, it was raw, but it wasn’t helpful. ‘Dolly, please. It’s as much my fault as yours.’ She raised her voice to be heard over a new group of bombers. ‘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—’ There came a blast and the whole building shuddered; it was closer than the one before, and despite the room’s lack of windows an uncanny light flooded through every tiny pore in the building’s skin. Dolly’s eyes were wide with fear. The noise was relentless; the whistling as bombs fell, the blast when they landed, the anti-aircraft guns firing back; Vivien had to shout to be heard as she asked about Dolly’s family, her friends, whether there was anywhere at all that she could safely go. But Dolly didn’t answer. She shook her head and continued to cry helplessly, her palms pressed now to her face. Vivien remembered then what Jimmy had told her about Dol
ly’s family; it had warmed her to the other woman at the time, knowing that she, too, had suffered such a crippling loss.
The house rattled and shook; the plug just about leapt out of the horrid little sink, and Vivien felt her panic rise. ‘Think, Dolly,’ she implored, at the same time as a deafening explosion, ‘You have to think.’ There were more planes now, fighters as well as bombers, and the guns were chattering fiercely. Vivien’s head throbbed with the noise, and she imagined the bodies of the aircraft passing over the roof of the house; even with the ceiling and the attic above, she could all but see their whale-like bellies. ‘Dolly?’ she shouted.
Dolly’s eyes were closed and despite the clamour of bombs and guns, the roar of the planes, for a moment her face brightened, seeming almost peaceful, and then she lifted her head with a start and said, ‘I applied for a job a few weeks ago. It was Jimmy who found it …’ She took a sheet of paper from the small table beside her bed and handed it to Vivien.
Vivien scanned the letter, a job offer for Miss Dorothy Smitham at a boarding house called Sea Blue. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘perfect. That’s where you must go.’
‘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—’
And then she was crying again. For a split second, Vivien allowed herself to sink inside the other woman’s pain; it was so tempting just to let herself collapse, to give up and let go, to be submerged … but it didn’t do any good, she knew she had to be brave; Jimmy was already dead and Dolly would be too if she didn’t start listening. Henry would not waste too much time. His thugs would be on their way already. Gripped by urgency, she slapped the other woman’s cheek, not hard, but sharply. It worked, for Dolly swallowed her next sob, clutching her face and hiccuping. ‘Dolly Smitham,’ said Vivien sternly. ‘You need to leave London and you need to go quickly.’