Rachel's Secret

by Susan Sallis

  Her voice on the other end of the line was warm and welcoming.

  ‘Welcome home, darling. Have I already said that? The girls were marvellous – and I have definitely already said that! Are you working hard? We must get together and have a good chin wag.’

  ‘Yes.’ I sounded perfunctory. ‘I just wanted to know . . . Rose tells me that Colin is taking Daisy . . . somewhere?’

  ‘Colin? Daisy?’ She sounded genuinely bewildered. ‘Oh, you mean the coaching? Colin offered to meet her out of school tomorrow and bring her up to tea, then have an hour on the court. He says she’s got potential.’

  She didn’t laugh so there was no horrible pun intended. It was, as usual, Daphne and her boys being nice. My feathers were smoothed instantly, and I felt a bit ridiculous and overprotective. My God, Vicky had been ‘dating’ since she was thirteen. But my girls weren’t thirteen yet.

  I swallowed and told Daphne how marvellous Colin was, and yes, that would be fine, and thank you so much.

  ‘Why don’t you come, too, Rachel?’

  ‘I need to finish this article for the Clarion – the reason I went to the States, after all. But it was great to see Dad and Meriel and the children.’

  ‘I tried to fill in for you. I adore your girls, as you know. And Hermione was like a lost soul on her day off, so we went to the cinema.’

  ‘It was so good of you. Thank you a thousand times, Daphne.’ I had already thanked her but Daphne needed more than that. There had been so much catching up to do. I reminded myself I must buy her flowers and chocolates. I had got American sports shirts for the boys.

  ‘Darling, it was a pleasure. I mean that. Come on over as soon as you can.’

  I replaced the receiver and thought how marvellous Daphne was. Then felt cross with Rose. Then told myself I did not understand what it must be like to be a twin. Was Rose feeling left out in some way? She had been the front runner of the two since birth – she had arrived first. But things were changing. I had noticed for some time that there were the subtlest of differences developing in their faces and Daisy’s combination of dark hair and blue eyes made for an attractiveness that Rose’s just missed. It was giving Daisy a confidence she hadn’t had, bringing her into the adult world faster than her sister.

  We sat under next door’s tree-overhang and she reluctantly admitted that Daisy was going to be coached by Colin.

  ‘So. No need for me to come the heavy mother?’ I smiled at her, trying to convey that there was nothing here to worry about.

  ‘I suppose not.’ She took a slice of cake, one of the many I had left for them before I went to Florida, all still in their tins. ‘I’m better at tennis than Daisy but no one offers me any coaching.’

  ‘If you’re better than Daisy, there’s the answer. You don’t need coaching.’

  She nodded, but we both knew that was not the point. The twins had adored Daphne’s two boys since they were two-year-olds. I apologized mentally to Uncle Gilbert as I consigned the letter from America to an imaginary pending tray.

  ‘Listen. Daphne invited us all to tea tomorrow. I said no but if you’d like to go, we could have the car and drive out together. The three of us.’

  ‘No.’ She looked at me. ‘I know it’s only coaching, Mum, but it’s Daisy’s . . . thing. Colin is cycling in at half past three to meet her and he’ll bike back with her, too. It wouldn’t be the same if we all went.’

  I looked at her, then reached over the cake tin to take her hand and sort of shake it. ‘You’re right.’ I wanted to congratulate her but knew I mustn’t. ‘Have another piece of cake,’ I said instead. And she did.

  Everyone seemed to like the American piece. Gilbert ran it over four Saturdays and suggested I expand it for a book. I was astonished; it was so ordinary, a lot of it quite personal. I insisted on keeping anonymity. I used the pseudonym Mary Silver: Mary was the name of Tom’s mother, who had died just after he was born. I often felt that in his anxiety about his father’s fate she had been almost overlooked, and this was my way of reminding us both that he had a mother and I had a mother-in-law. Silver I used in memory of Mr Silverman the tailor, who had saved so many lives before losing his own. Tom still believed he had been murdered by Willi Strassen, and I told him he should write a book himself. He shook his head gently. ‘You know that one day I am going to write a book about my father. I’ve got all that material from the Birmingham News group, and loads of background from Nobby Clarke.’

  I felt the usual pang. I could have written a memoir – maybe – of my father: who had spoiled his wife and daughter, who had been a wonderful mathematician and invented a special tail fin for fighter planes that had perhaps saved lives. And then had sold it to the enemy. Instead I said, ‘I’ve promised Merry I will write to Georgie – I did a couple of letters while I was over there. Dad thinks you should illustrate them.’

  ‘Does he, indeed?’ He looked at me knowingly. ‘In other words you think I should try to emulate my dad? You know I can’t draw, Rache.’

  ‘Dad said you would make that excuse.’ I hugged his arm. ‘Georgie would love it, Tom. Next week it’s the school summer concert. Do a couple of stick figures – Daisy and Rose – playing their violins. He still loves music.’

  He gave me the silent treatment, but kissed me to show there were no hard feelings. I had had Nobby Clarke’s tiny cartoon framed for him, and he often stood in front of it: looking at the few lines which made up a picture of unendurable poignancy.

  The following week he handed me a square of card, the perfect size to accommodate a sketch of our daughters playing their violins. I could practically hear the ghastly scraping sounds that so often came from their rooms. They were never going to be musicians. I enclosed it with my letter to Meriel. I had never left a reply so long, especially when she was asking for reassurance. I gave it to her and signed my letter ‘your equally neurotic friend’. I knew that whatever happened nothing could really – not really – come between us. We were two sides of a coin.

  The summer holidays began, and in July we went to Devon and lived in a tent for two weeks. It was wonderful. We came home and Colin called for Daisy, and Rose refused to languish and started on a letter to Vicky. She carefully folded those maddening little edges and stuck it down; I never knew what she said in it. But I never doubted that she lit the fuse that eventually blew up the events of that winter. Two weeks later, Meriel telephoned me to say that Dad planned to come home this autumn – perhaps they might travel together, but probably not, as Meriel wanted to come earlier to get a flat in Bristol and settle in properly before the term began. Anyway, what did I think about Dad staying with Hermione? Apparently he was absolutely certain he must be in his old home again. Did I think Hermione would mind?

  I had no idea whether Hermione would mind at all; in fact she telephoned that evening to say she had just had a chat with Dad and was delighted that he was going to be staying ‘for a bit’ at Rough Road Cottage.

  I minded. I minded quite a lot.

  Seventeen

  DAD ARRIVED HOME on the day President Kennedy was assassinated. He had not heard the news before he left, and knew nothing about it. We did not mention it during the drive home. He looked so different from the man I had left on the golf course last June. His tan wasn’t quite right in England’s November, it made him look as if he were running a high temperature, when actually he was shivering in the English chill.

  Two weeks ago, just when I had thought he had shelved the whole idea of coming home, he had telephoned Hermione and announced his arrival time, before ringing us and asking if we could meet him. He had not sounded excited or even mildly happy about the visit. I had said tartly, ‘I can tell you don’t want to come, Dad. Why not simply cancel the flight?’

  Amazingly he had replied, ‘Don’t be silly, Rache. I’ve got to come now!’

  I had not wanted to enter into a discussion transatlantically, as it were, so had made a non-committal sound.

  And here he was, shivering and n
ot looking very well. All right, I had been really upset about his unexplained wish to stay with Hermione, but now I was suddenly thankful. Hermione had had central heating installed when she first took on Rough Road Cottage. It was much warmer than number twenty-one Chichester Street. It felt freezing as we drove down the Pitch and crossed the city boundary on the road to Tewkesbury. The flat river lands stretched bleakly around us and there was no getting away from the wind.

  We told Dad about President Kennedy just before we reached the rough road, but he was by no means devastated. ‘People who need power take that risk, I guess,’ he said slowly. ‘He’s got kids, too.’ And that was that. He looked at the line of willows that marked Twyver’s Brook. ‘This new tarmacked road is much better for the car suspensions, but it takes some of the character away.’ I recalled that was how he had been last June; a suitable response to any kind of news and then back to the minutiae of the moment. And then Tom was turning the car into the driveway and Hermione was at the front door waving a tea towel. As far as I know Dad did not mention the assassination again.

  At first Hermione had insisted she would move out, back to her parents further up the road. As they were both practically reclusive now, and disapproved strongly of Hermione’s work, choice of home, clothing and food, I said that wasn’t a good idea. Then I told her that Dad wanted her to be there: he had said he needed to have a good talk with her.

  ‘What about?’ she had asked nervously.

  ‘I don’t know.’ I had shrugged. ‘You could both have come to us each evening and picked up where you left off, I would have thought.’

  Actually, though Dad had been cryptic, he had said he wanted to talk to her about her parents. I hadn’t taken that very seriously. Neither had Meriel when she came over at the start of September to fix her stay in Bristol. She had been as confused as me. ‘Never mind the bloody Smiths – I’m coming over, and I’ll spend every weekend with you!’ She was determinedly happy, though I knew her heart was breaking because she would be leaving Vicky and Georgie. I loved her again, then. She was . . . gallant.

  She had said three must be our special number. ‘Nineteen forty-three, ’53, and now ’63!’

  I had reminded her that the air raid that started it all had been in 1944.

  ‘I still maintain that ’63 will be a very special year.’

  ‘You’re going to be here. And Dad is going to be here, unless he changes his mind. And I came over to Florida . . . that will make it special.’ I had looked at her. ‘Why has Dad made this sudden decision – do you know anything I don’t?’

  She had frowned. ‘Well, it must be something to do with Rose’s letter to Vicky. Vicky is so impulsive in some ways. She went storming over to George’s apartment waving the letter like a banner and telling him what he should do. And don’t ask me what that was, because I don’t know, and she wouldn’t tell me, and George wouldn’t tell me. But she said he should go back home and sort things out. That was last month some time, and he’s not said too much about it lately. Bet he’ll come. No one can stand out against her bullying tactics.’

  ‘I wonder where she gets those from?’ I had answered. She laughed.

  ‘We OK now, honey?’

  ‘We were never anything else,’ I had come back quite sharply. That was the attitude I had taken after her letter. Of course I had known what she meant, but I didn’t see how we could hope to maintain the sort of thoughtless relationship we had once had. Obviously we were getting older and our friendship had to be conducted at arms’ length most of the time.

  She went back home to spend time with Vicky and Georgie, and returned at the end of September to start the three-year course at Bristol. She found a flat in Clifton and Hermione and I helped her to furnish it and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Just for that day in September we were all girls again. The dynamics had slightly changed: Meriel and Hermione had a lot of shared interests and I felt just a little outside. Probably I felt the way Hermione had felt twenty years ago.

  Meriel’s new life absorbed her totally. She loved it. ‘It’s good doing all the practical stuff first and then discovering that the theory fits so well! And when it doesn’t you have to adjust the theory, not the practice! David Harmsworth – he lectured last week – suggested I ought to teach some of the classes!’ I could imagine. When I met Professor Harmsworth eventually it was obvious to me he was in love with Meriel. That didn’t surprise me, either. She was still a tiny firecracker, her energy ferocious.

  Once Dad had moved into our old place I learned that Meriel telephoned Hermione at least twice a week to discuss a lecture or a textbook. She telephoned me, too; we talked about student fashions and how crazy they all were . . . and how young and wonderfully thoughtless.

  When she came home at weekends she always stayed at Chichester Street. The girls loved seeing her, and she loved being with us. She had a very low sports car that could eat up the A38 between Bristol and Gloucester, and she calculated she could be sitting at my kitchen table in under an hour from leaving the university. I waited for her to suggest that she should stay with us and commute on the days she had lectures. She never did. Neither did I.

  So Meriel was living in Clifton practically next door to the main university building, and after the awful Kennedy murder Dad was living in our old house along the no-longer-rough road and with Hermione Smith. It seemed to me the oddest set-up I could have imagined. Even Tom was sufficiently intrigued to have a word with Rose.

  ‘Now you’re a teenager—’

  ‘Only just,’ she said defensively.

  ‘Only just a teenager, I think it’s all right to tell us what you put in your letter to Vicky that has brought your grandad back home.’

  ‘Nothing.’ She looked innocent enough. ‘He’s been home before. I expect he wants to see Daisy and me before we get married.’

  Tom ignored the red herring. ‘So he stays with Hermione.’

  ‘Yes. Well. It’s probably better that way. We go to school every day. And you two go to the office.’

  ‘And Hermione goes to the manor.’ He turned suddenly and caught Daisy making a face. ‘So you’re the one at the bottom of the plot,’ he said in a friendly voice. I was washing up at the sink and couldn’t see any of them, but I knew the way things were going. Tom could use silence and friendliness in most unusual ways. The girls both knew that, too.

  Daisy stammered, ‘There isn’t a plot. It’s just that when Vicky was here for the Coronation, Roland Beard fell in love with her – they were both seven – and they’ve always written to each other since then, and now they’re seventeen . . . well, he wants her to come over—’

  Tom nodded, still friendly. ‘I see.’ He waited.

  The girls stuck it out for as long as they could, then Rose blurted, ‘They want to get married.’

  ‘So Vicky has sent your grandad over to make the wedding arrangements?’

  Both girls laughed, obviously relieved, then realized Tom was waiting for something else. Daisy frowned and chewed her bottom lip consideringly.

  ‘I rather think,’ she began portentously, ‘that Grandee is supposed to speak to Roland. You know, like fathers do. To make sure his intentions are above board and all that sort of thing.’

  ‘I see,’ Tom said again, but this time he stood up and picked up the tea towel. ‘Actually Grandee is not Vicky’s father.’

  ‘No. But he’s English and he knows Daphne a bit. Besides, he’s worried about the Smiths.’ She fielded a warning glance from her sister, and added, ‘I think.’

  Tom dried two plates and put them in the dresser.

  ‘If there’s nothing much on the television this evening, d’you want to have a go at the Souza march again? I got two new kazoos today. Good ones. Mum could have the wooden spoons and the kettle and I could manage both tambourines. What d’you say?’

  The girls thought they were off the hook, and were full of enthusiasm. Meriel had brought snapshots and tapes of Georgie, and they were practising the march ready to
tape it for him at Christmas. They had become teenagers in August and it was good to see them revert to being little girls again. They broke into raucous song immediately, and when Tom produced the kazoos – plastic with fretted ventilation – the noise was ear-splitting. I covered my ears and begged for ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’, which was another from the repertoire. And in the laughing respite, Tom said, ‘Actually, I rather gathered that Vicky was getting bored with Roland’s letters, and he was trying to pep them up a bit by mentioning that Mr Smith’s sister lived with a German collaborator during the war.’

  The silence was deafening for all of two seconds. Then Daisy said in a bewildered voice, ‘How would that get him back in her good books?’

  Tom said nothing, this time because he was baffled.

  Rose said, ‘Oh, tell him, Daisy. He knows Vicky wants to be a writer like him.’ She turned to her father. ‘It’s a load of rubbish, Dad. Roland would say anything to get Vicky interested. He probably hasn’t mentioned getting married. He just wants to make the – the situation here – exciting. So he made up this story that Maude Smith was a murderer.’

  Daisy was aghast. ‘You promised me . . . I promised Colin I wouldn’t say anything to any of the grown-ups!’

  Tom and I looked at each other blankly. It was my voice that asked the question.

  ‘Who did she murder?’

  ‘Someone called Silver Man. I mean . . . pretty stupid, eh?’

  Rose giggled. ‘We thought Grandee was coming over to have a go at us! We felt terrible.’

  Daisy said, ‘Well, it was you who wrote to Vicky!’ She dried her kazoo carefully and added, ‘Anyway, you wrote ages ago and he’s only just come so it’s probably nothing to do with your letter at all.’

  There was a little silence. Rose said uncertainly, ‘Who was Mr Smith’s sister, then, Dad? And who was the German collaborator she slept with?’