The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets Read online

  ‘She’s coming over!’ hissed Charlotte.

  And she was. Disentangling herself from a gaggle of girls, Marina was heading in our direction. I watched her, transfixed. Her pink dress was pure Cinderella and clashed gloriously with her piled-up red hair yet the way she walked was pure Marilyn.

  ‘I thought it was you,’ she said to Harry, leaning forward and kissing him slowly on both cheeks. ‘Daddy insisted on this crazy lighting tonight, which tends to make everyone look as though they’re staring at everyone else when actually all they want to know is who the cocktail waiters are. Hello, Charlotte. So pleased you could come. Oh, and you must be Penelope. How smart of you to find such a simple dress.’

  ‘Selfridges,’ I stammered.

  ‘It matches your Mai Tai. Have another.’

  For a moment I was baffled, then realised that Marina was talking about my drink. Quite apart from the obvious appeal of her accent, her voice was like her laugh — rich with smoke and jazz.

  ‘Trader Vic’s cocktail recipes are the best,’ she went on, running shiny red nails over her diamond-studded wrist. ‘My God, what an amazing man he is! Did you know that when he introduced the Mai Tai to Hawaii a couple of years back, it was so successful that he ran the world’s supply of rum dry within a year. I think that’s kinda fabulous. You should see his restaurant in Los Angeles, Charlotte. We go there on Sunday evenings in the summer and drink Screwdrivers. It’s the best fun you can have with your clothes on,’ she added, her eyes glinting wickedly. ‘I recommend getting as drunk as you can, honey. The drink is so darn good tonight that you’ll wake up tomorrow still high. And if you stick to the rum drinks, you won’t even feel it. Trust me.

  There was a brief pause.

  ‘I love your dress,’ I blurted.

  ‘Oh, George bought it for me,’ said Marina, lighting another Lucky Strike. ‘I saw it in Harrods yesterday afternoon and he got it for me on the sly. He’s kinda like that.’

  ‘Sly?’ I asked brightly. Charlotte giggled and Harry smirked. Marina roared.

  ‘Oh no! He’s as far from sly as sly could be! I meant he’s the kinda guy who can’t resist treating me to things, y’know? And boy, is he funny! You know, back in August we were at this swell party in the Sporting Club in Monte Carlo, and Ari — you do know Ari Onassis? No? Well, Ari just could not stop laughing at George. He found him so hilarious. You know, I could not be with a man who didn’t make me wanna shoot myself laughing. ‘She coughed suddenly. a hacking, unladylike noise, and her eyes watered a little. ‘Nothing like a funny guy,’ she gasped eventually. ‘It matters, doesn’t it, girls?’

  She went on and on, and we listened, through a haze of Mai Tai and jazz. She name-dropped incessantly, asked no questions about us at all and was blush-makingly rude to several of her waiters, yet she was impossible to dislike. I could have listened to her stories for hours — if only for the fact that she was the first person of my generation that I had met whose life had not been limited to England. And did she really know these people? Was I standing next to someone who had actually had a proper conversation with Marion Brando? As she carried on talking —her life in America, her life in London, which was better? oh she couldn’t say. they were so different but the weather in Los Angeles was sublime — I had a good chance to study her face. None of her features was individually remarkable — her eyes too close together, her nose too upturned and her mouth too wide —yet together they formed a perfect, coherent, foxlike beauty. To this day. I cannot say exactly how this was achieved except to suggest that it was something to do with her colouring — her enviable hair and her skin — milky dear except for a fetching dusting of palest indigo under each eye confirming her lust for life post-midnight. I could quite easily see how Harry had fallen under her spell. He stood beside me, watching her talking but not, as far as I could tell, listening to a word.

  ‘You must stay for breakfast,’ Marina concluded, flickering her eyes to Harry for a split second. ‘Omelettes and champagne.’

  ‘How delectable. Your parents certainly know how to throw you a party,’ said Charlotte.

  At this point a gawky-looking man in braces launched himself at Harry with a cry of delight and bore him off in the direction of the band.

  ‘Who was that?’ demanded Marina. ~ (Knowing who was attending one’s own party was obviously not de rigueur.)

  ‘Horace Wells. He was at school with Harry,’ muttered Charlotte. ‘Terrible stutter.’ ‘Oh, Horrie!’ cried Marina. ‘My God! He must’ve married Lavinia Somerset, after all. Good for him!’

  ‘I have no idea,’ said Charlotte.

  Marina barked her wicked, smoky laugh. ‘Aren’t we ridiculous? Listen to us! We sound just like our mothers, yakking on about who and where and when!’

  I felt a momentary frisson of flattery that Marina was referring to the three of us together, which was swiftly replaced by horror at what she was saying. The burst of self-awareness on her part was admirable, but surely she could see that Charlotte and I were as different from her as were English from American cigarettes? She drained her glass.

  ‘You know what, girls,’ she said conspiratorially. leaning in towards Charlotte and me, ‘I said to George that I didn’t want a big wedding, no more than five hundred people. We tried to cut back the numbers even more but it was impassible.’

  I hardly dared to look sideways for fear of the giggles.

  ‘You are the most marvellously well suited pair,’ said Charlotte. Marina sighed and looked, I thought, not entirely pleased with this.

  ‘Well, George is such a traditional kinda guy. He wants everything done just right. You know he proposed on my birthday?’

  ‘How darling of him!’ I managed.

  ‘A toast, I think,’ said Charlotte with a wicked smile. ‘To unimaginable happiness.’

  ‘To unimaginable happiness,’ we all repeated, but I saw Marina edging herself round so that she could keep tabs on where Harry had gone.

  ‘Listen,’ she ordered, beckoning us in to hear her whisper and swamping us in Chanel No. 5 and hairspray. ‘I hate the idea that Harry’s taken it badly,’ she murmured. ‘You know me, fickle as anything,’ she went on, forgetting that we didn’t know her at all. ‘Harry thinks too much. He certainly thinks too much of me, she added, her face completely straight. Then she said, ‘Look after him, will you?’ leaving me dumbstruck, but Charlotte laughed.

  ‘Does he indeed? Gosh, but that’s an interesting theory. Penelope’s not one of our family anyway, are you?’

  There was a short silence while Marina absorbed this news. I could almost hear the whirring of her mind as she tried to figure out exactly what this made me.

  ‘I thought — I thought she was your sister,’ she said finally.

  ‘Penelope? If only,’ said Charlotte. ‘No, she’s my friend. She’s Harry’s — er — friend too.’ She let the word ‘friend’ hang ambiguously in the space between us. I blushed.

  ‘Friend?’ demanded Marina. ‘Friend? I thought you were all related.’

  ‘Oh, we only met recently.’ I said hurriedly. ‘Very recently indeed.’

  Marina opened her mouth to say something but was interrupted by her mother gliding towards us towing a horsefaced girl in green sequins.

  ‘Marina! The Garrison-Denbighs are here! Look at Sophia’s rubies: aren’t they superb?’

  Marina tutted with irritation. ‘I’m talking, Mother,’ she hissed, shooting poor Sophia Garrison-Denbigh a look that only just stopped short of loathing.

  ‘It’s quite all right, Marina, we’ve monopolised you for long enough,’ said Charlotte smoothly. I smiled at Sophia.

  ‘Your necklace is beautiful,’ Charlotte said to her, truthfully.

  I pulled Charlotte away and announced that we should go and see what the Hamiltons had done to the gallery.

  The Picture Gallery ran off the saloon and had been altogether abandoned in the FitzWilliams’ day. I remember Mama telling me about the tired, red fabric walls that were covered
in darker red rectangular patches where every single painting had been taken down and sold. I laughed out loud when I saw how the Hamiltons had covered up every one of these unfortunate areas with new pictures, paintings in bright colours with bold lines the like of which I had never seen before. In the centre of the room stood a perplexing piece of sculpture in the shape of what looked like a man with a square head shielding his eyes from the sun. Several people clustered around talking about it and using words like ‘intelligent’ and ‘priceless’ and ‘daring’ while in the corner of the room the jazz band played.

  ‘New York Movie, 1939. She looks a bit like you, Penelope,’ said Charlotte, squinting at the painting in front of her of a blonde woman standing on her own in the cinema.

  ‘Who dunnit?’ I asked.

  ‘Man called Edward Hopper, apparently.’ The Hamiltons had taken the liberty of labelling their art as though we were in a museum. I daren’t even imagine what Aunt Clare or Mama would have to say about this.’

  Charlotte’s eyes lit on the next canvas. ‘Now this is remarkable. Mark Rothko.’ It consisted of an orange square with a dark orange bit at the top and bottom. Something about it unnerved me. I wasn’t sure that I understood it, but I found it hard to drag my eyes away.

  ‘It’s amazing what some people pass off as art nowadays, ‘observed the good-looking man next to us.

  ‘I think it’s brilliant,’ said Charlotte quickly.

  ‘My nine-year-old son could have painted it.’

  ‘Ah, but he didn’t, did he? That’s the point, isn’t it?’

  The man laughed and raised his glass to Charlotte. ‘You’re right, you know. You’re absolutely right.’

  ‘Do you really like it?’ I asked her when he was out of earshot. ‘The only thing I know for certain is that I want to think the opposite of what he thinks,’ said Charlotte with feeling.

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘Oh yes. Patrick Reece, former lover of Aunt Clare’s, circa forty-seven. He took me and Harry to the theatre a couple of times. I remember in the interval of Blithe Spirit he asked us if we’d like to try a little pot.’ Charlotte shook her head. ‘Can you believe that? Of all the nerve! Harry had the presence of mind to steal his entire supply of the stuff in the second half of the play and sold it to another of Aunt Clare’s devotees the next afternoon.’ She frowned at the memory. ‘Thank goodness he didn’t recognise me out of my school uniform.’

  ‘Do you make this stuff up?’

  Charlotte looked at me in surprise. ‘No, worse luck. Oh, do look over there!’

  It was Harry. He was sitting on a hard-backed chair just behind the band, his eyes half closed, his whole being absorbed by the music. Girls with red lips, perfect hair and swoonsome perfume laughed around him, boys drank around him, one man in a beautiful pinstriped suit actually flicked the ash from his cigarette on to the top of Harry’s head without either party’s noticing. Charlotte grabbed two more drinks from the nearest waiter.

  ‘These are Sidecars, apparently.’ she said. ‘And if anyone tries to tell me where they originated, I may well murder some-one.

  ‘With a Screwdriver?’ I suggested, taking a huge gulp.

  ‘Isn’t she unbelievable? What on earth do you think she and Harry ever talked about?’

  ‘Maybe she was tickled by stories of Julian the Loaf?’

  ‘Highly unlikely. Oh, do look. The princess is wearing even more rubies than that unfortunate Sophia girl.’

  ‘Should we go and talk to Harry?’

  Charlotte giggled wildly. High on rum, I made my way through the crowds and across the room to Harry’s chair. He didn’t see me at first, so I stretched out a hand and touched him lightly on the shoulder.

  ‘Hello,’ I said brightly. ‘Want to get another drink?’

  He looked up at me, a cigarette dangling from his mouth. Candlelight and jazz suited Harry. His strange eyes with their heavy lashes set him apart, his skinny frame lengthened by his dishevelled black suit.

  ‘Huh?’ he said. ‘Oh, it’s you, Penelope. Here.’ He removed the cigarette from his lips and passed it to me. I took a puff. It had a strange flavour and smell and made me feel even more dizzy than I already was.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I asked him, feeling foolish. What was it about Harry that always made me feel foolish?’

  ‘Shall we play Dead Ringers?’ he asked me, pulling up a chair next to him. ‘Sit down. I’ll tell you how.’

  I flopped down on the chair next to him.

  ‘Finish this off,’ he said, handing me his cigarette again, and I took another three puffs and chucked the stub into his empty cocktail glass.

  ‘Right,’ I said dreamily. ‘How do you play?’

  ‘The idea is to point people out who look like famous people and for the other person to guess who you’re thinking of. You’ll soon pick it up.’ He leaned in towards me. ‘I’ll start.’ His eyes scanned the room.

  ‘How about her — that woman, the one to the left of Charlotte, in the green and white dress.’

  I thought for a moment. ‘Fanny Craddock?’ I giggled. Harry laughed. Absolutely and utterly right. Your go. ‘All right, all right.’ My eyes swam around the room. It really was the most gorgeous party. Sitting there with Harry, watching everything and everyone, gave me the sensation of being in the cinema.

  ‘How about the man there, playing the trumpet, in the band,’ I hissed.

  ‘Louis Armstrong?’

  ‘Yes!’ I squealed. ‘And isn’t it funny that he’s playing the trumpet too!’

  ‘Penelope,’ said Harry heavily, ‘that is Louis Armstrong.’

  ‘Oh my word!’ I exclaimed and collapsed giggling. Really, I couldn’t help it.

  ‘You’re one of those girls who gets silly after one puff, aren’t you?’ sighed Harry.

  ‘One puff of what?’

  A stout man with a schoolboy’s smile and immaculately combed blond hair was bearing down on us. Harry struggled to his feet.’

  ‘George!’ he said, offering him his hand. ‘Great party!’

  So this was George, I thought hazily. He was fatter and shorter and uglier than I expected, but like Marina he exuded enough wealth and self-confidence to make him curiously attractive. I sat tight and clapped hard as the band finished their latest number.

  ‘How are you, Delancy? And who’s this?’ George smiled at me and I swayed a bit.

  ‘How do you do? I’m Harry’s — er — I’m a friend of— I’m his — his — friend.’ I beamed at George, wondering why I could see three of him. His faces broke into a series of wide smiles.

  ‘Ahh!’ he said slowly. ‘I see! Well!’ He roared with laughter and looked at Harry with new respect. ‘You know, Marina’s been worried about you, Delancy,’ he said in a low voice. I expect he thought that I wouldn’t be able to hear him, but growing up with Mama trains one rather well in the eavesdropping department. ‘… kept insisting that you’d, taken the news of our engagement very hard. Advised me not to invite you tonight, would you believe! Now I see she had nothing to worry about.’ He shot me an amused look. ‘Pretty little thing, isn’t she?’ he added in an undertone.

  ‘Penelope’s six foot,’ said Harry lightly. ‘That makes her three inches taller than you, doesn’t it, Rogerson?’

  George looked livid for a second, then laughed. ‘And four inches taller than you, old man,’ he said, grinning. ‘Well, enjoy the rest of the party. Have you heard? Omelettes at dawn.’ He did a rather good mime of someone flipping a pancake, slapped Harry on the back again and waltzed off.

  ‘Omelettes at dawn,’ repeated Harry in brilliant imitation.

  I fought off another attack of the giggles and raised my glass to Hope Allen who was being spun around the dance floor by Patrick Reece. When the band took a break, she cantered towards me.

  ‘So good-looking, don’t you think?’ she demanded breathlessly. grabbing my cocktail from my hand. ‘Paddy Reece. Brilliant mind. Known him. since I was twelve.’ She leaned in towards
me with another one of her deafening whispers. ‘Used to take me to the theatre and offer me cocaine in the interval.’

  ‘Really?’ I giggled.

  She drained the rest of my Sidecar. ‘Thanks,’ she said, handing me back the empty glass and shooting a meaningful look in Harry’s direction. ‘I’m off. Apparently. there’s someone playing the bagpipes on the stairs.’ She staggered off in utterly the wrong direction.

  ‘Bastard!’ muttered Harry. ‘We were only ever offered lousy old weed. And never more than once. I could have made a fortune from a bit of coke.’

  Despite being high on cocktails, I was genuinely shocked. Drugs were unthinkable to me, something I had never talked about, and certainly never tried. ‘Gosh, Harry. Have you no shame?’ I asked primly.

  ‘Absolutely not.’

  Just then, the band struck up the first chords of Shake, Rattle and Roll, and the whole room lurched and exploded around me. Charlotte was grabbed by a good-looking boy with red hair (some cousin of Marina’s perhaps?) and Harry turned to me challengingly.

  ‘Want to dance?’ I think he expected me to refuse. ‘Of course!’

  ‘Come on, then. And for goodness’ sake, kick off your shoes.’ I did, and we swayed around the dance floor, Harry holding me very tight, which was just as well because if he had let go I might very well have fallen over. It was the best dance I had ever had, and Harry, for all that he was short and skinny and odd-looking, was the best dance I had ever had. All right, he was practically the only dance I had ever had, but what did that matter? Dorset House, newly rich, and seething with youth, seemed to be laughing with us all. Models, actors, royalty, beauty — and Harry and I — collided for three minutes of blissful havoc on the Picture Gallery floor. Mark Rothko’s orange squares swam in front of my eyes. It felt half holy to me.

  I closed my eyes and imagined that Harry was Johnnie Ray.

  Chapter 8

  ALL THE HONEY

  After midnight more food emerged, and, ravenous as wolves, Charlotte, Harry and I sat down to a Parisian breakfast. As the night became the morning, Harry became more agitated about Marina and George. He stubbed the end of his cigarette out on Charlotte’s plate.