The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets Read online

  ‘She could at least have spared me the indignity of watching her marrying someone so fat!’ he groaned. ‘Look at him! That’s his tenth vol-au-vent!’

  ‘And you’re counting?’ said Charlotte, looking disgusted.

  I thought of my Uncle Luke whose trousers always looked too tight and who could never resist a Mars bar. ‘What does it matter that he’s fat?’ I demanded. ‘You shouldn’t judge people like that, Harry. He can’t help his weight.’ I regretted these words as soon as they were out of my mouth, but something had to make room for the two omelettes.

  ‘Don’t be such an idiot,’ snapped Harry. ‘He’s fat because he never stops eating. If he were as in love with Marina as he should be, he wouldn’t be able to eat a thing in her presence.

  ‘And you’re speaking from experience?’ I asked.

  ‘Unfortunately. I am.

  ‘Did she eat in front of you?’ Charlotte asked curiously. Harry glared at her.

  ‘All the bloody time,’ he snapped. ‘She’s American. They’re like that.’

  ‘Marina’s been shooting me sinister looks for the last half an hour,’ I said hopefully. ‘Do you think she’s feeling the first stirrings of loathing and jealousy.

  ‘Probably not. I imagine she’s thinking how unfortunate the back of your dress looks since you sat down on that ashtray.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have left it on the chair!’

  ‘You should have looked before you sat down like any normal person!’

  ‘Normal person! Aren’t you the boy who kept a loaf of bread in a cage?’

  ‘Don’t bring Julian into this!’

  ‘Why should you care if my dress is ruined anyway?’

  ‘It isn’t ruined. Any good dry cleaner will get ash out of satin,’ said Charlotte soothingly.

  What she had said earlier about a good party playing host to every conceivable emotion was true. I had gone from wishing that my dance with Harry could go on for ever to wanting to walk out of the room and leave him to go to hell.

  ‘She mustn’t see you rowing,’ went on Charlotte warningly. ‘Why not? I thought that all lovers ever did was row,’ said Harry. His fists were tight clenched, and he must ‘have nearly bitten through his bottom lip with the tension of being in the same room as Marina and George.

  ‘Do you want to leave?’ I asked suddenly. Charlotte raised her eyes questioningly at Harry.

  ‘Nothing left to stay for now the omelettes have happened,’ he said. He looked shattered all of a sudden and my heart went out to him. We left the Picture Gallery and made our way out of the house, back through the saloon and down the stairs. I glanced over my shoulder before we left the building. It was how Dorset House should be, I thought, and how silly anyone was to think otherwise. It was a house made for parties. What was the point in living somewhere with a staircase that beautiful, that romantic, if one didn’t fill it with princesses and politicians and butterflies? An older sort of woman with a handsome face and a gawp-worthy string of pearls round her neck was standing at the bottom of the stairs waiting for her coat. She smiled when she saw me.

  ‘Did you enjoy the party?’ she asked me, shrugging her fur over her shoulders.

  ‘It was the best party ever,’ I said truthfully.

  ‘They’re terribly generous, the Americans,’ she said.

  ‘Aren’t they?’ I agreed. And more generous than even they knew, I thought, waving her goodbye with a giggle. Charlotte and I had pinched a cocktail glass each as a souvenir.

  I don’t recall our taxi ride home with any clarity at all. I know that Harry ranted on about Patrick Reece and said very little about Marina, but also’ that he paid the driver at the other end. I remember falling into my bed and being aware of the fact that the room was spinning, and waking up the next morning at eight o’clock with a pounding sensation throughout my body, cursing Marina for her lies about good-quality alcohol reducing the chances of an agonising headache. I had heard about these headaches before but had never had’ one myself. A hangover seemed to me to be thoroughly exotic and grown up. What would Mama say? I washed and dressed and drank three glasses of water from the basin next to my bed and felt a little better. I could hear Aunt Clare’s voice issuing orders in the kitchen. I peered at myself in the mirror. Pale as a ghost and puffy-eyed.

  Charlotte was eating breakfast and reading the paper in the dining room, showing no signs at all of the suffering that I was experiencing.

  ‘Get yourself a bowl of porridge,’ she ordered as I entered the room. She had pulled her hair off her face into a low ponytail and was wearing the thick white jersey she had favoured when she had come to stay at Magna. Despite so little sleep, her bright-eyed spark was indestructible, her back straight, her long fingers steady.

  ‘Oh, I’m not sure I could manage it,’ I said, sitting down and pouring myself a cup of tea.

  ‘Don’t be silly. I always have porridge after parties. It’s the only sensible thing to eat, isn’t it, Aunt?’

  Aunt Clare swept into the room carrying a pile of papers. ‘What’s that?’ she said vaguely. ‘Charlotte, we’ve a huge amount of work to do today. I expect you ready at the typewriter in twenty minutes. Oh, hello, Penelope dear. I trust you slept well?’

  ‘Very, thank you.’

  Charlotte spooned porridge into a bowl for me and oozed a spoonful of golden syrup on top.

  ‘There’s more if you want it,’ she said and went back to reading the paper.

  It was good porridge, thick and made with real cream and not all lumpy and watery like Mary’s. Aunt Clare asked only one question about the party. but Charlotte told me later that this was because she agreed with Oscar Wilde that only dull people are brilliant at breakfast.

  ‘Was Tania Hamilton wearing peach? She always wears peach!’ was all she managed and when we replied simultaneously in the negative, she merely rolled her eyes and went back to eating toast. I found myself consuming two bowls of porridge and then felt so stuffed and hot that I decided I must leave Kensington Court at once, if only to get some fresh air into my lungs.

  Charlotte stood on the doorstep and said goodbye to me.

  ‘Harry’s still asleep?’ I asked her for the sake of something to say.

  ‘Oh, gracious, no. I don’t think he’s back yet.’

  ‘Back?’

  ‘He disappeared off to some jazz bar in Notting Hill after you went to bed,’ said Charlotte. ‘Just grabbed his box of tricks and off he went. He makes most of his money doing late night shows. Or early morning shows, as the case may be.’

  ‘Goodness,’ I said. ‘What stamina.’

  As I turned to go, Charlotte pressed a magazine with Johnnie Ray on the front into my hands.

  ‘Something to read on the train,’ she said. ‘I expect you’ve already seen it, but it talks about London and how much he loves performing here.’

  I stared down at Johnnie’s perfect face on the cover of the Melody Maker.

  ‘We have to see him when he comes to London,’ said Charlotte. ‘I don’t care who we have to mug to get tickets.’

  With Charlotte, one never knew whether she was joking or not.

  Back at Magna, I found Mama flicking through the Tatler and sipping weak tea. Like Aunt Clare, she asked few questions about the party, but in Mama’s case I felt that it was less to do with protocol and more to do with resentment that it had been I not she who had seen Dorset House again. Deep down, Mama would have done anything to see inside the place under its new American ownership, even if only to despair over the new paintings. I longed to throw remarks around about the generosity of the Americans, and Marina’s hot pink dress, and Louis Armstrong and omelettes and cocktails and Patrick Reece and Mark Rothko, but I knew better than to try to push things onto Mama that she, essentially. feared. Instead, I tried to plough through an essay on the difference between Egypt and’ Rome in Act One of Antony and Cleopatra, and in the afternoon helped Mary with the dusting, which is an awesome task in a house like Magna. At supper, I co
uld bear it no longer, and decided that, at the very least, I would bring up the subject of Charlotte and Harry and see what that provoked from Mama. What was the point, I thought in despair as I powdered blusher over my death-pale cheekbones, in having a mother at all if I couldn’t talk to her about anything that interested me? It felt dead, like living with a shadow, sometimes. Living with another ghost.

  Yet Mama, unpredictable as ever, was one step ahead of me. We sat down together for supper (just the two of us as Inigo was back at school) and she waited until Mary had served us our vegetable and barley soup before she came out with it.

  ‘Darling, I think you should invite your new friends here for New Year’s Eve,’ she said calmly. I gulped.

  ‘Charlotte and Harry?’

  ‘Yes. The girl and her cousin — the one who keeps the stack of pancakes in the rabbit hutch or whatever it is he does. I’d like to meet them.’

  ‘It was a loaf of bread,’ I said, ‘and I didn’t think that you liked having guests for New Year?’

  ‘I don’t, ordinarily.’ said Mama lightly. dipping her bread into her broth. ‘I feel that these two merit a change of attitude. I thought they would get on rather well with Uncle Luke and Aunt Loretta. Perhaps you would like to telephone them after dinner and see if they’d like to come and stay?’

  ‘Oh, Mama, I don’t want you to feel — to feel put out,’ I said. ‘There’s no need to— ‘Penelope, I’ve made up my mind. I’d like them to come and stay. Now let’s not talk about it any further or you’ll start making me nervous.’ She took a gulp of wine to emphasise the point.

  ‘Thank you, Mama,’ I said quietly.

  What she was up to, I had no idea. I finished eating and raced to the hall to telephone Charlotte, sliding over on the zebra skin and nearly falling over.

  ‘Steady. darling!’ cried Mama irritatingly.

  Aunt Clare picked up the telephone.

  ‘Oh, hello, Aunt Clare — I mean Mrs Delancy,’ I said breathlessly. ‘It’s Penelope Wallace speaking.’

  ‘Good evening, Penelope Wallace Speaking. How are you tonight?’ came Aunt Clare’s amused voice.

  ‘Oh, very well. Thank you again for your wonderful hospitality,’ I said quickly. ‘I loved breakfast this morning, and I slept so well last night. We had the most marvellously fun time at Dorset House.’

  Away from the breakfast table, Aunt Clare clearly felt she could probe a little more. ‘And Harry?’ she asked in a low voice. ‘How was he? I hope he didn’t make a fool of himself’

  ‘Oh, not at all,’ I said. ‘There was just about the best jazz band I’ve ever heard to distract him. Louis Armstrong was playing with them.’

  ‘I am pleased that he asked you to the party,’ went on Aunt Clare, who obviously had no interest in jazz. It was also clear to me that she had not been let in on the part of Harry’s winning back Marina plan that involved me as bait. ‘You’re so much prettier than Marina. So much better for Harry,’ she went on.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I said uncomfortably. Heavens, the last thing I needed was Aunt Clare thinking that Harry really had taken a shine to me!

  ‘I knew the moment you walked into my study that you would be the one to sort him out,’ she went on.

  ‘Oh, not at all. Mrs Delancy — I was wondering if I could talk to Charlotte,’ I said, desperately steering her off the subject of Harry and me.

  ‘Oh, darling, she’s not here. She’s out at the pictures with a friend from school.’

  Who? I wondered in annoyance.

  ‘Would my son do instead?’ Aunt Clare added coquettishly. ‘I must catch Phoebe before she goes. Here he is, dear.’

  ‘Horrors!’ I thought. Had Harry heard everything she had been saying? ‘Oh, um—’ It was too late.

  ‘How are you, sweetheart?’ Harry sounded amused and not remotely embarrassed.

  ‘Does your mother think you’re falling in love with me?’ I hissed.

  ‘Probably. It takes the heat off the truth somewhat.’

  ‘So you can concentrate on winning Marina back without worrying that she thinks you’ve lost your mind?’

  ‘Exactly. She thinks you’re wonderful, which makes my life so much easier. Guess what she said to me this afternoon? “So pleased you’ve come to your senses and realised that Penelope’s so much better for you than the American.”‘ Harry laughed. He sounded as though he was still drunk.

  ‘So how will you explain the fact that we’re not engaged in a year’s time?’ I said. ‘And what will she think if the plan works and you go running back to Marina after all?’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about that,’ said Harry breezily. ‘She has very little faith in me; she’s already convinced I’m going to mess things up. When I do, it will come as no surprise at all.’

  ‘Wonderful,’ I said sardonically.

  ‘I made forty pounds last night.’

  ‘Forty pounds!’ I gasped, momentarily full of admiration.

  ‘Indeed. It was this great little trick with a piece of string and a passport that did it. Incredibly simple, but people can be so stupid and so drunk. I must take you out to dinner to thank you for your sterling work so far.’

  ‘So far!’ I cried, forgetting to keep my voice down. ‘I’m not sure that this is going to be going any further.’

  ‘Why were you calling, anyway?’ asked Harry idly. ‘Want to invite us to stay for the New Year?’

  ‘Well — yes, actually. How did you know?’

  ‘Wild guess. And we’d love to come. And don’t worry about my mother. She travels to Paris every New Year to stay with my Uncle Cedric. At least that’s her story.’ I heard the sound of Aunt Clare re-entering the room. ‘I must go, sweetheart. I’ll pass on your invitation to Charlotte.’

  ‘I’m not sure you should be calling me that—’ I began, but he had already hung up.

  When I replaced the receiver, Mama was straightening the zebra rug and trying not to look as though she’d been listening.

  ‘All organised, darling? Are they coming to stay?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said heavily. ‘They’re coming to stay.

  ‘I must telephone Fortnum’s tomorrow. We’ll need all kinds of everything if we’re having guests.’ (You may think that this kind of chat suggests that we were never out of the place, but in fact I don’t think that Mama had ordered food from Fortnum’s since before the war. I wanted to say that we couldn’t possibly afford it, and what on earth was wrong with the village shop and Mrs Daunton’s mince pies, but I just couldn’t bring myself to. Anything that distracted Mama from our dire financial crisis was a good thing, even if it meant spending yet more money we didn’t have.)

  My mother, when she put her mind to it, had a flair for decorating and an eye for detail. Since Papa left us, her efforts to create a festive atmosphere at Magna had been half-hearted, and phrases like ‘I’m at a low ebb, darlings’ and ‘I simply don’t have the energy’ echoed around the house even more during December than at any other time of the year. We all slumped, and the house felt silent and sad and weary. But the end of 1954 was a different story altogether. The morning after the phone call, Mama ordered Johns to cut down huge armfuls of holly from the Fairy Wood, and the next day she specified the tree that she wanted for the hall. A week later, Inigo returned from school, bursting with energy and getting under everyone’s feet.

  ‘Do put something cheerful on the gramophone while we dress the tree, Inigo,’ ordered Mama, and some kind of spirit of goodwill must have descended upon Inigo for he chose a scratchy recording of HMS Pinafore instead of his new Bill Haley disc.

  ‘This is music,’ sighed Mama, and the wind snaked under the front door and the dark night spat hailstones against the windows, and Buttercup lamented and the sailors roared, and Magna felt far out at sea. I pricked my fingers on pine needles and thought of all the other men like Papa who would never see their family decorating the tree, and arguing over records. Papa would never hear Johnnie Ray. I thought, and this fact, for reasons t
hat were not quite clear to me, shocked me very much.

  Mama dusted down the ancient Nativity scene for the hall table. ‘I remember the second year we were married, your grandmother nearly losing her mind with worry when the Angel Gabriel was dropped and his halo broke,’ said Mama in that high voice she reserved for telling stories about things that still bothered her. ‘She made me feel so small, like a blasphemous child. I heard her saying to Archie, “Well of course, you’ve married a child, so this sort of thing is bound to happen.” She never got over it.’

  ‘Silly woman,’ I said automatically.

  ‘The thing that she never knew was that it was Penelope who broke it,’ went on Mama, taking my hand. ‘I could never have told her that. I couldn’t bear the thought of that awful, condescending voice ticking off my daughter.’

  ‘No, Mama, you were the only one allowed to do that,’ said Inigo.

  There was a silence. I don’t know where those words came from, for normally the blame-me-for-breaking-the-halo story filled Inigo’s heart with adoration for Mama, the beautiful young misfit condemned for my babyish carelessness, but this year he had thrown down the script. Mama looked puzzled, more than anything, by his unexpected response.

  ‘Darling, I hope you’re not going to go through one of those awkward phases I’ve been reading about in this month’s Vanity Fair.’

  ‘If it’s in Vanity Fair, then I’m very much hoping to go through it.’

  ‘You need an early night, darling. You’re obviously overtired.’

  ‘I’m not tired.’

  ‘Oh, Inigo, please don’t exhaust me with answering back.’

  ‘I’m not answering back.’

  There was a pause, then Mama said something that raised a lump in my throat. ‘Funny.’ She laughed softly. ‘I rather miss the old boot now.

  Mary, entering into the spirit of things with uncharacteristic good cheer, hung a wreath on the front door. She even fashioned a pained-looking fairy for the top of the tree using pipe cleaners and some silver foil. On Christmas Eve, I spotted her grey-stockinged legs carefully ascending the stepladder in the morning-room doorway.