The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets Read online

  ‘No. Just yourselves.’

  I said goodbye and put down the phone and grinned lopsidedly at Inigo. Speaking on the telephone at Magna always made me feel slightly off-balance. Mama was using the cracked hall mirror to apply a powder puff to her reddened nose. Crying made her whole face swell up, as if she was allergic to her own tears. I felt certain that she would cry more often if it was not so aesthetically unpleasant.

  ‘Who was that?’ asked Inigo instantly.

  ‘A friend. She’s called Charlotte Ferris. I’ve invited her and her cousin to stay next weekend.’

  ‘Who is this girl, Penelope? I’ve never heard her mentioned before.’

  ‘She’s a new friend. Inigo’s always making new friends. I don’t see why I shouldn’t, for once.’

  ‘Well, I couldn’t agree more, darling,’ said Mama, her eyes full of suspicion.

  We took our places in the dining room again. Inigo began cutting up a potato into tiny piece.

  ‘You know, you really should have checked with me before inviting strangers to the house,’ said Mama with a how-I-am-put-upon sigh.

  ‘I know you’ll like them,’ I said, with more confidence than I felt.

  ‘Where did you meet?’

  ‘Oh, out and about,’ I said uneasily. Mama would have been horrified if I had told her the truth, not just because she herself would not have been seen dead at a bus stop, but also because she disapproved of accepting tea invitations, clinging fast to her own mother’s theory that tea should only ever be eaten with one’s family, and taken with anyone else it became common. Exceptions were made in the case of invalids, who merited teatime visits as they were ‘less likely to be infectious at that peaceful time of day’.

  ‘Out and about? How odd!’ she remarked.

  ‘I met her with some friends from my literature class,’ I went on, feeling that dastardly blush creeping in again. Gosh, I was a hopeless liar.’ Mama poured herself another glass of wine.

  ‘Well! Charlotte Ferris, indeed. Where does she live?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly.’

  ‘What on earth do you know? Really, I can’t think what you find to talk about with anyone, Penelope.’

  Inigo lit another cigarette. ‘She’ll be like all of Penelope’s friends,’ he said. ‘Slightly pretty and very dull.’

  ‘Darling, you know that’s not fair,’ protested my mother gleefully, for nothing gave her greater satisfaction than hearing the female sex criticised. Unfortunately, what Inigo had said about my friends was perfectly true, but I took comfort from imagining his jaw dropping open in amazement as he saw Charlotte for the first time. He would be charmed and disarmed at the same time, a lethal combination.

  ‘She’s different,’ I said carefully. ‘Rather amusing, in fact.’

  ‘Amusing?’ asked Mama. ‘I’ll be the judge of that. What about the cousin? Is she another great wit?’

  ‘She is a he. He’s training to be a magician. Apparently, he used to keep a pet loaf of bread in a wire cage.’

  ‘How plain,’ shuddered my mother.

  ‘Plain! That’s very good!’ shrieked Inigo. ‘Next you’ll be telling me he’s well bread!’

  I cursed myself for bringing up Julian the Loaf. It was too absurd outside the confines of Aunt Clare’s study.

  ‘His name is Harry,’ I went on. ‘His mother is called Clare Delancy and she says she knows of you — and Papa,’ I added, heart thudding away as it always did when I mentioned my father.

  ‘Clare Delancy. Clare, Clare, Clare, Clare Delancy. Let me think.’

  It was my mother’s favourite pastime: trying to work out who, what, when and where were the scores of people who claimed to have met her. It was rare for her to remember anyone — I had been on the receiving end of many a ‘Who on earth was that ghastly woman?’ usually demanded when she had met the person in question at least five times. She dropped her face into her hands to help herself ponder the issue. Inigo drained his wine and seized the chance to feed his duck to Fido.

  ‘What did she look like?’ she asked me. Detailed description was all part of the game.

  ‘Well — tall and rather big, and grey rather than blonde, but quite beautiful in a funny way. Much older than you, Mama,’ I added hastily.

  ‘Big and beautiful? Don’t talk nonsense.’

  ‘Her husband died last year. Apparently, he was killed by a falling bookcase.’

  Mama snorted. ‘That’s what they all say.’

  ‘She lives in a sort of apartment in Kensington and she seems to know all about Magna. I don’t think she’s the sort of person one could forget.’

  ‘Sounds exactly the sort of person one could quite easily forget. An overweight widow with too much time on her hands. You’re going to tell me that she keeps cats next.’

  ‘She does have a cat.’ I sighed.

  My mother looked at Inigo in a what-did-I-tell-you sort of way.

  ‘Never trust anyone who keeps a cat within twenty miles of London. It signifies very poor housekeeping indeed. Not to mention the smell and the hair—’

  ‘But Fido sleeps on your bed!’ Inigo and I protested in unison.

  ‘Fido is a dog. The smell and the hair are entirely different.’

  ‘Much worse, you mean,’ said Inigo, stroking Fido with his foot.

  ‘Cat or no cat, I have no recollection of ever meeting this woman. What did she say about me?’

  ‘She said you were a sensational beauty.’

  ‘Hmmm. Well—’

  ‘She knew that you and Papa were married young, and she said that she’d heard Magna was wonderful.’

  ‘She’s welcome to it.’

  ‘Oh, don’t say that, Mama. You don’t mean it.’

  ‘I think I can translate this Clare’s words as follows,’ said Mama beadily. ‘She wants to unleash her — frankly unhinged —son in our direction in the hope that he will marry either you, Penelope, or one of your ripe, rich cousins. Well! There’s not much hope of that. No money, house full of dry rot and absolutely no ripe, rich cousins, more’s the pity.’ Mama gave an unexpected bark of laughter.

  ‘I’d do anything for some ripe, rich cousins,’ said Inigo, with feeling.

  ‘Frederick and Lavinia?’ suggested my mother, referring to Papa’s sister’s children of about our age.

  ‘Freddie’s a dream but Lavinia’s awful,’ said Inigo contemptuously. ‘I caught her setting a mouse trap in her bedroom last time she came to stay. She said she couldn’t sleep knowing that they were out there. I said I felt the same about saxophone players.’

  ‘The mice were terrible last year,’ agreed Mama.

  ‘Of course, if we had a car—’

  I felt that the conversation was veering off course, as it tended to when my mother and Inigo were involved. I played with my duck and ate my potatoes and onions and drank three glasses of water for Inigo’s three of wine. (It was still a couple of weeks before my appreciation of good wine was due to begin.)

  Mary brought round spotted dick for pudding, which cheered my mother up, and Inigo smoked while I drank a grainy cup of cocoa. I pushed off my shoes and sat on my feet to warm them up and wondered how poor Harry was going to cope with this kind of cold. After my cocoa, I announced that I was going to bed, and stood up to kiss my mother goodnight. As quick as a jack-in-the-box she was up too. It was another of her distinguishing characteristics, this need to be in bed before anyone else. I think that it stemmed from her days of dramatic exits when she and Papa were first married. She once told me that it was vital to retire to bed early in order to allow those left to talk about one in flattering terms in front of one’s beloved.

  ‘Goodnight, darling,’ she said with a small yawn. ‘I am sorry about the duck, but really, tonight has been quite bearable after all. Your mysterious Aunt Clare really has been a marvellous distraction.’

  I smiled and kissed her on the cheek. My mother liked to be in her bedroom by ten-thirty, but I don’t think that she ever slept until well
after midnight. I watched her and Fido float off upstairs, then wandered to the kitchen to get myself a drink of water. When I returned to the dining room, Inigo was studying the sleeve of a new record.

  ‘Guy Mitchell,’ he said.

  ‘Let me see.’

  ‘You should hear the song. His voice—’ Inigo shook his head in wonderment, his black hair falling over his eyes. ‘I should be in America. Anyone with any sense should be in America.’

  I giggled. ‘Not before next weekend.’

  ‘No. I suppose not. I shall stay here and ask your new friends awkward questions.’ He grinned at me.

  ‘What a strange duck supper tonight.’

  ‘Very odd. We must speak to Johns about organising another gymkhana. I quite enjoyed watching hordes of ten-year-old girls on ancient Shetlands wrecking the park. Perhaps we should charge more to watch this year?’

  I think, even then, that we both knew how futile such events were. In my heart of hearts I knew that Magna would need to hold a gymkhana every day of the year for the next decade in order to keep going. I pushed such thoughts out of my head, said goodnight to Inigo and decided to stick my head round my mother’s door and check that she had quite recovered from the duck supper. I padded along the first-floor corridor, imagining my mother writing her diary at her desk, her left hand scribbling fast over the page. As a child, I would tiptoe down the winding back staircase and into her room for words of comfort and a quick peek at the famous black, leather-bound journal. When I was small she never much minded me reading it — I don’t think that she had any idea quite what an advanced reader I was — but soon after my eleventh birthday she took to hiding it, securing it with a padlock and key, and it went from being a book that I loved and revered to something I rather hated. I would not think about my mother’s diary tonight, I decided, it would only depress me.

  Outside her door, I knocked softly, and, getting no response, crept into the room.

  ‘Mama?’ I could hear sounds of running water coming from the adjoining bathroom. Open, and resting on her bedside table alongside the laughing photograph of my father that reminded me that he looked nothing like James Stewart and an awful lot like me, was the blessed diary. I hesitated. She had not heard me come in. I don’t know what it was that made me step forward and crane my neck over the entry for that day, but I did it, and there’s no point in saying that I did not.

  16 November 1954. Penelope has invited a young girl called Charlotte Ferris to stay. She has an aunt called Clare, and although I did not say anything to either child, I think that I know exactly who Clare is. Fancy her reappearing now when…

  I fled, and dived into bed, heart thumping, wondering if my mother’s nose had detected the giveaway scent of French Ferns. I couldn’t even go and look for Debrett as I had spotted it heroically holding open her bedroom window, letting in icy blasts of cold November air.

  Chapter 4

  MISS SIX FOOT NOTHING

  I half expected Charlotte to telephone again before the weekend. The ten days that I had to fill before she and Harry arrived yawned in front of me, interminable. I had been looking forward to my time with Christopher in the shop on Tuesday (when I planned to bring Aunt Clare and Rome subtly into the conversation) but to my disappointment he telephoned me on Monday to say that he was going to be away until after the new year, sourcing new stock for the shop.

  ‘I shall expect you back in January,’ he said.

  ‘Are you going to Rome?’ I demanded, utterly without thinking.

  ‘Rome? What on earth makes you think I might be going to Rome?’

  ‘Oh, nothing. I thought there was a big ceramics conference going on at the moment,’ I said wildly.

  ‘Ceramics? Heavens, Penelope, don’t make me nervous, please!’ I heard the sound of shuffling papers. ‘No one has sent me anything about a ceramics conference in Rome,’ he muttered. ‘Oh! Unless you mean that poxy affair run by William Knightly? He wouldn’t know a decent bit of art if it ran up and bit him on the ankle.’

  ‘Ah. That must have been it.’ I tried not to laugh. ‘Er — have you ever been to Rome, Christopher? Perhaps in your giddy youth?’ I blushed at my nerve.

  ‘Of course I’ve been to Rome, you silly girl. How on earth could I be doing what I’m doing if I hadn’t been to Rome?’

  ‘I’ll see you in the new year,’ I said hurriedly. Christopher could be quite intimidating when he wanted to be.

  ‘Don’t expect any more money,’ he warned.

  I spent long hours in the library at Magna. I had two exams to take in the summer and scores of essays to complete in the meantime. Three months ago, Mama and I had agreed that I should take English Literature, History of Art and Italian for a year before spending six months with old friends of Papa’s in Italy, where presumably I would finally learn to speak the language while floating around Rome and Florence (Mama was unaccountably suspicious of Venice and Milan). There were plenty of girls my age with the same kinds of plans which made me feel comforted and bored in equal measures, but since I’d met Charlotte the comfort factor had been entirely swamped by frustration. I could not imagine a girl like her following the herd for one moment, and she would think me jolly dull for doing so. I wouldn’t be able to pretend to her that I was enjoying my studies. I had been looking forward to the English course, but soon found the endless dissection and analysis of the books utterly destructive. I wanted to read, but not to write about what I had read. Shakespeare was the greatest trial. I had adored watching The Merchant of Venice and The Winter’s Tale, but had no interest at all in talking about the minutiae of the text. My History of Art classes were almost as tricky. Staring at photographs of the duomo in Florence or the interior of Salisbury Cathedral struck me as quite pointless. I needed to smell the buildings, to hear the sharp dip of my heels on their floors. My appreciation of great art was too literal for study. I would even go so far as to say that I could not understand any art unless I was up close to it, until it filled all my senses with its presence. I said this to Christoph once. He called me naive beyond my years, which I said didn’t make sense. He said that proved his point entirely.

  The days before Charlotte and Harry arrived at Magna for the first time made working even harder than usual. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something important, something vital, was hovering just out of my reach, something that would change everything for ever. Accepting tea with Charlotte had set my life off course, had swung me off the familiar tracks that I had travelled on all my life so far. I tried to work, but most of the time ended up drinking cocoa while listening very quietly to Johnnie Ray, old blankets wrapped round my knees to keep out the cold. By Wednesday, I quite understood Cleopatra’s demands for mandragora. Time and again I considered sneaking back into my mother’s room for another look at the mysterious diary entry, but I stopped myself just short of doing so. I was afraid of being caught, but more than that, I was afraid of what it might say. She had not mentioned our visitors since the Duck Supper, but I sensed they were on her mind. Oddly, I did notice that Debrett had been taken away from her bedroom window and replaced by a vast dictionary. Whether or not there was any significance in this, I could not tell, and dared not ask.

  Relief came one morning, when Mama suggested that we travel to London to take a look at the new season’s dresses.

  ‘You must have at least two new frocks for Christmas parties,’ she said, spreading a thin layer of marmalade over her toast. ‘You are my daughter and you will look beautiful.’

  She put down her knife and stretched her hand out to me, her face full of sympathy. She often looked at me like that, and I never held it against her because her pity was so genuine. With the party season fast approaching, it distressed her that I was not a fraction as spectacular as she. I don’t think that it occurred to her that it was possible to be even passably pretty if one was tall with freckles and had a friendly smile. For my mother, female beauty was all about wide eyes and gypsy-dark hair and making grown men faint.r />
  ‘I don’t know that I need any new clothes—’ I began.

  She tutted with frustration. ‘Oh, Penelope, don’t be ridiculous. You must have at least one new dress, and that is my final word on the matter.

  ‘But they’re so — so expensive,’ I stammered. ‘You said yourself that we have no money to spare. I’m sure we should be mending the piano or fixing the fireplace in the study—’

  ‘Johns will run us to the station. Would you change into a skirt, darling? Hurry up!’

  I scuttled out of the room and bounded upstairs.

  I have always found shopping with anyone a trial, but shopping with my mother was a hazardous experience that I tried and failed to avoid as much as possible. It was not just that our tastes differed — like any girl of six foot I liked simple designs and modest shoes while she favoured the flounce of Parisian couture and five-inch heels — but more than that, her beauty meant that shop assistants gravitated towards her, leaving me kicking my (flat) heels in the background. I don’t want to sound too sorry for myself, but there can be very little more disheartening for an eighteen-year-old girl than being outshone by her thirty-five-year-old mother. As I pulled on a pair of stockings and a black skirt, it struck me that the thrill of meeting Aunt Clare, Charlotte and Harry was probably intensified by the fact that my mother had played no part in it.

  Oh, how I wanted to be too intellectual for new clothes! Stacked up on the chimneypiece in my bedroom were five fashionably lettered invitations on thick white cards from girls called things like Katherine Leigh-Jones and Alicia Davidson-Fornby. I had never met either of those two, but my mother insisted on my accepting both invitations, swearing that the Leigh-Joneses kept llamas in Devon and the Davidson-Fornbys had the best cook in Hampshire. I resisted the temptation to say well, so what, but then I resisted the temptation to say most things to Mama. I was, in spite of the fact that she was almost a foot shorter than me, quite afraid of her — far more so than Inigo who was younger than me but fiercely opinionated. As a result I was caught between the need to do exactly as my mother wished, and the desperate urge to break away from her. More than ever, both sides of thirty-five were acutely aware of the widening gap that the war had placed between the generations and Mama was more difficult than most. The fact that we seemed to have so little in common frightened me and my years at boarding school had only intensified the sneaking suspicion that she was quite unlike everyone else’s mothers. I vividly recall the gasps of admiration when I arranged my mother’s photograph on my chest of drawers on my first night away.