The Secret Keeper

Three

London, May 1941


DOROTHY SMITHAM ran downstairs, calling goodnight to Mrs White as she shimmied into the sleeves of her coat. The landlady blinked through thick spectacles when she passed, anxious to continue her never-ending treatise on the neighbour’s foibles, but Dolly didn’t stop. She slowed sufficiently only to check herself in the hall mirror and pinch some colour into her cheeks. Happy enough with what she saw, she opened the door and darted out into the blackout. She was in a hurry, no time tonight for trouble with the warden; Jimmy would be at the restaurant already and she didn’t want to keep him waiting. They had so much to discuss—what they should take, what they’d do when they got there, when they should finally go …

Dolly smiled eagerly, reaching into her deep coat pocket and rolling the carved figurine beneath her fingertips. She’d noticed it in the pawnbrokers window the other day; it was only a trifle, she knew, but it had made her think of him, and now more than ever, as London came down around them, it was important to let people know how much they meant. Dolly was longing to give it to him—she could just imagine his face when he saw it, the way he’d smile and reach for her and tell her, as he always did, how much he loved her. The little wooden Mr Punch might not be much, but it was perfect; Jimmy had always adored the seaside. They both had.

‘Excuse me?’

It was a woman’s voice and it was unexpected. ‘Yes?’ Dolly called back, her own voice catching with surprise. The woman must’ve noticed her when light spilled briefly through the opened door.

‘Please—can you help me? I’m looking for number 24.’

Despite the blackout and the impossibility of being seen, Dolly gestured from habit towards the door behind her. ‘You’re in luck,’ she said. ‘It’s right here. No rooms free at the moment, I’m afraid, but there will be soon.’ Her very own room, in fact (if room it could be called). She slid a cigarette onto her lip and struck the match.

‘Dolly?’

At that, Dolly squinted into the darkness. The owner of the voice was rushing towards her; she sensed a flurry of movement, and then the woman, close now, said, ‘It is you, thank God. It’s me, Dolly. It’s—’ ‘Vivien?’ She recognised the voice suddenly; she knew it so well, and yet there was something different about it.

‘I thought I might’ve missed you, that I was too late.’

‘Too late for what?’ Dolly faltered; they’d had no plans to meet, not tonight. ‘What is it?’

‘Nothing—’. Vivien started to laugh then and the sound, me-tallic and unnerving, sent jangles up Dolly’s spine. ‘That is, everything.’ ‘Have you been drinking?’ Dolly had never known Vivien to behave like this; gone was the usual veneer of elegance, the perfect self-control.

The other woman didn’t answer, not exactly. The neighbour’s cat bounded off a nearby wall, landing with a thud on their rabbit hutch. Vivien jumped, and then whispered: ‘We have to talk—quickly.’

Dolly stalled by drawing hard on her cigarette. Ordinarily she’d have loved for the pair of them to sit down and have a heart to heart, but not now, not tonight. She was impatient to be getting on. ‘I can’t,’ she said, ‘I was just—’

‘Dolly, please.’

She reached into her pocket and turned over the little wood-en gift. Jimmy would be there already; he’d be wondering where she was, glancing at the door each time it opened, expecting to see her. She hated to keep him waiting, especially now … But here was Vivien, turned up on the doorstep, so serious, so nervy, glancing over her shoulder all the time, pleading and saying how important it was that they talk.

Dolly sighed in reluctant capitulation. She couldn’t very well leave Vivien like this, not when she was so upset.

She told herself Jimmy would understand, that in a funny way, he’d become fond of Vivien, too. And then she made the decision that would prove fateful for them all. ‘Come on,’ she said, extinguishing her cigarette and taking Vivien gently by a thin arm, ‘let’s go back inside.’



It struck Dolly as she led the two of them into the house and up the stairs, that Vivien might have come to apologise. It was all she could think of to explain the other woman’s agitation, the loss of her usual composure: Vivien, with her wealth and class, wasn’t the sort of woman much given to apology. The thought made Dolly nervous. It was un- necessary—as far as she was concerned, the whole sorry episode was in the past. She’d have preferred never to mention it again.

They reached the end of the corridor and Dolly unlocked her bedroom door. The bare bulb flared dully when she flicked the switch, and the narrow bed, the small cabinet, the cracked sink with its dripping tap, all came into focus. Dolly felt a flash of embarrassment when she saw her room suddenly through Vivien’s eyes. How meagre it must seem after the accommodation she was used to; that resplendent house on Campden Grove with its tubular glass chandeliers and zebra-skin throws.

She slipped off her old coat and turned to hang it on the hook behind the door. ‘Sorry it’s so hot in here,’ she said, trying to sound breezy. ‘No windows, more’s the pity—makes the blackout easier but it’s not so handy for ventilation.’ She was joking, trying to lighten the atmosphere, cajole herself into better spirits, but it didn’t work. All she could think of was Vivien standing there behind her, looking for somewhere to sit down—oh dear. ‘No chair, either, I’m afraid.’ She’d been meaning to get one for weeks, but with times as tough as they were, and she and Jimmy resolved to save every penny, Dolly had decided just to make do.

She turned around and forgot the lack of furnishings when she saw Vivien’s face. ‘My God,’ she said, eyes widening as she took in her friend’s bruised cheek. ‘What happened to you?’

‘Nothing.’ Vivien, who was pacing now, waved impatiently. ‘An accident on the way. I ran into a lamp post. Stupid of me, rushing as usual.’ It was true; Vivien always went too quickly. It was a quirk, and one that Dolly had always rather liked—it made her smile to see such a refined, well-dressed woman rushing about with the gait of a young girl. Tonight though, everything felt different. Vivien’s outfit was mismatched, there was a ladder in her stockings, her hair was a mess … ‘Here,’ said Dolly, guiding her friend to the bed, glad she’d made it so carefully that morning. ‘Sit down.’

The air-raid siren began to wail right then and she cursed beneath her breath. It was the last thing they needed. The shelter here was a nightmare: all of them packed together like sardines; the damp bedding; the putrid smell; Mrs White’s hysterics; and now, with Vivien in this state—

‘Ignore it,’ Vivien said, as if reading Dolly’s mind. Her voice was suddenly that of the lady of the house, used to giving orders. ‘Stay. This is far more important.’

More important than getting to the shelter? Dolly’s heart fluttered. ‘Is it the money?’ she said in a low voice. ‘Do you need it back?’

‘No, no, forget about the money.’

The rise and fall of the siren was deafening and it spurred in Dolly a floating anxiety that refused to settle. She didn’t know why exactly, but she knew she was afraid. She didn’t want to be here, not even with Vivien. She wanted to be hurrying along the dark streets to where she knew Jimmy was waiting for her. ‘Jimmy and I—’, she began, before Vivien cut her off.

‘Yes,’ she said, face lighting as if she’d just remembered something. ‘Yes, Jimmy.’

Dolly shook her head, confused. Jimmy, what? Vivien was making no sense. Perhaps she ought to take her, too—they could make a dash for it together while people were still scurrying to the shelters. They’d go straight to Jimmy—he’d know what to do—

‘Jimmy,’ Vivien said again loudly. ‘Dolly, he’s gone—’

The siren cut out just then, and the word ‘gone’ bounced around the room. Dolly waited for Vivien to say more, but before she could a frantic knock came at the door: ‘Doll—are you in there?’ It was Judith, one of the other residents, breathless having run from upstairs. ‘We’re going down to the Andy.’

Dolly didn’t answer, and neither she nor Vivien made a move to leave. She waited until the footsteps receded down the corridor, and then she hurried to sit beside the other woman. ‘You’ve got it mixed up,’ she said quickly. ‘I saw him yesterday, and I’m seeing him again tonight. We’re going together, he wouldn’t have gone without me …’ There was so much more she could have said, but she didn’t. Vivien was looking at her, and something in her gaze allowed a whisper of doubt to creep through the cracks in Dolly’s certainty. She fumbled a new cigarette from her bag, fingers shaking as she lit it.

Vivien started talking then, and as the first bomber of the night chugged overhead, Dolly began to wonder if there was even the tiniest possibility that the other woman was right. It seemed unthinkable, but the urgency in her voice, her manner and the things she was now saying—Dolly started to feel dizzy; it was hot in here; she couldn’t manage to steady her breath.

She smoked hungrily, and fragments of Vivien’s account mixed with her own racing thoughts. A bomb fell somewhere close, landing with a huge explosion, and a great swooshing sound filled the room making Dolly’s ears ache and every hair on her neck stand on end. There’d been a time when she’d en-joyed being out in the Blitz—she’d found it exciting, and not frightening at all. But she wasn’t that silly young girl any more, those carefree days seemed a long time ago. She glanced at the door; she wished Vivien would stop. They should get to the shelter or to Jimmy; they shouldn’t just sit here, waiting. She wanted to run, to hide; she wanted to disappear.

As Dolly’s own panic rose, Vivien’s appeared to recede. She was speaking calmly now, low sentences that Dolly struggled to listen to, about a letter and a photograph, about bad men, dangerous men who’d set out to find Jimmy. The plan had all gone terribly wrong, Vivien said, he’d been humiliated; Jimmy hadn’t been able to get to the restaurant; she’d waited for him and he hadn’t come; that’s when she’d known he really had gone.

And suddenly the disparate pieces came together through the haze and Dolly understood. ‘It’s my fault,’ she said, her voice little more than a whisper. ‘But I—I don’t know how—the photograph—we agreed not to, that there wasn’t any need, not any more.’ The other woman knew what she meant; it was be-cause of Vivien that the plans had been changed. Dolly reached for her friend’s arm. ‘None of this was meant to happen, and now Jimmy …’

Vivien was nodding, her face a study in compassion and care. ‘Listen to me,’ she said. ‘It’s very important that you listen. They know where you live, and they will come after you.’

Dolly didn’t want to believe it; she was frightened. Tears ran hot down her cheeks. ‘It’s my fault,’ she heard herself saying again. ‘It’s all my fault.’

‘Dolly—’ a new wave of bombers had arrived and Vivien had to shout to be heard as she clasped Dolly’s hands in hers—‘please. It’s as much my fault as yours. 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—’

A blast outside and the whole building juddered and shifted; the bombs were falling closer, and even though there were no windows an eerie flash of light came from somewhere, flooding the room—so much brighter than the glow of the dull single bulb.

‘Is there any family you could go to?’ Vivien pressed.

Dolly shook her head, even as a picture of her family came into her mind; her mother and father, her poor little brother; the way things used to be, before. A bomb whistled by and the guns fired back from the ground.

‘Friends?’ Vivien shouted over the blast.

Again Dolly shook her head. There was no one left, not that she could count on, no one except Vivien and Jimmy.

‘Anywhere at all that you could go?’ Another bomb, a Molotov bread basket by the sound of it, the impact so loud Dolly had to read Vivien’s lips when she pleaded, ‘Think, Dolly. You have to think.’

She closed her eyes. She could smell fire; an incendiary must have hit nearby; the ARP officers would be at it now with their stirrup pumps. Dolly heard someone yelling, but she screwed her eyes tighter and tried to focus. Her thoughts were scattered like debris, her mind a dark maze; she could see nothing, the ground was jagged underfoot, the air too thick to breathe.

‘Dolly?’

There were more planes, fighters now, not just bombers, and Dolly pictured herself on the rooftop at Campden Grove, watching as they ducked and swooped across the sky, the green tracer lights that swept after them, the fires in the distance. It had all seemed so exciting once.

She remembered the night with Jimmy: when they’d met at the 400 Club and danced and laughed; when they’d gone home through the Blitz, the two of them together. She’d have given anything now to be back there, lying side by side, whispering in the dark while the bombs fell, making plans for their future, the farmhouse, the children they’d have, the seaside. The seaside …

‘I applied for a job,’ she said suddenly, lifting her head, ‘a few weeks ago. It was Jimmy who found it.’ The letter from Mrs Nicolson of Sea Blue boarding house was sitting on the small table by her pillow and Dolly snatched it up, handing it shakily to Vivien.

‘Yes—’ Vivien scanned the offer—‘Perfect. That’s where you must g°.’

‘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.’

Dolly was crying now. Vivien reached towards her, but the two women moved at the same time and the contact was unexpectedly sharp.

Vivien didn’t apologise; her face was serious. She was frightened too, Dolly knew, but she put her own fears aside, just as a big sister might, adopting the sort of stern loving voice Dolly needed to hear most right then. ‘Dorothy Smitham,’ she said, ‘you need to leave London, and you need to go quickly.’

‘I don’t think I can.’

‘I know you can. You’re a survivor.’

‘But Jimmy—’ Another bomb whooshed down and exploded. A terrified cry escaped Dolly’s throat before she could stop it.

‘That’s enough.’ Vivien cupped Dolly’s face firmly between both hands, and this time it didn’t sting one bit. Her eyes were filled with kindness. ‘You love Jimmy, I know that; and he loves you, too—my God, I know that. But you have to listen to me.’

There was something eminently calming about the other woman’s gaze and Dolly managed to block out the noise of a diving plane, the answering ack-ack fire, the horrible thoughts of buildings and people being crushed into pulp.

The pair of them huddled together and Dolly listened as Vivien said, ‘Go to the railway station tonight and buy yourself a ticket. You’re to— ’. A bomb landed nearby with a thundering crump and Vivien stiffened before continuing quickly: ‘Get on that train and ride it all the way to the end of the line. Don’t look back. Take the job, move again, live a good life.’

A good life. It was just what Dolly and Jimmy had talked about. The future, the farmhouse, the laughing children and the happy hens … Tears streamed down Dolly’s cheeks as Vivien said, ‘You have to go.’ She was crying now, too, because of course she’d miss Dolly— they’d miss each other. ‘Seize the second chance, Dolly: think of it as an opportunity After everything you’ve been through, after everything you’ve lost …’

And Dolly knew then that, hard as it was to accept, Vivien was right—she had to go. There was a part of her that wanted to scream ‘No’, to curl up in a ball and weep for the things she’d lost, for everything in her life that hadn’t turned out the way she’d hoped, but she wouldn’t do that. She couldn’t.

Dolly was a survivor; Vivien said so and Vivien ought to know— just look at the way she’d recovered from her own early hardships to create a new life for herself. And if Vivien could do it, so would Dolly She’d suffered so much, but she still had things to live for—she’d find things to live for. This was the time to be brave, to be better than she’d ever been before. Dolly had done things that made her ashamed to remember them; her grand ideas had been nothing but a young girl’s silly dreams, they’d all turned to ash in her fingers; but everybody deserved a second chance, everybody was worthy of forgiveness, even her—Vivien said so. ‘I will,’ she said, as a series of bombs landed with heavy crashes, ‘I’ll do it.’

The light bulb flickered but didn’t die. It swung on its cord, throwing shadows across the walls, and Dolly pulled out her little suitcase. She ignored the deafening noise outside, the smoke that was seeping in from the fires in the street, the haze that made her eyes sting.

There wasn’t much she wanted to take. She’d never had many possessions of her own. The only thing she really wanted from this room she couldn’t have. Dolly hesitated as she thought of leaving Vivien behind; she remembered what the other woman had written in Peter Pan—a true friend is a light in the dark—and tears threatened again.

But there was no choice; she had to go. The future stretched ahead: a second chance, a new life. All she had to do was take it, and never look back. Go to the seaside, like they’d planned, and start again.

She barely heard the planes outside now, the falling bombs, the ack- acks firing their response. The earth trembled with each blast and plaster dust sifted down from the ceiling. The chain on the door rattled, but Dolly noticed none of it. Her case was packed—she was ready to go.

She stood, looking to Vivien, and despite her firm resolve she faltered. ‘What about you?’ Dolly said, and for a split second it occurred to her that perhaps they could go together, that maybe Vivien would come with her after all. In some odd way, it seemed the perfect answer, the only thing to do—they’d each played their part, and none of it would have happened if Dolly and Vivien hadn’t met.

It was a foolish thought, of course—Vivien didn’t need a second chance. She had everything she could want right here. A lovely house, her own wealth, beauty to spare … Sure enough, Vivien handed Dolly Mrs Nicolson’s job offer and smiled a tearful farewell. Each woman knew in her heart it was the last time she’d see the other. ‘Don’t worry about me,’ said Vivien, as a bomber thundered overhead. ‘I’m going to be fine. I’m going home.’

Dolly held the letter tightly, and with a final nod of resolution, started towards her new life, no idea what the future might bring, but determined, suddenly, to meet it.