he’d glimpsed Vivien, laughing softly at someone hidden behind the door. As he watched, a man’s hand came to rest on her bare arm and Jimmy felt his stomach start to churn.
He wished he’d brought his camera; he couldn’t make out much of the doctor, but he could see Vivien clearly enough: the man’s hand on her arm, the happy expression on her face …
Of all the days not to have his equipment with him—it would’ve been all they needed. Jimmy was still fuming at him-self when Myra appeared from nowhere, closed the door, and asked him how his day was treating him.
Then, finally, on Jimmy’s third Monday, as he rounded the top of the stairs and started down the corridor towards Nella’s dormitory, he saw a familiar figure walking ahead of him. It was Vivien. Jimmy lingered where he was, paying fierce and undue attention to the Dig for Victory poster on the wall, taking in the pigeon-toed child with his hoe and spade, while keeping both ears trained on her retreating footsteps. When she’d turned the corner he scurried after her, heart beginning to thump as he watched her progress from a distance. She reached a door in the wall, a small door Jimmy had never noticed before, and pulled it open. He followed, surprised when he found a flight of narrow stairs behind, leading upwards. He climbed, quickly but quietly, until a sliver of light ahead revealed the doorway she’d left by. He did the same, finding himself on a level of the old house with lower ceilings than those below, and less of a hospital feel. He could hear her distant footsteps but wasn’t sure which way she’d gone, until he glanced left and saw her shadow slide across the faded blue and gold wallpaper. He smiled to himself—the boy in him was rather enjoying the chase—and went after her.
Jimmy had a feeling he knew where she was going; she was sneaking off to a secret meeting with Dr Tomalin, high in the quiet private attics of the old house, hidden away where no one would ever think to look for them. Except Jimmy. He poked his head around the corner and watched as Vivien stopped. This time, he did have his camera with him. Far better to take a genuinely incriminating photograph than go through the rigmarole of setting up a false meeting that might, on photographic paper, seem compromising. This way, too, Vivien would be guilty of an actual indiscretion, and somehow that made Jimmy feel a whole lot easier. There remained the issue of sending the letter (blackmail, wasn’t it? Call a spade a spade)—Jimmy still found the idea pretty unpalatable, but he hardened his heart.
He watched as she opened the door, and when she made her way inside he crept forwards, removing his camera’s lens cap. He stuck his foot in the doorway, just in time to keep it from closing. And then Jimmy lifted his camera to take the shot.
What he saw through the viewfinder, though, made him put it right back down.
Twenty-four
Greenacres, 2011
The Nicolson sisters (minus Daphne, who’d stayed in LA to shoot a new network promo but promised to catch the red-eye back to London ‘just as soon as they can spare me’) brought Dorothy home to Greenacres on Saturday morning. Rose was concerned because she hadn’t been able to contact Gerry, but Iris—who always liked to be an authority—declared that she’d already telephoned his college and been told he was away on ‘very important’ business; the office had promised to get a message to him. Laurel had reached unconsciously for her phone while Iris was making her proclamation, turning it over in her palm, wondering why she still hadn’t heard a word about Dr Rufus, but she resisted calling. Gerry worked in his own way, at his own pace, and she knew from experience there was no joy to be had by ringing his office number.
By lunchtime Dorothy was settled in her bedroom, fast asleep with her white hair resting like a halo on the burgundy pillowcase. The sisters looked at one another and reached a silent agreement to leave her to it. The weather had cleared up and turned unseasonably warm, and they headed outside to sit on the swing seat beneath the tree and eat the bread rolls Iris had insisted on making solo, swatting away flies and enjoying what must surely be the last hot burst of the year.
The weekend passed smoothly. They installed themselves