over the edge of the world, isn’t it? I don’t think I’ve ever stopped believing I might just discover the hole on the stream floor that will lead me back.
Ah, Katy—I wonder what age I will need to attain before you release me from your worries. What a burden I must be. Do you think you will still be minding me to keep my skirts clean and my nose dry when I am an old woman, clacking my knitting needles and rocking in my chair? How well you’ve looked out for me over the years, how difficult I’ve made that task for you at times, and how fortunate I am that it was you who met me that horrible day at the Southport railway station.
You are wise as ever in your advice, and please, dearest, be reassured that I am equally wise in my actions. I am not a child any more, and know too well my responsibilities—you’re not reassured, are you? Even as you read this, you are shaking your head and thinking what a reckless person I am. To allay your fears, let me promise you that I have hardly spoken to the man in question (Jimmy is his name, by the way—let’s call him that, shall we—‘the man’ has rather a sinister feel to it); indeed, I have at all times done my best to discourage any contact, even veering, when necessary, into the realm of rudeness. Apologies for that, Katy dear, I know you would not like to see your young charge gaining a reputation for poor manners, and I for my part detest doing that which might bring your good name into disrepute!
Laurel smiled. She liked Vivien; the response was tongue in cheek without straying into unkindness towards mother hen Katy and her wearying instinct towards worry. Even Katy had written beneath the extract: ‘It is nice to see my cheeky young friend returned. I’ve missed her these past years.’ Laurel liked less Vivien’s naming of the young man volunteering at the hospital with her. Was he the same Jimmy her mother had been in love with? Surely. Could it be a coincidence he was working with Vivien at Dr Tomalin’s hospital? Surely not. Laurel felt the rumblings of foreboding as the lovers’ plan began to take shape.
Evidently Vivien had no idea of the connection between the nice young man at the hospital and her onetime friend, Doro-thy—which wasn’t surprising, Laurel supposed. Kitty Barker had mentioned how careful Ma was to keep her boyfriend away from Campden Grove. She’d also described the way emotions were intensified and moral certainties dissolved during the war, providing, it struck Laurel now, the perfect environment in which a pair of star-crossed lovers might become swept up in a folie a deux.
The next week of journal entries contained no mention either of Vivien Jenkins or ‘the matter of the young man’; Katy Ellis devoted herself instead to the immediate concerns of divisional warden politics, and talk on the radio of invasion. On April 15th she recorded her concern that Vivien hadn’t written in a time, but then noted the next day a telephone call from Dr Tomalin, letting her know that Vivien was unwell. Now, that was interesting, it appeared the two were known to one another, after all, and it wasn’t an objection to the doctor’s character that had set Katy so firmly against his hospital. Four days later, the following:
A letter today that vexes me greatly. I cannot possibly capture the tone in summary and I wouldn’t know where to begin or end in quoting that which troubles me. Thus, I am going against the wishes of my dear (infuriating!) young friend, just this once, and will not toss the letter on this evening’s fire.
Laurel had never turned a page faster. There it was, on fine white paper and in rather messy handwriting—written in great haste it would seem—the letter from Vivien Jenkins to Katy Ellis dated April 23rd, 1941. A month before she died, Laurel noted grimly.
I am writing to you from a railway restaurant, darling Katy, because I was gripped by a fear that if I didn’t record it all without delay, the whole thing would disappear and I would wake up tomorrow and discover it a figment of my imagination. None of what I write will please you, but you are the only person I can tell, and I must tell somebody. Forgive me, then, dear Katy, and accept my deepest apologies in advance for