in their wait for humanity to come to its senses and remember the beauty of life? It is queer, but my love and longing for the world are always magnified by my absence from it; it’s wondrous, don’t you think, that a person can swing from despair to gleeful hunger, and that even during these dark days there is happiness to be found in the smallest things?
Anyway, whatever the reason, he asked me to walk with him and I said yes, and so we walked, and I let myself laugh. I laughed because he told me funny stories and it was so easy and light. I realised how long it has been since I’ve en-joyed that most simple of pleasures: company and conversation on a sunny afternoon. I am impatient for such pleasures, Katy. I am no longer a girl—I am a woman, and I want things; things that I will not have, but it is human, is it not, to long for that from which we are barred?
What things? What was Vivien barred from? Not for the first time, Laurel had the feeling she was missing an important part of the puzzle. She skimmed through the next fortnight’s journal entries until Vivien was mentioned again, hoping all would be made clear.
She continues to see him—at the hospital, which is bad enough, but elsewhere, too, when she is supposed to be working at the WVS canteen or running household errands. She tells me that I must not worry, that ‘he is a friend, and nothing more.’ She submits as evidence reference to the young man’s fiancee: ‘He is engaged to be married, Katy, they are very much in love and have plans to move to the country when the war is over; they’re going to find a big old house and fill it with children; so you see, I am not in danger of breaking my own wedding vows, as you seem to fear.’
At this, Laurel felt the dizziness of recognition. It was Doro-thy, Vivien was writing about—Ma. The intersection of then and now, learned history and lived experience, was briefly overwhelming. She removed her glasses and rubbed her forehead, focusing on the stone wall outside the window for a moment.
And then she let Katy continue:
She knows that is not all I fear; the girl is wilfully misunderstanding my concerns. I am no innocent, either; I know that this young man’s engagement is no impediment to the human heart. I cannot know his feelings, but I know Vivien’s well enough.
More extravagant worry on Katy’s behalf, yet Laurel still wasn’t any closer to understanding why: Vivien intimated that Katy’s fears stemmed from her rigid views as to what constituted seemly marital behaviour. Did Vivien make a habit of disloyalty? There wasn’t a lot to go on, but Laurel could almost read into Vivien’s more florid romantic musings on life, a spirit of free love—but only because she wanted to.
Then Laurel found an entry, two days later, that made her wonder whether Katy had somehow intuited all along that Jim-my posed a threat to Vivien:
Dreadful war news—Westminster Hall was hit last night, and the Abbey and the Houses of Parliament; they thought at first Big Ben had been razed! Rather than pick up the newspaper or listen to the wireless this evening I determined to clear out the sitting-room cupboard to make room for my new teaching notes. I confess to being something of a bowerbird—a trait that shames me; I would prefer to be as efficient of home as I am of mind—and I found there the most amazing collection of trifles. Amongst them, a letter received three years ago from Vivien’s uncle. Along with the description of her ‘pleasing compliance’ (I was as riled when I read that line tonight as I was at the time—how little he ever saw of the real Vivien!) he had enclosed a photograph, still folded in with the letter. She was seventeen years old when it was taken, and such a beauty—I remembered thinking, when I saw it those years ago, that she looked like the character from a fairy tale, Red Riding Hood, perhaps; wide eyes and heart-shaped lips; and still the direct and innocent gaze of a child. I remembered hoping, too, that there was no Big Bad Wolf waiting for her in the woods.
That the letter and its photograph should have come to light today of all days gave me pause. I was not wrong the last time I had one