The house was still and silent, no cook downstairs rolling out pastry for the dinner pie, no maid wrestling with the vacuum cord. Vivien missed Sarah; the poor girl had cried, embarrassed and ashamed, when Vivien came across the two of them together that afternoon; Henry had been livid, his pleasure spoiled and his dignity wrinkled. He’d punished Sarah’s compliance by letting her go; he’d punished Vivien’s timing by making her stay.
And so here they were, just the two of them. Henry and Vivien Jenkins, a man and his wife. Henry was one of my brightest students, her uncle had said when he told her what the two men had discussed in his smoke-filled study He’s a distinguished gentleman. You’re very lucky that he’s interested in you. ‘I think I’ll go upstairs and lie down,’ she said, after a time that seemed interminable.
‘Tired, darling?’
‘Yes.’ Vivien tried to smile. ‘The raids. The whole of London’s tired, I suppose.’
‘Yes.’ He came towards her with lips that smiled and eyes that didn’t. ‘I suppose they probably are.’
Henry’s fist hit her left ear first and the ringing was deafening. The force sent her face into the entrance-hall wall and she fell to the floor. He was on top of her then, grabbing at her dress, shaking her, his handsome face twisting with anger as he hit her. He was shouting too, spittle coming from his mouth, landing on her face, her neck, his eyes glinting as he told her over and over that she belonged to him and she always would, she was his prize, that he’d never let another man touch her, he’d sooner see her dead than let her go.
Vivien closed her eyes; she knew it drove him wild with rage when she refused to look at him. Sure enough he shook her harder, gripped her by the throat, shouted closer to her ear.
In the black of her mind, Vivien looked for the creek, the shining lights …
She never fought back, even when her fists clenched hard at her sides, and that balled-up part of her, the essence of Vivien Longmeyer that she’d tucked away so long ago, wrestled for release. Her uncle might have struck the deal in his smoky study, but Vivien had had her own reasons for being so compliant. Katy had tried her best to change her mind, but Vivien had always been stubborn. This was her penance, she knew, it was what she deserved. Her fists were the reason she’d been punished in the first place; the reason she’d been left at home; the reason her family had hurried back from the picnic and been lost.
Her mind was liquid now; she was in the tunnel, swimming down and down, her arms and legs strong as they pulled her through the water towards home …
Vivien didn’t mind being punished; she just wondered when it would end. When he would put an end to her. Because he would one day, of that she was certain. Vivien held her breath, waiting, hoping, this might be it. For each time she woke and found herself still here in the house on Campden Grove, the well of despair inside her deepened.
The water was warmer now; she was getting closer. In the distance, the first twinkling lights. Vivien swam towards them …
What would happen, she wondered, when he did kill her? Knowing Henry he’d have the wherewithal to make sure some-one else took the blame. Or else he’d have it seem she’d died by accident—an unfortunate fall, bad luck in the air raids. Wrong place, wrong time, people would say, shaking their heads, and Henry would be cast evermore as the devoted grieving husband. He’d probably write a book about it, about her, a fantasy version of Vivien, just like the other one, The Reluctant Muse, about that horrid pliable girl she didn’t recognise, who worshipped her author husband and dreamed of dresses and parties.
The lights were bright now, nearer, and Vivien could make out shimmering patterns. She looked beyond them though, it was what lay beyond that she had come to find …
The room tilted. Henry was finished. He picked her up and she felt her body slump like a rag doll, limp in his arms. She ought to do it herself. Take rocks, or bricks—something heavy—and put them in her pockets; walk into the Serpentine, one step at a time, until she saw the lights. He was kissing her face, smothering it with wet kisses.