you tell Ms Nicolson—Laurel—’ Karen flushed, as she re-entered the room, ‘about Gramps?’ She slid a tray of tea things onto the coffee table, cutting a swathe through a forest of children’s craft materials and sat beside her husband on the sofa. Without so much as a sideways glance, she handed a biscuit to a little girl with brown ringlets who’d sensed the arrival of sweets and appeared from nowhere.
‘My grandfather,’ Marty explained. ‘He’s the one who got me hooked on your work. I’m a fan, but he was religious. He never missed a single one of your plays.’
Laurel smiled, pleased and trying not to seem it; she was charmed by this family and their delightful scruffy home. ‘Surely he must have missed one.’
‘Never.’
‘Tell Laurel about his foot,’ said Karen, rubbing gently at her husband’s arm.
Marty laughed. ‘He broke his foot one year and made them release him from hospital early so he could see you in As You Like It.’ He used to take me with him when I was still small enough to need three cushions just to see over the seat in front of me.’
‘He sounds like a man of splendid taste.’ Laurel was flirting, not just with Marty, but with all of them; she felt rather appreciated. It was a good thing Iris wasn’t there to witness it.
‘He was,’ Marty said with a smile. ‘I loved him dearly. We lost him ten years ago, but not a day goes by that I don’t miss him.’ He pushed his black frames higher on his nose and said, ‘But enough about us. Forgive me—I blame the surprise of seeing you—we haven’t even asked yet why you’ve come to see us. Presumably it wasn’t to hear about Gramps.’
‘It’s a rather long story, actually,’ Laurel said, taking the cup of tea she was offered, stirring in some milk. ‘I’ve been re-searching my family history, in particular my mother’s side, and it turns out she was once -’ Laurel hesitated before saying—‘friendly, with the people who lived in this house.’
‘When would that have been, do you know?’
‘The late 1930s and the early years of the war.’
A nerve pulled at Martin’s eyebrow. ‘How extraordinary.’
‘What was your mother’s friend’s name?’ Karen said.
‘Vivien,’ said Laurel. ‘Vivien Jenkins.’
Marty and Karen exchanged a glance and Laurel looked be-tween them. She said, ‘Did I say something odd?’
‘No, not odd, only—’ Marty smiled at his hands as he collected his thoughts—‘we know that name rather well here.’
‘You do?’ Laurel’s heart had begun to thump rather loudly. They were Vivien’s descendants, of course they were. A child Laurel hadn’t learned about, a nephew—
‘It’s rather a peculiar story, actually, one of those that’s entered family legend.’
Laurel nodded eagerly, willing him to continue as she took a sip of tea.
‘My great-grandfather Bertie inherited this house, you see, during the Second World War. He was unwell, the story goes, and very poor: he’d worked all his life but times were tough—there was a war on, after all—and he was living in a tiny flat near Stepney, being looked after by an old neighbour, when one day out of the blue, he received a visit from a fancy lawyer who told him he’d been left this place.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Laurel said.
‘Neither did he,’ said Martin. ‘But the lawyer was quite clear on the matter. A woman named Vivien Jenkins, whom my great-grandfather had never heard of, had made him the sole beneficiary of her will.’
‘He didn’t know her?’
‘Never heard of her.’
‘But that’s so peculiar.’
‘I agree. And he didn’t want to come here at first. He suffered with dementia; he didn’t like change; you can imagine how much of a shock it was—so he stayed where he was and the house sat empty, until his son, my grandfather, came back from the war and was able to convince the old man that it wasn’t a trick.’
‘Your grandfather had known Vivien then?’
‘He had, but he never talked about her. He was pretty open, my gramps, but there were a few subjects on which he’d never be drawn. She was one of them; the other was the war.’
‘I believe that’s not uncommon,’ Laurel said. ‘All the horrors those poor men saw.’
‘Yes.’ His face fell into a sad frown. ‘But it was more than that for Gramps.’
‘Oh?’
‘He was drafted into service from prison.’
‘Oh, I see.’
‘He was rather spare with the details, but I did some checking.’ Marty looked a little sheepish and lowered his voice as he continued, ‘I found the police records and learned that one