it open, pulling out the contents. It was a booklet, the official museum guide from his grandfather James Metcalfe’s exhibition at the V&A ten years before. ‘Thought you might like this. Regards, Martin,’ said the note pinned to its cover. ‘Come and see us next time you’re in London?’ Laurel had a good idea she might; she liked Karen and Marty and their kids, the little boy with the Lego plane and the faraway look in his eyes; they felt like family in a strange, muddled-up way; all of them joined together by those fateful events of 1941.
She flicked through the booklet, admiring once again the glorious talent of James Metcalfe, the way he’d succeeded somehow in capturing more than a mere image with his camera, managing to tell an entire story out of the disparate elements of a single moment. And such important stories, too—they were a record, these photographs, of a historical experience that would be almost inconceivable without them. She wondered if Jimmy had known that at the time; if, as he captured small instances of individual grief and loss on film, he’d realised the tremendous memorial he was sending forward into the future.
Laurel smiled at the photograph of Nella, and then paused when she came to a loose photo, pinned at the back, a copy of the one she’d noticed in Campden Grove, the picture of Ma. Laurel detached it, holding it close and taking in each of her mother’s beautiful features; she was putting it back, when she noticed the final photograph in the booklet, a self-portrait of James Metcalfe, taken, it said, in 1954.
It gave her a strange feeling, that picture, and at first she put it down to the crucial part Jimmy had played in her mother’s life; the things Ma had told her about his kindness and the way he’d made her happy when there was little other light in her life. But then, as she looked longer, Laurel became more certain that it was something else making her feel this way; something stronger; more personal.
And then, suddenly, she remembered.
Laurel fell back against the chair and gazed at the sky, a smile spreading wide and disbelieving across her face. Every-thing was illuminated.
She knew why the name ‘Vivien’ had struck her so strongly when she heard it from Rose in the hospital; she knew how Jimmy had known to send the anonymous thank-you card for Vivien to Dorothy Nicolson at Greenacres Farm; she knew why she’d been experiencing little jolts of deja vu every time she looked at that Coronation stamp.
God help her—Laurel couldn’t help but laugh—she even understood the riddle of the man at the stage door. The mysterious quote, so familiar yet impossible to place. It wasn’t from a play at all; that’s why she’d had so much trouble—she’d been racking the wrong part of her brain; the quote was from a long-ago day, a conversation she’d completely forgotten until now …
Thirty-four
Greenacres, 1953
THE BEST THING about being eight years old was that Laurel could finally turn proper cartwheels. She’d been doing them all summer long, and her record so far was three hundred and twenty-six in a row, all the way from the top of the driveway to where Daddy’s old tractor stood. This morning, though, she’d set herself a new challenge—she was going to see how many it took to go all the way around the house, and she was going to do it as quickly as she could.
The problem was the side gate. Every time she got to it (forty-seven -sometimes forty-eight—cartwheels in), she marked her spot in the dust where the hens had pecked away the grass, ran to pin it open and then hurried back to her mark. But by the time she raised her hands, preparing to turn herself over, the gate had creaked itself back shut. She thought about propping something against it, but the hens were a naughty bunch and would be just as likely to flap their way into the vegetable patch if she gave them half the chance.
Still, she couldn’t think that there was any other way she was going to complete her cartwheel lap. She cleared her throat like her teacher Miss Plimpton did whenever she had a grave announcement to make, and said, ‘Now, listen here, you lot—’ pointing her finger for good mea- sure—‘I’m going to leave this gate open, but only for a minute. If any of you has any bright ideas about sneaking out when I turn