the contrary, it was her mother’s lack of history that kept Laurel imprisoned. One couldn’t help but appreciate the irony.)
A glad thing happened then: just as Laurel was losing hope of learning anything of importance, Kitty paused midway through her account to scold Susanna for having taken too long pouring the tea. Laurel seized her chance, wresting the conversation back to Dorothy Smitham. ‘What a tremendous story, Mrs Barker,’ she said, using her most Dame-ish, actressy tone, ‘Fascinating—tremendous bravery all round. But what of my mother? Can you tell me a little bit about her?’ Interruption was clearly not customary, and a stunned silence befell proceedings. Kitty canted her head as if trying to divine an explanation for such effrontery, while Susanna took assiduous care to avoid Laurel’s eyes as she made a wobbly job pouring the tea.
Laurel refused to be abashed. A small childish part of her enjoyed having shut down Kitty’s monologue. She’d taken a liking to Susanna, and the woman’s mother was a bully; Laurel had been taught to stand up to those. She continued cheerfully: ‘Did Ma help out with the efforts at home?’
‘Dolly did her bit,’ said Kitty grudgingly. ‘All of us at the house were part of a roster, taking it in turns to sit on the roof with a bucket of sand and a stirrup pump.’
‘And what about socially?’
‘She enjoyed a good time, as did we all. There was a war on. One had to take pleasure where one found it.’
Susanna offered the milk and sugar tray but Laurel waved it away. ‘I expect a pair of pretty young girls like you must have had a lot of boyfriends, too.’
‘Of course.’
‘Was there anyone special for my mother, do you know?’
‘There was a fellow,’ said Kitty, taking a sip of black tea. ‘Only I can’t for the life of me think what his name was now.’
But Laurel had an idea—it had come to her suddenly. Last Thursday at the birthday party, the nurse had said Ma was asking after someone, wondering why he hadn’t been to visit. At the time, Laurel had presumed she’d misheard, that it was Gerry she was asking after; now, though, having seen the way her mother’s thoughts were drifting between the present and the past, Laurel knew that she’d been wrong. ‘Jimmy,’ she said. ‘Was the man’s name Jimmy?’
‘Yes!’ said Kitty. ‘Yes, that’s it. I remember now, I used to tease her and say he was her very own Jimmy Stewart. Not that I ever met him, mind, I was only guessing at his looks from what she’d told me.’
‘You never met him?’ That was odd, Ma and Kitty had been friends, they’d lived together, they were young—meeting one another’s boyfriends would have been de rigueur, surely.
‘Not even once. She was very particular about that. He was RAF and far too busy to pay visits.’ Kitty’s mouth pursed in a rather sly manner. ‘So she said, anyway.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Only that my Tom was RAF and he was most certainly not too busy to come calling, if you know what I mean.’ She grinned fiendishly, and Laurel smiled to show that yes, she understood perfectly well.
‘You think my mother might have lied?’ she pressed.
‘Not lied, exactly, so much as embroidered the truth. It was always hard to tell with Dolly. She had quite an imagination.’
Laurel knew that well enough. All the same it seemed strange that she’d have kept the man she loved a secret from her friends. People in love usually wanted to trumpet it from the rooftops and Ma had never been one to keep her emotions concealed.
unless there’d been something about Jimmy that meant his identity needed to be kept secret. There was a war on—perhaps he’d really been a spy. That would certainly explain Dorothy’s secrecy, her inability to marry the man she loved, her own need to escape. Tying Henry and Vivien Jenkins to the scenario was going to be a little more problematic, unless Henry had somehow found out about Jimmy and it posed a threat to national security—
‘Dolly never brought Jimmy home because the old woman whose house it was didn’t approve of male visitors,’ Kitty said, casually poking a needle into the balloon of Laurel’s grand theory. ‘Old Lady Gwendolyn had a sister once—thick as thieves they were when they were young; lived together in the house at Campden Grove, and never one went that the other didn’t follow. It all broke apart, though, when the younger one fell in love