Chapter 26
Henry organized the funeral with remarkable finesse and care, to Tom’s surprise.
Jenny had left meticulous instructions with her brother, picking the church, her favourite hymns – ‘I Vow to Thee My Country’, ‘All People that on Earth Do Dwell’ – and readings: Henry himself read, most beautifully, ‘To Every Thing There is a Season’ from Ecclesiastes.
She had had heart disease, Henry told Tom, as though Tom should have known.
‘The doctor kept saying she should go for a rest cure, should move out of London, but I honestly don’t think she listened to a word of what he ever said to her.
’ He was bright-eyed, feverish. ‘That was our Jenny. Didn’t hear what she didn’t want to hear.
’ The death of his sister seemed to have woken him up, even if only temporarily, from a long, slow decline.
‘Been killing her for years. Doctor said he was amazed she lasted this long.’
‘I didn’t know.’
‘She didn’t want you to know, Tom. Wanted to press on with it.’ Henry had smiled politely, without any warmth, and gone over to the drinks tray. ‘Ah. All out of Johnnie Walker. Might be time to finish some of that sherry Jenny liked. After all, she’s not going to want it now, is she?’
The last of the old Notting Hill families came to St John’s, the church that had been built at the same time as the curved crescents and white stucco streets around it.
Old friends of their parents, people Tom had never met before, connections lost after the war and because of Henry and Jenny’s reticence about – well, everything.
Gordon was there, having slipped in at the back.
The Reverend Bryant of Jenny’s Spiritualist Church stayed away, miffed at not being asked to officiate, and being told by Henry, galvanized by his sister’s death, to hop it if he thought there was anything in it for him.
Through his grief and pain Tom rather liked this new Uncle Henry.
My dear Tom
I wanted to tell you how sorry I was to hear of Jenny’s death. She loved you, Tom, I know she did. You had a grand education, and now you have come down from Oxford, and the world lies ahead of you, and that is because of Jenny, pushing for you, all these years.
I loved her like a sister. I caused her great pain and she tried her best to forgive me. Through you, she found a way to do so.
I will always remember her at Sevenstones, in ’42, dancing with a friend on the terrace, her sandy-gold hair shimmering in the light from the sitting room.
She was alive then. I think she was in the wrong life.
You gave her a chance to change someone else’s life. I hope you will remember her for that.
I will come to see you soon, my boy. You are with me always.
Dad
A month after the funeral, Tom had taken a job working as a labourer over at the Westway, building the flyover. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to contribute some rent to his uncle, and to pay for the odd pint with Johnny Hillman at the Ladbroke Arms now and again.
‘Come and be a postman,’ Johnny would say every time. ‘Think you’re too good for us, with your nobby education, don’t you? The Royal Mail’s where you want to be, Raven. Good pay, outdoors, and you’re all done by twelve.’
Tom could see the attraction of a job where you worked half a day.
But he knew that Jenny was watching him, had not got on that train and tramped her way over the hills and up the Old Military Road to his cottage all those years ago to bring him to London so he could be a postman.
‘I think my aunt had an idea of my being an architect,’ he said.
‘She isn’t here, though, is she?’ said Johnny. ‘So what’s it matter?’
Tom would shrug. ‘Maybe it doesn’t.’
‘What do you want to do?’
‘I like building things, you see. She was right,’ Tom said. ‘I’d like to build something, one day.’
‘Building things,’ Johnny had said, nodding. ‘I’ve got a mate who can give you a job if you want. Desperate for men, they are.’
‘Wonderful,’ said Tom.
‘When you said building things, Tom old chum, it really is building things, you understand?’
‘Yes, I understand.’
‘You think you can do that, what with …’ He winked, pointing at Tom’s bad eye. ‘You got to be strong.’
In response, Tom put his hand under the table and raised it up with one hand.
‘Yep,’ said Tom. ‘I think I can. Ask your pal if I can come and speak to them tomorrow.’
‘Trying to prove something,’ Johnny said into his pint. ‘Pathetic.’ But he was smiling, nodding at Tom. ‘All right, then. Think you got yourself a job.’
Four months after Jenny’s death, Tom had to go to Kensington and Chelsea Town Hall to collect her death certificate, and he left work early.
On the walk home from Kensington through the white-and-black crescents and squares, he felt autumn, creeping towards him in the silent, sunny streets, the slight chill in the air, and in his head he could hear and see as he did so frequently since her death, his aunt arriving that day in Scotland, how she had buttoned up her jacket and walked over the hill from the train station, two miles in little leather shoes, to fetch him to London.
Tom patted the death certificate in his coat pocket, feeling desolation spread over him at the thought of another evening at home with his uncle.
He had not seen Guy since his break-up with Celia; Antoine was still in Paris. Gordon was away for the summer; his Pembroke friends were either scattered to the four winds or too embarrassed to get in touch.
As he stared idly at the front facade of the house, fishing around for his keys, Henry opened the door, unsmiling.
‘Sorry,’ said Tom. ‘I –’
‘Doesn’t matter. Where’s your dinner jacket?’ said Henry. ‘I can’t find mine. There’s a party at the Grosvenor I’d rather like to go to.’
Henry would travel into Mayfair on buses in his black tie, gatecrash smart parties, drink all their champagne and eat all their canapés, then catch the bus back. He did this two or three times a week.
Tom stopped, wondering why he felt rather sick. ‘Not sure,’ he said, but something was pushing up the memory, knocking at the door, begging for it to be opened. ‘I think it’s in my room,’ he said eventually.
With a half-wave, Henry walked slowly into the drawing room.
Tom went upstairs. It was not until he was halfway up the stairs, staring at the missing spindles, that he remembered where his dinner jacket was, and that he hadn’t worn it since the day he found Jenny, and then the memory started to emerge.
He could feel it, burrowing out from the deepest recesses of his mind, towards the front of his brain, into the space where he could recall it.
The note.
She had written him a note.
He had shoved it into the breast pocket of his dinner jacket the day he found her. Her cold, soft hand. Hair flowing across the floor. The scent of roses. He had been reading it – a sound – a deer in the garden, then the ambulance came and he’d put the note away, had wiped it utterly from his mind.
He knew where the jacket was – in the giant wardrobe in the hallway outside his tiny old bedroom. Tom moved like a fox, slowly, carefully, not wanting to be heard. He crept upstairs, to the top floor.
Tom didn’t know why he didn’t want Henry to hear him.
He didn’t know why he was shaking. He reached the wardrobe, gently plucked the letter from the jacket and went into his bedroom, shutting the door behind him and putting a chair under the handle, just to be sure.
Then he sat down on the narrow bed, the drawings of his old life closing in on him for the last time in the fading autumn light as he read.
Dear Tom
I thought I’d come here one last time. I know I am dying – my heart, it is gradually, slowly, giving up on me. Today is very bad, forgive my handwriting. I am not sure that I will finish the letter.
I loved someone. She is called Teddy Kynaston.
They are hiding her from me. They took her away and the letters stopped two years ago.
A kind man, her family’s accountant, was writing to me about her.
But I had a note from the housekeeper to say he had died, and I don’t hear anything of her any more.
Valhalla, Orchard, Hudson River, New York. I lied when I told you it was my family’s ring. It was not. It was hers. I couldn’t find a way to tell you. I’ve told lots of lies.
She gave me that ring you are giving to that beautiful girl today to make your own family. It was her mother’s. She gave it to me to give to you. Before she left. I promised one day I would rescue her. The pain is so awful, Tom darling.
Give Teddy the ring, please, Tom – go and give it back to her. You can give that dear girl any other ring. But Teddy needs it back. To complete the circle. You must. And tell her I loved her.
You must go to find her. Please.
She is your mother, Tom, she is your mother.