Under the map stood Nick’s writing desk – one of the lovely old roll-top ones with leather and brass all over. It looked so intriguing that I started my search there, lifting the top to find a few letters ready to post, the normal assortment of pens and notepaper; some old correspondence in the drawers; and, in the very bottom one, a clutch of letters neatly gathered in ribbon. Although the ink on the envelopes was fading, I knew the hand: it was the same as in the book that I had stashed under my shoes in our bedroom. With some trepidation, I untied the ribbon. The notepaper was scented – it must have been old because you couldn’t get that sort of paper any more.
It’s one thing to know that your husband was once in love with another woman. It’s another to know that he kept her letters.
28th April 1942
Darling Boy,
I’ve just landed in New York. Eleanor and Harry met me off what they think is called an ‘airplane’ (‘Well, it flies through the air, don’t it?’) and drove me straight to their little place on Long Island. I say ‘little place’ but they have clearly dug up Canada to build their garage and drained most of the North Atlantic to fill their swimming pool. I therefore made sure to chuckle loudly at all the inconsistencies in architectural style and smile in a condescending manner at their attempt to re-create Versailles in a town where they think Versailles is a type of fish. I think they got the message. Well, if you can’t insult two of your closest friends, who can you insult? Although it’s now after midnight and I’m almost as tired as their wallpaper, I’m lying on my four-poster bed and dreaming of the best ways to insult their children. Will write again when they have asked me to leave.
Kiss Hazel for me.
20th August 1942
Darling Boy,
Hollywood is a God-awful place. Yes, yes, all the sunshine is nice, and they seem to have pink gins coming out of their ears, but the town is full of the worst sort of harpies ready to fall backwards with their legs in the air if it means an audition. Half of them have a permanent grin like a hyena. It’s stuck on with lipstick and regular injections from a doctor, Max Jacobson, who everyone here calls Dr Feelgood. I have no idea what’s in those shots, but I have to say that after I gave one a go I was dancing from Friday night until lunchtime on Tuesday. He was telling me how he could get hold of the latest medical drugs in big quantities when a Yank officer marched over, announced that his name was Colonel Hank Dee, that he was a huge admirer of mine and that he would be honoured to take me out for a drive. I politely told the good doctor I would talk to him later about his offer and allowed Col. Dee to escort me away. You would have been endearingly jealous, as you always are, but don’t worry – the dear Colonel is sixty if he’s a day (not that that stops them over here!).
He says he’s in the Education Corps and he has all those lovely manners of the old-fashioned Southern gentleman – but behind Col. Dee’s eyes there’s a light that’s burning just a little bit too bright for the classroom, if you know what I mean. So when we were in his car, taking a nice evening drive through the hills, we chatted about Britain right now and is it true that half the House of Commons and a smattering of the idiot sons of the Lords are red to the bone? They absolutely loathe Stalin over here. As well as being a commie, they think he’s a coward for staying out of the War. Not surprising, really. And my new friend IS terribly sweet, with all that ‘Why ma’am, ah’m jus’ a simple country boy from South Carolina’ flim-flam. Do you think I should see him again?
And don’t worry, Darling Boy, I’ve only got eyes for you. Well, when I’m in London anyway. Right now there’s a charming little cornball from somewhere called ‘Iowa’ with muscles like a Studebaker car who keeps following me around. Maybe tonight will be Chuck’s lucky night!
Kiss Hazel for me.
I checked the date on Lorelei’s letters. They had been written when Hazel was about four. The marriage had lasted another seven years, give or take.
‘What are you doing?’
I spun around to see Hazel standing behind me. I stared at the page in my hand. ‘It’s nothing,’ I said quickly. It was like being caught stealing – and I was stealing something: a part of Nick’s past. My first instinct was to hide the letter, but it was too late for that. Hazel came closer and looked down at it.
‘That’s my mum,’ she said.
‘It’s an old letter to your father.’
She took it out of my hand and read it. ‘She was in Hollywood for a bit,’ she said.
‘I’m sure she missed you.’ I realized that I was speaking as if I knew her. Strange to be so famous, a household name to millions, and yet so unknown. I wondered if Nick had really known her, or if she had always played a part with him too.
‘Did you meet her?’ Hazel asked.
‘Just once. At a party.’ I couldn’t help but think of that night as I put the letters back in the desk.
‘She told me that I could do anything. That I would be more beautiful than her.’ She tried to smile but it didn’t work. ‘She said people would write films just for me to star in them.’
‘It’s going to happen,’ I said, stroking her cheek and hoping a real smile would come. But her expression changed to confusion.
‘What are you doing in here?’ A note of suspicion, of faint mistrust.
‘It’s nothing. I just need to find something.’
‘Is it to help Dad?’
‘Yes. I think it will help.’
‘I’ll do it with you.’ She probably just wanted something to take her mind away from her mother for a short while.
‘There’s no need.’ I was sorry to push her away, but I couldn’t involve a child in this. I sat in Nick’s chair; it shook slightly. ‘And it’s not always safe to go poking around in the past.’
‘That’s what you’re doing,’ she insisted.
‘Yes. But I know what I’m getting into.’
‘All right.’ She looked down and her eyes teared up again before she left. Poor girl.
There was nothing else in the desk. I even searched it for secret compartments, which some of these old desks have. After that, I took a look inside the boxes lining the walls, which proved to be full of medical records. Perhaps the reason that the Secs had arrested Nick had nothing to do with Lorelei after all, and the reason really lay in these records – a powerful patient with a secret illness, or someone who had died when he shouldn’t have done – but they may as well have been written in a foreign language for all that I understood of them.
I moved back to the desk and hesitated, far from sure that I was doing the right thing, but I gripped the tarnished brass handle on the bottom drawer and pulled it towards me, lifting the letters out again. As I did so, I noticed something new. The bottom of the drawer felt different to the others – papery where the others had been smooth wood. I pulled it out entirely and turned it upside down, to find that what I had thought was the bottom was, in fact, a sheet of white paper cut to perfectly fit the base. It fluttered out and fell to the floor; and with it fell a photograph.
I recognized the pair in that picture, their faces displaying happy and confident expressions that seemed to say the sun would never dim. But it would one day. And I saw too that Nick and Lorelei weren’t alone. They stood beside a car, an expensive open-roofed one, and at the wheel sat a pale woman with her black hair tied back. All three had wine glasses in their hands, seemingly toasting something. Across the bottom, in Lorelei’s handwriting, were the words, ‘To a brighter future!’ I pondered them. Such optimism and confidence, but it wasn’t high hopes for the state – no, this was a private affair. There was something between them that they thought was going to work out well.