The parcel arrived the second week of December and was left with all the other unopened post, stacked deep on the sideboard in the hall.
Zoe was cloistered in her studio working on her robins and Win was living a life of sheer hedonism. Not that Zoe was bitter or resentful that she was surviving on cereal while Win was taken out to lunch by grateful clients and had a party every night. He’d return home anywhere on the drunk scale from mildly merry to absolutely steaming. One night he’d collapsed into bed reeking of tequila (apparently someone had dropped a tray of shots over him) and the kebab he’d eaten on the way home and Zoe had made him sleep in the spare room.
Then it was December the twenty-first. The robins had been signed off and Win’s office closed at lunchtime, not to open again until the new year.
‘Who are you and what have you done with my wife?’ Win asked when he came home to find Zoe dressed in something that wasn’t sagging yoga pants and a baggy jumper, vacuuming while Florence cowered unhappily halfway up the stairs. ‘You need to use a different setting for rugs and also, this isn’t a criticism just an observation, moving the sofa rather than trying to get the vacuum head as far under it as you can would be a lot more effective.’
‘Or you could just do it yourself,’ Zoe suggested. Win muttered but he put down his briefcase and took over the Miele, which Zoe relinquished with a serene smile. ‘I’ll go and make lunch.’
The big Christmas supermarket delivery had come that morning so they could have something fancier than cereal and Zoe was just taking the cheese and Parma ham sandwiches out from under the grill when Win came into the kitchen with one of the piles of post.
‘Some of this is from three weeks ago, Zo,’ he said in a tone of the mildest censure. ‘And all of it is addressed to you.’
‘This is just like the old days,’ Zoe said breezily. ‘Not opening my post until you perform an intervention. Will you fish out anything that looks like a Christmas card so I can make a list and write mine out tonight?’
‘I’ve already written out and sent off our Christmas cards because the last posting date was Tuesday gone.’ Win sighed. ‘I’m like the god of husbands.’
‘You absolutely are.’ Zoe wasn’t going to argue about that.
They started on the post as they ate lunch. Minus the Christmas cards that Win had already dealt with, the rest was a motley collection of catalogues, special offers and financial statements and it wasn’t until they tackled the third and final pile that Zoe got to the bulging jiffy bag.
Inside there was something swathed in an ocean of bubble wrap, a document folder and an envelope addressed to Zoe.
‘Maybe the contract for The Highgate Woods Mysteries and a lovely box of chocolates from my new publisher,’ she said hopefully as she took out a handwritten letter.
Dear Zoe and Win
It was wonderful to meet you the other week and to see the miracles you’ve performed on an unloved old house. Arthur and I are very happy that we chose you as the new owners.
Now, onto more pressing matters. Having scanned and copied the contents, we’re returning Libby’s diary and papers, as we feel that they belong with you and the house.
As we told you, Daddy left behind a staggering amount of paper spread between three different houses in three different countries. Someone from Daddy’s literary agents has been pulling it all together along with another chap who’ll be writing his biography.
Neither of them had heard of Libby but then they hadn’t had a chance to look at any of Daddy’s correspondence that pre-dated his Faraday novels.
Well, when they did, they uncovered something quite extraordinary! Daddy’s first piece of spycraft, as Arthur calls it. I won’t reveal any more but direct your attention to the collection of letters we’ve had copied for you.
Do get in touch once you’ve read and digested everything. Can’t wait to hear your thoughts.
Fondest regards
Marisa
Zoe handed the letter to Win who read it quickly, then turned to Zoe with a resolute expression.
‘We have to start on the Christmas shopping this afternoon,’ he said with grim determination. ‘We’ve left it to the last moment and you know how I feel about that.’
Zoe was already reaching for the document folder. ‘If we make a list, a very targeted list, and we get up ridiculously early tomorrow so we’re at Brent Cross as it opens, we can get most of it done in a few hours.’
‘No! We said we’d do it this afternoon.’ Win’s eyes drifted to the folder that Zoe was waving in front of him. ‘OK, look, we can read a couple of letters to find out what happened to Freddy after Libby died. What’s the matter? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.’
Zoe felt like she’d just seen a ghost too. She’d taken out the first letter and well, she’d recognise that handwriting anywhere, but the date… the date was wrong.
The Gables
Primrose Lane,
Chertsey, Surrey
21st December, 1936
Dear Freddy
Such a shock to see one’s own death announcement but as you said, no one would dare question the veracity of anything that appeared in The Times. (I do hope that your friend who works there won’t get into any trouble.)
It’s quite a sobering thought to think that practically everyone I know, from your mother and the aunts to Potts (though if Potts is really in touch with the other side I’m sure he already knows that I’ve been unavoidably detained) and all my old theatre pals believe that I’m dead and because they do, I can never go back to my old life.
It’s also quite ghoulish but I rather wish there was a funeral so I could sit unobtrusively at the back and find out what people really thought of me. Though Beryl, who came to visit on Saturday, said it wouldn’t be much fun if it turned out that people thought quite horrible things about one.
Anyway, though I am alive, I’m not in the rudest health. I’m so awfully tired but finding it hard to sleep with the pickle kicking like they’re in the chorus line at the Gaiety. I’m not allowed out of bed at all, a nurse bustles in with a bedpan every hour whether I need one or not.
But I am so grateful to be alive. We’ve told a wicked lie, tempted fate, but I believe with all my heart it was the right thing to do. That the pickle and I belong together and nothing else matters.
And so I thank you and Beryl (as you know, I was wary of involving Beryl at all but I never imagined that she had it in her to be so devious) from the bottom of that same heart.
Keep everything crossed for us.
Libby xxx
‘Next one,’ Win said hoarsely.
Zoe was already reaching for a letter written in an unknown hand.
January 19th, 1937
Freddy
Just a quick note as am almost out of the door to catch the train to Liverpool and then the boat to New York!
Matron called to say that Libby was taken to the local hospital and delivered of a baby girl this morning. A little earlier than hoped for, but baby is doing well, though on the small side. Five pounds, three ounces. Healthy set of lungs – Matron said that she screamed blue murder as soon as she was born.
Libby is quite weak but they don’t expect any complications from the surgery. Still, one does worry about infections and the like so she and baby will stay in hospital for the time being.
Such happy news when a few weeks ago we thought we’d lost both of them.
Please do go and see Libby when she’s back at the nursing home and take pictures. Will write en route with New York address etc.
Best wishes
Beryl Marjoribanks
The Gables
Primrose Lane
Chertsey, Surrey
February 14th, 1937
Oh, Freddy!
You should see her. My pickle. She’s so perfect that my heart breaks, then mends again, every time I look at her, hold her in my arms, take her to my breast. My whole world is new now that this precious, gorgeous girl is here.
I’m back at the nursing home and though I’m happier than I’ve ever been, there are times that I feel quite, quite sad.
I suppose I wish that things had been different. I know that if he could see her, hold her, then Hugo would love the baby too and it feels rotten to have played such a cruel trick on him, but what else could I have done? I can’t help but cry when I think that the sweet pickle won’t know her father but I’ll just have to love her enough that she’ll never feel his absence.
Please come and see me, Freddy. Now that Beryl’s gone, you’re the only person who knows I still exist and I’m lonesome and blue.
Kisses from me and the pickle.
Libby xxx
The Gables
Primrose Lane
Chertsey, Surrey
March 7th, 1937
Dear Freddy
I’ve been moved from the main building to a little cottage in the grounds that I share with another girl and her baby, whose people are in Kenya.
I’m being readied to return to the real world and the prospect seems terrifying, but then, also rather exciting.
It was lovely to see you the other day and though your offer was so sweet and generous (oh, why couldn’t you have been so sweet and generous first time around?) we both know that we would never make each other happy.
Besides, you’re about to go off to Germany and Italy to write your book about the Fascist menace and I’ve decided that it’s for the best if I go overseas too.
Beryl has offered me a job teaching dance, music and movement again. Her new school isn’t in New York but somewhere in the suburbs called Scarsdale and accommodation would come with the position. It seems a good solution to this rather large problem.
What I will accept is your offer to buy the house. Not for what it must have cost Hugo – you don’t have that kind of money. Shall we say four hundred pounds, which is untold riches to me? If you could send me one hundred pounds initially to cover my medical expenses and get me to New York then you can wire me the rest, as and when you’re able. Does that sound fair?
One last thing, Freddy. I’m so much better than I was and the pickle (I will have to start calling her by her name soon, otherwise she’ll be going off to school and I’ll still be calling her the pickle) is such a good baby, hardly fusses at all, but I’m dreading the journey to New York on my own.
Do you think Hannah could be persuaded to leave Willoughby Square and come with me? It means that you’ll have to break it to her (gently, please, Freddy) that I’m not dead after all – you said she’d been so upset and I do hope she’ll forgive me. Knowing Hannah though, I’m sure she’ll adore all the intrigue. I’ll pay her twice what your mother does and if she’s unhappy in America, I’ll pay her passage back to England.
If she agrees, would you bring her down to me, Freddy? I would so love to see you one last time before I leave although it won’t really be goodbye. I wouldn’t be surprised if five years or fifty years from now we bump into each other in a bar or at a hotel and it will be as if the time had just melted away.
What you did to keep me safe means that you will always have a piece of my heart that I won’t give to anyone else, just as a piece of my heart will forever belong to Hugo because he gave me my beautiful girl. And yet, I still have plenty of heart left, that’s the wonderful thing.
Love
Libby xxx
Zoe stretched her arms above her head. It was just after three. Already the shadows were lengthening, the sky glimpsed through the kitchen windows darkening.
Libby. Lovely Libby had cheated death. Or rather Freddy had cheated death on her behalf and now she had a brand new baby, was on the verge of a new life. Zoe felt ripe with possibility herself. Except she hadn’t had to move half a world away for her second chance, it was here in the city she loved, in this house that she was growing to love, with the man who’d once been the boy she’d fallen in love with.
Like Libby, she still had enough heart, still plenty of love to go spare, to lavish on new people, even the ones that weren’t here yet.
‘Don’t cry,’ Win said and he brushed a tear from Zoe’s cheek with the pad of his thumb. ‘Look, we could leave the Christmas shopping for tomorrow, if you wanted.’
Zoe followed his gaze to the folder, which was still thick with paper.
‘I’ll put the kettle on, shall I?’ she asked, making no move to get up but instead pulling out the next letter.
The White Cottage
Santa Monica
California
12th October, 1937
Dear Freddy
Well, we never made it to New York! I met a charming man on the boat (he was travelling with his equally charming wife) who’d been talent scouting in England for MGM.
To cut a long story short, I’m now employed at MGM as their ‘Charm Director’. I spend my days schooling young starlets in how to deport themselves. To enunciate clearly – they do so love to drawl and slur their words. To hold a knife and fork correctly. How to do their hair and make-up. Even how to walk in some cases – they are lovely girls but most of them have all the grace of savages.
For my skills (which I’m making up as I go along) I’m paid $50 a week and we’re renting a charming cottage right by the ocean. Life is so easy here, Freddy, far away from all the bad news from home. The pickle is growing bigger by the day, still completely bald but she has big blue eyes and a sunny smile, which delights everyone who meets her.
Hannah is well too. She’s always angling to come to the studio with me so she might be discovered and cast in a film, preferably opposite Clark Gable, but until that happens, she’s so good with the pickle and she’s lost that pasty look she had back in London.
I did see in the papers that the divorce laws in England will change: instant divorce for cases of adultery or after three years for desertion. Not that I think it would have done Hugo and me much good if it had happened last year. Do you hear anything of him?
And how are you? Are you back from Germany now? I hope you managed not to get shot again, Freddy. You are so awfully good at getting yourself into trouble.
Much love
Libby xxx
751 Kingman Avenue
Santa Monica
California
27th March, 1939
Dear Freddy
Sorry I haven’t written in ages, but your letter arrived this morning along with a copy of your book and the money order, for all of which I thank you!
One hears such terrible news from Europe and I can’t help but worry. I pray there won’t be a war. Not after last time. Though I suppose you would know better than me.
But England, and across the sea to France, Germany and beyond, seems a world away. Here, the sun always shines. I’m sure there have been days when it was raining but I never seem to notice them.
The pickle is walking and talking. Mostly talking. Lord, she never stops! We hoped she might turn blonde, but she’s a redhead like her mama. Hannah brought her into work one day and one of the producers asked if I’d thought about putting her in pictures. That she could be the next Shirley Temple. I politely declined. Well, not so politely!
Besides, I won’t be at the studio for much longer. I’m opening my own little academy offering dance and modelling lessons, deportment, elocution. All the things I do for MGM, but I won’t have to answer to anyone but myself.
I was sorting through some things the other day to get ready for the move and I realised that I don’t have any of Hugo’s letters. They were all in my diary for that year. Goodness, 1936 seems a lifetime ago. I have the vaguest recollection that perhaps I stuffed the diary into my suitcase that awful night that Edward abdicated and we both thought I was done for. The last time I saw Hugo. No wonder that I’d all but forgotten about them. Could they still be at the house in Highgate? I was going to ask you to ship the case and its contents, but I’ve decided that there’s no point. I’m not that person any more – the one who wore that dress to get married in, posed for those pictures, wrote that diary. I was broken. But here in this magical place with my magical child, I feel as if I’ve been made anew. Better, kinder, more complete than I was before.
One thing though, Freddy. Would you to go to the house in Highgate, when you have the chance, to see if the suitcase is there, though I can’t imagine where else it could be? I’d like you to send me the layette that was in that case. It’s the only thing I can’t bear to be without. The only thing left of that baby snatched from me without any warning, with no chance to say goodbye. It’s as if he were never real, though I carried him for six months and I grieve for him every single day.
Yes, I’m sure he was a he. Wilfred (for my father) Arthur (for your father) Morton.
Do you ever think of him, Freddy?
Love
Libby xxx
Zoe was crying so hard she could hardly read Libby’s still appalling handwriting and Win was wiping the tears streaming from his own eyes.
At some point it had got dark and they’d turned on the light. Later, they’d order pizza and eat it straight from the box while they carried on reading.
The war years. A worried Libby sending Freddy frantic entreaties to stay safe. So thankful that you did get shot in Spain as surely you must be unfit for active duty? Selfishly, I’m pleased that the pickle, Beryl (she was here last month, has plans to start one of her schools on the West Coast) Hannah and I are safe but oh, how we all worry about you, Freddy!
Then in 1943. I hope you’re sitting down because I have some shocking news. I’m getting married! His name’s Lenny and he’s frightfully rich, made his money in real estate, but I wouldn’t care if he were a pauper. I really wouldn’t. He’s so funny, all I do when I’m with him is laugh until I ache from it, and he loves me as much as I love him. I never knew love could be such a joy when it’s returned tenfold.
The only sticking point, Freddy, is that I’m still married to you. There’s no earthly reason for either of us to want to stay married but I’m worried that if we’re granted a divorce – you’d have to sue me for desertion – not only would it take three years, but worse, the story might make the papers. If it did, then it’s quite likely that Hugo would read about it and realise the truth.
It doesn’t bear thinking about. Finding out the woman you’ve mourned is no longer dead would simply be too cruel. And what if he made good on this threats and tried to take the pickle from me? So, could we just pretend that we’re not married? Who’s to ever know? What harm would it do? You always insisted that you weren’t one for propriety so are you game, Freddy?
It seemed that Freddy must have been game because Libby married her Lenny and after the war, Freddy married his minor Swedish aristocrat and Libby sent him a crate of champagne and fervent congratulations. She also sent him a crate of champagne each time he had a book published, which she could well afford as she now had three charm schools, two in LA and one in New York, and the girls call me Mrs Elizabeth (everyone else calls me Lizzy) and behave as if I’m the most terrifying creature they’ve ever met. As if anyone could ever be terrified of me.
There was more champagne for the birth of each of Freddy’s children and news of the pickle, though she gets so cross if I call her that. She’s the most delightful thing, has such a wicked sense of humour, but she’s stubborn as anything. I don’t really mind that. I’d hate to have raised a girl who let people walk all over her.
In the fifties, Libby sold her business in LA and she, Lenny and the pickle moved to New York, where the pickle had riding lessons, ballet classes and Beryl is quite cross about it but I decided not to send her to a Steiner Waldorf school. We’ve enrolled her at Spence. She’s so bright that I don’t doubt she’ll be the first woman president.
Soon the pickle was at Smith, and Libby owned one of the most successful modelling agencies in New York. In 1958 she wrote, How lovely it was to see you last month. Such a pity I have to be kept secret from Lola and the children – I would so love to meet them. But to think that one of your novels is going to be made into a film! Oh Freddy, I’m so proud of everything you’ve accomplished and so glad that despite all the past heartbreak and the ocean between us, that we’ve become such good friends.
By now, Zoe and Win were halfway down a bottle of Merlot and there was only one piece of paper left unread.
‘I know what’s coming because it’s inevitable but I’m not ready for it,’ Win said.
‘But she had a good life in the end, so it’s sad but it’s not unbearably sad,’ Zoe insisted, though taking up the next piece of paper was one of the hardest things she’d ever had to do.
She didn’t recognise the neat, tidy handwriting as if all the letters had been lined up with a ruler.
Apt 23Q
The Century
Central Park West
New York
28th November, 1961
Dear Freddy
I’m writing with bad news, I’m afraid. Mom passed away a couple of days ago. She went to bed early complaining of a headache and never woke up. The doctors said it was an aneurysm and that she wouldn’t have suffered in any way. I’m trying to take comfort from that, but how hard it is that I never got to say goodbye.
You knew Mom for longer and better than anyone else, so you know how special she was. How her smile lit up a room – just the sight of it always made me feel like I’d come home. I can’t imagine the world without her and that smile in it.
The funeral’s next week. Do call if you can come. That’s as far ahead as I can think. Other decisions will have to be made, but not now. Not when the shock of her gone is a body blow.
So much we never talked about. So much I wanted to ask her. We planned to come to London next summer, when I finished my Masters, to revisit some of her old haunts and I wondered if then, she might tell me about my father. Beryl and Hannah both say that he was married and that it was a very complicated situation. Those two things always go hand in hand, don’t they?
I’ve often wondered about him. If I should like to meet him and if he would want to meet me but then I imagine that Mom took me away from him for a good reason. I don’t even know why I’m telling you this now when all I can really think about is the loss of her, but I suppose you’d be the person to ask, as you’ve always been the keeper of Mom’s secrets.
I have to go now. I’m having this sent overnight to reach you in time.
I’m so sad, Freddy. I’ve never known a sadness like it.
Love
Charlotte (the pickle)
A couple of days later, after they got back from their morning walk in Highgate Woods, before they’d had a chance to take off their muddy wellingtons, Zoe and Win unlocked the back door and hurried down the garden.
There was a strip of earth next to the shed where they were planning to plant a vegetable patch early in the spring. Now they took two spades and began to dig. There’d been a thick frost overnight and the ground was hard. They had to work at the earth again and again.
It took ages and Zoe’s back twanged in protest until Win deemed the hole deep enough.
Zoe retrieved the Maison Bertaux box from the shed where she’d put it before their walk. It was nestling in several sheets of bubble wrap, then placed in a thick plastic bag and taped up.
The other night, after they’d finished reading Libby’s letter, she and Win had talked about why Freddy had never honoured Libby’s wishes when she’d asked him to send her the layette. It was impossible to know his reasons. Libby’s letter had been written at the end of March 1939. Perhaps, by the time Freddy received it, war had been declared and got in the way of his good intentions.
Or else thinking about the baby was too painful, so he simply hadn’t.
Either way, it was up to them, Zoe and Win, to honour their unborn – also in the box, tucked under the tiny, yellowed baby clothes, was Zoe’s hospital tag. And in the house, on her dressing table, in the small, carved wooden box where she kept all her most prized treasures was the cherry button that had fallen off that impossibly small cardigan their first night in the house. Zoe had carried it with her so long, had held onto it through the worst of her grief, that it had come to symbolise not just Libby’s loss but her own too.
‘Have you thought about what you want to say?’ Win asked.
‘I’m waiting for inspiration to strike,’ Zoe said but inspiration remained unstruck. She stood there for long moments until at last she squatted down and placed the package in the earth.
Win took her hand as she straightened up, their gloved fingers curled around each other and still she was silent. Zoe heard Win’s sigh and then: ‘We bury this box in honour of Wilfred Arthur Morton and our own… our…’ He stumbled to a halt.
‘I think we would have had a boy too,’ Zoe said. ‘Boys tend to run in your family. What about Norman after your granddad?’
‘Bit old-fashioned, isn’t it?’ Win mumbled and if he started to cry, then Zoe would too, though she’d been sure she was all cried out after reading Libby’s letters. ‘Did you have any names picked out?’
Zoe could picture the baby’s face so clearly but he’d never had a name and she hadn’t dared to start making lists of what they might call any future children.
‘What about Paul for your granddad, Zo? Paul Norman Rowell. How does that sound?’
Zoe nodded. ‘We bury this box in honour of Wilfred Arthur Morton and our own Paul Norman Rowell…’ She choked on the name and Win’s grip on her hand tightened as she swallowed down a sob.
‘You can do this, Zo. You have to do this,’ he murmured.
‘Two baby boys who never lived but were loved all the same.’ Zoe turned away and Win caught her, cradled her against him as the wind picked up, lifted her hair, dried her tears, and it felt as if she and Win weren’t alone at the bottom of the garden; that there was someone else standing, grieving, alongside them.