The car smelled musty and leathery. Comforting, somehow. He rested the photo on the steering wheel and took a fat black fountain pen out of his inside pocket. He unscrewed the cap and turned the photo over. ‘Read out the exact words, Polly, and then you can tell me who you are.’
‘Polyhymnia Tomkins, I’m afraid.’
‘Good God. Let’s hope I can spell Polyhymnia.’
‘P-O,’ began Polly.
‘It’s all right, I can remember enough of my classical education to cope with that. One of the muses, wasn’t she?’
‘Yes.’
‘And Tomkins was Dora’s maiden name. You’re her sister’s child.’ And then, catching sight of the bleak look on Polly’s face. ‘Cheer up, young lady. As a doctor, I could tell you, if I didn’t know how to keep my mouth shut, how many people even in this small part of London aren’t quite what or who they think or say they are.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Daughters who are actually granddaughters, sons who were born a year after their named fathers went away to the war, married couples who never went before a priest or a registrar. Your secret’s perfectly safe with me, Polly. Besides, you’ll soon be Mrs Harrington, and no one will know or care what your name was before that.’
‘No,’ said Polly, as he wrote on the back of the second photograph and handed it back to her.
‘Tuck those away safely, or the ink will run in the wet and it’ll be all to do again. Are you going abroad for your honeymoon?’
‘Roger likes mountains, so it’s to be the Alps.’
‘The mountain air will do you good, bring some colour back to your cheeks. As your medical man, I can tell you that you’re looking a bit peaky.’
‘I don’t like the winter. And I’m not sure about mountains. It’ll be cold.’
‘But bright.’
The birth certificate arrived in a brown envelope, stamped OHMS. Polly hesitated, then pulled it out and read it. Brief was the word. Name, place of birth. She would go today to the Passport Office; if she put it off, she might never do it, but once she’d handed over the form and the photographs and the birth certificate, it would be out of her hands.
What would Roger say when he asked for the birth certificate? Would he ask why she didn’t have a full one? Could she pretend she asked for a short one because it cost less? That wouldn’t be quite honest, she must pluck up her courage and tell him the truth about her parentage.
With this uncomfortable thought in her mind, Polly went off to Petty France, to wait on a hard wooden bench before being called up to show her papers, hand in the forms and address an envelope to herself. The passport arrived three days later, dark blue, embossed in gold with the royal coat of arms, and filled with stiff empty pages.
And there, written in an official hand was her new identity, Polyhymnia Theodora Tomkins. Born Paris, May 1, 1908.
FOUR
As a child, and indeed until she left her home in Highgate, Polly had disliked Sundays. Not because the Smiths were tyrannical Sabbath-keepers, but because of the general dreariness of the day. Almost, she wished Dora had been a churchgoer, since friends and neighbours who did attend divine service on Sunday mornings seemed to enjoy their day much more than the Smiths did.
Dora, however, was an agnostic. ‘I’m not saying there is or isn’t a God,’ she told Polly. ‘That’s for everyone to decide for him or herself. On balance, I’d say there’s more to life than what we can see, music is proof of that.’ Dora had a fine contralto voice, and sang with the London Bach Choir; they had just given a performance of the St John Passion, ‘And I defy anyone to listen to Bach and not be touched by a greater spirit. One thing I’m certain of, which is that any God there happens to be isn’t in attendance at St Jude’s on a regular basis at eleven o’clock on Sunday mornings. Nor at any other time. I shouldn’t have any respect for a deity who chose to be in that place in that company.’
So Dora spent Sundays catching up with herself, as she put it. She took in a Sunday paper, which she read in the morning. In the afternoon, she listened to the wireless and did some mending. In the evening, she usually went round to the Mortimers at number 19, to play cards. All of which, to the young Polly, spelled boredom. Sunday was a tedious day, twice as long as any other day of the week, a day when she felt caged and confined. By Sunday evening, she was longing for the day to be over and for Monday to come.
Once she had left Bingley Street, Polly’s Sundays improved. She often spent the day with friends, discussing Life and Art, and, in good weather, going on the river or borrowing a bicycle and going for long rides into the country. On Sunday evenings, there was always a group of convivial souls gathered at one or other of the pubs they patronized.
All that changed once more when she met Roger. In fact, her more cynical friends claimed that it was because of Sundays that she had got engaged to Roger. Roger was at his best on Sundays, more relaxed, warmer, his mind not so engaged with his work. However, he was still a punctual man, Sunday or no Sunday, and Polly cursed when she looked at the clock and saw the time. Twenty-five past ten. That was the penalty for idling in bed, but on a winter morning it took a lot of effort to leave the warm covers and get dressed in a room so cold that the windows were still frosted over halfway through the morning.
Damn, there was a hole in her lisle stockings. Would it show? Yes, it would. She had approximately five minutes before Roger would draw up outside the house and give three short blasts on his horn, expecting the front door to open at once.
Too bad, he’d have to wait. She found her sewing kit, and with the stocking still on her leg, cobbled the edges of the hole together. It didn’t look good, but it was better than a patch of bare leg showing through. Toot, toot, toot. There was Roger. She dragged a comb through her hair; she had slept on a lock which now jutted out at a strange angle, well, it couldn’t be helped. She tucked her hair up into her beret, grabbed her handbag, and hurried down the stairs.
Roger was standing beside his MG, looking at his watch. ‘Really, Polly, I don’t know why you can never be ready on time.’
‘Good morning, Roger,’ she said, giving him a peck on the cheek. He held the car door open for her and she got in. ‘I found a hole in my stockings, I had to mend it, imagine what your mother would think.’
He glanced down at her leg. ‘Those are terrible stockings, anyhow, why don’t you get yourself some decent ones?’
‘I’m broke.’
‘I don’t know what you do with your money, you never have a penny.’
‘I don’t have many pennies to start with.’
‘When we’re married, I’ll give you an allowance, but you’ll have to keep track of where it goes, keep accounts and so on.’
The sun had straggled out after days of greyness, and Polly felt too cheerful to let the thought of keeping accounts daunt her. ‘I expect I’ll manage. And I’ll have my money from the workshop as well, besides what I earn from …’
‘The workshop?’ said Roger, accelerating with a throaty roar of the car engine. ‘Certainly not. I can’t have my wife going out to work, let alone in a place like that.’
Now the sun seemed much less bright. ‘But Roger …’
‘No buts, Polly.’ He turned his head and gave her a warm smile, that particular smile was one of his most likeable features. ‘Come on, Polly, you know it isn’t the thing. Not for a doctor’s wife. Of course you must keep up with your art, do those book jackets and so on, and you said you were hoping to get some illustrations to do, that’ll bring you in a bit of pin money.