Leave the Grave Green

“Yes. Do you like it?” Vivian looked pleased. “It’s my trademark, I’m afraid, and my therapy. It’s hand kneaded twice, and takes three risings, but it puffs up in the oven like a dream.” She gave Gemma a humorous glance. “And it’s hard to stay frustrated with life when you’ve done that much pounding.”

As they seated themselves at the scarred oak table, Gemma confided, “I grew up in a bakery. My parents have a small shop in Leyton. Most everything’s done by machine, of course, but Mum could usually be persuaded to let us get our hands in the dough.”

“It sounds a good upbringing,” Vivian said approvingly as she poured tea into Gemma’s mug.

A flowery cloud of steam enveloped Gemma’s face. “Earl Grey?”

“You do like it, I hope? I should have asked. It’s a habit—that’s what I always have in the afternoons.”

“Yes, thank you,” Gemma answered demurely, thinking that if she were to make a practice of taking afternoon tea in houses like this, she had bloody well better learn to like it.

She ate her bread and butter in appreciative silence, wiping the last crumbs from the plate with her fingertip. “Mrs. Plumley—”

“Everyone calls me Plummy,” Vivian said in invitation. “The children started it when they were tots, and it stuck. I’ve rather grown to like it.”

“All right, then. Plummy.” Gemma thought the name suited her. Even dressed as she was today, in a brightly colored running suit and coordinating turtleneck, Vivian Plumley had about her an aura of old-fashioned comfort. Noticing that the other woman still wore her wedding ring, Gemma half-consciously rubbed the bare finger on her left hand.

They sat quietly, drinking their tea, and in the relaxed, almost sleepy atmosphere, Gemma found that a question came as easily as if she had been talking to friend. “Didn’t you find it odd that Connor stayed on such close terms with the family after he and Julia separated? Especially with no children involved…”

“But he knew them first, you see, Caro and Gerald. He’d met them through his job, and cultivated them quite actively. I remember thinking at the time that he seemed quite smitten with Caro, but then she’s always collected admirers the way other people collect butterflies.”

Although Plummy had uttered this without the least hint of censure, Gemma had a sudden vision of a struggling moth pinned ruthlessly to a board. “Ugh,” she said, wrinkling her nose in distaste. “I could never stand the thought.”

“What?” asked Plummy. “Oh, butterflies, you mean. Well, perhaps it was an unkind comparison, but men always seem to flutter so helplessly around her. They think she needs looking after, but the truth of it is that she’s quite capable of looking after herself. Personally, I can’t imagine it.” She smiled at Gemma. “I don’t think I’ve ever inspired that desire in anyone.”

Gemma thought of Rob’s automatic assumption that she would provide for his every need, both physical and emotional. It had never occurred to him that she might have a few of her own. She said. “I never thought of it quite like that, but men haven’t fallen over themselves trying to look after me, either.” Sipping her tea, she continued, “About Dame Caroline—you said you were at school together. Did she always want to sing?”

Plummy laughed. “Caro was front and center from the day she was born. At school she sang the leading part in every program. Most of the other girls quite despised her, but she never seemed to notice. She might as well have worn blinkers—she knew what she wanted and she never gave a thought to anything else.”

“She launched her career quite early for a singer, didn’t she?” Gemma asked, remembering the snippets she’d heard from Alison Douglas.

“That was partly Gerald’s doing. He plucked her out of the chorus and set her down center-stage, and she had the drive and ambition to meet the challenge, if not the experience.” She reached out and broke a corner from a slice of the bread she’d set on the table, then took an experimental nibble. “Just checking,” she said, smiling at Gemma. “Quality control.” Taking a sip of her tea, she continued, “But you realize that this all happened more than thirty years ago, and there are only a few of us who remember Gerald and Caro before they were leading lights.”

Gemma contemplated this for a moment, following Plummy’s example and reaching for another slice of bread. “Do they like being reminded that they were ordinary once?”

“I think there is a certain comfort in it.”

What had it been like for Julia, Gemma wondered, growing up in her parents’ shadow? It was difficult enough under any circumstances to shake off one’s parents’ influence and become a self-governing individual. She washed her bite of bread down with tea before asking, “And that’s how Julia met Connor? Through her parents?”