Charlotte staggered back along the lane, her mind like a kaleidoscope flashing distorted images across her vision. A red lamp … a red room … a brass bed … Maisie kissing a man in a white uniform … Vivian’s serious face talking to the soldiers … Business.
Reaching the end of the lane, Charlotte stopped. Took a deep breath. Random remembrances of the past six months careered to the fore.
The dishevelled man coming out of the front door of Lily’s. A ‘waif and stray’ or a client? Had Kate lied too?
The sums in the back of her diary that didn’t add up.
God, she had been so stupid!
Rosie was working in a brothel.
Her employer was a madam.
Lily was a madam! Of course she was. The orange hair. The clothes. The jewellery. The eccentricities.
And Maisie and Vivian were working girls.
It all made sense now. The way they both looked. Sounded. Behaved … Their ‘dates’ … the Admiralty … Christmas Eve … The wedding.
Oh my God! Did Bel know about her sister?
Charlotte walked to the corner of Ashbrooke Crescent and West Lawn.
Making her way through the jostling crowds, back over to Rosie, she caught her sister’s profile as she turned to look for her. The sun caught her skin and she could see the scars.
At least her sister had not been a – God, she could barely even think the word.
At least Rosie hadn’t been a call girl.
‘Where have you been?’ Rosie sounded worried.
Charlotte heard herself speak, telling her sister and Lily and George that she had seen a friend.
‘Let’s get to the clubhouse before they run out of tea,’ Lily said.
Charlotte could tell Lily knew that she was lying. Of course she did. Lily knew her. Understood her. She loved Lily. But Lily had lied to her. She was a madam. She was running a house of ill repute.
Suddenly Charlotte was back in the kaleidoscope.
People were swirling around her.
She could hear the chinking of china teacups.
George was talking about France.
She looked at Lily, who was staring out of the window. She followed her line of vision and saw Kate and Alfie in the stands, watching the grand performance taking place on the green. A silent one. The vicar’s mouth was moving, yet she heard no words.
He was there and she was here.
Or was it the other way round?
Was she the theatre and everyone else the spectators?
She felt as though she might be going mad.
‘Conseil Nationale de la Résistance.’
Was she now hearing French?
It was George.
They were looking at her expectantly.
All these people she no longer knew.
‘The Conseil Nationale de la Résistance means the National Council of the Resistance,’ she said robotically.
She caught George glancing at Lily. They knew. They could read her mind.
‘Illusion … Pétain … Resistance … working together … bread is buttered … eggs in one basket …’ Lily and George’s words seem to run into each other.
She couldn’t sit here and pretend.
Their whole existence had been a lie.
She heard her chair scrape back.
Lies. All lies.
‘You all right, ma petite?’ Lily asked. ‘You’ve lost all your colour.’
No! she wanted to scream.
You have all lied to me!
‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘I just need to use the loo.’
Everything had suddenly become topsy-turvy, back to front, inside out.
The reality from which she had been shielded was unreal. Fictional.
She felt like Alice after she’d followed the White Rabbit down the hole – only there was no returning to the real world.
This was the real world.