So, oh dear diary. I walked towards him – we were a way from the house, almost at the steps by the sea. I put my hand on his chest. I looked into his eyes. I stood on tiptoe, & I kissed him. On the lips.

I didn’t think about it, I just sort of knew it would happen.

He kissed me back. I kissed Brian Deans last year, the son of the history master at school, but this was different. There, I felt my tongue was getting in the way. Here, it was sloppy, but it felt nice. Guy put his hand on the back of my neck, & his tongue was in my mouth.

We sat down after a while, on the sweet, soft moss, with the crickets chirruping nearby, & the sea crashing in the distance & we kissed more,

& then I wanted to touch him, & he wanted to touch me too. He smoothed his hands over my collarbone, & he touched my breasts, my stomach,

& I took my dress off, & let him, & I touched him too, took his shirt off, everything really. We were naked, apart from Guy still had his socks on, & when I noticed that it made me laugh. We both laughed. We rolled next to each other, naked, & he held me, stroked me, & I touched him, it is so strange, a man’s body, so different in a way. Much harder, less soft & full of places you can poke. And his penis was hard. I wanted to touch that too. Perhaps I am like my mother, a hard cold woman. Probably. I was quite grown-up about it. I felt very comfortable with him.

We were silent for a long time. I did hold his penis and stroke it and he loved that. & I kissed his mouth, his cheek, & whispered ‘inside me’, but he shook his head, & he wouldn’t. We lay on the moss for a while, holding hands. Just there, looking up at the stars.

Summercove was a yellow light, fifty yards away. No one else was near. Just us two.

‘I think I love you,’ he said. ‘In fact I know I do.’

‘Me too,’ I said to him. I stroked his cheek, his short, spiky hair, his beautiful, kind eyes, his lips.

It’s true, too. When I said it I meant it. Then I remembered the other things, back at the house. It all rushed back to me & I realised then I knew – it won’t work out that way. I put my clothes on, & he followed me, & we walked back to the house.

Guy put his hand in mine, as we were walking. He stroked my palm with his thumb. And then he kissed my shoulder, very gently, as we got close to the house. I think I will remember that kiss for the rest of my life. Because it was almost perfect. Like Guy & me. Almost perfect.

Tuesday, 6th August 1963

I didn’t sleep again. It rained in the night, just a bit, but it was noisy, thunder and lightening. It woke me up. I lay there thinking so much it was scary. Like a black wave washing over me. I can’t ever see how this can get better.

This morning, Miranda sat down on the edge of my bed. ‘You know don’t you?’ she said.

I looked at her & she just stared at me. I thought how grown-up she is now. A different person. Both of us are. I nodded.

‘How?’

I said I saw them together. She patted my leg. ‘Me too. That day you were all out. It’s like she wants to be caught. It’s going to be OK. You and me & Archie, we’ll grow up and get out of here soon. It’ll be OK.’

Me: But I don’t want to. I just want everything to be the way it was before.

Miranda: Well, it’s not going to be. Can’t you see that?

Me: Why? Why do you think she’s doing it?

M shrugs her shoulders, & I realise she doesn’t have all the answers, of course not. ‘I don’t know, Cec. Perhaps the same reason she tried on my clothes or she gazes off into space at supper or she spends so much time up in the studio. Perhaps she’s just wishing she was young again.’

‘But that’s so stupid,’ I said. ‘We spend all our time wishing we were grown-ups. She can do anything she wants.’

‘Maybe it seems like that,’ Miranda said. I wish she’d always been like this, calm and wise to talk to. I wish we could start over again.

‘And why with him?’ I say. There were tears in my eyes, like there are now as I’m writing this. ‘I don’t understand why it has to be him.’

‘Because he’s young & gorgeous and he worships her, you can see it once you know,’ Miranda says. ‘I used to think he was handsome, now I hate him. I hate her.’

I sort of hate her too. ‘Archie says she’s done it before.’

‘No.’

‘Yes,’ Miranda says. ‘Sorry Cec.’ She leaned over and she patted my hand. ‘She’s –’

And we heard Mummy coming up the stairs. ‘It’s breakfast, girls,’ she says, opening the door. ‘What are you two doing?’

She looks at us, stiff & upright on the bed. We look at each other. ‘Nothing,’ Miranda says. She gets up. ‘We’re just coming.’

‘Miranda, I need you & Louisa to go to Lady Cecil’s this morning, with a cheque for the W.I.’

M: We don’t both need to go. ‘Yes, you do,’ Mummy says sharply. She looks in the mirror, stooping a little. ‘She wants to talk to you about a job in London & I don’t want you going on your own. You’ll forget something, like when Mrs Anstruther offered you the job at the kennels last year.’

Now I can see it, I wonder why I never noticed before.

M: What kind of job?

Mummy says: Secretary in a lawyer’s office. And don’t say you’re not interested. It’s not as if you have anything better to do, is it? Darling, I’m only trying to help. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.

She goes out and we stare at each other again. ‘Miranda, what shall we do?’ I started crying.

‘You’ve got to keep calm,’ she says. ‘We can’t talk here. Let’s meet on the cliffs in a bit, I’ll get Archie too.’

‘Don’t worry,’ she says, and she kisses my head. ‘I’ll look after you. You’re my sister. I know we haven’t always been the best of friends, Cec.

But I’m your sister. I’ll make sure it’s all all right.’

She goes out, & I stare after her. I’ve got her all wrong as well as Mum. She may be annoying but she’s brave. She stood up to horrible Uncle John. She is willing to take the blame for her bad behaviour this summer, so that everyone thinks it’s her flirting with the Bowler Hat. I’m proud she’s my sister, I never thought I’d say that.

After breakfast when Mummy asked me about sitting, I just said not today, and I tried to wander off. My legs are all wobbly. She was ultra nice to me and then she gave me her ring. It is a lovely ring, she knows I’ve always coveted it. Why did she give it to me? I don’t want it any more, I felt that she was offering it because she knew, in some way? Or she could see I was sad and she was trying to make things better?

Perhaps I should tell her I know. But then Louisa will find out. Perhaps she should find out though? She can’t marry him. I don’t know. I must stay calm.

Miranda & I are going for our walk now. She’s right, we should just get away from here, as soon as we can. But I’m so tired. I feel old, all of a sudden. Old and tired of all this. I will report back, darling diary. I know I can trust you. You will be here in the dark in the bedside table, waiting for me. I’ll be back soon.

Love Always,

Cecily

PART FOUR

March 2009

Chapter Thirty-Eight

It is cold and dark in the room, and as I look up, my neck, shoulders and legs ache from the tense position I’ve been in over the last hour. The only point of light is the lamp next to me. It shines on the yel owing pages of the diary. Everything else around it is black. It is almost a surprise to me, when I put my hands up to my cheeks, to find that tears are running down them.

The shadow of my hands makes the light flicker on the brick wal s, and I jump. It is very quiet, but the room seems to be crowded, with voices, people . . . I shiver and stand up. I wish I wasn’t here. I wish I was somewhere with someone I know. Someone who loves me, someone who I could turn to and say, my God, this is horrible.

I can’t. I’m al alone, and her voice is echoing in my head. I want to see her. More than anything, suddenly. I didn’t know her before, so I couldn’t miss her, and this is what’s making me cry. I love this bold, intel igent, charming, eccentric, eager young girl, whose scrawling pages in front of me are so slapdash and immediate it’s as if she’s just run out of the room. I can see why Guy fel in love with her. I wish I had known her. I wish I could know what she might have done next, had she lived. There is something so hopeless about her last day alive; a girl worn out by the adults around her, by the life she had to live, and not even sixteen.

When she died, she left them al behind, and I realise, now, that they have been preserved like that, al of them – Mum, Archie, Louisa, Granny, Arvind – kept in a drawer along with the diary, not al owed to live the lives they wanted. Even Guy, who married someone else and got away from them, is a curiously reduced version today of the person he was in the diary. Poor, poor Guy. At the thought of him, my heart clenches and my eyes sting with fresh tears. Now I understand, now I know why he insisted I cal him after I’d finished it. How must it have been for him, reading that diary after al these years, having tried to forget her, never having known why she died? To find out about his brother like that, to . . . oh, it’s so sad. The whole thing is just so sad. I think of Mum. I wonder where she is. Oh, Mum. I’m sorry.