Final Witness. Simon Tolkien

out the corrections to a speech that Sir Peter was to give at the party conference the following week and then went out into the front hall. There was not a sound anywhere except the murmur of the sea as she climbed the stairs to Lady Robinson’s bedroom and closed the door softly behind her.

      Greta stood in the centre of the room watching herself in the freestanding mirror as she slowly and deliberately undressed. It was the third time that she had done this, and each time it gave her greater pleasure. Now she carefully opened the top drawer of an antique chest and took out three or four pairs of Anne’s silk underwear, setting to one side a lavender sachet embroidered by the lady of the house. One by one she tried them on, pressing the white material against her body until at last she settled on the sheerest, thinnest pair of all and turned her attention to the closets containing Anne’s dresses.

      Her green eyes sparkled as she passed the material between her fingers and raised it to her nose. As she breathed in deeply, it was almost as if she was holding Anne close to herself. Turning, she laid out five of the dresses across the wide bed and slowly tried each one on. Her erect nipples visible through the fabric of each dress and the faraway look in her half-closed eyes told their own story. She was too absorbed to notice the sound of the front door opening down below, and she didn’t hear the footsteps on the stairs as she pulled a lemon silk brocade dress over her head. She only knew that she was not alone when she looked in the mirror to admire herself and saw Thomas standing in the open doorway behind her.

      One of Greta’s greatest qualities as a personal assistant was her calmness under pressure.

      ‘It’s almost unnatural,’ Sir Peter had told his wife only the previous weekend when they were lying in the bed across which Anne’s evening dresses were now draped. ‘It’s like there are all these boats being tossed about in some terrible tempest out there in the bay and she’s in her own boat in the centre and the storm’s having no effect on her at all. She’s one in a million, Annie. I bet that some of the other MPs would pay a king’s ransom to get hold of her, but then, she’s completely loyal. That’s another of her qualities.’

      ‘Yes, I see what you mean,’ Anne had replied. ‘It is unnatural. She must have worked very hard to become what she is.’

      Now, at this moment of crisis, Greta remained just as calm as her employer would have expected. Only a slight shudder indicated her awareness of the boy’s presence. Thomas, however, stood rooted to the spot and his cheeks flushed crimson. His eyes were fixed on the reflection of Greta’s full breasts in the mirror, with the rose-red nipples clearly visible as the buttons on the front of the yellow dress remained undone right down to the waist.

      Greta looked evenly at the boy’s reflection in the mirror but did nothing to hide herself.

      ‘You’re looking at my breasts, Thomas.’ There was a purring note in Greta’s voice that the boy had not heard before.

      ‘No, no. I’m not.’

      ‘All right. You’re not.’ Greta laughed, pulling the front of the dress together. ‘My mistake.’

      ‘You’re wearing my mother’s dress. The one she said was like spring daffodils. And you’re in her room. Why are you in her room?’

      ‘Well, Thomas. If you sit down a moment, I’ll try to explain it to you.’

      Greta picked up two of the dresses from the bed and gestured for the boy to sit in the space that she had cleared, but he didn’t move from the doorway.

      ‘You shouldn’t be in here. You don’t belong in here.’

      ‘No, I don’t. You’re quite right. But Thomas, try to understand. I don’t have beautiful clothes like your mother does. I can’t afford them like she can. And I didn’t think it would do any harm if I tried them on just to see what I looked like. It doesn’t hurt anyone, does it?’

      ‘It’s not right. They belong to my mother.’

      ‘Yes, they do. But I wasn’t going to steal them. I wouldn’t be trying them on in here if I was going to do that, now would I?’

      ‘She wouldn’t want you to have them on. She wouldn’t want you in here. I know she wouldn’t.’

      ‘All right, perhaps she wouldn’t,’ said Greta, changing tack. ‘Perhaps she would be upset if she knew. And then she might get one of those horrible migraines. No one wants that, do they, Thomas?’

      Thomas did not reply. His lower lip trembled and he looked like he was going to cry. Greta pressed home her advantage.

      ‘Wouldn’t it be better if we didn’t tell her? Then no one would get hurt. What do you say? It can be our secret. Just you and me.’

      Greta put out her right hand towards the boy, thus allowing the yellow dress to fall open again, exposing her breasts.

      Thomas took a step backwards, but Greta reached over and took his hand, pulling him toward her.

      In the years that followed, Thomas always recalled this moment as one of the most significant of his childhood. It was a turning point of sorts. An end and a beginning. Certainly his memory chose to preserve the scene in extraordinary detail. Closing his eyes as an adult, he could recall his mother’s room with the sea breeze coming in through the half-drawn curtains; the sun shining on the rich mahogany chest with its top drawer open; the mass of clashing colours on the bed where Greta had laid out his mother’s clothes; the bright red sleeve of a gown that his mother had worn at Christmas cutting across the white of her pillow like a wound. And closer to him was his father’s personal assistant: raven hair and green cat’s eyes, yellow dress and full, exposed breasts with red nipples, which gave him a sense of urgency he’d never felt before. He was repelled and attracted all at the same time. And the mirror had been between them. They had seen each other in the mirror before she turned and began saying things. Things about his mother that he didn’t want to hear.

      She took his hand, and he felt sure that she was going to place it on her breast. The breast that he could now see again so full and close. And he knew that that would make a secret between them that he could never break.

      Thomas dragged his eyes away from Greta and focused on the first thing he saw. It was the white flannel on the edge of the sink in the corner of the room, the one his mother used to cover her eyes when she had her migraines.

      Thomas wrenched his hand away from Greta, and the force of his action took him out into the hall.

      ‘No,’ he said, and all his being was concentrated in the one word.

      Greta flinched, but whether from the hurt to her hand or the force of his response, Thomas didn’t know. The shudder was certainly gone from her face as soon as it had appeared, and she laughed softly.

      ‘I was only shaking your hand, Thomas. You certainly have got an active imagination. Your father’s right about that.’

      There was no time for Thomas to reply. At the bottom of the stairs the front door was closing behind Mrs Martin.

      ‘What are you doing up there, Thomas? I told you the presents were in the kitchen. Come on or we’ll be late.’

      Greta and the boy exchanged one final look, and then he turned and was gone.

      If that bloody old housekeeper hadn’t forgotten her sister’s stupid presents and sent the boy back for them, I might not be here today, Greta thought to herself as she allowed her husband and the chauffeur to escort her to the courthouse door.

      Thomas had waited until the weekend was over to tell his mother. And Greta never had to discuss the incident with Lady Robinson. It was Sir Peter who raised the subject with his personal assistant midway through the following week, and he did so in an uncomfortable, almost apologetic way that made her feel slightly sick. She, of course, had had time to prepare her response.

      All morning her employer had been coming in and out of her room on one pretext or other. The ground floor of the London house had been converted into offices the year before, and Greta worked in the front room. A printer