A Half Forgotten Song (29 page)

“Hello, Mitzy!” Élodie called, as she cartwheeled around them on the sand. “Look at Mary’s bracelet—isn’t it just the prettiest thing?” Smiling haughtily, Mary held out her wrist, and Dimity agreed that it was a pretty bracelet. She caught Delphine’s eye, and saw her friend’s cheeks coloring, saw her fidget uncomfortably. In front of Mary, Delphine did not want to be the kind of girl who picked from hedgerows or learned the Dorset names for things. In front of Mary, she wanted to be the kind of girl who might marry a film star. Inventing some errand, Dimity backed away, and as she turned she heard the blond girl say, in a supercilious tone:

“Oh dear, do you think I frightened her? Do you think she’s ever seen a charm bracelet before?”

“Don’t be unkind,” Delphine chided her, but without much heat.

“Daddy said she’s never left this village in her whole life. Can you imagine how
boring
that must be?” said Élodie.

“Élodie, stop showing off,” Delphine snapped at her sister. Dimity fled, and heard no more.

The girls gave each other a wide berth that week, and though Dimity burned with impatience, and longed to visit Littlecombe, she felt too cowed and angry after Celeste’s cool welcome and without Delphine to visit. But she spotted the three girls on the beach and in the village, and more than once down at Southern Farm, flirting with Christopher Brock, the farmer’s son. Mary twirled her hair around her fingertips and postured and simpered at him like an idiot, but it was Delphine who seemed to be able to flummox him with a word, or a glance. Whenever she spoke to him, he hung his head, smiling shyly, and once Dimity was close enough to see the blush infusing his cheeks. Delphine’s friend laughed like a jay when she saw, and tried not to show how much she minded, but Dimity smiled secretly to see her swallow her pride over it.

When eight days had passed, Dimity began to consider visiting again, since Mary ought to have left. She was in the privy one afternoon, surrounded by the sweet, pungent stink of the pit and the buzzing of insects, tearing up squares of newspaper to hang on the hook and arranging branches of elder to discourage the flies, when she heard Valentina shout through the back door. She had been dreaming about the indoor plumbing at Littlecombe, with the cistern high up on the wall and a brass chain to flush it by, and soft rolls of toilet paper. No rough wooden seat or festering slurry underneath. No checking under the lid for the fat brown spiders that hid there to startle the unwary. Valentina shouted again.

“What, Ma?” Dimity called, letting the privy door slam shut behind her as she crossed the cluttered backyard. To her surprise, Élodie and Delphine appeared around the side of the cottage, looking around curiously. Dimity stopped in her tracks. “What are you doing here?” she said, horrified. The girls stopped; Delphine smiled uncertainly.

“We came to find you . . .” she said. “I . . . we . . . hadn’t seen you for a while. Up at the house, I mean. I thought you might go foraging with me again?” Dimity was puzzled by this, since they both knew why she had not visited—it had turned out that Dimity was a fall-back friend, a friend to be had when no better alternative was around. She felt a flare of resentment towards Delphine.

“I’m too busy. I’m not on a summer holiday, you know—I must help my mother and do my work, same as I ever did.”

“Yes, of course. But—”

“I suppose it’s a bit boring for you, now Mary’s gone,” she said.

“Oh, yes. It really is,” said Élodie. Dimity looked at the youngest girl, with her pretty, petulant face. But there was no rancor in it, no sneer. It was a simple statement of fact, laden with misunderstanding. Delphine blushed and looked stricken.

“I didn’t mean to throw you over! Honestly not. It was just a bit difficult with Mary here—I had to entertain her, you see. I was the hostess, and she rather wanted us all to herself. You do understand, don’t you?” she said. Dimity felt her heart soften, but she wasn’t quite ready to forgive her. “It was only a week,” Delphine went on. “She’s gone off home now, and we have the whole rest of the summer.”

Dimity considered this apology, and wasn’t sure how to respond. It was one of the first she had ever had, from anybody. Élodie sighed and put her hands in her pockets, swinging her hips side to side impatiently.

“Can’t we go inside for tea?” she asked. “Will your mother have made any? She seemed in rather a bad mood.”

“That’s just how she is,” Dimity told her shortly. Sometime during the past two years the pretense of Valentina being a warm and caring mother had evaporated. She didn’t bother to explain how absurd an idea it was that she could invite them in, have them sit down inside The Watch to a tea that Valentina had prepared. It was pure fiction.

“Is that your loo?” said Delphine, after the silence had begun to stretch. Delphine sounded cheerful and curious, and Dimity felt a wave of heat rise through her. The heat of humiliation, and anger.

“Yes, it is.” Her voice was half choked.
It stinks in the summer and it’s freezing in the winter, and there are spiders and flies, and the newsprint leaves ink on your skin when you wipe, and there is no neat flush and splash of clean water to whisk away your foul doings—they sit there beneath you in a heap, steaming, for you and all who come after you to see. This is the bloody privy. This is my bloody life. This is no summer holiday.
But she did not say any of that.

“Oh, I didn’t mean . . .” Delphine’s cheeks turned pink again; she looked around with a vague smile and seemed at a loss. “Well,” she said at last. “Obviously you’re very busy today. Perhaps we could go tomorrow? Foraging, I mean?”

“You don’t need me to do that with you anymore. You know your plants well enough.”

“Yes, but it’s far more fun when all three of us go.”

“
I
don’t think it’s more fun,” Élodie pointed out.

“Yes, you do.” Delphine nudged her sister and frowned at her. Élodie rolled her eyes slightly.

“Oh, do come with us, Mitzy,” Élodie said obediently. “Really. We should love to have you.”

“Perhaps. If I can get away,” said Dimity.

“I’ll wait for you up at the house, then, shall I? Come on, Élodie.” The sisters walked away across the yard.

B
y morning Dimity’s anger had melted away, and she was glad to escape from Valentina to visit the Aubreys. She and Delphine were awkward with each other for a minute longer, and then, with smiles, everything was all right again. They swam in the sea, though it was colder than usual, and foraged, and walked into the village to buy licorice allsorts from the shop. It was during that week that two things began to make Dimity uneasy. First, she saw Charles and Celeste talking to the tourist couple in the village. Saw them talking, and saw the way the strange woman wore her regard for Charles like a bright red ribbon, for the whole world to see. And second, she realized that Charles had seen her several times that summer, but had not yet asked to draw her once. Valentina had asked about the money, but Dimity longed for more than that. She longed for his concentrated attention, for the feeling she got when he studied her, when he sketched her. She felt more real, more alive at those times than at any other, and the thought that he might not want to, for any reason, made panic scramble in her gut. Yet somehow she knew she could not ask. She should not ask.

So each time she was in the same room as Charles Aubrey, Dimity followed him with her eyes, and put herself in his way, and tried to stand prettily. She scuffed her fingers through her hair to make it huge and wild, bit her lips and pinched her cheeks the way Valentina did before a guest arrived. And though Charles did not seem to notice, she found Celeste watching her more than once, with that same measuring look, and she was forced to turn away hastily for fear of giving herself away. But more often than not, Charles had gone out, by himself, before Dimity even arrived at Littlecombe. In desperation, she roused herself before dawn one day and was outside on the driveway, waiting to catch him as he left the house. In the dewy grass she waited, with damp chilly toes and her heart beating only for him. He came out, dressed to paint, before the sun was an inch above the horizon, and Dimity stepped out in front of him, smiling.

“Mitzy!” There was a smile in his hushed voice, a joyous note, and happiness roared in her ears. “Dear girl. Are you all right?”

“I am,” she said, nodding breathlessly.

“Well, well. They’re not even awake yet, in the house. Fast asleep, the lot of them. I’d give Delphine another good hour before you knock, if I were you. She told me you were taking her foraging again soon, is that right?” Dimity could only nod, tongue-tied. “Splendid. Well, have fun, won’t you.
À bientôt.
” He carried on along the driveway, lighting up a cigarette, taking long, languid strides.

Behind her, she heard the latch click and the door creak softly as it opened, and she turned to see Celeste coming along the path. She was still in her nightgown, with her long dark hair hanging over an emerald-green shawl that was wrapped around her shoulders. No makeup on her face, just the kiss of the early morning light to make her as beautiful and terrible as any fairy queen. Her face was set and sad, but her loveliness made Dimity’s heart wither a little, hopelessly. Dimity took a step backwards, and Celeste raised her hands to reassure her.

“Wait, please, Mitzy. I would like to speak to you,” she said in a soft voice.

“I was just . . .” Dimity didn’t finish the sentence. It did not matter what excuse she gave. Celeste could see right through her.

“Dimity, listen to me . . . I know how you are feeling, believe me, I do. When his attention is on you, it feels as though the sun is shining, does it not? And when that attention moves on . . . well, it feels as though the sun has gone out. Cold and dark. For two years he drew and painted me just as he did you. And I fell in love with him, and never fell out of love. And I believe he still loves me, and still wants to be with me, and he loves our girls very much. We are a family, Dimity; that is a sacred thing. Do you hear what I am telling you? He has moved on from you—in his art, in his mind. You must move on from him, too, because you cannot get it back, once it has gone. I mean only to be kind in telling you this. Your life . . . your life lies with another, not with Charles. Do you understand?” Celeste held the shawl tightly around her shoulders, and Dimity saw goose pimples rising along her forearms. She said nothing in reply, and Celeste shook her head slightly. “You’re still so young, Mitzy, still just a child . . .”

“I am not a child!” said Dimity, looking down at her feet as her blood raced and she rejected every word the Moroccan woman was saying.

“Then let me speak to you as a woman, and listen to me as a woman, and hear the truth in what I say. Life and love are like this. There are times when they will break your heart and kill the spirit of you, kill it right inside you.” She bunched her hand into a fist and held it tight against her chest. “But these times do pass, and you will be whole again. But only once you look the truth in the face, and see it for what it is. You must forget what you cannot have. I know you don’t want to hear any of this, but you must. Come back later and be with my girls—with my Delphine, who loves you. But go now, if you want to. I am sorry for you, Mitzy. Truly. You were not prepared for any of this, I see that now.” Celeste turned, letting her gaze linger on Dimity for a moment longer, stern and sad.

But Dimity could not go back to see Delphine; not that day, or the day after. She could not, in case what Celeste said was true, and Charles would never want to draw her again. She felt a peculiar teetering sensation when she considered it, as though she was on the cliff top on a windy day, and the turf by her toes had started to crumble. They could slip away, she suddenly saw. Slip away out of her life as easily as they had slipped into it, and leave her with no hope of rescue. They were like a bright light, shining, which cast shadows over everything else, and Charles was the brightest of all.

On the third day, she was taking in the washing when her eyes fell on a blouse of Valentina’s. It was one of her favorites, one she often wore when meeting a new guest for the first time. It was made of a slightly diaphanous pale blue cheesecloth that was gathered into smocking at the waist and sleeves, and was fitted over the bust. It had a wide, low neckline with a ruffle to it, and only one of the wooden buttons was missing from the front. When Valentina wore it, she had to wrestle her bosoms into the bodice, where they perched precariously and jiggled when she moved. Dimity rolled the blouse up carefully and tucked it inside the waistband of her skirt. It would not do to be caught borrowing it; she couldn’t even guess what the consequences of that might be. Before leaving the house she combed her hair savagely, eyes watering as each knot was pulled through, then piled it all up on top of her head and secured it with pins, so that a few stray tresses fell to brush her neck. Safely behind a hedge away from The Watch, Dimity put on Valentina’s blouse. She was smaller than her mother, her waist narrower and her bust less voluminous, but the blouse fitted nicely. She had no mirror to check her appearance, but when she looked down at her own chest in the wide neckline, she knew she was no longer looking at the body of a child.

Dimity seated herself in a patch of clover flowers near the cliff path, with a basket of beans to shell, and set to work. It was a guess, but she had often seen Charles walk that way, and soon she saw his long-striding figure approaching. Her heart careened wildly behind her ribs, and she sat up straight, pushing her shoulders back and tweaking the blouse so that it sat wide across them, exposing the straight line of her collarbones, the soft curve downwards where her arms began. The sun was warm on her skin. She tried to keep her expression relaxed, but it was hard not to narrow her eyes in the bright sunshine. In the end she had to blink, and lower her brows; squint a little. She pursed her lips at the onslaught, fretting because she couldn’t look up again without giving away her plan to be found, caught unawares. The breeze stirred the wisps of hair against her neck and made her shudder. And then she heard the words she had longed to hear for almost a year, and she shut her eyes in bliss.