Dance While You Can (26 page)

Looking back now, I think we both knew how selfish we were being, but at the time we were so much in love that nothing else seemed to matter. I listened for hours while she told me about the fairground and Violet May. Then I basked in her admiration as I told her about the cases I had been involved in, shamelessly exaggerating my successes. I’m sure she knew what I was doing, but nevertheless allowed me to wander on in my own fantasy world – until, with an ear-shattering snore, she brought me back to earth again.

Every day we strolled along the narrow high street, watching the women as they shopped and chatted. Elizabeth often stopped to talk to them, and the way she could make them flush with pleasure, or laugh, made me want to burst with pride. She was interested in them all; it was plain to see that people were a joy to her.

‘She told me it’s her anniversary so she’s going to try out a new recipe tonight,’ she said, as she waved a dumpy, smiling woman off on her bicycle.

‘I heard,’ I remarked dryly.

‘Oh, you weren’t bored, were you?’ she teased.

‘Stiff.’

She laughed, and ran on ahead. When I caught up with her she was sitting on a wall, waiting, so I sat down beside her. ‘Were you really bored?’ she said.

‘No. But I was wondering. Is it enough, do you think?’

‘Enough?’

‘For these women. Do you think they’re happy, you know, living here on this island. Or do you think they want more out of life? More than just looking after a man?’

She turned to face me. ‘Alexander, don’t tell me that on top of everything else, you’re a feminist too?’

I laughed. ‘If I am, then I’m definitely still in the closet! But tell me, you’re a wife and mother. Is it enough for you?’

‘What you really want to know is, am I one of the lesbian brigade, as you so chauvinistically call it, that Jessica belongs to?’

‘Yes.’

‘No, I’m not one of them. But that doesn’t mean I don’t agree with a lot of what they say. I just think they go about things in the wrong way, that’s all.’

‘So how would you go about it?’

‘Me! My darling, I have neither the education nor the rhetoric to be a leader of women, but I can tell you this: they’re missing the point. OK, what they’re achieving materially and socially is right, admirable. But the aggression they use only makes people hostile to their cause – women included. It’s a bit like the old fable about the wind and sun, isn’t it? It was the sun and the warmth that made the man take his coat off.’

‘And who says she doesn’t have the education or the rhetoric?’

She pinched me. ‘But there’s another reason why I wouldn’t do for them. You see, I’m hopelessly and incurably in love with a man, and that’s simply not allowed.’

Though I knew I had never been so happy, dark thoughts were never far from my mind. I knew I should tell her, I even tried to persuade myself that she would understand, but I was a coward. I kept remembering Jessica’s face when she told me, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to bear it if my infertility was the reason Elizabeth and I said good-bye. I hated myself for the plans I allowed us to make, our undying promises that we would never be parted again, when I knew that as soon as we left the island it would all be over. Sometimes when I made love to her I was violent, but I couldn’t help myself – my frustration at the futility of our love-making overwhelmed me. I knew there were times when she sensed that things weren’t as they should be between us, but whenever she tried to talk about it, I would laugh and tell her she was imagining it. But as the days passed I felt my love for her turning to a pain so excruciating that I thought it would choke me.

And then there was only one more day, one more night, before fantasy must give way to reality. Elizabeth didn’t want to go to Venus Pool again, she said the pain of leaving it would be too great to bear.

Dixcart Bay was deserted, and we sat down on the pebbles to watch the yachts sail in over the skyline. Later other people wandered on to the beach, an old couple walking their dog, teenagers strolling hand in hand, boys in a boat, rowing out of the bay and disappearing from sight. Neither of us spoke, we were both too aware of our looming departure. A man about my own age walked to the edge of the sea. His jeans were rolled up to the knees, and he tested the temperature with a bare foot, then turning, he waved to somebody behind us. A boy and a girl, neither of them older than six, sped towards him, and their mother followed, laughing as her husband gathered the children into his arms and swung them round. Tentatively, they ventured into the waves, the children shrieking at first, then gaining enough courage to plunge their bodies into the surf, and finally trying to splash their parents. For a long time the four of them played, oblivious to the rest of the world, and Elizabeth and I watched. Then the little boy fell. I felt my body stiffen and jerked myself up. But his father was there, ready to pick him up and comfort him. I relaxed and lay back again. It was several minutes before I realised that Elizabeth had turned her attention to me.

‘Alexander, what is it that’s making you so unhappy?’

‘You have to ask?’

‘No, there’s more. I’ve sensed it ever since we arrived here.’

I started to get to my feet, but she pulled me back. ‘Alexander, please. Don’t shut me out. If there’s to be any future for us, you must tell me what’s troubling you.’

I already knew the truth of what she was saying. Tears were gathering in her eyes and I felt my own stinging too. Then I looked round me again and knew that if we were to say good-bye anywhere, then it must be here. Here, where we had known love again.

‘Darling,’ I faltered. She said nothing, only took my hand and waited. For a time I was afraid to speak, afraid to tell her how I had cheated her by making promises I could never keep. And I was afraid to lose her – which I would in the end, no matter what she said, because my inability to have children, together with my jealousy of the child she already had by another man, would tear us apart. ‘Elizabeth.’ The family were moving away from the sea, chasing one another to the smugglers’ arch. Gently she turned my face back to hers, and waited for me to go on. ‘I should have told you the truth from the beginning, Elizabeth, but I was a coward. I wanted you so badly that I told myself it would be all right in the end. But it can’t be. We can’t be together, it’s just not possible.’

I felt her fingers tense as I spoke, but couldn’t bring myself to look at her.

‘Is it because of Jessica?’ she said, after a while.

I shook my head.

‘Because I’m married?’

‘No. Though God knows, that should be enough.’

‘Then what is it, Alexander? Tell me.’ There was desperation in her voice.

I took her face between my hands and for an instant I saw Jessica’s mouth laughing back at me, ridiculing me. I let her go and leaned forward. ‘I’m infertile, Elizabeth. It’s why Jessica has never conceived. I am sterile, empty, useless, call it what you like, but I can’t give you any children. I know you’ll say it doesn’t matter, but it will. Living with you day after day, watching you and knowing that I . . .’

‘Alexander! Stop! Stop! How can you think that would ever make a difference? How little you must think of me to believe that I would be capable of turning away from you over something like that. Something that’s not even . . .’

‘Please, Elizabeth, don’t make this any harder. I know what you’re going to say next, that I will come to love your daughter as my own. Well, I can’t live with your daughter, Elizabeth, knowing she is the child of another man. I know I’m a coward, but I can’t do it.’

‘Alexander, look at me.’

When I didn’t, she pulled me round to face her. ‘No, stop,’ she said, as I tried to speak. ‘Stop and listen to me. You’re not infertile, Alexander, do you hear me? You can’t be.’

‘There’s no point in denying it. Jessica . . . there were tests . . .’ I didn’t want to go on.

She started to speak, then stopped. She tried again, then threw herself away from me and ran off across the beach.

I let her go, as again I saw Jessica, heard her laughing even, but this time Elizabeth was there too. She had turned away from me, as I’d known she would. But God, how I had prayed she wouldn’t.

She was sitting beside a rock not far away, her head buried in her hands. She looked up as my shadow fell over her. I was surprised to see that she wasn’t crying, though her face looked ravaged. I sat down beside her and held out my hand for hers. She took it.

Staring straight ahead I started to speak. I told her then about Jessica, about the bitter fights we had, and the cruel way I had tormented her during the first years of our marriage. And I told her how, when Jessica found I was infertile, she had taken her revenge in the scorn and contempt she threw at me, knowing that I wanted a child more than anything else.

When I had finished I raised her hand to my mouth and kissed it softly. ‘So, my darling, you can see now what my infertility has done to me and Jessica. I couldn’t bear that to happen to us.’

I turned to look at her and saw that tears were streaming silently down her face. ‘Oh my God, what have I done?’ she whispered. ‘What have I done to you?’ She put her hand over my mouth as I started to speak. ‘There’s something you must know, Alexander. Something I should have told you a long time ago. I could have saved you all this pain. But I didn’t know what to do, please believe me, I was so young then, and so were you, and I didn’t know what to do for the best. I’m sorry, my darling . . .’

‘Elizabeth . . .?’

‘It’s Charlotte, Alexander, she’s . . . Charlotte is six years old.’

At first I didn’t move. The sounds of everyday life continued, but all I could hear was the echo of Elizabeth’s words. I was too stunned to speak or to think, and feeling myself go weak, I leaned back against the rock and closed my eyes.

How hurt she must have been to shield herself from me like that. And Jessica, how I must have hurt her too, for her to lie to me the way she had. I looked at Elizabeth and for a moment I didn’t understand her. All the times she could have told me in the past week, and hadn’t. I had a daughter. I closed my eyes again as tears slid unchecked over my face. I felt her arms go round me, cradling me like a child. But I couldn’t respond, my heart was numb. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, over and over. ‘I should have told you before. I’m sorry, my darling.’

It was a long time later, when the tears had dried on my cheeks and the sun was sinking towards the horizon, that I was finally able to speak. ‘Tell me about her, Elizabeth. Tell me everything about her.’

The following morning dawned dull and grey. It was the first miserable weather there had been, and Elizabeth sat at the window looking out at the rain.

The night before we had been closer than I had ever dreamed possible. This morning we were quiet. In less than an hour Jack Serle would come with his horse and carriage to take us to the ferry. Already Elizabeth was wrapped up against the weather.

The clock ticked monotonously in the corner. Elizabeth got up and said she was going for a walk. She wanted to go alone.

I waited for her in the lounge, thinking about her and wondering what the future would bring. When it was almost time to leave I went to the window and looked out, but there was no sign of her. The door opened and Jack Serle came in. He was early, and went off to the kitchen for a cup of tea.

I started to pace the room, looking at my watch. Where was she? Had something happened to her? The wind was vicious this morning, and the sea. Had she slipped and . . .?

I went outside. The rain was heavier now, and the sound of the wind, raging through the trees that cloistered the hotel, seemed sinister. I listened, straining my ears, as if expecting to hear her.

And then suddenly I knew where she was, and I knew that I must go to her. Circling the hotel, I strode quickly through the garden behind, oblivious of the driving rain, only knowing that I had to get to her. Then I was running, through the orchard, over the stile, past Jespillière House and across the meadow. There was the barely hidden gap in the yellow gorse. I pushed through and out on to the cliff edge.

She was a small figure huddled into the stone seat, her hair plastered to her face; alone in her grief. I held her close.

‘We will come back, Alexander, won’t we? Promise me that one day we will come back.’

‘I promise you, my darling. With all my heart, I promise you.’

How could either of us have known then what was to come?

– Elizabeth –

– 20 –

I was trying very hard not to look at my watch. Every muscle in my body was tensed to the point of breaking, and my heart thumped more rapidly as each minute passed. One o’clock on Friday at Jules’ Bar, he had said.

I looked around at the lunch-time drinkers. A party in the corner that had sung ‘Happy Birthday’ a moment ago; a group of men standing at the bar, talking too loudly; office girls, businessmen. I turned back to my drink. He’s not going to come, I know he’s not going to come. The words beat a tattoo on my brain.

A shadow fell over me, and the moment I saw Henry’s face I felt the blood drain from my own.

‘Elizabeth.’

I tried to smile, but my heart was in my throat and I dug my fingers deep into the palms of my hands in an effort to keep calm.

He sat down. ‘How are you?’

‘Oh, I’m fine. How are you?’

‘Yes, I’m fine.’

I rushed on. ‘Alexander told me all about Caroline. I’m very happy for you, Henry. When’s it to be?’ I gave him a big smile, as if by doing so I could stop him from delivering the news that was written in every line of his face.

‘Next week, actually.’

Neither of us said anything after that, as the waitress took our order then came back with the drinks.

‘He’s not coming, is he?’ I whispered.

He looked down at his hands, bunched together on the table in front of him. Slowly, he shook his head.

The denial rushed at me with such force that it snatched my breath. It couldn’t be true. This wasn’t happening. Any minute now I would wake up and Alexander would be walking through the door. All I had to do was open my eyes.