Echoes of the Dance (12 page)

‘But you loved Roly – and he loved you.'

Kate tried not to make it a question but Monica's smile was sly and secretive, as if she recognized the doubt in Kate's voice.

‘Oh, yes,' she answered confidently. ‘Roly loved me. It was the cruellest thing I ever did; leaving him, I mean. He never got over it.'

‘I'm sure he didn't.' Kate was profoundly uncomfortable. ‘I'm so sorry. Look, I'd better not offer you the other half, had I? Because of you having to drive back.'

‘God, no!' Monica glanced at her watch and felt about for her shoes with her toes. ‘I must go. Spirits have a terrible effect on me. Usually, I hardly touch them. Gosh! I feel quite tiddly.'

‘It was probably a bit strong.' Kate took her glass. ‘It's all those years living with sailors. Will you be OK?'

‘Of course I will. Though you never did tell me about your great passion.'

‘No, I didn't, did I?'

She watched Monica back the car rather erratically down the drive and went inside, thinking about Monica and Jonathan. Monica's brand of hatred sounded as indigestible and weighty as cold porridge, unleavened by the hot-blooded rage and jealousy that often go hand in hand with love. Yet she'd spoken about Roly in much the same chill terms despite her avowed passion for him.

What was odd, thought Kate, trying to work her way through her reaction, was that, repellent though Monica's outburst had been, there was an accompanying emotional undertow that required sympathy; a hypnotic quality that demanded the listener's acquiescence. It was as if Monica lacked the ability to take responsibility for her own actions and the lack of it made her dangerous: she saw herself at the centre of her universe – like a spider in the middle of her web – and used everything that came within its radius as a means of support and survival. How quickly she'd seized on that slip of the tongue.

‘You never did tell me about your great passion,' she'd said, as if it were some tasty morsel, enmeshed and waiting to be dealt with another time: as if she and Kate were now ineluctably bound together by sticky strands of revealed intimacies.

Remembering Alex – the joy and anguish, the happiness and the pain – Kate cursed herself for giving any hint of the affair. She'd been caught off guard, reminded of how, years ago, they'd sat together in the May sunshine outside her little cottage at Walkhampton, talking about relationships.

‘Men and women are two different species,' she'd said to him. ‘We think differently, react differently, require different things. To expect marriage to work is like expecting a fish and a bird to live happily together. Or a bee and a mouse. Totally incompatible, really.'

‘Are you trying to tell me something?' he'd asked.

Even now, thirty years later, she could remember the details of their affair: the angle of his head as he played patience and the flick, flick, flick of the tiny cards; the musty, papery smell of second-hand books in the small shop where they'd worked together; his listening face, intent and loving, as she talked out her fears and, afterwards, the physical relief of being held close to him in bed.

She realized that she was standing quite still, her eyes tightly closed, and with an exclamation of impatience at her foolishness she switched on the radio and began to stack the dishwasher.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

In the chemist's shop on the corner of Argyle Street, Daisy waited patiently whilst a customer talked to the pharmacist, describing his problem with a bloodshot eye. She loved this friendly shop, so full of atmosphere, with its rich dark mahogany counter on which there was a glass display cabinet containing old-fashioned badger-hair shaving brushes, razors and a collection of every type of scissor anyone could possibly desire. On the wall behind the counter were rows of small square mahogany drawers that, way back in the early nineteenth century, had probably contained dried herbs. Daisy gazed with pleasure at the variously shaped jars – rich blue, green and white – that stood on the top shelves that ran the whole length of the shop. She wondered if ancient potions were still stored in them but never asked lest she might be disillusioned by the reply.

Perhaps, mused Daisy, the apothecary who had assisted Queen Charlotte with her purchases might have been able to prescribe some miracle cure for her own torn muscle. She sighed silently, miserably: the physiotherapist had been unable to give a good report and had said that the damage might be worse than they'd feared. Daisy stared down at the packet of arnica tablets she was holding – she had great faith in herbal medicines – and wondered what she would do if the muscle and its surrounding tissue refused to heal.

The customer was finished now, smiling an apology to Daisy for holding her up, and she paid for the tablets and followed him out between the Ionic columns and into Laura Place. The catkins on the pretty silver birch trees were over now and new green leaves fluttered bright and fresh against the ghost-light bark. The sound of the fountain's sparkling water, spilling into the wide shallow bowl, was cool and enticing, and Daisy paused to take in the early afternoon scene. A nurse was pushing an elderly lady in a wheelchair back from the town: the nurse was leaning forward on the handles, talking to the occupant of the chair, whose face was turned eagerly upwards, and they suddenly burst out laughing. On the ledge of the fountain a young couple sat with their bare feet in the shallow water. They leaned together idly, peacefully silent, enjoying the sunshine. The Japanese tourists, standing beside their guide as he pointed out the features of Great Pulteney Street, were not concentrating: they were staring curiously at the young couple with their feet in the fountain as if shocked at such wantonness here in elegant Bath.

Daisy turned into Henrietta Street. She loved these tall, gracious houses, built of warm Bath stone, and the small hotels, so well cared for, with their brightly polished brass work and pretty geraniums and variegated ivy tumbling out of window boxes. The houses were nearly all divided into flats and the street was a busy, cheerful place. The young and the elderly, professional people, students and nine-to-fivers lived here; there was always someone moving out sadly at the end of the tenancy and another arriving full of excitement at the prospect of a new flat.

Through open windows she could hear the sound of a piano being played rather badly mingling with rap music from a student's flat; the smell of cooking wafted up from a basement area, reminding her that she'd eaten very little at lunch-time. Daisy realized that she was peering eagerly ahead, looking for Paul's car although it was far too early to be expecting him. She hadn't seen him since she'd arrived back and was much more disappointed than she liked to admit. Passing her own front door she walked on into the park, not ready to go back to the empty flat: she hated this enforced idleness and she was lonely. She missed the gruelling discipline of work and the company of Jill and Suzy, who would have understood her terror that her dancing career might be over and might have offered sensible advice as well as sympathy.

The park was bustling this afternoon. People were lying on the grass, sunbathing, or sitting more sedately having picnics. A group of students was celebrating a birthday with lots of wine and much laughter. The boys were fooling around with a rugby ball, showing off to the girls who suddenly jumped up and began to join in, much to the consternation of a small girl on a fairy bike. Her young mother, pushing a baby in a buggy, put a comforting hand on the back of the bicycle seat, steering it until they were safely past the jostling gang, but Daisy saw that she was smiling to herself: perhaps it wasn't too long since she'd been a careless, happy girl, fooling with the boys in Henrietta Park on a warm May afternoon.

In the Garden of Remembrance the air was heavy with the scent of roses and wisteria, whose white blossom cascaded over the wood-framed walkways; the laburnum was in full golden flower and the massed pink flowers of the climbing clematis were reflected in the pond's glassy surface. Staring down into the water, Daisy was reminded of Roly: she missed him too. An elderly couple, sitting companionably on a bench, watched her with friendly interest; they leaned as easily and peacefully together as the young couple at the fountain in Laura Place. Couples, families, groups: she felt like an outsider looking in at a world she couldn't possess. With a quick smile for the elderly couple she passed back between the iron gates, up the slope, and out into the street.

Home. She would go home and have some tea, perhaps make a quick telephone call to Cornwall to see how Roly and the dogs were getting on . . . She stifled an exclamation as her heart leaped with surprise and anticipation: Paul's car was parked beside the kerb. Before she could lose her nerve she went quickly into the hall and rang his doorbell. He answered almost at once.

‘Daisy.' His smile was so delighted, so genuine, that she felt as if the breath had been knocked from her body. ‘I wondered when you'd be home again.'

‘I've been walking in the park and suddenly I needed a cup of tea. Why don't you come up and have one?' She didn't want him to vanish back inside with a friendly wave, as in the past, nor was she prepared to wait for an invitation into his flat. ‘Or a drink? Is it too early for a drink?'

He didn't hesitate. ‘I'd like some tea. Thanks. Give me five minutes and I'll join you.'

Upstairs she paused in the doorway of the sitting-room, wondering how he'd react to the modern influences in this big, elegant room, dominated by the marble fireplace with its central figure of a reclining muse holding a goblet and plucking a grape.

‘So wonderfully decadent,' Suzy had observed when they'd first viewed the flat. ‘We simply must have it just for the fireplace.'

The noble face of Nureyev, in the role of Albrecht in
Giselle
, gazed indifferently from its framed poster (Daisy's) upon the grotesque papier mâché mask of a pig-faced woman (Jenny's) that hung from a peg. On the bookshelves in the alcove, Shopaholic and Bridget Jones rubbed shoulders with Balanchine, Helpmann and Massine, all piled together in cheerful disorder. A pair of pointe shoes waiting to be darned, their satin ribbons spooling down to the polished floor- boards (Daisy's), stood on the window seat alongside a wicker workbasket. Leaflets, photographs, postcards were stuck at random all around the enamel-framed looking-glass (Suzy's) and propped behind the assorted candlesticks that were placed along the mantelshelf above the fire.

‘What fun.' Paul was standing behind her, so close that she could feel his breath on her cheek. ‘Love the mask.'

She turned to look at him so intently that he raised his eyebrows warily as if anticipating a difficult question.

‘I suppose this is OK?' she asked. ‘Inviting you up, I mean. I've assumed that you're not, you know,
with
anyone. I don't want to cause difficulties. Oh, damn, that makes it all sound serious, doesn't it? It's just that I like to know about people.'

And now, she told herself silently, you've spoiled it all.

She watched him walk further into the room; he touched the snout of the pig-faced woman, readjusted the raised arm of a wooden jointed figure poised in arabesque upon a little table.

‘That's fair enough,' he said at last. ‘As it happens, I'm married.' He looked at her, noted her expression. ‘But not for much longer, it seems. So the answer is, no, not with anyone.'

‘I wasn't trying to be nosy,' she muttered – she knew she was blushing – and braced herself to be bright and normal. ‘It's none of my business except . . .'

‘Except that we like each other,' he assisted her, ‘and we want to know each other better. In which case it was a very fair question. I might ask the same of you.'

‘No.' She shook her head, encouraged by his reaction, her spirits rising. ‘Nobody at the moment.'

‘Good.' He took a deep breath. ‘Enough to be going on with? Listen, I had an idea on the way up. Why don't we go and have some supper at Clarke's Restaurant later on?'

‘I'd like that very much,' she answered.

She was pleased to hear that her voice was well under control but, in the privacy of the small kitchen, she punched the air jubilantly. This was definitely progress.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

After supper, as she stood at the window of her small bedroom at the back of the flat, Daisy decided that she was in love. It wasn't just the exciting mix of chemistry between them that caused her to laugh one moment and be oddly shy the next; it was much more than a physical attraction. She liked his enthusiasm and his genuine interest in all that was happening around him: he noticed things and she recognized in him her own brand of curiosity. Like her, Paul wanted to know what made things work, what made people tick, and he wasn't afraid to ask questions.

Standing at her window, gazing dreamily beyond the dim, feathery bulk of the plane tree towards Walcot Street, she reflected on the dangers of such a character. She knew from her own bitter experience that a fascination with other people's affairs could give quite the wrong impression and she was resisting the temptation to feel flattered. Paul had encouraged her to tell him about the trip to Cornwall and soon she'd embarked on a description of the great converted barn by the ford, of Roly and of Uncle Bernard in his drawer. This led on to Bevis and Floss and rescue dogs and, after that, it was a natural step to Kate and her dilemma. Fearing that he might become bored with this recital about places and people he'd never seen, she watched him anxiously from time to time, ready at any moment to change the subject.