Echoes of the Dance (35 page)

‘That went well,' said Roly, helping to carry the tea-things into the kitchen. ‘They've really hit it off, haven't they?'

Kate smiled, nodded, but was unwilling to be drawn further and Roly wondered if he'd been too outspoken when he'd tackled her about David. Before he could think of any satisfactory way of reintroducing the subject, Daisy and Nat returned. Nat was in a hurry to be away.

‘I've just realized the time and I'm going to be late,' he said. ‘Great tea, Kate. Thanks.'

They went out with him, waving him off, wandering back indoors together. Daisy swept her hair back and began to secure it with a scrunchie, still smiling to herself.

‘He's just so nice,' she said to nobody in particular.

‘You like him?' Roly was clearly pleased.

‘Of course I do. He's great. But why didn't you tell me he's gay?'

She looked up into the shocked silence, still knotting up her hair, her smile fading as she stared from one to the other.

‘My God,' she said blankly. Crimson washed into her face. ‘Oh my God.' She covered her face with her hands whilst Roly stood stiffly, his eyes blank with shock. ‘I'm so sorry,' whispered Daisy. ‘I can't believe you didn't know. I am so sorry.'

‘I did know.' Kate was obliged to speak up at last; it wasn't fair to let Daisy bear all of the burden. ‘I've known for a while.'

She glanced compassionately at Roly, and looked away again from the expression on his face.

‘Did he tell you?' he asked painfully.

‘No,' she answered quickly. ‘No, of course not. It was Gemma, actually. After she'd met him a few times she more or less did exactly what Daisy's just done. After that I saw things more clearly and somehow the awareness evolved between us. I don't know how to explain it properly but it was as if he guessed that I knew and I somehow conveyed that it was OK. We've never talked outright about it, only obliquely. Please don't be too upset, Daisy. Perhaps I should have spoken up.'

‘I can't believe that I can be so crass.' Daisy was almost in tears. ‘You've all been so kind to me and I just stroll in and spoil everything.'

‘It's nobody's fault,' said Roly almost angrily. ‘Nobody's. I might have seen it for myself if I'd really thought it through but there were smokescreens. Janna, for instance . . .'

‘I've always thought that Nat and Janna are like the babes in the wood,' said Kate, ‘covering each other with leaves so as to camouflage themselves from the world.'

‘But why should it matter?' cried Daisy. ‘Nat's a terrific guy. Who cares whether he's gay or not?'

Kate glanced at Roly: he still looked bleak.

‘I agree with you, Daisy,' she said. ‘But until Nat believes that nobody cares he's going to hide it. He hasn't the con- fidence to speak out and so he's like somebody bearing a load too heavy for him. What do you think, Roly? You agree, don't you, that having secrets can be a burden? It's better to shed them if you can.'

Watching them Daisy felt that there was some other meaning hidden in Kate's words but she remained silent, feeling that she'd said quite enough.

‘That's quite true,' Roly was saying. ‘Much better. But the moment for the telling has to be right. You can't force it.'

‘Even so, I think that it should be soon for Nat.'

Roly turned his head to stare at Kate whilst Daisy slipped away into the garden feeling that she'd already heard more than she should. Roly moved so that he was facing Kate across the kitchen table.

‘Why do you say that?'

‘I think that their efforts at camouflage are moving into a new stage. A dangerous one. Janna longs to be in a stable relationship, to have a baby, to be like other girls of her age. Nat knows that this is . . . wrong for them. He is intelligent enough to realize that marrying Janna and starting a family won't make him different or her more stable. On the contrary, it could be quite disastrous. At the same time it's tempting, and Janna is becoming more persuasive. Up until now they've just been very good friends but the last time I had supper with them I saw a change. I think they'd been making love and Janna had begun to believe that the dream could come true.'

‘Making love? But if Nat's gay . . . ?'

‘Oh, Roly.' Kate sighed with an impatience laced with sympathy as she saw the tiny hope flicker in his eyes. ‘That doesn't mean that he can't perform with a woman. You know what comfort the warmth of another human body can bring. Don't be so dense. Nat's torn between making Janna happy and holding to his own principles. It's especially difficult because part of him knows that even those things – a home, marriage, a baby – wouldn't necessarily make Janna a balanced, peaceful person. She's been damaged and hurt and she fears commitment. Yet there's that doubt nagging at the back of his mind: is it worth the risk? What will happen to Janna if he refuses? And what will happen to him?'

‘Oh God, poor Nat.'

‘Yes, indeed. Poor Nat. He needs all the help he can get at the moment. You saw how he was with Daisy: so happy and easy. He's the same with Gemma and he used to be like that with Janna until it got complicated. You could help him, Roly. Goodness knows, amongst all your friends in London there are plenty of gays. You have no problems about them.'

‘It's different,' he said with difficulty, ‘when it's your own son.'

‘Of course it is.'

‘And I don't know how to start. When I told you about Mim's accident it followed on naturally after something Daisy said on the telephone. You were there and it all just . . . happened.'

‘Perhaps you should look at this the other way round. Perhaps it's time you told Nat the truth about the accident. After all, it had a catastrophic effect on his life, if you think about it. Doesn't he deserve an explanation?'

He looked grim. ‘You mean Nat might be gay because of the way Monica and I behaved?'

‘I'm not saying anything of the kind. Can't we forget about guilt and blame and just think about Nat? We love him because he's Nat. We don't want him to ruin his life and Janna's because he hasn't anyone to talk to about his problems. Whenever Janna throws a wobbly about commitment she rushes away to Teresa and her mum and all the mates down there in Plymouth. Poor old Nat just toughs it out on his own. He was managing fine until Janna got broody but now he's vulnerable. You can help him, Roly. He loves you and he knows you love him, up to a point. He needs to know you love him whatever he is. If you start by admitting your part in Mim's accident it might follow on naturally for him to be open about himself. Surely it's worth a try?'

‘Yes,' he answered with some difficulty. ‘Yes, of course it is.'

Daisy appeared in the doorway. She looked anxious and unhappy, all her earlier joyful happiness gone.

‘Shall I take the dogs for a walk?' she suggested tentatively.

‘No, we must be getting back.' Roly stretched out a hand to her. ‘It's OK, Daisy. Really it is.'

‘I can't say how sorry I am.'

Kate went to her and gave her a hug. ‘Sometimes we need people who don't pull any punches,' she said consolingly. ‘They make things happen. I think good will come out of this, I really do.'

CHAPTER FORTY

When Nat got home there were two messages waiting for him. The first was from his father.

‘It was good to see you, Nat. I was hoping for a bit of a chat. Just something I wanted to talk over with you. What about coming down tomorrow for lunch? Anyway, perhaps you'll ring me?'

He raised his eyebrows, wondering what it might be about, and listened to the second message: Janna this time.

‘I shan't be back tonight, Nat. 'Tis a bit late now to start checking the buses and I'm bushed after a day on the stall. I'll stay with Treesa and go and see Mum tomorrow. See you later. Love you, Nat.'

She sounded sleepy, vague, and he had the usual fear that she might be experimenting with drugs. Nevertheless his overriding feeling was one of relief. It was rather a luxury to have nobody to worry over or to feel guilty about; nobody making demands he couldn't fulfil. He decided that he couldn't be bothered to cook. He'd have a bath and then go down to the pub. He took the phone upstairs with him, turned on the taps in the bath and dialled Roly's number: engaged.

He found a clean pair of jeans and a shirt, stripped off, flung his clothes in the wicker laundry basket and climbed into the bath. It was good, very good, to relax; to allow worries and weariness to slide gently away down the waste pipe with the overflow of hot water. Images and fragments of conversation jostled behind his closed eyes: the plans for the garden in Callington, Kate's preoccupation whilst Daisy had been making them laugh with a story about dancing in
The
Phantom
, and Roly's affectionate smile when he'd said, ‘Nat. Great to see you.' How good it would be if he could believe that Roly knew exactly how things were: if he could believe that his father saw beyond the smokescreens and the camouflage and quite simply loved him as he was. What comfort there would be if only he could be certain that his father's love was absolutely unconditional, that it was unimportant to Roly whether or not he, Nat, fell in love, got married or had children.

Nat took the soap and squeezed it in his hands, making a lather. Maybe his father had long since guessed the truth and, like Kate, simply accepted it without making any fuss or discussion about it. He closed his eyes, taking a deep longing breath at the mere idea of such good fortune. Could it be possible? He knew that there was no hope at all of such acceptance with his mother: his stomach muscles tightened at the prospect of confronting her and his heart sank as he suddenly remembered that she was coming to see him again. How odd that she'd been so cross on hearing that Daisy was staying with Roly.

‘I might spend a night or two with him,' she'd said.

Nat plunged his head under the water, sat up again, gasping, and began to wash his hair, still thinking about his mother. Why this sudden desire to stay with Roly, and why that sharp reaction when he'd mentioned Daisy? It seemed that she still looked upon Roly as her own possession: she behaved as though Roly had no right to a relationship with any other woman. She might leave him and marry another man but he must remain unattached, devoted, penitent. It wasn't as though she took exception to his casual girlfriends – she seemed to look upon them with the kind of friendly contempt a confident senior wife might show to a lesser concubine – but if one of them seemed to be making any ground with Roly then Monica became unreasonably possessive. It was an attitude that Nat had never understood.

Sophie Klein – the name came from nowhere and, with it, a little cameo. The tiny flashback showed him the morning-room in his stepfather's London house: the breakfast table, on the second or third day of the Christmas holidays, and his mother holding the newspaper.

‘Oh, for God's sake,' she is saying distastefully, ‘your father is making a fool of himself in public again,' and immediately his gut churns and clenches in preparation for the scene to come.

‘What's the matter?'

He tries to sound unconcerned, hoping that a show of disinterest will deflect her messy emotional demands, but he feels despair too. He's had such a good term – he's been made captain of the second fifteen and become a member of his House's rifle team – which made it possible to shelve all the problems he has to deal with at home. Now it all begins again. She flaps the paper down beside him, folded open at a photograph of Roly in evening dress with an elegant, pretty woman holding on to his arm and laughing up at him.

The caption reads: ‘The photographer Roly Carradine with the model Sophie Klein at the premiere of a West End production.'

‘So what?' He is deliberately cool. ‘She looks quite nice.'

He is aware of his mother, tense and focused beside him, staring at the picture.

‘After all,' he adds reasonably, ‘it's not the first time Roly's had his pic in the paper.'

‘It's certainly not the first time with her,' she answers, and the curl of her lip implies that Roly's behaviour and taste are in some way questionable. ‘They're being seen everywhere together.'

‘What if they are? Does it matter? You left him years ago, so why should it bother you?'

She sits down again and her face takes on a consciously gentle expression. Here is a brave, generous woman, says the look, who has been terribly hurt but continues to love.

‘I still care about him, Nat. He's very susceptible to a pretty face and I don't want him to be hurt by a silly chit of a girl.'

For the first time Nat is sickened by her hypocrisy. He is old enough to know that she blackens his father's character so as to win sympathy, to keep Nat on her side, and he is beginning to be unwilling to go along with it. His school life – tough, vigorous, straightforward – has made him less able to identify with her devious, complicated personality and he is not so sympathetic to her needs.

‘Well then,' he says lightly, ‘if you still care about him you must be pleased to see him looking so happy.'