I Hope You Dance (31 page)

“Thanks.”

We drove in silence for a few miles. The truth was, I felt nervous on Lois's behalf. She had called the day before, uncharacteristically fretful, and asked if I would go with her to visit her dad in hospital in Birmingham. Having not seen him for more than a decade, during which time he'd gone into prison and come out again, he'd named Lois as next of kin and asked the hospital to get in touch. He had liver failure. He wanted to see his daughter before he died.

She asked if it could wait a few days – her husband was in bed with stomach flu. Apparently there were no days to wait. So, here we were.

“Will your mum want to see him?”

Lois shook her head. Her mum had remarried sixth months after her divorce came through. She now lived in Spain with her husband and his children. “No. She barely sees
me
because it reminds her of her old life.”

“That must be hard.”

“Yep. But Matt's parents fill in some of the gap.” She looked across at me and grinned. “And I have some awesome friends. And a massive Oak Hill family who do stuff like send my kids to Paris. I have more blessings than I can count. I'm at peace with it. Mum's doing her best to survive. I get that.”

We drove some more.

“Do you still feel angry, Ruth? About losing Fraser?”

I considered that. “No. I'm not angry he died. I felt angry he left with no will, no life insurance and a pile of secret debts. Furious I had to uproot Maggie from her home and her school and come back to Southwell and cope with my parents. I really didn't want to have to face those memories. But if I'm still angry, it's at myself. Looking back, I can't believe my laziness. I had given up. I had no friends, Lois. No hopes, no plans, no energy, no confidence. I refuse to feel sorry for myself any longer. This is my life now, and all I can do is choose to make the most of it.”

“I'm proud of you, sister. Amen to that.”

“You know, when you pretend to be a pastor's wife I get an overwhelming urge to tell a dirty joke.”

“You don't know any dirty jokes.”

“I could probably make one up if I tried.”

We parked the car and made our way through the hospital corridors to the ward. A nurse buzzed us in, and directed us to the right bed. Lois gripped tight to my arm as we made our way along the bays.

My memories of Rupert Finch were of a powerfully built man with a red face, who used to clap people on the back a lot, point his finger and make loud jokes that weren't funny but people laughed
anyway. Looking back there was nothing to distinguish him as a monster. Even less so now.

A withered, yellowed, unkempt old man wearing a hospital gown and several days of grey stubble cowered in the bed furthest along the bay. He slowly rolled jaundiced eyes over to see who approached, and growled out, “Nurse?”

Lois clutched my arm tighter. I felt her take in a deep breath, hold it for a second before slowly exhaling. I touched her hand and stepped back. She responded with a tiny nod, and walked across to stand a couple of paces from the bed.

“Dad. It's me. It's Lois.”

I found a nook set out for visitors with a couple of comfy chairs and a rack of magazines. Still only halfway through discovering the style bloops of the recent red carpet event, as described by a publication whose copy read like that of a jealous school girl, I looked up to see Lois waiting for me.

She looked tired, but her shoulders were straight and her mascara was intact.

“How was it?”

She shrugged. “I didn't need the tissues. Shall we get a sandwich or something before you drive back?”

“I'm happy to do whatever you want.”

“Honestly, I just want to go home and hug my children, then my husband, and blob on the sofa with a box set of something brainless and cheesy.”

“I didn't think you got any blobbing time in your house.”

“I'm making time. We can survive on fish and chips for once. And if the kids have no ironed uniform for school tomorrow, boo hoo. They'll get over it.”

I stood up, reaching to give her a hug, but she held up her hands to block me.

“Don't. Not here. I'm a whisker away from causing a scene.”

Her chin wobbled, and I took hold of her hand instead. “I knew it was all a show. Underneath you're a total wimp. Come
on, I wouldn't want you to embarrass me in public with an overly dramatic display of emotion.”

I took my strong friend home, back to the guilt-free, resentment-free, self-pity-free, incredible life she had created despite every excuse not to.

That afternoon I walked down to the bank and deposited the most recent cheque for five thousand pounds that Dad had given me following my failure to cash the first two. A punch in the face of the debt monster. Pow! On my way back, in an empty alleyway, I danced a little rhumba and then a few steps of the tango. I was a Henderson girl. Well, look at that. I was dancing after all.

That is, until I sashayed out of the alleyway. Just down the road in front of me crouched a sleek black car. I stumbled to a halt, and the car slowly accelerated away from the side of the road. As it turned the corner, I swear its lights flashed. Either that or it was a vein exploding behind my eyes.

I stomped home on quaking legs, furious I hadn't kept enough presence of mind to read the number plate, frustrated I had no idea whether I was being paranoid or not. I drew the blinds in the living room and the kitchen, and got out the evil-stalker logbook, all the time listening for the sound of an expensive engine crawling down the cul-de-sac.

My head said not to panic at the calls, the sightings, the white rose I found on the doormat the following morning. There could be any number of rational non-Carl related explanations. My guts, my instincts, my womanly intuition agreed – no need to panic, but don't for a second try to convince yourself this is anything other than ex-Dr Carl Coombes-Barker. Mum or Dad started giving me a lift to work. I finally gave in and bought another phone, telling no one but Maggie and my parents the number. Nobody complained when I drew the curtains any more. He was winning. The fear was winning. But I was darned if I was going to let him see it.

Lois's father died a few days later. There were half a dozen mourners at the crematorium. After the brief ceremony, I went
with Lois and Matt to visit his old flat. We stood, appalled, in the skeleton of one man's life. A couple of shabby, mismatched pieces of furniture, empty cupboards, bare beige walls. A few worn out items of clothing in the wardrobe. Nothing in the bathroom except a used-up toilet roll. Dirt, dust, grime. Too many empty bottles of gin to count.

Matt called a company who would clear everything out and clean it up. We locked up and left, driving home through bright sunshine, each with the same thought stark in our minds: there wasn't a single person on the planet who would miss Rupert Finch, one-time property entrepreneur, husband and father. What a terrible, shocking, heartbreaking waste of a life. What a sharp reminder to get up, get out, love, laugh and live while we can. To take life by the hand and, by golly, to dance every step.

 

By June I was beside myself. The silent calls had transferred to the landline. Whether it was once a week or five times in one afternoon, what scared me most was that they only happened when I was home alone. I took to bolting all the doors, turning up the television loud and holing up in the living room until someone else arrived back. My life had become a sick game, and the stress was taking its toll on the whole family. In front of them I smiled and made jokes about it, neglecting to tell them the frequency or timing of the calls, pretending I was being a bit of a silly billy really. But they weren't fooled for a second. I wasn't the only one with pinched lines around my eyes, jumping when the phone rang or a shadow passed in front of the door.

Something had to give. This couldn't go on much longer.

Carl Barker agreed with me on that, if nothing else.

It was a sunny Saturday lunchtime. I found Maggie mooching about in cut-off shorts and a T-shirt, killing time until her visit to Hannah's. Things had improved somewhat as the befriending scheme came towards its end. With one of the sessions now taking place at the dance class, it had the added bonus of giving them something to talk about during the Saturday session too. Hannah had been helping Maggie plan decorations, digging out faded recipes for cakes, compiling a list of her favourite songs from the fifties. They had even, on a few occasions, ventured out into the garden. Instead of barking gardening-related orders from the window, Hannah had taken to sitting on a plastic sun lounger borrowed from John next door, underneath a saggy brimmed hat. Maggie even caught her walking unaided a couple of times.

“I reckon she's grown a good four inches. It's because she doesn't stoop over that frame any more, unless someone's looking. She's stopped wobbling so much too. I knew she couldn't really be that frail.”

“You've given her something to live for. She's standing tall because she's happier. And she's wobbling less because she's starting to feel strong.”

“Well, whatever the reason, I wish she'd admit it so she can iron her own face cloths.”

“Nobody irons their face cloths!” I exclaimed.

“No. They just get child slaves to do it for them as punishment instead.”

“The befriending scheme wasn't a punishment.”

“Really? You try ironing someone else's unmentionables in a dark, dirty flat while your friends are all out sunbathing.”

“Are you out with Seth this afternoon?” Seth and Maggie were now on probation. One evening and one weekend date per week, with a ten o'clock curfew.

“Hello? I'm at Hannah's. She's showing me how to make napkin swans.”

“Don't be rude. I meant afterwards.”

“No.”

“No? Are you seeing him this evening instead?”

“I'm revising.”

“You used to revise together.”

“What is this? An interrogation? I didn't think you wanted me spending time with him anyway.” She flung herself off the sofa and left the room. I followed her into the kitchen – I couldn't help it. I'm her mum; it's what I do.

“The two of you spent months trying to convince me you can be trusted to go out together. It's understandable I'd be curious when you aren't making the most of it.”

“He's busy. All right?”

I raised my eyebrows. Had Seth Callahan had the audacity to brush off my daughter? Where was a shotgun when you wanted one?

“As long as you're sure that's all it is.”

“I told you, I trust him! When are you going to accept that we actually love each other?”

“I'm sorry. I just want you to be careful.” I made a mental note to speak to Lois.

Maggie stared at her half-made sandwich for a minute.

“Why didn't you and Dad get married?”

I could have fobbed this question off as I'd done a thousand times before. Or pretended I didn't know. Pretended I hadn't really thought about it. Did I tell the truth? Maybe a selective, filtered version.

“That's not an easy question to answer. If you'd asked Dad, he probably would've given you a different reason.”

“Didn't you even talk about it?”

“We had a conversation when I found out I was pregnant. But, honey, we were students. We weren't ready, we barely knew each other. It was scary enough trying to figure out how to be parents. Husband and wife felt too much right then.”

“But what about later on? When you were older, and knew you loved each other?”

Oh, boy. I could not tell the whole truth here.

“I don't know – we honestly never really discussed it. I used to wonder, when you were little, if at Christmas or Valentine's Day Dad would surprise me with a ring, but he was never really into all that. There was always something – a house move, or looking for a new job, a different car. And you know Grandma Margaret would have hated it. She'd have turned our wedding day into a nightmare. It didn't really matter that much. We were a family, weren't we?”

What a big, fat lie. Some women, and fair play to them, don't give a fig about a wedding, a white dress, a first dance. A man who is prepared to commit himself legally to one woman, making public vows to honour, care for her and all the rest of it for as long as they both shall live.

I had never been one of those women.

 

I still thought about Maggie's marriage question an hour later, staring at the half-completed Oak Hill newsletter on my laptop. That's not quite true. My daydreams about marriage did not include Fraser. Shutting the computer down I sighed and went into the kitchen to put the kettle on. In every imagined wedding scenario, I tried to picture gliding down the aisle in my antique-lace dress towards an anonymous husband to be – one I had met at some unspecified time in the distant future. So why did he stand at the front of Oak Hill church with his hands in his back pockets, a grin that warmed me down to my toes and eyes like pools of silver?

David had gone from my life again. But the brief time we spent together confirmed what I knew all along: I would always love him. Not as a friend or a brother, or because he happened to want me. I didn't primarily love the way he made me feel, or the memories he stirred, or the idea of being truly loved. I loved him. That man. Everything about him. So, how he felt, or where he was, or even if –

The kitchen door swung open.

“Hello, Ruth.”

The coffee cup slid out of my grasp and smashed onto the tiles at my feet.