Learning to Dance (12 page)

Nat was frowning, concentrating. ‘I do remember her saying that the water slide was somewhere else – she’d found it with her dad – old Goalposts – but then he had an imagination longer than the Blackwall Tunnel—’

‘Yes, but his stories and games were always based on something firm. That version of hopscotch, for instance: it was our own hopping and skipping, but his Hungarian chant gave it a special meaning. Anyway, when Bart and Irena leased the castle I was roped in for some hard labour, and when I got time off I explored. Nothing else to do. I had my own project, of course. Mapped all the pubs in the area; look, I’ve marked each one with a cross. Right over to the west side of the moor – dropping down to the cider orchards – there’s a little place right there.’ He stabbed at the map. ‘Where they brew their own cider, and you can sit in the front room and sample it. Don’t think they’ve got a licence, but no one’s going to let the cat out of the bag unless they’re blind drunk, which is, of course, a very real risk.’

‘Bit like smuggling,’ Nathaniel put in.

‘Suppose so. Anyway, somewhere on one of my expeditions, I came across a river. Usual Exmoor sort of river, wide and shallow and crystal clear. I called it the Gould. After Gould
the Post.’ He did not look at Sybil. ‘In memory of him, if you like.’

‘I like,’ said Nathaniel. ‘He was a lovely man.’

Judith felt a pang; it was as if Hausmann was creating a small world. A world that had gone. She looked along the bar past the map and saw that Sybil was staring at Nathaniel Jones, as if willing him into that world.

‘Good. Because this project is called “the Gould Project”, and you are a very important part of it.’

Nathaniel looked surprised. ‘Me?’ He snorted a laugh. ‘I was always odd man out, Robert. And you know it.’

‘You were the third man, yes. But you were never on the outside. You were always in the middle.’

‘That’s rubbish.’ Nathaniel laughed again, without regret. ‘I was the hanger-on. Once Esmée left – you and me – we drifted apart. You went to art college, then on to London. And I did business studies at Cardiff Tech and opened a print workshop.’

‘You came to my first exhibition. You sent Christmas cards.’

‘You never returned them.’

‘No point. I was the outsider.’ Hausmann grinned, delighted to have come full circle in their verbal volley. ‘Now, drink up, everybody. The mysterious Esmée Gould always said that she and her dad had discovered the original water slide. I am almost certain that the two of them were talking about my river. The Gould river. The river of gold. Call it what you will. I’ve plotted it on this map, and we are off to find it this very day, this very hour.’ He had folded the map as he spoke, and now waved it above his head like a flag. ‘And we are going to climb it, maybe to its source. The top of Exmoor! The watershed for all the moor rivers, some
draining past us now and into the sea of Lundy, some the other side, where they fill the valley with cider!’

Judith started to laugh, remembering the glowering silent man of two nights ago as he had struggled with the heavy front door and been confronted by a crazy woman in the thinnest of nightdresses, who could have been the result of a steady night’s drinking at the Dove Inn.

They looked at her as she tried to control the unstoppable giggles which were threatening to escalate into hysteria. Then Hausmann pocketed the map and put a bracing arm around her shoulders.

‘Come on, old girl! It’s only a game. What’s that old saying—?’

‘Play the game!’ she spluttered.

‘That’s it. Just like you did when you were a kid – yes?’

‘Yes, I know.’ Suddenly it was as if the whole world tilted slightly; she thought she was going to fall flat on her face. She pulled away from Hausmann and took a huge breath. ‘But since then my dad has died, and Mum and I – we had to manage – and then my sons went away, and Mum was ill, and she died, and I had a friend, Naomi, and she was killed in a car accident … and then two months ago, Jack—’ Hausmann grabbed her before she fell.

He said quietly, ‘Play the game, Judith. Just play the game.’

Sybil was on her other side with a handful of tissues. She took them, mopped vigorously and pulled herself upright and away from Hausmann.

Nathaniel was in front of her, looking horrified. ‘I had no idea – no idea, Judith – so sorry—’

She shook her head. ‘Why would you? I’m all right. Honestly.’

Nathaniel flapped his hands. ‘Let’s go somewhere we can get a nice meal – sit down and talk things through—’

Sybil took the wodge of tissues and dabbed at Judith’s chin. ‘Wouldn’t it be better if—’

Hausmann interrupted brusquely. ‘She needs her mind taken up. We should go on as planned.’

Nathaniel snapped at him. ‘Perhaps Judith would like to have a say here?’

Hausmann stared at him, shocked. Judith said quickly, ‘It just came up and sort of hit me … out of the blue. I’m OK. Honestly. I’m glad we’re doing this. And I’d like to be part of the expedition. The fourth man. Woman. Person, I should say.’ She tried to produce a viable smile.

Hausmann said, ‘I vote you in.’

And Sybil suddenly hugged her arm. ‘Me, too.’

Hausmann took over again. It was as if there had been no outburst from Judith. He picked up the map, pointed it at the door and said, ‘Here’s to the river of gold. And all who sail in her!’

He held the door wide and they went through it, Sybil, then Judith, then Nathaniel. Hausmann followed and muttered something, and Nathaniel said aggressively, ‘What was that?’

‘I simply said we were a motley crew.’

‘Oh. Right. Yes. I suppose we are.’ Nathaniel caught up with the two women and took Judith’s arm protectively.

Hausmann closed the door behind him and muttered something else. It was ‘Bloody fool!’ But Nathaniel did not hear him.

When Judith crawled into bed that night, she was so tired she hardly knew whether the project had been successful or not. She could not decide what had been its goal. Even if it had been multi-goaled she doubted whether it had achieved anything at all. Except that they had all actually got back alive. Yes, that was something to achieve in the circumstances. There had been a couple of times on their journey to nowhere – which was how Nathaniel had scathingly described it – when she had wondered whether they should call in an air ambulance, or whatever was sent out to rescue people who were lost on Exmoor in the fog.

It was the fog that had made the map and its red arrows directing them to the river of gold so completely useless. It made no mention of any landmarks, though when they came upon the lichen-covered milestone standing in one of the angles of cross tracks in the heather, Hausmann swore he had seen it before and it meant they took the right side of the cross as a fingerpost. So far as Judith’s directional instincts could tell, the track wound in enormous S shapes through heather that turned into furze; and two miles of track probably covered one mile as the crows flew.

She smiled into the pillow as she ran the day’s events
through her head like a film. As it had happened, yes, it had been a muddle from start to finish. But then, in retrospect it began to make sense. It began to be … reassuring. Somehow. She curled herself into a foetal position: she was clean at last, she was warm, she was well-fed. And, most importantly, she had friends. The kind of friends you persevered with even when you didn’t like them much. Her smile turned into a slight frown. What on earth did that mean, exactly?

She rewound her memories and started again: on that footpath that was already muddy in the wet fog that pressed down on the moor and turned to rain soon after midday.

Sybil was the first casualty. The furze was not just thorny, it was lethally thorny, and one of the most lethal of the thorns pierced the canvas of her upmarket trainer and the cashmere sock beneath, and went into her second toe. She let out a gasp of pain before she could stop herself, and Nathaniel was on to it immediately.

He removed the thorn and produced a tin of Vaseline.

‘I thought it might help with blisters,’ he said, rubbing it into Sybil’s toe. He frowned, stopped rubbing, then started again. ‘It’s all we’ve got, and it might ease the pain.’ He looked up at Hausmann. ‘Perhaps we should turn back, old man. We weren’t reckoning on this weather – we’ve still got tomorrow, after all.’

Hausmann said resignedly, ‘Up to you, Sybil.’

‘Well, we might as well go on, surely? We must be nearly there.’

‘OK.’ He spoke as if it were her decision, her responsibility, and immediately tramped on and was out of sight. Nathaniel replaced Sybil’s shoe and tied the lace.

She stood up, laughing. ‘You’re very neat-fingered,
Nathaniel. Anyone would think you’ve done that sort of thing before.’

Nathaniel laughed too, but uncomfortably. Judith wondered whether Hausmann and Sybil had always teased – almost baited – Nathaniel like this. But Hausmann was presumably some way ahead of them by now, and he actually had the map. She strode her way through the shoulder-high furze and almost crashed into him.

‘Eavesdropping, Mr Hausmann?’ she asked in a saccharine voice.

‘Absolutely, Mrs Jack,’ he came back. ‘Interesting. Nat was always slow, but he got there in the end.’

‘In that case, he should go first. You’ve just got us lost, haven’t you?’

‘Could be.’ He began to walk ahead of her, until he judged they were well out of earshot of the other two. ‘Yes, could be that is one of the objects of the exercise.’

She stopped dead in her tracks. ‘Oh no. Oh my God, Hausmann. We must have done over three miles from the pub, so now we have to go three miles back – and Sybil has a bad foot. What’s the
matter
with you?’

‘It’s an experiment. That’s all. Breaking points. That sort of thing.’

‘Mine was first?’

‘I wasn’t including you in the agenda. I’m sorry about that. Probably did you good, however. You and Jack coming through all that stuff.’

‘Except that Jack didn’t, did he?’

He sounded impatient suddenly. ‘For God’s sake, Jude – I told you he kept talking about you. All bloody night.’

‘So you did.’ She did not remind him that the description Jack had given had not sounded very like her.

‘So …’ The path widened and she caught up with him. ‘Who’s next in this great experiment? Sybil has passed the test of pain rather well, hasn’t she?’

‘I didn’t have her on my list, either. No, it’s Nathaniel Jones who needs to show his true colours.’

She stopped dead again. ‘What? Nathaniel? What has he done to upset you, Hausmann? Called Mr Gould names when he was a child? Made money from something as boring as a print shop when you can barely survive with your wonderful gift? Oh – or did he manage to grab a kiss from Esmée back in the seventies?’

He was astonished again. ‘Do you think I’m on some kind of revenge thing? Good God, Jude! I’m trying to put things right; punishment does not enter into it! Now if it was my sister-in-law you might be on the right track. But why should I punish Nattie Jones for kissing little Esmée Gould behind the school? And how did you know about that, anyway?’

She gave up. The others were close behind, she could hear Sybil reassuring Nathaniel that she was quite all right, and there was nothing to worry about. And he was saying, ‘D’you know I’m having a déjà vu moment – it’s as if all this has happened before. Do you ever feel like that, Sybil? It is OK to call you Sybil, isn’t it?’

‘Of course it is. And yes, I do. Often. That’s why I came on this weekend to Castle Dove.’

‘I thought it was to see Robert’s work.’

‘Well, yes, of course. But I’ve never lost touch with Robert’s work. I wanted more than that.’

‘Everyone wants to meet him, of course. Are you disappointed?’

‘No, not a bit. I love him.’

‘Ah.’

‘It’s all right. I’m not about to make a fool of myself.’

Hausmann turned and, walking backwards, called out, ‘What would be so wrong about that? To make a fool of oneself is to become completely vulnerable – to surrender to humility—’

He had got that far when his heel caught in a root, his other foot slipped in the mud, and he fell heavily on to his back. The air was knocked out of him with a sound like the trumpeting of an elephant, and then he delivered himself of a string of oaths, some of which might have been in Hebrew.

They gathered around him. Nathaniel got behind him and lifted his shoulders and propped him against his own knees. He panted, ‘I don’t know whether I should do this, old man. If you’ve injured your back—’

‘Of course I haven’t injured my bloody back, the ground is like a bloody sponge! Just let me get my breath!’

‘For God’s sake …’ Sybil was kneeling in front of him and could see his face. ‘It’s obvious you’re in pain. Has anyone brought a mobile phone?’

Nobody had. Nathaniel said, ‘An air ambulance couldn’t do a thing in this weather, and if Robert really is all right we can follow our own tracks back to the Dove Inn.’

‘What? And give up on the project? Are you insane? We’ve got this far, and I’m damned if I’ll let you give up now!’ Hausmann struggled away from Nathaniel’s support, rolled on to his knees and, gasping, got to his feet. He straightened, cursing loudly now and then, and lifted his arms high. Mud dripped from his shoulders. ‘See?’ None of them said a word. ‘Listen. I know what I’m doing. We’re in that triangle of land between Dulverton …’ He jabbed a mud-covered hand ahead of them, ‘… the Ridds’ farm, and the Devon border. We’re still going uphill, so we’re this side of the watershed.
We should hear the rushing of the Gould river fairly soon.’

There was a silence; this was his project, no one wanted to resist him.

Judith said, ‘Let’s give ourselves another half an hour. How does that sound? If we haven’t come upon a stream – any stream – by then, we should turn back.’ She pushed up the sleeve of her jacket and peered at her watch. ‘It’s just before one o’clock. We’ve been walking for nearly two hours. We’re all covered in mud. And the weather is getting worse.’ She looked round.

Nathaniel said, ‘Well done, Judith – a generous suggestion.’ He made a rueful face at Hausmann. ‘Sorry, old man. I’d go along with that if you hadn’t had that fall. But let’s face it, John Ridd’s water slide has been mapped and explored ever since
Lorna Doone
was in the top ten reading lists in the mid eighteen hundreds. We’re on a wild goose chase—’