Learning to Dance (16 page)

‘Which does not sail until Saturday. If you remember, we planned to stay with Stanley and Jennifer. They have theatre tickets for Thursday evening. And Jennifer has invited another school friend for lunch on Wednesday.’ She spoke very clearly, emphasizing that English was his second language.

Sven flushed, but before he could reply Bart came back into the dining room. They all fell silent and stopped eating, looking across at him. Irena stood by his side.

Bart smiled. ‘It’s all right folks, relax, it’s not bad news; at least not as bad as we feared. Robert had a couple of artist friends staying over on Lundy, was going to visit them today, anyway. Then he heard last evening that one of them was ill, seriously ill, I gather. When the forecast was so ominous he decided to go over himself. He rang Lundy again, and was told that an air ambulance was on its way. Minutes later another call arrived: the wind was already too high for a take-off and landing. He recruited Nathaniel, and they left immediately. They landed on the east – the only safe landing beach on the island – and were met by three of the workers, who had stretchered the sick man to the beach. They returned immediately but had a long trip of it – blown off course – and eventually landed at Minehead, where they were met by an ambulance and taken to Taunton. Musgrove Park Hospital.’

Judith said, ‘Of course. I thought Nathaniel had said “mustard”!’

Stanley sat back, relieved. Sven said, ‘You see? All is well, just as I said.’

Margaret snapped, ‘Of course it’s not well! For goodness’
sake, Sven … the man is seriously ill … you heard—’

‘But he is in hospital and will be well cared for. Nothing to stop us going home later on.’

Stanley looked at Jennifer, who was now sitting sedately next to him and actually smiling. He smiled back at her. ‘I think we would like to stay another night.’ Her smile widened and she nodded.

Sybil said, ‘And I would like to see the boys before we go. Is that all right with you, Judith?’

Margaret said acidly, ‘I think the vote has gone against you, Sven.’

He was very red, but did his best. ‘I surrender!’ He smiled. ‘It will be interesting to watch the tide come in today. The weather is driving from the Atlantic, I believe.’

Jennifer’s smile revealed a pair of dimples. ‘Let’s watch it from the orangery. We explored yesterday afternoon, and found loads of candles and a marvellous old gramophone – His Master’s Voice – the genuine article!’

Judith did not meet Sybil’s knowing glance. She had thought of the orangery as a sort of shrine, and had no intention of trespassing there.

‘Sybil and I have already decided to sketch from the Long Gallery. We’ll see you at lunch. Perhaps the weather will have changed by then and we can venture out of doors.’

Bart started to clear the tables. ‘You are welcome to borrow stuff from my brother; his studio is in the south tower.’ He fished in the pocket of his overall. ‘Here’s the master key. Do go and look round. He would be delighted, honestly. He told me if you had longer here he would show you some of his more recent paintings. Apparently you said something about painting the family’s war memories. He has in fact tried to do so.’

Judith shook her head. ‘Perhaps he will get back before we leave.’

But Sybil leaned forward and took the key. ‘I would like to borrow some pastels.’ She smiled at Judith. ‘We always shared our stuff, Jude, don’t look so shocked. I won’t be long. Meet you in the Long Gallery.’

Judith watched her as she walked towards the lift. She wondered whether she knew that Hausmann was gay. She moved with a natural grace, thoughtlessly, self-confidently. Since yesterday when she had reacquainted herself with both men, she had changed again.

Judith sighed and started to clear their table on to a trolley. Bart said, ‘Let me, Judith. Believe it or not, you are on holiday!’

She laughed and used one of her mother’s truisms to put him at ease. ‘A change is as good as a rest. Certainly true in my case. I was going quietly crazy at home.’

She trundled the trolley to the kitchen. ‘Are you older or younger than your brother? Did you play hopscotch with him?’

‘I’m seven years older than Rob. Quite a big difference when it came to the games we played. I was more interested in Welsh rugby at that time. But I knew immediately that Sybil Jessup was Esmée Gould!’

She smiled as she left him and went up the stairs. Sometimes it all sounded so completely normal. But then again, as her mother might well have said, ‘It depends what you call normal.’

She went into her room and picked up her canvas bag. She felt around for her phone and tapped in the familiar home number. The answering machine clicked in. She left her room and went along the landing to the double doors which led directly into the Long Gallery.

The Long Gallery was more like the prow of a ship than ever. Judith walked its length, pausing now and then as a lightning flash spotlit one of Hausmann’s paintings, randomly, theatrically. The rural landscapes became, for an instant, a reminder of summer: she tried to find a word that would encapsulate what Hausmann found so heartbreakingly ephemeral, and came up with ‘tranquillity’.

She held on to the back of one of the sofas and waited for the next flash. This time it lit one of the industrial landscapes. It was Avonmouth before legislation had abolished the smoke stacks. One tall funnel emitted a thin, dark red plume of pure poison. Somehow Hausmann had perceptually triggered something else with his paintbrush, and for an instant she thought she could smell the sulphur.

She shook her head and went on, unable to find a word for the anger in that painting.

At the end of the gallery the full-length windows looked straight down the Bristol Channel, Wales to the right, Devon and Cornwall to the left. The spray had mottled any real views, and at ten o’clock in the morning the light was filtered through heavy clouds. She pushed the final sofa round so that it faced out to sea, and tried to stop making pictures in
her head of a tiny white blob in the middle of an enormous sea of slate-grey: Hausmann’s boat,
Goalpost
– doubtless as shambolic as its owner – fighting through the wind towards an invisible island somewhere in all that turbulence.

Lightning forked down again, and the doors behind her opened. Sybil backed in just as Hausmann had done that second morning. She was pulling one of Irena’s trolleys and carrying a bag on one shoulder. She swung the trolley round with difficulty and as the door closed behind her she was spotlit, like the paintings. She let go of the trolley, covered her face and screamed.

Judith hurried to her. ‘It’s OK, relax, the storm is moving away. Count the seconds before we hear the thunder.’ She paused and it rumbled over the castle.

Sybil let her hands fall and took a deep breath. ‘I keep seeing him in one of his own paintings. I bet his bloody boat leaks like a sieve. And what was Nattie thinking about, for goodness’ sake? He’s the one with common sense; why did he let it happen?’

‘They know more than we do. This friend they’ve rescued, he could have died if they hadn’t got him to a hospital.’

‘I should think his chances of survival were shortened by giving himself over to Robert!’ But she laughed as she spoke, and took the handle of the trolley again. ‘Come on, there’s coffee in the thermos and a whole packet of chocolate biscuits. And I’ve rummaged around Rob’s studio and got a selection of watercolours. That pastoral scene you were sketching from the top of the Lyn, it cries out for watercolours.’

In spite of her reservations about invading Hausmann’s quarters, Judith found herself thinking about those sketches: the tiny vulnerable inn pillowed in autumnal trees. Ochres and saffrons and deep, deep crimsons.

Sybil pulled another sofa at right angles to the first and poured coffee; the aroma filled the small area, the sofa backs made it theirs.

‘I believe in comfort, physical comfort.’ Sybil closed her eyes and immersed herself in steam from the jug. ‘When the three of us were kids I was always the one to make the den.’

Judith picked up her cup and imitated Sybil, blissfully inhaling the strident scent of the coffee. ‘I would have thought Nathaniel would have enjoyed playing house.’

‘He did, of course. But Robert disapproved strongly. And he loved Robert. As I did. As so many people did.’ She sounded sad. ‘It’s so difficult to explain, Jude.’ She was musing now, looking into her cup as if for answers. ‘Robert would hate me for saying this, but I can’t think of another way.’ She looked up suddenly and gave a small wry smile. ‘He suffers – actually
suffers
– for other people!’ The smile turned into a laugh. ‘He often gets toothache because he’s worrying about someone else – just ordinary but painful complaints. I know it’s hard to believe when you’ve seen him “drunk and disorderly”, and even when he’s sober and bullying everyone around him. It sounds absurd to talk about him as a supersensitive artist but – honestly – that’s what he is!’

Judith said, ‘I thought it was … his dark side. When he spoke of Auschwitz, not being able to paint any of that, oh God, I told him … I think I told him that he should paint it as therapy …’ She put down her coffee cup with a click. ‘He must have thought … how crass!’ She looked at Sybil. ‘I knew you understood him when you said that he was painting for the end of the world, so his ’scapes would stand as a reminder of how beautiful our world had been.’

Sybil gave another rueful laugh. ‘He’s not a saint by any
means, Jude. Those ’scapes are what sell. He must be a very rich man.’

Judith nodded sadly. ‘He is financing Bart and Irena in this hotel venture.’

‘Did he tell you that?’

‘No. His brother blurted it out, to stop Irena from slagging him off. Just now, when they were both trying to serve breakfast.’

‘That’s interesting … much more constructive … I didn’t give him credit for being so practical.’

‘He did it basically for Bart and Irena,’ Judith reminded her.

‘Yes. I see that. He’s already got a place on Lundy. It’s a sort of hermitage he goes to when things are bad. I found that piece of information on the internet!’ She grinned. ‘I bet he doesn’t know it’s there … he’d be livid! It’s how he got his name for being a West Country artist. Apparently he lends it to people sometimes. I think that was why he wanted to take you to see it this morning, in case you could make use of it in the future. But someone was obviously already there, that’s what the rescue was all about.’ She finished her coffee and put her cup next to Judith’s. ‘Poor old Robert. At present there are too many of us needing his kind of first aid, and all at the same time! Thank God he didn’t kill Nat in his rescue attempt! I would never have forgiven him.’

Lightning lit up the far reaches of the gallery; then there was a full five-second interval before the thunder rolled in. Sybil did not flinch. Judith realized she had not even noticed it.

Sybil picked up a digestive biscuit and broke it in half absently. She said, ‘I think that’s what yesterday’s project was all about. To make me realize that I was in love with Nat. I
think I always knew; he was so kind. Robert was not always kind. I wanted to be in love with Robert, actually – he was good-looking when he was young – I thought he looked like Heathcliff. And he was always taller than me; I fought against loving Nat because he’s shorter than I am!’ She laughed and looked round at Judith, half-ashamed. ‘Imagine being so small-minded … so vain, I suppose.’ She bit into one half of the biscuit and laughed again. ‘Robert is clever: he knows how people work. To confront Nat with me; it was such a shock. I saw his face and knew that he had loved me all the time, and I knew I had loved him, too.’ She swallowed her biscuit. ‘It seemed so natural, didn’t it? When he called me Esmée instead of Sybil? Almost innocent! Ha! Shock treatment! For Nat, of course, but for me too.’ She registered Judith’s expression and put out a hand. ‘It’s the way Robert works: always making you look at yourself to recognize the truth. Even when we were ten years old.’

Judith took the hand. ‘I think you’re right. That is exactly what he was doing yesterday.’

‘Your outburst … did it help, or make things worse?’

‘Both.’ She thought about it, and added with some difficulty, ‘I saw that my marriage has taken second place for some time. Yes, it helped.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘So did the scene in the orangery.’

Sybil shook Judith’s hand once and released it. She set aside the tray and began to pull out her sketchbooks. The drawings she had done from the top of the River Lyn were far more detailed than Judith’s. She set one of them aside. ‘Nat might like to print that one for a greetings card. But this one is just a series of outlines because I want to paint it.’ She produced tubes of powder paint: blue, yellow, red and black. She cleared the lower trays of the trolley and started
to set out brushes and rags, saucers and a bottle of water.

Judith tidied the coffee things. She did not want to start on her own sketches from Saturday, it brought in a competitive element she shied away from. Eventually she left them in the bag and opened her sketchbook on a clean page. She sat still for a moment, then reached down again for a stick of charcoal and put it in the centre of the page, as she had watched Jack do so often.

She closed her eyes and sat very still, hardly breathing. She had told Sybil that Hausmann had forced her to face some unpalatable facts. Was that true? She recalled her outburst without embarrassment; what had happened afterwards during Hausmann’s ‘project’ had wiped away feelings of embarrassment. So it must have been … good. But she had not had time to explore it then; attention had been turned on Sybil, then Hausmann himself. Yet he had wanted Nathaniel Jones to be in the spotlight!

She opened her eyes, saw that Sybil was completely engrossed in her work, and smiled slightly. Hausmann’s plans for Nathaniel and Sybil appeared to be working, plus he had accomplished his rescue attempt, too. He would doubtless be insufferable. She looked down at her empty page; the charcoal was in exactly the same position. Hausmann had not worked any magic for her. She frowned, concentrating hard. He had forced her to admit to herself that she had not … what was the word she wanted? She had not
nurtured
her marriage; she had relied on Jack to keep it going without help from her. She closed her eyes again and saw Jennifer and Stanley Markham dancing by candlelight. She put the charcoal in her lap and tightened her hands into fists.