Learning to Dance (5 page)

Judith summoned a smile. ‘The trouble with being short and fair is that everyone thinks I need to be looked after. Actually, I am surprisingly capable.’

Naomi had told her that; it was after Judith had cleaned the filter in Naomi’s washing machine. Naomi had concertinaed her long legs and body to peer behind the machine, where Judith wanted to show her how to replace the filter. It was obviously a painful manoeuvre, and she had hit her head as she twisted it around the machine. She had given a
loud, ‘Ouch!’ then gasped, ‘Jack thanked me the other day for helping you, and I told him that the shoe was on the other foot!’

Before Nathaniel could decide how to react to her rather assertive remark, Sybil actually laughed.

‘It’s a case of having to when you live alone, Mr Jones.’ She picked up her cup and held it in both hands, elbows on the table, creating a private intimacy separate from the couples at the next table. ‘Man, woman, tall, short, once they find themselves on their own, they need a certain self-sufficiency. I am still finding it – Judith obviously has it. You have found it – probably it is more difficult for a man in many ways.’

She sipped, giving him a chance to tell them just how difficult it was to reassure a great many female neighbours that he could in fact bake his own cakes and polish furniture. That left Judith remembering last night, and how absolutely hopeless she had been. And then to marvel at Sybil Jessup, who should be a diplomat in the Foreign Office.

The driver of the minibus arrived and was offering a tour of the moor, or in fact anywhere they fancied. ‘I am at your service, ladies and gents! The tide has dropped and we have twelve hours before it returns – let’s make the most of it!’ He had a way of making his words sound like a rallying call.

Sven looked at Margaret and held up his hands. ‘It is just as at home: our lives ruled by the turn of the tides!’ He declaimed the words dramatically, so that they were bound to laugh. They laughed.

Martin Morris – Judith remembered the bus driver’s name with relief – forced a grin. ‘Not really. The tide covers the causeway for such a short time. But I am guessing that most of you would like to meet our resident artist this afternoon so that a short drive would suit you best.’

Judith said nothing. She had no wish to attend the ‘opening’ and meet Robert Hausmann again. The master key was in her handbag, so some contact had to be made, but the shorter and less public it could be, the better. She could imagine already how the others would react if they got wind of last night’s misadventure. Sven Olsen would make it sound like a jolly escapade; Nathaniel Jones would just about manage to hide his disapproval. And she did not want Sybil to relegate her to the rank of dumb blonde. She had a feeling that Sybil could well be a potential friend. Besides which, she needed to catch up on her sleep.

In the end just three of them went off with Martin Morris. Nathaniel was keen to see Tarr Steps, and Sven had probably had enough of Stanley. Margaret tried to persuade Jennifer to come with them, but Jennifer made a little moue at her and took her husband’s arm. ‘We want to explore the castle,’ she said for him. ‘Stan is so romantic, when we came to look it over he promised me an experience I would never forget!’

Surprisingly, Margaret laughed. ‘Oh, you two – you – you’re – incorrigible!’

Even more surprisingly, Stanley smiled and nodded. Judith glanced at Sybil, but she was explaining to Martin Morris that she wanted to do some sketching while the weather was so good. That idea was attractive; Judith remembered packing her sketchbook and some of the HBs she liked. But not before she had caught up on her sleep.

She sidled past the others and took to the stairs. Robert Hausmann was waiting for her on the second landing.

‘You took your time! Full English, I suppose? You should avoid those sorts of foods – you could balloon right out!’

She was outraged. ‘I had Continental, thank you very much! I was going to thank you for leaving me this …’ She
was already fumbling in her bag for the key, ‘… also for not mentioning it to the others. But after that remark—’

‘Did it sound rude? I meant it to be – well – concerned.’ He took the key and kissed it. ‘They almost caught me pinching it from Bart’s trouser pocket last night!’ He grinned at her, sharing the joke. ‘I gather they lost quite a bit of sleep trying to investigate what the noise was.’

‘Might it have been better to rouse him gently and ask if you could borrow the key?’

‘No. Definitely not. And I don’t want them to see me replace it, either.’

She couldn’t help joining in with the joke. ‘You’re going to have difficulty there, as he is actually wearing the trousers.’

‘I’m all right until after breakfast. Didn’t you notice he was wearing his blue-check cotton kitchen trousers? She’s very fussy about that. Poor old Bart has to change roles half a dozen times a day: different role, different costume.’ He shrugged. ‘He always wanted to be an actor.’ He wasn’t smiling any more.

She turned her mouth down. ‘You’d better hurry. Everyone’s leaving the dining room.’

He nodded and was gone. The lift doors sighed as they closed on him. She wondered what he would do if the others were waiting for the lift when the doors opened on the ground floor. Then she shook her head; there was a lot going on there. She might find it interesting and quite funny, but she definitely did not want to get involved.

She slept for an hour and woke luxuriously, lying there, stretching, letting her thoughts stay within the walls of this peculiar building, thinking of the tide washing it every twelve hours. She lifted a languid wrist and looked at her
watch. Ten thirty. On the unit at the bottom of the bed, the kettle and its surrounding bowls of sugar, longlife milk, tea and coffee bags awaited. She would drink a cup of coffee, and then perhaps look out her sketch pad and sit at the base of the walls and sketch the coastline with the cave in the foreground and maybe a smudge on the horizon that could be Lundy Island. She’d have to find a cushion or something because it would be muddy. What about if she whipped through the Long Gallery before Hausmann appeared? That way, she could look at his paintings properly, without any other comments impinging on her thoughts. Besides which, if she viewed with the others it might be difficult to keep up a pretence that this was her first meeting with Hausmann. He’d be sure to let something out of the bag. He was such a … maverick … a loose cannon.

She got out of bed and made coffee. That was what she would do. She hated viewing work with other people around anyway, it ruined her concentration.

Downstairs, the lobby was empty and she had no idea where the Long Gallery was. She felt a moment of frustration; what a way to run a hotel! Obviously ridiculously under-staffed. Then reason prevailed; it was ten forty-five and as far as Irena knew nearly all the guests were fully occupied. As for last night, Judith conceded with a slight smile that she could not expect all posts to be manned at 3 a.m. Besides which, she rather liked the idea of exploring on her own.

There were three doors on the other side of the lift. She pushed gently on the first and discovered the kitchen; trolleys were lined up, several of them already laid for a meal, probably lunch. Beyond, the kitchen was empty and pristine, with saucepans hanging from hooks on a sort of railway, and plates in wooden racks above steel worktops.
Judith let the door swing shut; it gave a sigh. She opened the next door and discovered a big boot cupboard. And the final one gave on to a wide corridor obviously running beneath the two landings above. She shouldered her bag and walked its length; eight doors. She tried two of them and discovered bedrooms either hung with dust sheets or empty. Opposite them, on the wall that also held the enormous stained-glass window which lit the staircase, were diamond-paned windows looking crookedly towards the coast road which had brought them here just yesterday. She found a tissue and cleaned one of the diamonds and peered through. The sea had receded and beneath were the enormous rocks on which Castle Dove was built, spilling on to a shingle beach. Tramping the beach was Sybil Jessup. Judith watched as she set up a stool, sat down and took a sketchbook from her bag. Then she leaned back against one of the rock outcrops and tilted her head back. Judith straightened quickly. Sybil could not possibly see her, of course, but she was under the impression she was alone. And, Judith was almost certain, she was weeping.

It sobered her. She saw now why the disembodied voice on the divorce helpline had told her that anger was a good reaction. In small doses. That was what the voice had said. In small doses. But it had also said that grief was good too, and also in small doses. Judith pushed at another door and discovered an ancient bathroom. The voice had said nothing about despair.

She hurried on around a corner and through another door. The corridor now looked out on to the west side; she scrubbed at another of the diamond panes and looked down the coastline to where the Devon hills dipped and reared. Ilfracombe, Woolacombe, Croyde were all along this north
coast. Probably Martin Morris would drive them that way either tomorrow or Sunday. She had brought her swimsuit, but the sea looked unwelcoming.

She opened a door in the panelling and was amazed. The long room stretched before her, slightly curved, no more bedrooms, the enormous space lined with bookcases full of books. There were two library ladders. She pushed them experimentally; they both worked. One was holding a hammer on one tread, a box of rawplugs on another. In the middle of the library was a spiral staircase. She smiled; she had got the hang of the place now and was almost certain that the staircase was a private entry to the Long Gallery and once there she could access her own corridor and bedroom.

So it proved. She caught a glimpse of an orangery from a window above the bookshelves, then the spiral staircase went through a storage space bare and dusty, and emerged into an enormous area that, in spite of being gloomily shuttered against last night’s sunset, was obviously the gallery. She could see clearly that the doors at one end must be on the same level as her room. She grinned, running her hand up the spiral rails that encircled the stairs and then leaning against them to look around her.

Even in the half-light she could see that the exhibition had been mounted expertly. Display stands were grouped so that four or five paintings could be viewed in groups, and the alcoves offered a certain privacy for doing that. Running the length of the gallery were the same squashy sofas which were in the sitting room, inviting people to sit and look to their heart’s content and in wonderful comfort.

Judith opened several shutters, looking over her shoulder now and then, sometimes closing one and opening another.
When she had the light to her complete satisfaction, she began to move from one alcove to the next.

They were all ’scapes: land, sea and sky. Her sort of painting. She began to feel a sense of coming home; it was not a home she recognized, but she knew that’s what it was. There were no dissatisfactions, and no lack of confidence, no fears. It was not a physical, nor a spiritual home. It was light and colour fastened to the earth by some magical force called gravity.

She moved very slowly, incredulous that the man who had vomited before her last night had actually seen these things, let them creep under his skin and become part of him, then painted them and given them back again to whoever needed them. There were traditional English scenes: urban landscapes, a furrowed field, a hill dominated by an electricity pylon. She recognized Selworthy, the Tyne Bridge, the Angel of the North, the hill ranges under dark skies and then sunshine. Boats in a harbour, crates of fish … and other settings she was not familiar with. She needed a catalogue … not that a catalogue would explain this sense of belonging … grounded and centred on this planet. But it might help her with the enormous well of tears starting in her chest … the mysticism would be explained away: ‘Number thirty-five, Guardian of Northumbria’; ‘Number six, The Pier at Sunset’. She would have to come this afternoon when they were being handed out. She got to the end and turned to move slowly down the other side. He was there. In the middle of the space, he was holding a pile of papers – must be catalogues. She stood motionless. He was still a shambles of a man.

He said, ‘Oh, Christ. Why are you crying? If you tell me I’m a modern-day Constable, I’ll have to kill you.’

She gasped, ‘It’s so beautiful. Thank you.’

She dashed past him and through the big double doors at the end, now open. She turned the corner on to her own landing and was deeply thankful she had not locked her door. She lay face down on the bed and wept.

Judith lunched on biscuits and cups of tea, drying her eyes in between each mouthful and then taking a gigantic bite of a Rich Tea biscuit and spluttering crumbs everywhere as a racking sob came from somewhere in her chest and exploded in her throat and nose. Stubbornly she kept going until the biscuit supply ran out, then she pocketed her key and went to the bathroom and showered and washed her hair. When she emerged she crept around the corner of the corridor and listened at the big double doors of the Long Gallery. The noise of chatter was unmistakeable. She identified everyone except Stanley and Sybil, but he would doubtless be there even if he hated every minute of it, and Sybil would be totally absorbed. As she herself had been.

Tears threatened again, and she bustled back to her room and pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt, thrust her sketchbook and pencils into a canvas shoulder bag, and locked her door before she left.

Irena was actually at the desk in the lobby and looked up.

‘Mrs Freeman! I knocked on your door just now. Are you all right? I can make you a sandwich or there are sausage rolls. Mrs Jessup and Mr Jones were worried about you.’

Judith smiled reassuringly. ‘I fell asleep, I’m afraid. I’m going to get some fresh air before joining the others.’

Irena smiled back. ‘It’s wonderful that you feel so relaxed here – just what Bart and I had in mind. Do your own thing – that’s how Bart puts it! Anyway, to be honest, once you’ve seen one Hausmann landscape you’ve seen them all, haven’t you?’ She came from behind the counter and walked over to open the door for Judith. ‘Take your time. That’s what it’s all about. I’m making tea and taking it upstairs in about an hour. Then I’m having an hour off myself – join me in the kitchen if you miss the upstairs show.’ Irena rolled her eyes on the last two words and Judith could have hit her. She went through the door and started on the enormous flight of steps which led down to the shingle beach, muttering under her breath. She was at one with the battered Hausmann: his sister-in-law was – as Jack had said once – ‘Straight from Crufts, a prize bitch.’