Learning to Dance (7 page)

After dinner they broke up quickly. Stanley and Jennifer disappeared, and Sven roped in Nathaniel and Martin Morris to make a foursome for bridge. Sybil asked whether they would mind if she watched the ten o’clock news later on, and Nathaniel plumped up the sofa cushions and moved a coffee table within reach. Judith would have liked to have gone to her room and looked at the sketches she had made, in case there was something she could work on back home; already she was doubting the value of those three hours she had spent trying to absorb the ancient coastline and those pathetically defensive cliff-heads.

Sybil said, ‘Come and sit. Let the afternoon drain away a little. Don’t feel you have to do the Lynmouth trip with me, but I really do recommend it. I was hoping to take my sketchbook and get down a few impressions.’

Judith hovered in the lobby. Irena was coming and going and might want to talk if she went towards the stairs. She smiled at Sybil. ‘I doubt whether I can stay awake for the news, but it would be good to … be with people for a while.’

Irena brought in coffee and a baize-topped card table. Martin Morris, who obviously knew the room’s layout well, opened a drawer in an ornate chiffonier and produced playing cards. The four of them settled themselves around
the table. Bart came in with two boxes of dark chocolate peppermints; he went to the chiffonier and brought a large album to the sofa.

‘We found it here. Pictures of Castle Dove when it was built. It’s not that old, actually – there’s a steam-driven crane on one of the pages.’ He smiled and left them to it.

Judith ran her hand through her short hair and grinned. ‘I haven’t had any chocolate since last Christmas! And I shouldn’t now – but – shall we?’

Sybil said, ‘Why not?’ She opened the box and took out two of the small envelopes. ‘I find one is hopeless. It has to be closely followed by another one in order to be savoured – even tasted!’

‘Ye-e-es.’ Judith removed three envelopes. ‘You are right, of course. The second one is to be tasted. A third one, however, is necessary for the savouring.’

They smiled at each other; Judith felt herself melting with the chocolate. The calves of both legs were aching from those fifty-five stone steps, her head still throbbed from the total concentration of the afternoon. She said through her second chocolate, ‘I’m obviously out of condition – feel a wreck.’

Sybil said, ‘You don’t look it. Your hair just … sort of … goes. Is it naturally curly?’

‘Yes.’ She was surprised again; she had not expected salon talk from Sybil Jessup. ‘And you’re right, it does just go. I’ve had it styled so that it sweeps around my head, but within an hour of leaving the hairdresser, it’s back like this again. They can straighten hair now, I might try that.’

‘Please don’t!’ Sybil looked almost stricken. ‘You’ll regret it. You’ll end up with a blonde ponytail.’

‘I would do what you have done and pile it up with a comb – it looks distinguished.’

‘It falls about. It’s a bloody nuisance. Don’t even consider it.’

They smiled, each taking another chocolate. Sybil said, ‘Why is it that women always talk about hair?’

‘You started it.’ Judith pushed the box away. ‘Were you testing the water?’

‘Not really. I thought we should talk about ordinary things, and I couldn’t think of anything else!’ Sybil fastened the lid of the box and put it on the table, then picked up her coffee. ‘Apparently my reaction to Robert’s work this afternoon was the same as yours this morning. Luckily I was lurking in one of the alcoves, and Nathaniel was trying to tell Jennifer that Robert’s work has been likened to Constable’s … I apologized to him later and he told me that you had been similarly …’ She smiled ruefully, ‘… afflicted.’

‘Oh dear.’

‘Don’t apologize. The more of us who can see what he is really doing, the more he will be appreciated. He is seen as a nostalgic artist. Yet he is painting contemporary ’scapes.’

‘You have followed his career?’

‘Always.’

There was a silence, during which Sybil ate another two mints and Judith wondered why Jack had never spoken of Hausmann’s work. And then continued to wonder why Jack had never gone further with his own work. And whether he had been an artist or a cartoonist or a political commentator or a newspaper journalist … she felt her head thump again and closed her eyes. She was nearly fifty. Was this the menopause? Never mind that, where was Jack?

Sybil’s voice was very quiet; Judith opened her eyes in an effort to listen.

‘Moss promised that when he was well again we would look him up. Go to galleries. Make enquiries. Start a Hausmann revival!’ She smiled. ‘Moss was a publicist, he could have done it. But then … he died.’ She looked at Judith’s face. ‘Moss Jessup was my husband. Have you heard of him?’

Judith swallowed. ‘Yes.’

Jack had lampooned Moss Jessup so many times: the square, jowled face had been easy to draw, and the eyebrows had been all that was necessary to identify the man.

Sybil gave an inverted grin. ‘I miss him,’ she said.

Judith swallowed again and her head thumped a warning.

‘Yes.’

‘I wondered whether I could do anything for Hausmann. But … he is his own worst enemy. The gallery owners I have contacted … they say he is too difficult.’

‘He can be difficult. Yes.’

Sven’s laugh filled a sudden gap. It seemed he and his partner had won. It was nearly ten; they moved armchairs around the television. Judith got up and made her excuses. She did not want to listen to the news; since Jack had left she had barely watched the television. Naomi would have said she was deliberately burying herself in grief; it was one of the reasons Judith had been glad of the anger that had swept over her occasionally when she had labelled Jack’s disappearance as desertion. It was different now. She climbed the stairs slowly, thankful that no one was manning the desk in the lobby. She had literally moved away from the grief and the anger; put herself into this strange Gothic place and rediscovered … what? Exactly what had she rediscovered in the thirty-six hours since leaving home? She fitted her
precious key into the lock and went into her room, flicking on lights, moving to the window, where, below, the dark sea had surrounded the castle and was massaging its walls insidiously. She watched the water for a while, wondering how long it would take to fall away from the causeway and let Hausmann back in. Whatever her rediscovery was, Hausmann was part of it. Perhaps Sybil was, too.

Somehow she managed to undress and slide into her ridiculous nightie. She was wonderfully tired and the bed was wonderfully comfortable.

She woke at two o’clock. Ack emma again. The clock was highlighted by the table lamp next to the kettle; she had forgotten to switch it off.

She would have to go to the bathroom. She put on her dressing gown this time, and pocketed the key. The landing was very dark, no wonder she had been so disoriented last night. On the way back she switched on all the lights and hung over the banister looking down into the lobby; it was of course empty.

The kettle took ages to boil and then she couldn’t find her thermos; it was still in her bag on the luggage rack just inside the bedroom door. She rinsed it, dropped in some of the instant coffee, put it into a supermarket plastic bag with a tiny tub of milk and a long stick of sugar, and took it down the stairs. She stood it on the counter, then reached behind and took out the bowl and two of the tea towels and put them next to the thermos. Then she went back to bed.

She might have heard the heavy door open and close; she might have dreamed it. But it was full daylight when she woke up, and Irena was knocking on her door with fresh tea and two unpacketed digestive biscuits.

‘Another lovely day,’ she greeted Judith with professional
cheerfulness. ‘I hope you slept well.’ She barely waited for Judith’s reply. ‘The tide is a little later today, so Mr Morris has suggested a departure time of ten thirty.’

‘Fine.’ Judith beamed at her; she was, after all, part of the rediscovery.

She said, ‘Your husband mentioned last night how supportive you are of his brother. It is so good of you. And so worthwhile. He is a genius.’

Irena was already on the landing, moving towards the lift doors. She stopped and looked round; her expression was one of complete astonishment.

‘Do you think so? I am – was – a great admirer of your husband’s work, Mrs Freeman. Your opinion means a great deal … Thank you.’

Judith closed the door, put down the tray and nibbled at one of the biscuits. She had never actually said she was widowed, had she? Surely Jack’s daily comic strip was still in the
Magnet
? He had always called it their bread and butter. If Irena was such an admirer, would she read it and know that he was still alive?

The papers had arrived pre-high-tide and she scooped the
Magnet
from the pile in the lobby and took it into the lounge. There it was, one of Jack’s less caustic comments on life in the twenty-first century: ‘Fish-Frobisher and Family’. She smiled slightly; it had always been her favourite, and she had not taken the
Magnet
since Jack had left her simply because the way he dealt with the Fish-Frobishers was … loving. And she wanted to hate him.

She stood there, looking at the familiar cartoons, wondering where he had been when he did this latest one, unable to stop that last terrible memory of his departure. She heard her own voice, breaking up, bewildered, incredulous … ‘Is there
someone else?’ She had tried to laugh and mimic her own words. ‘I mean … another woman?’

She waited to hear him tell her not to be such an idiot. And he had said, ‘Yes, I suppose that’s what it was.’

She looked and looked at the Fish-Frobishers as if there might be an answer to all the questions she did not ask that day in a very hot July. Eight – no – nine weeks ago. It did not sound very long, but every day, every hour had been measured into a foretaste of the rest of her life.

She read the tiny byline and did not immediately take it in. ‘Reprinted from 1990.’ She read it again, frowned and thought it was a mistake. Then she moved along the six boxes of the cartoon story. Magnus Fish-Frobisher was grabbing his bowler hat and umbrella and making for the front door. Edith was telling him she was going to the hairdresser’s. He pecked her cheek and told her to have a lovely relaxing day. She was turning to the daughter and saying that he must think she was off to the beach, and did he not realize the sheer humiliation of sitting beneath a dryer? The daughter was saying how boring they both were, then Magnus was returning that night with a bunch of flowers, pretending he did not recognize the glamour puss who was his wife.

She remembered it because it was the very first of the series. Jack had called it totally bland, and guessed it would not run longer than a month or two at the most. But it had taken off. It was still going strong. A day-to-day diary of a strangely pretentious yet loving family.

Except that they were reprinting it. As if – as if – Jack was dead.

She pushed the paper into her canvas bag next to the sketchbook. Her heart was pounding. She knew he wasn’t dead, she knew it. If he was no longer on this earth she
would know that, too. They were connected, they had been connected since that day at art college. Jack was alive.

Someone came into the sitting room; she stood as if looking at the sea. There was an explanation; she must not panic.

Hausmann’s unmistakeable voice said, ‘I want to thank you. The coffee was good and the sick bowl was not necessary.’

She did not turn. She managed one word. ‘Good.’

There was a pause, then he said, ‘You are not all right. Are you coming to the Long Gallery this morning?’

‘No.’

‘Ah.’

Through her terror she caught a nuance of something. Diffidence. It did not go with the little she knew of Hausmann.

He said, ‘I was hoping we could talk.’

‘Not now.’

From the dining room she heard Sybil’s voice and felt an enormous relief.

‘Sybil and I are going to Lynmouth this morning.’ She turned. ‘I have to get organized. Excuse me.’

She brushed past him, screwing up the paper and forcing it into her bag. This was how it must be for Sybil. All the time.

During breakfast, Judith began to feel as if her head might be about to burst. She would dearly have liked to plead some kind of malaise and shut herself in her room to make phone calls. But somehow there was no opportunity; and anyway what would she say to William Whortley other than, ‘Is Jack dead?’ And if he was in Perth with the boys, why on earth hadn’t they phoned her? The obvious answer to that question was that he was with someone else. The other woman. She did not want to know that, either.

So she clambered into the minibus and sat next to Sybil on the front seat. Martin had organized the seating so that they could ‘nip out quickly and avoid the traffic’ at Lynton. Luckily Sybil had nothing to say as they drove along the toll road, and the exclamations of delight from the others as views unrolled themselves made attempts at conversation useless. Judith concentrated so hard on not thinking about Jack that after half an hour she began to feel sick.

Sybil’s voice was in her left ear. ‘Is it the bumpy road, Judith? Not very far now. You need the fresh air.’

Judith nodded and put her hand over her mouth so that no speech was possible. Suddenly she could block Jack out
no longer. He had said, ‘Death makes it so much worse – you can do nothing about death.’

She could hear his voice speaking those words. And of course they were out of context, whatever that context had been. It need not mean he was contemplating suicide – in fact, obviously, it
could
not have meant any such thing. She half stood up and Sybil joined her. Martin Morris steered into a lay-by and pulled on the handbrake. Lynton might well be a bottleneck for traffic, but at that moment there was not another vehicle in sight.

‘Is this close enough for you, ladies?’

‘Fine,’ Sybil said. The doors folded themselves back and everyone said goodbye and promised to be in this same place at five pip emma. That got through to Judith, and she removed her hand from her mouth and gripped the handrail. Nathaniel was demanding reassurance from Sybil that they would manage all right on their own, and she was nodding and hanging on to the collar of Judith’s fleece. They stood on the sandy road, and Sybil waved the minibus on its way, then turned, suddenly anxious.