A Half Forgotten Song (25 page)

“Mummy, can I go for a swim?” said Élodie, after a contented silence.

“I suppose so. If one of the big girls goes with you,” said Celeste.

“Don’t look at me—you know I don’t like swimming when it’s rocky, not sandy,” said Delphine.

“Mitzy, will you? Please, please, pretty please?” Élodie begged.

“I can’t, Élodie. I’m sorry.”

“Of course you can! Why can’t you?”

“Well, because . . .” Dimity fidgeted, embarrassed. “I can’t swim.”

“Of course you can swim! Everybody can swim,” said Élodie, shaking her head stubbornly.

“I can’t,” said Dimity.

“Is this true?” said Charles, who had not spoken for half an hour or more. Dimity nodded, hanging her head.

“You’ve lived your whole life by the sea, and never learned to swim?” He was incredulous.

“There’s never been any call for me to swim,” said Dimity.

“But there may be, someday, and when that time comes it could well be too late to learn. No, it will not do,” said Charles, with a shake of his head.

B
y the end of the week, he had taught her. Dimity had no swimsuit, so she swam in her underwear, splashing in small circles around him while he held her afloat with one hand underneath her, pressing into her midriff. At first she thought she would never manage it. It seemed impossible, and she spluttered and panicked, swallowing seawater that burned her throat, until she gradually stopped feeling as though the water was trying to kill her. She stopped fighting it and learned to relax, to lengthen her body out and let the water lap her chin, to push through it with her arms and legs, to breathe normally. Delphine swam around them, calling out encouragement and scolding Élodie for laughing. Then, finally, Dimity mastered it. It was late in the day, and the sun was low and yellow, dazzling like fire on the surface of the water. The pressure of Charles’s hand got lighter and lighter, and then vanished altogether, and Dimity did not sink. She felt vulnerable without his touch, frightened without his support, but she swam, scooping with hands and legs and making slow but steady progress alongshore for some thirty feet before she put her feet down. She turned back to Charles with a smile of pure delight, and he was laughing, too.

“Excellent, Mitzy! Well done! Like a proper mermaid,” he called. His hair was wet and dark, plastered to his head, and the skin of his chest shone with water, catching the rich sunlight so that he seemed to glow. Dimity stared; the sight of him was glorious, almost painful, but she couldn’t look away.

“Hurray!” shouted Delphine, clapping her hands. “You did it!”

“Can we go in for tea now?” said Élodie.

Dimity walked with them up to Littlecombe, weary but elated. Her hair hung in salty strings down her back and there was sand underneath her fingernails, but she had never felt as wonderful. There were already five places set at the table. Five, not four, and no question of whether or not Dimity would stay. Celeste had cooked a spiced chicken dish with rice and steamed zucchini from the garden, and they sat down to eat in a storm of chatter about the swimming lessons and Dimity’s first proper swim. She and Delphine were allowed a little white wine to drink, diluted with water, and it made them giggle and turned their cheeks pink, and later in the evening made their heads droop into their hands at the table.

By ten o’clock it was fully dark outside, and velvety moths fluttered in through the window to flirt with the lights. Élodie had curled up against Celeste’s side, within the protective circle of her arm, and was already fast asleep.

“Right. Bed, for you three,” said Celeste. “Charles and I can clear up the dinner things.”

“But it’s early,” Delphine protested, but without conviction. She stifled a yawn, and Celeste smiled.

“I rest my case,” she said. “Go on. Up.” Élodie mumbled in protest as Celeste stood and picked her up off the bench.

“I should go, then,” said Dimity. She got up reluctantly, and realized how little she wanted to return to her own home.

“It’s pitch-black and you haven’t a light. Sleep here tonight—your mother can’t mind,” said Celeste. They all knew by then that Valentina minded little, so long as she was paid.

“You mean . . . I can stay?” said Dimity.

“Of course. It’s late. You can sleep with Delphine. Go on, child. You are half asleep on your feet as it is! Better to stay than to stumble over a cliff in the dark.” Celeste smiled and ushered them upstairs. With a mixture of happiness and trepidation at what Valentina would say come morning, Dimity obeyed.

With the lights off and the blankets making a tent above their heads, Delphine and Dimity lay side by side for a while, chattering and giggling as quietly as they could. But Delphine soon succumbed to sleep. Behind the soft sound of her breathing, Dimity listened to Charles and Celeste downstairs; to the sound of crockery being washed and put away, and a conversation carried on in hushed tones. From time to time Charles’s laughter rumbled up through the floor, warm and rich. Dimity shut her eyes, but even though she was bone-weary, sleep did not come for a long time. She was distracted by feelings that seemed too big to keep in, feelings she could hardly give name to, she was that unused to them. She dropped her hand to her stomach, to where, all week, Charles had pressed his own hand to keep her afloat in the water. That touch seemed the embodiment of everything she was feeling, everything that was perfect about that summer. It was security; it was protection. It was acceptance, and inclusion, and love. Before long, she thought she could feel his hand there instead of her own, and she smiled into the darkness as sleep stole over her.

T
he following week, Charles took the car and went up to London.
Preliminaries for a commission,
Celeste told Dimity, when she asked, and Dimity had no idea what that meant. She tried not to let her disappointment at his departure show. Without him, and without the car, they were more tied to Blacknowle than they had been, but on Friday Celeste took them on the bus to Swanage, to go shopping. At first, Dimity was less than enthusiastic about the trip. Shopping, as far as she knew, meant picking up fish and potatoes for dinner, maybe a cake or some biscuits if a visitor had been particularly generous. It meant comparing the prices of what was on sale, making a few coins stretch as far as they possibly would, and then returning home to be told she had chosen badly. Shopping, as far as Celeste and her daughters were concerned, was a very different thing.

They drifted from shop to shop, trying on shoes and hats and sunglasses. They bought ice creams and sticks of rock candy, and then fish and chips wrapped in newspaper for lunch, hot and greasy and sublime. Élodie got a new blouse, pale blue with a printed pattern of little pink cherries; Delphine got a new book, and a jaunty sailor’s cap. Celeste bought herself a beautiful red scarf, bright scarlet, and tied it around her hair.

“How do I look?” she asked, smiling.

“Like a film star,” said Élodie, whose lips were drenched in mint and sugar from the rock candy. Dimity was more than happy to watch them make their purchases, but suddenly Celeste seemed to notice her empty hands, and she looked uncomfortable, almost angry.

“Mitzy. How thoughtless I am. Come, child. You shall have something new,” she said.

“Oh, no. I don’t need anything, truly,” said Dimity. She had a shilling in her pocket, that was all. Nothing like enough to buy a blouse, or a book, or a scarf.

“I insist. None of my girls shall go home with nothing, today! It will be a present, from me. Come. Come and choose something. What would you like?”

It felt very strange, at first. Dimity had never had a present from her own mother, not in fifteen years; it wasn’t even her birthday, or Christmas. It was peculiar to be invited to spend someone else’s money, on something just for her, and she had no idea what to choose. Élodie and Delphine made suggestions, holding up blouses and handkerchiefs and bracelets of beads. In the end, bewildered and in need of something she could hide easily from Valentina, Dimity chose a tub of hand cream, heavily scented with rose oil. Celeste nodded in approval as she paid for it.

“A lovely thing, Dimity. And very grown-up,” she said. Dimity smiled and thanked her repeatedly until she was told to stop. They rode back on the bus in time for tea, and Dimity watched Celeste covertly, as the Moroccan woman chatted to her daughters, thinking how beautiful she was, and how kind, and how she had called Dimity one of
her girls
. She realized with new clarity just how different life could have been if she’d been born to a mother more like Celeste and less like Valentina Hatcher.

Days later, when Charles was back from London, Dimity walked to Littlecombe through the village with her head held high; past the scattered men with their glasses of beer, sitting along wooden benches outside the pub. She ignored their hisses, cocked a scathing eyebrow at them, and approached the house boldly along the driveway. Raised voices stopped her. Celeste’s first, so she thought it was probably Élodie being shouted at, but then Charles’s voice joined in. The sound made her uneasy. She walked nearer, slowly, tucking herself close to the side of the house, in the shelter of the porch, to hear their words better.

“Celeste, calm down, for God’s sake!” said Charles, and anger pulled the words tight.

“I will not! Must this happen every time you go to London?
Every
time, Charles? If it is so then tell me now, for I will not sit here in the middle of nowhere while you do that. I won’t!”

“How many times must I say it? I drew her. Nothing more.”

“Oh, so reasonable, you sound! Then why do I not believe you? Why do I think you are lying? Who is she, this pale-headed creature? The daughter of your patron? Some whore you found, to replace the whore you found in
Maroc
?”

“Enough! I have done nothing wrong and I will not be spoken to this way! It will not do, Celeste!”

“You
promised
me!”

“And I kept my word!”

“The word of a man. Long years have taught women what such a thing is worth.”

“I am not any man, Celeste. I am
your
man.”

“Mine when you are here, but when you are not?”

“What do you suggest? That I never leave your side? That I consult with you on my every movement, my every action?”

“If your action is to fuck this girl, then yes, I do suggest this!”

“I told you, she was not my lover! That is Constance Mory, the wife of a man I met at the gallery. She has an unusual bone structure . . . I wanted to draw her, that was all. Please, you must not pounce every time I draw a female face. It does not mean betrayal.”

“Not always, perhaps. But I have only my experience to learn from,” said Celeste hoarsely.

“What’s past is past,
chérie
. I’ve drawn Mitzy Hatcher dozens of times, and you don’t suspect anything there, do you?”

“Oh, Mitzy is a child! Even you would not stoop so low. But that is how you love a woman, Charles. This much I know. That is how you love a woman—you draw her face.” Dimity’s heart gave a squeeze, and something hot surged into her blood. It rushed to the tips of her fingers and made them shake.
That is how you love a woman—you draw her face
. She could not count the number of times Charles Aubrey had drawn her face. Many, many times. Her pulse made her muscles twitch, and she shifted her feet as quietly as she could.

“I love only you, Celeste. My heart is full of it,” said Charles.

“But my face is not in your drawings anymore. Not for many months.” Celeste sounded sad as she said this. “You are so accustomed to me that you do not even see me anymore. That is the truth. So you leave me here by myself, bored and forgotten about, while you go off and have your fun. This place feels like exile when you go, Charles! Don’t you see that?”

“You’re not alone, Celeste. You have the girls . . . and I thought you hated London in the summertime?”

“I hate being left behind more, Charles! I hate waiting while you see other women, while you draw other women . . .”

“I told you, it’s—” Charles broke off at a loud crunching sound, and Dimity looked down in horror, at the crushed fragment of clay pot beneath her shoe. She had no chance to run or hide, so she dithered, hung her head. “Mitzy!” Charles’s face appeared around the side of the porch. “Is everything all right?” Dimity nodded dumbly, her cheeks blazing red. “Delphine and Élodie are down by the stream,” he said. She nodded again, and turned away quickly, not to find the girls but to flee.

L
ate in August the sea mist came in like a wave grown massive, swelling over the cliffs and rolling almost half a mile inland. The droplets of water were almost visible, almost big enough to fall as rain, but not quite. It was rare in summer but not unheard of, and for the first two days, Élodie and Delphine loved it. They threw blankets around their shoulders and played at highwaymen, or murder in the dark;
murder in the mist,
as it was renamed. The three of them ran around the garden and the spread of pasture along the cliffs, looming up behind each other suddenly, squealing with delighted fear. Élodie asked Dimity for ghost stories, and listened wide-eyed to her tale of a whole army of drowned Viking warriors who left Wareham to attack the Saxons in Exeter, only for their ships to be wrecked by a storm in Swanage Bay.
Every year for nigh on a thousand years, they’ve roamed the beach and cliffs on the anniversary of their deaths, coughing up water and weed, looking for their horses and their sunken treasure, and for people to slice open with their swords!
Élodie was entranced, and gripped Dimity’s skirt with tight little fists, her mouth hanging open in fascinated horror. The moisture made their hair hang limp, and words fell from their lips like pebbles, carrying no distance at all. The mist was like a cloak itself, turning the world mysterious and hidden, but by the third day all these things were wearing on them.

Élodie’s temper grew sullen, and Delphine’s quiet and preoccupied. The two girls spent more and more time inside with the wireless radio chattering to them; Delphine on the couch reading a novel or
Lady’s Companion
magazine, Élodie drawing at the table, frowning in concentration and angrily discarding one failed sketch after another. When Dimity knocked at the door, Celeste ushered her in as if relieved to see her, her expression tense and impatient, as though she was being made to wait too long for something important.