Dancing in the Dark (35 page)

The day my mother went mad . . . ‘I remember it as clearly as if it were this morning.'

‘– you hadn't come with me, for once, thank God. If he'd known about you, I can hardly bear to think what he might have . . . He recognized me, of course he did, and I knew he would try to follow me, find out about me, maybe . . . I know this all sounds a bit far-fetched . . . maybe even kill me. And you, too, if he ever found out you existed. And those other times, when I was pushed into the roadway, and almost run over by a car, I knew it had to be him, or organized by him.'

‘It's all right.' I try to soothe her but she's too wound up.

‘Maybe I overcompensated. I was so frightened, so alone. The one thing I couldn't let him know was about you because I was certain he'd have tried to harm us both. That's why I sent you away to school, why I didn't get in touch.' She laughs, awkwardly. ‘Maybe I'd read too many crime novels, but I was terrified that he – or his people – were tapping my phone lines, opening my mail.'

‘But why would he do that?'

‘Darling Theodora, he'd been grooming John for years, pushing him onwards, making the right contacts, rooting for his boy. Although John's now a cardinal, there's another step still to climb. And we two are the only things which could ruin the work of three decades.'

‘I still don't really understand.'

‘Think about it. If the world found out that John had an illegitimate daughter, that would be the end of all his hopes. And Father Francis's ambitions, too. Because if John does ever get to the very top, you can be sure the abbot will be at his side.' She looks at me fondly. ‘Why do you think I always walked on the other side of the road from you? Why did I make you call me Luna, rather than Mother or mom or even Lucia? Why did I send you away from me, and not get in touch with you for so long? I was so desperately afraid he would harm you. It would look like an accident but I would know. I simply couldn't afford to let anyone ever know the connection between the two of us. It wouldn't have been fair to John.'

‘Why not?'

‘Because . . .' She sighs again. Pokes at her food then carefully puts a crust of bread into her mouth, a sliver of cheese.

I realize that she is forcing herself to eat in order to keep up her strength. ‘Was it fair that you had to deal with . . . with an unwanted pregnancy all by yourself?' I demand. ‘To fend for both of us, without any help?'

‘He doesn't even know that you exist. I've made it my business to see that he didn't. By the same token, that meant you could never know about him, just in case.' A faint smile plays round her pale mouth. ‘I was so afraid, Theodora, of what you might do. You were always so sure of yourself, far more so than I've ever been. I was sure that if I told you, you would make yourself known to him. And because of what he is, that would have forced him into a terrible dilemma: his duty towards his God versus his duty towards you. He's a good man. An exceptional man. His destiny was plain to see and he had to be allowed to fulfil it. I couldn't risk jeopardizing that.'

‘His duty to me? He has none. I'm an independent woman. I don't need anything from him.' Except, I suppose, recognition, love. I have to accept that I'll never have either.

‘Nonetheless . . .' My mother crumbles a piece of the bread on her plate, forks up the tiniest shred of chicken.

‘How did you meet him?'

‘On a picnic. When I was at St Margaret's, in Vermont. We joined forces with the boys from St Joseph's. He was teaching there.'

‘How old was he then?'

‘Twenty-four. One year out of the seminary.' She wipes her mouth with her napkin. ‘Oh, Theodora,' she says. ‘I never wanted this, but it's the most enormous relief that someone other than me knows about him. I've never been able to talk about him to anyone, ever.'

‘Don't forget that we aren't the only ones who know,' I say. I tell her what happened earlier, at Westminster Cathedral, the abbot's threats, my promise never to speak.

‘Dom Francis. That evil man,' my mother says. ‘Don't trust him. You must be careful.' Her palms are pressed against her narrow chest. ‘I can't handle this,' she whispers. Her eyes are huge in her pale face. Candlelight catches the beads on the crimson panels of her dress.

‘As soon as he'd confessed about being in love with you, the cardinal must have been sent away, out of reach of the evil temptress,' I say.

‘Who'd already decided to remove herself for much the same reason.'

‘Is that what you meant about the gift you gave to God?'

‘Yes.'

‘Fergus told me that John O'Donnell had taught at St Joseph's as a young man.' I explain about the article Fergus had seen in the newspaper. ‘When I actually went there and looked down at that garden, things began to make a little more sense.'

‘It was because of the garden that I bought the portrait from Tom Bellamy.' Her voice is so low I can hardly hear it. ‘It meant pawning my mother's pearls, but I had to have it. The garden reminded me so much of the place where I last saw John, where I made my decision to leave him, to keep you. The place where,' she says, without any hint of melodrama or sentimentality, ‘my heart broke in two. It was only much later I realized I could use the picture to comfort you.'

‘Keep me quiet, you mean.'

‘That, too.' We smile at each other.

‘I made him British,' she says. ‘A professional soldier, as far from the truth as I could manage, just in case they ever caught up with you.'

‘Was anything you told me true?'

‘He plays the piano,' she says. ‘He loves gardens, just like you. But otherwise, not very much.'

A flash of the abbot's expression comes back to me. I'd thought he was seeing the young Lucia Caxton in my face, but it was the likeness to the young priest which had really alarmed him.
If this should ever get out
. . . I remember the headline I'd read weeks before.
First American pope?
Can my father really lighten the darkness in which so many believers currently stumble? I've seen him elevate the Host above the altar, the light streaming from above to illuminate his golden robes. I've seen the absolute goodness which radiates from him. I've felt his hand on my head. The hand of my father.

‘He called me his daughter,' I say.

My mother's face is full of hollows. Her eyes are fearful. ‘I truly believe that given the chance, he could change the world for the better,' she says. ‘You can ruin all that, if you want to. If he knew about you, his conscience would force him to resign.'

‘That's what the abbot said earlier.'

‘It was never John's fault, always mine,' said my mother. ‘I fell in love the very second I saw him. I threw myself at him. He knew nothing about sex or love or women. Nothing about the world, really. Nor did I. He'd been in a seminary since he was eight years old, being fed the doctrine. Can you imagine that?'

‘Yes.'

‘He didn't know how to handle me. For six months we . . .' She covers her mouth, speaks from behind her fingers. ‘Oh, God . . . it was beyond anything either of us had known or could imagine. He was in spiritual agony the whole time. When I discovered that I was pregnant, I knew I'd have to disappear. He'd said several times that he'd leave the Church for me, but I couldn't put him in a position where he'd have to choose. So he never knew about you. I couldn't risk him making the wrong decision.'

‘Nobody forced him to sleep with you.'

‘Except me. He was innocent. And in love. We both were.' She presses one hand to her heart, in a gesture I've seen many times before. ‘First love is a powerful emotion.'

‘Why did you keep me?'

She is silent for so long that I wonder whether to repeat the question. It's almost dark outside now, just a line of summer sky resting on the horizon, a lightship flashing its beam intermittently across the fading sea.

She picks up her glass and holds it cupped in her hands. ‘When I discovered I was carrying you, I was distraught,' she says. ‘I decided I couldn't go through with it. I didn't want to make do with John's baby, when what I really wanted was John. Trouble is, it was difficult for a girl like me – Catholic and innocent – to know what the processes were. I used to press my stomach against the wall, as hard as I could. I made myself sick on gin. Naturally, it didn't work. In the end, it seemed it would be easier to kill us both. I drew up a list of the different ways I could do it – a gun, a rope, poison, jumping off a cliff – and tried to decide which would hurt least.'

‘What stopped you?'

‘While I was making up my mind, you moved,' says my mother softly. ‘It was like having a tiny bird trapped inside me. Or a firefly. I imagined you dancing there, in the dark. At that moment you became my world.'

‘And afterwards?'

‘Afterwards . . .' Her head droops. ‘I didn't know how to handle you. My own mother died when I was young, so I had no guidance, no precedents. I did what I thought was best, but it usually wasn't, I can see that now.'

‘You made me strong,' I say. And it's true.

What is also true is the fact that she chose his life above her own. Above mine. I think of the churches, the cathedrals we visited, the voices at the altar, the tinkling bells and clouds of incense. That's why we were there. She had followed him wherever he went, dragging me along. And he never knew. Sometimes there were tears on her cheeks as he celebrated the Mass. That was all of him she allowed herself. I am angry about the way she has wasted her life.

‘Has it . . .' I clear my throat. ‘Has it been worth it?'

In the windowpane which holds back the night, I see her head move. ‘If I am honest, probably not.'

‘You say you never stopped loving him but you . . . had other men.'

‘Had?' She laughs. She finishes what is left on her plate. The bones in her throat constrict as she swallows. ‘That's my Theodora,' she says. ‘Still so prim. Yes, over the years I slept with other men. Even loved some of them. But I've only been
in
love once, and that was with John.'

‘What about Hugo?' My voice is begging her. I want there to be a happy ending. In the black glass, I can see our reflections, our similarities. Love, passion, the sacrifices women make for their men. ‘He's loved you for years.'

‘Hugo has come to mean more to me than I could possibly have thought.'

‘Perhaps that's love,' I say. I, who, until now, knew so little about it. ‘Just a different love from what you expected.'

She hesitates, the glass of wine in her hand. Light falls through it, casting a lemony shadow on to her skin. I can see light through the frail bones of her fingers. After a while, she says, ‘You may be right.'

She rises in a fluid motion from her chair. The black silk of her dress moves softly around her legs as she walks into the sitting room, and looks out at the invisible sea. A breeze, salty and fresh, blows through the window, stirs the candles she has lit, ruffles her hair. It's hard to believe that something deadly and terminal might have taken hold of the secret places of her body.

Questions spill through my brain like loose gravel. ‘Why did you send me off to convent school?'

‘I've never been good at talking.' She nods slightly. ‘I thought it was the best thing for you. I could see how much you wanted to be still for a while, whereas stillness was the last thing I wanted, because if I ever stopped moving, I would have to examine the pattern of life I had chosen, face up to the pain – the absolute futility of it.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Oh, Theodora. There were so many times when, if it hadn't been for you, I would have killed myself. You were what kept me alive. You were all I had of John. I didn't want to let you go, but I knew I had to, for your sake. And you know what? Letting you go was the biggest relief. I've never been able to forgive myself for being so glad that you were elsewhere.'

‘Not wanted on voyage,' I murmured.

‘It was that without you, it was easier to keep moving, to keep one step ahead of Dom Francis, to follow John, to be where he was.' Her eyes are warm. ‘You look so like him. So very like. And I do understand why you felt you had to find him.'

For a long moment we stare at each other. I've lived nearly all my life believing he was dead. To all intents and purposes, for me he still is. But I have my mother back. Like a ticking clock, I hear the minutes rushing by into oblivion and I seize her hand, crush it between my own. ‘Mother,' I say. She has rebuffed me so many times in the past that I hesitate to speak in case she does it again. ‘What I really wanted,
always
wanted, was you. I thought of you at five o'clock nearly every single night of my life.'

‘As I thought of you, my darling. As I still do.' She makes a breathless little sound, somewhere between a laugh and a gasp.

‘Are you in pain?' I ask, alarmed.

‘No.' She shakes her head. ‘No.' Images of a house of cards, an overblown rose, come back to me. She is so fragile. If I'd taken the time to recognize it, I'd have seen that she always has been.

‘I was always so afraid that if I got in touch, you would reject me.' She falters. ‘I don't think I could have borne it. And then you met your husband and got married and I thought that at last I could maybe come back into your life, now that there was someone else to look after you.'

Silence lies like a bowl between us, full of possibilities. We can either spill them out, or we can carry it carefully between us for as long as we feel the need. She is still standing by the window, looking out to sea. The lights of France above the horizon stain the sky a dull yellowy-grey. A gull shrieks in the darkness.

She turns towards me and I hold out my arms. I don't think I expect her to embrace me. But she's changed. We both have. She comes towards me.