Echoes of the Dance (14 page)

‘Ah.' Nat was noncommittal.

‘Yeah. “Ah” is about right. We don't get on.'

Nat was silent. He rarely asked questions, knowing that sooner or later she'd tell him what had happened. Tiny observations, odd remarks, that was Janna's way. He'd piece together the information, building up a picture, and another section of the jigsaw that was Janna's life would slip into place. He thought about the summer they'd met, four years earlier, when he'd had the job as assistant groundsman at a holiday camp and she'd been working in the bar. It was some time before he understood what it was that he liked about her. She was funny, feisty, sharp, but what he began to recognize in her was a tremendous integrity: her standards of friendship and loyalty were very high.

Piece by piece, during that summer holiday, the picture had grown. ‘Dad buggered off before I was born,' she'd said casually once, eating a pickle, taking a swig from his beer glass. ‘Here. I saved you a sandwich. Crab mayo OK?' And another time: ‘Mum was just a kid herself when she had me. 'Twas hard for her. She loved me, though. Bought me stuff.' It was Teresa who'd told him that Janna's mother had become an alcoholic and that, by the time she was old enough to leave school, Janna had been fostered with four different families, running away from each of them in a determined attempt to be with her mother. In the canvas tote bag were other pieces of Janna's life: a battered copy of Roger Hargreaves'
Little Miss
Sunshine
, an Indian shawl with frayed glittering gold threads, and a Peter Rabbit mug. ‘My mum bought me these,' she'd said, displaying them with a half-defiant, half-anxious look that smote his heart. ‘She always says I'm her Little Miss Sunshine. She really loves me, my mum.'

Now, as Nat watched her cramming the bread and cheese into her mouth, he guessed where she'd been and to whom she'd given her money. She reached to run her fingers through the lavender, sniffing them with the old familiar abandon, giving him her glinting smile.

‘'Tis nice to be home, Nat.' A hesitation. ‘I'll go and unpack then, shall I?'

‘Yes,' he said. ‘Go and unpack.'

She stood up, holding the bag, hesitating half in and half out of the doorway. ‘I'll be in with you, shall I? What with Moniker being in the spare room. I won't be a nuisance.'

Her face crumpled suddenly and he pushed her ahead of him into the cottage, threw her bag on the sofa and put his arms round her.

‘Come on, old love,' he said, rocking her. ‘You're home. Didn't you just say that? So what's this about being a nuisance?'

Her hot tears soaked through the thin stuff of his shirt, her forehead ground against his collar-bone. Words gushed from her suddenly.

‘She's really bad, Nat, she can't hardly walk now. 'Twas good to begin with, just like old times when I was little. I got her down on the Hoe in her wheelchair so she could see the ships. She always loved that. Anything that moved, going somewhere else. Then it all broke down again like it always does. I don't know where she's getting it from – well, it could be any of them though they all swear they're not, and they're all, like, her mates so I feel like some kind of enemy, if you see what I mean. I couldn't find nothing hidden in the usual places, but you could tell she was just waiting for me to go so she could get at it. She lost it in the end, shouting and swearing, so I came away . . .'

He held her calmly, and presently she stopped weeping and leaned against him, worn out.

‘Get your things unpacked,' he said. ‘Come on. Where's the mug? And the shawl?'

Wearily she reached into the bag: the mug was carefully protected by bubble wrap, the shawl folded in a paper bag. Nat spread the shawl over the back of the chair and took the mug into the kitchen. When he came back she was smiling at him, head up, eyes bright: Little Miss Sunshine.

‘Love you, Nat,' she said. It was a formula, a game picked up from a film they'd once seen together, and now she waited for his answer.

‘Love you too,' he answered, cheerfully, ‘three, four, five. Go and finish unpacking and we'll go down to the pub.'

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Monica was drinking her second glass of wine, much more relaxed now that she knew that there was no question of her driving back to Horrabridge, when Nat telephoned to say that Janna was back and they were going down to the pub for supper: he'd leave the key under the flower pot in case Monica arrived back before they did.

‘She's decided to stay the night,' Roly told him, trying to inject a note of enthusiasm into his voice. ‘Back in the morning. You'll probably be at work so I'll tell her about the key anyway. Enjoy yourselves. Bye.'

‘“Yourselves”?' Monica picked up on the word sharply.

‘Don't say the wretched Janna is back?'

‘She is indeed.'

‘Honestly, Roly,' she was delighted with this opportunity to manufacture some kind of intimacy between them, ‘how is he going to meet a . . .' she hesitated over the word ‘decent' and went on, ‘a sensible girl with Janna hanging around him?'

‘Perhaps Nat isn't interested in sensible girls.' He went up the steps into the kitchen to check the potatoes, as they'd been on for a while. ‘I rather like Janna.' He washed the fillets of sea bass that he would fry in oil and herbs and put them into a frying pan. ‘I think Nat is too busy establishing his business to have much time to think about anything else. Anyway, you were saying just now that you worry about him when he's on his own.'

He allowed himself this little dig because he was irritated that she'd forced his hand. Instead of arriving in time for lunch she'd left it so much later that he'd been obliged to offer supper instead. Now, having watched her refill her glass, he suspected that she'd never had any intention of driving back to Nat's this evening.

Monica gave herself a moment to reflect on this remark – one she'd already anticipated – and wondered how to go forward in a way that would bring him on to her side rather than antagonize him.

‘Well, I do. Of course I do. When he's on his own I wonder if he's eating properly, that kind of thing.' She paused, not wishing to irritate him by implying that caring was only attributable to the female sex. ‘I expect you do too,' she added generously.

‘I expect him to go down to the pub if he's hungry.' Roly avoided any complicity here, noting the tone of motherly wistfulness. ‘He's a big boy now. And if there's any looking after to be done in that relationship I suspect it's Nat that's looking after Janna.'

‘But that's exactly my point.' Monica was triumphant. ‘I really cannot see exactly what Janna has going for her. I suppose she
is
company of a sort for Nat, but really I'm beginning to believe that he's better off alone.'

Roly turned the potatoes and looked at Uncle Bernard in his drawer: he'd curled up neatly, nose on tail, eyes closed. It was odd, Roly thought, that the dogs instinctively avoided Monica. After the initial greeting they'd turn away at once, returning to their beds, as if remembering that this was someone with whom they shared no common ground. Bevis and Floss were stretched out, watching and listening but remaining detached, and Roly wished he had the same ability.

‘Whatever we think,' he said calmly, ‘it's up to Nat to decide what it is he wants. We must grant him the privilege of allowing him to be an adult. After all, neither of us is in a position to preach.'

The last remark was made in an almost inaudible voice but Monica heard it and her heart lifted: this was exactly the opening for which she'd been hoping, and she got to her feet still holding her glass.

‘Oh, Roly,' she said, ‘it's funny you should say that. I was thinking about us these last few days and how we were all those years ago. I was such a fool, Roly.'

Her voice was tender, thick with emotion and too much wine, and Roly was seized with alarm.

‘Wait,' he said. ‘Let's not do this, Monica. We're too old for recriminations . . .'

‘I don't mean that,' she cried. ‘Not recriminations. I mean that I remembered the time I first met you and . . . well, I wished that things had worked out differently.'

Roly tossed the rocket salad in vinaigrette and turned it into a bowl, glad to be busy: it was essential to avoid any eye contact.

‘I wish that too. Different for you, for me and for Mim.'

‘Oh, Mim!' she cried impatiently – even now Mim was between them as she always had been – and she felt a surge of frustration. ‘Well, yes, of course, nobody could wish that on her, but I was thinking of you and me, Roly.'

‘Neither of us coped particularly well,' he said. ‘You did what you thought was right at the time. Shall we leave it at that? Let's eat.'

She followed him to the table and sat down. Even in her emotionally heightened retrospective state his remark “Neither of us coped particularly well” irked her. After all, it was he who had changed, become unreliable and unable to control his drinking. She wanted to make this point – to defend her own behaviour – yet she knew that it could only cause friction. Slightly irritated she began to pick at her food, wondering how to justify her actions without sounding as if she was accusing him.

Aware of her quandary, relieved that it was deflecting her from a maudlin excursion to the past, Roly began to talk about Janna.

‘She's an unusual girl,' he said, helping Monica to salad, refilling her glass, ‘but a very genuine one. From the little Nat's told me I gather her mother was a bit of a hippie and now she lives with a group of people in Plymouth in a commune of sorts. It makes it difficult for Janna to make certain that her mother's OK because they all gang up together against the poor girl if she tries to interfere, but she's very loyal.' He talked on, realizing that the subject of Janna was a kind of counter-irritation to Monica's dilemma, until she reluctantly abandoned hope of drawing him into any shared intimacy and concentrated on Janna instead.

‘That doesn't mean that she's suitable for Nat,' she began rather sulkily, making it clear that she knew she'd been sidetracked but unable to think her way round it. She'd drunk too much and felt fuddled and slow. ‘There's something so . . . flaunting about her.'

‘Does it matter, if they love each other?' He was playing devil's advocate, having several theories of his own as to why Nat and Janna were not suited as partners. ‘It's a mistake to attempt to judge other people's needs.'

‘We're not discussing other people; we're talking about Nat. Nobody knows him better than I do. I happen to love him.'

Anger spurted inside Roly as he remembered how she'd manipulated the young Nat; exploiting his affection for her, controlling him through his sense of guilt and loyalty. He wanted to shout at her, force her to face the truth; yet his own guilt and self-knowledge stayed his hand. To his relief the telephone began to ring and when he heard Jonathan's voice he could have called down blessings upon him.

‘Yes, she's here,' he answered. ‘No, not bad timing at all. We've just finished eating. Are you well? . . . Good. Yes, I'm fine, thanks. Here she is.'

He passed the telephone to her and began to clear the plates. Uncle Bernard sat up in his drawer, checking to see if there might be some snack for him, and the two other dogs got up, stretching stiff-legged, and strolled out through the open door into the yard. By the time Jonathan had finished speaking, Roly had put cheese and fruit on the table and the atmosphere had splintered and reformed into a different pattern: less charged with frustration and anger but still ominous.

‘All well?' asked Roly lightly. ‘He sounded in good form.'

‘He wanted to be sure that I hadn't forgotten a dinner party on Friday evening.' She still sounded sulky. ‘I'll have to go home on Thursday. Well, if Janna's back that won't be much of a hardship.'

Floss came up to Roly, tail wagging, ears flattened. He stroked her and she leaned against his chair.

‘Nice, isn't she?' He seized upon the change of subject. ‘I'm hoping that Kate might take her. They're both bereaved and grieving and I think they'll do each other good. Poor Kate. She's in such a dilemma as to what she should do now David's gone.'

‘Why? What should she do?' Monica frowned. ‘I shouldn't think she's got much to worry about, has she? David must have left her pretty well off. That flat in London should be worth a bit.'

‘I think David left the flat to his daughter. Do you remember Miranda? I think Kate would find it difficult to afford to stay on in that big house now. She's hoping to downsize and make some money on the way through, but I wasn't really thinking about material considerations, more about where she should live now she's on her own.'

‘She didn't say anything about moving when I saw her on Monday.' Her face grew thoughtful and then amused. ‘We talked about other much more interesting things. Did
you
know that Kate never really loved David and that she'd had some fantastic affair with someone else?'

He stiffened with dislike and old-fashioned disapproval. ‘No, I didn't. Of course she loved David. For goodness sake, Monica . . .'