Echoes of the Dance (20 page)

Meanwhile, she was constrained to make great efforts to recover her poise and confidence. She had a date with Paul for the Royal New Zealand Ballet on what must be the evening before he left for Devon and she was determined to enjoy it.

It seemed that he too was wondering if he'd been rather abrupt. The day following their lunch in Shires Yard he suggested that, on the evening of the performance, they should have a pre-show supper at the Vaults Restaurant next door to the theatre. She was very ready to fall in with any plan that might restore any intimacy between them and, when he came to collect her, she greeted him with a light-heartedness that completely deceived him; by the time they'd settled down with a bottle of wine at their table to discuss the merits between the braised lamb shank and the seared sea bass, everything had become easy between them again.

While they waited for their food to arrive Paul entertained her with his version of the story of Richard ‘Beau' Nash who, having lost the original playhouse to David Garrick as a gambling debt, moved in next door with his mistress, Juliana Popjoy.

‘I knew all that, anyway,' she told him airily. ‘After the bank holiday I'll take you to supper in Popjoys restaurant. It's very smart.'

‘Ah,' he said, not at all put out. ‘But did you know that when Nash died Juliana was so affected by his death that she spent the rest of her life in a hollow tree?'

For some reason this seemed so extraordinarily funny to them both that they went off into fits of the giggles. Looking around the vaulted room, revelling in the busy, happy atmosphere and listening to the hum of chatter and laughter, Daisy was thoroughly happy. Paul teased her because she couldn't make up her mind whether she should have sticky toffee pudding or wild berry terrine with mango coulis, encouraging her to have both. At last, they went into the theatre through the stalls bar to find their seats. This time it was Daisy's turn to tell Paul about the huge painted butterfly tied for luck to a rail at the top of the fly tower since the war years and, when he complained because it couldn't be seen from the audience, she went on to describe the theatre's Grey Lady: the ghost of an actress who loved a man who used to sit in one of the boxes but hanged herself in the Garrick's Head pub when her love was unrequited.

‘She'd have done better to go and live in a hollow tree with Juliana Popjoy,' he remarked callously – and then the lights dimmed and the music of Prokofiev filled the auditorium.

The performance thrilled Daisy with all the passionate intensity of its choreography and its elegant design. It wasn't until they'd come out into the street and begun to walk home that she realized that she was rather stiff.

‘All that sitting,' she said apologetically, as Paul put his arm through hers to help her along. ‘I'm fine really. It's been such a wonderful evening.'

He went with her up the stairs but she knew that she'd given him the excuse to cut the evening short and, though she longed for him to stay, he would hurry away as usual. She was quite right: he refused to let her make coffee, insisted that she must take some painkillers and go to bed, said that he had a very early start and needed to do some packing. He kissed her and left her to a sudden declension of spirits: the music and the dance still whirling in her brain along with the terrible sense of loss and fear that she might never dance again.

The feeling was still with her next morning. She watched Paul packing the car, this overwhelming compulsion to see him drawing her back again and again to the window, and when he knocked on her door she had to take a moment to compose herself before she could open it. He looked fresh, alive, and devastatingly attractive.

‘Just wanted to say that I'm off now. Have a good time in Cornwall.'

‘Oh, I will,' she said gaily. ‘It'll be great. Good luck with the traffic . . . Send me a postcard.' She couldn't hold back the words; already she was in despair at the idea of not seeing him for more than a week.

‘Oh.' He was clearly disconcerted. ‘But you won't be here . . .'

‘No,' she said quickly. ‘How silly. Wait a minute.' She dashed over to the little bureau and tore a sheet of paper from her writing pad. ‘There you are. I'd written it down for someone else but you can have it. No excuses now.'

She kept her voice light, joking, and he took the paper, folded it and put it in the back pocket of his jeans.

‘OK,' he answered, just as cheerfully. ‘Can't return the compliment, I'm afraid. Haven't a clue what the address of the cottage is until I meet up with my friends. Take care, won't you?'

He'd gone, running down the stairs and out to the car, and she was left to face three empty days before she went to Cornwall. She remembered how she'd considered cancelling her visit and felt ashamed when she recalled how ready she'd been to put Paul before Mim: to set aside Mim's claim on their years-old friendship in preference to someone whom she'd known for such a short time. Paul, it seemed, had no such qualms.

On Tuesday morning, as she drove along a lane flanked and made even narrower by tall cow parsley, whose powdery white flowers brushed against the windows of the car, Daisy's skin prickled hotly with this unhappy thought, and she made an effort to anticipate the approaching reunion with her friends. Driving west, to the house by the ford, Daisy was aware of a sense of homecoming. This time the Cornish names were familiar to her and she greeted them with a pleasurable anticipation that went some way towards ameliorating the tiny pricks of embarrassment she experienced whenever she thought about Paul.

And here she was at last, splashing through the ford, and feeling almost shaky with relief as she saw Roly, playing in the yard with the dogs, and Mim emerging from the house with her arms already stretched wide in welcome.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Clearing up from breakfast, a few days after Daisy's arrival, Mim and Roly were discussing her plight.

‘Oh, terrible, terrible love,' cried Mim, plates clashing in her hands. ‘Poor darling Daisy.'

Roly remembered his conversation with Kate. ‘Should we be saying “poor Daisy”, though? Shouldn't we be thinking how wonderful it is for her to be in love?'

Mim withered him with a glance. ‘Wonderful? You've seen how she is every morning, positively watching for the postman to arrive and then coming over, all bright and brittle while she's trying to see if there's a letter for her. Does she strike you as someone who is happy?'

‘No,' Roly admitted. ‘No, not happy, exactly, but she did tell me that the affair was in its early stages and . . . and here is the postman.'

He went out and Mim forgot Daisy for a moment as she watched him, leaning on the gate and exchanging pleasantries with the postman. She'd seen the difference as soon as he'd got out of the car at the station: some new freedom in his eyes and in the way he walked towards her. She'd stared at him curiously and he'd smiled down at her. Suddenly it was clear to her and hope leaped in her along with a hundred questions: when? To whom?

‘Have you been talking to Nat?' she'd asked.

He'd shaken his head, knowing that she'd guessed the reason for his light-heartedness.

‘To Kate,' he'd answered – and she'd nodded, pleased: it would be Kate, of course: non-judgemental, an old friend and someone whom he trusted. Mim had known instinctively that his uncomfortable love for Kate had also been subsumed, along with his confession, into their friendship: he was truly free. Of course, he might miss the passion whose very pain had made him feel alive: freedom carried other burdens, and could bring loneliness in its wake. Nevertheless, she rejoiced to see him look so happy.

‘Why
then
?' he'd asked her, bewildered. ‘After all these years? Why should it be possible just then?'

‘Because that was the right moment,' she'd assured him. ‘Life's like that, isn't it? These moments are vouchsafed us and we need to seize them thankfully.'

‘After all,' he'd needed to explain it to her properly, ‘I knew that you'd forgiven me right from the start and Nat has never reproached me. Yet I clung on to the shame of it for all those years. And why to Kate? I don't see . . .'

‘But you had to forgive yourself, not only for the accident, but also for the damage that followed it. That's much harder than forgiving someone else. It's taken all this time for you to work through it and come to this point. Kate being here was simply the catalyst.'

‘And it was something Daisy'd said just a few minutes earlier on the telephone: “It isn't good for the soul to hide one's true feelings and especially with those we really love.” It seemed to strike right into my heart – especially with Kate sitting there. I'd been doing so much hiding of my feelings, with her and with Nat, and all of a sudden I knew I didn't have to do it any more: I was freed – not from guilt – but from the terrible burden of the need for secrecy. The odd thing is that, once I'd told her the whole story, it was as if my feelings for her had changed too.'

‘It was time,' she'd answered gently. ‘You fell in love with Kate thirteen years ago and it had become a kind of unhappy habit that you couldn't break. David dying made it even worse, brought it to a head, and made things miserable between you. You can be happy together now: enjoy being the good friends you really are. Much more sensible.' She'd grinned at him. ‘And if that makes you feel rather staid and unromantic, well, tough!'

He'd grinned back at her. ‘I'll settle for staid for the moment.'

The postman was driving away and Roly returned with a handful of letters. Mim took them from him and began to look through the small pile.

‘Ah,' she said. ‘Here we are. A postcard for Daisy. A very nice picture of Salcombe.' She turned it over and examined the back of it.

‘Mim.' Roly sounded scandalized. ‘You're not going to read it?'

She glanced at him briefly. ‘How can I see what's going on if I don't read it?'

‘Honestly, Mim . . .'

‘Roly, this is serious. We've been through it already. Listening to Daisy's account of her injury I don't think she'll be able to dance properly again. The muscle and the tissue aren't healing properly and if she tries to dance to her old standard it will simply cause more damage. I can give her a terrific opportunity in London to reinvent her career but I can't wait too long and I need to know what's going on.'

‘I know all that but you can't read people's private correspondence.'

Mim snorted. ‘
Private correspondence?
Would you write anything personal on a postcard? Nobody sends a postcard if he wants the contents to remain private. Why doesn't he write her a letter? Or why not put the card in an envelope, if he wants it to be private? Anyway, there's nothing here that I wouldn't write to you. Nothing at all. Oh, poor darling Daisy.'

‘Mim, you are the absolute limit.'

The sheer inadequacy of his words amused her and she grinned at him, reminded of long-ago years when once she'd borrowed his new white cricket jersey with the school colours and got jam all over it and, on another occasion, had inadvertently sat on his favourite LP and smashed it to pieces.

She mocked him, making a prim face and mimicking him: ‘“Mim, you are the absolute limit,”' so that he laughed too and then cried, ‘Watch out, Daisy's coming.'

She was crossing the yard, pausing to talk to Bevis and Floss, not hurrying, and by the time she arrived in the kitchen, Roly was loading the dishwasher whilst Mim cleared the table.

‘Good morning,' Daisy said, smiling to see Uncle Bernard curled up so comfortably and neatly in his drawer. ‘I've decided that I'd better stock up a bit today and I was wondering whether you wanted anything.' Her eyes went hungrily to the small pile of letters. ‘I might go to Camelford.'

Mim took pity on her, passing Roly the last of the plates and then picking up the envelopes.

‘That might be a good idea. We could go together. One for you, Roly.' She passed him a letter. ‘Oh, we have a postcard from Salcombe.' Out of the corner of her eye she saw Daisy tense with expectation. ‘Oh, sorry, Daisy. It's for you.'

She passed it across to her at once, pretending to peruse the remaining letters whilst seeing Daisy's shoulders droop a little as her eyes devoured the meagre message. So brief was it that Mim could remember it: ‘Very beautiful here and the weather's being kind. Hope all is well in Cornwall. P.'

Her eyes met Roly's briefly across Daisy's bent head: he looked as if he were suffering equally with Daisy. Mim raised her eyebrows, signalling: ‘So what now?' and he responded with a tiny shrug of his shoulders and a brief shake of the head. He saw Mim close her eyes, her face stilled and quiet for a moment, as though she were drawing strength from some unseen source.

‘Come, Daisy,' she said. ‘Sit down.'

Holding her card, Daisy sat obediently at the table across from Mim. Watching Daisy, it occurred to Roly that during those ten years of training at the stage school she'd responded to Mim's authority so naturally that, even seven years later, the old habit held good. He relaxed a little: perhaps this was Daisy's moment for coming to terms with the truth.