Echoes of the Dance (30 page)

Gemma looked thoughtful. Kate saw that she appeared happier – the pinched, fearful look had been replaced by a hopeful confidence – and she relaxed a little.

‘It's all to do with Guy's being away so much, I suppose. We have talked about it but the thought of being on my own doesn't appeal. I like working for Malcolm Bruce at the dental surgery and I love people, Kate, things happening, impromptu gatherings. My neighbours in the courtyard are such mates and there's always someone around for a chat. I'd rather be a bit cramped than be alone.' She grimaced. ‘Sounds a bit pathetic, doesn't it? Especially to someone like you, who's been so much alone.'

‘I had the naval network to fall back on, remember. I can quite understand what you mean about being alone but if Guy were to be at home more you might feel differently. Anyway, first things first. What will you do?'

‘I shall go back but I shan't telephone,' Gemma began, as if reciting lesson. ‘I shall stop begging him to come home to supper or asking if he's OK and trying to make conversation. I shall leave the phone on answer. Right so far?'

‘Quite right. It's worth a try, anyway. Once he's recovered his pride I think he'll realize that some way forward has to be found. He loves you and the twins far too much to be silly about it.'

‘I hope you're right. I love him so much, Kate.'

‘So do I,' said Kate.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

The following morning, across the crowded aisles and piled stalls of the Pannier Market in Tavistock, Kate saw Janna. After a restless evening spent wondering if she'd been mad to speak so frankly to Gemma, and growing more and more fearful of the consequences as the night progressed, Kate had risen early and decided to go shopping: a chat with Brigid Foley in her shop in Paddons Row and the fun of choosing a new outfit for Cass's ruby wedding anniversary party might distract her from imagining Guy's reaction to Gemma's tactics. Eating breakfast, Kate mentally reviewed the morning: coffee in the Bedford, return her library books, buy some of the twins' favourite jam from Crebers, go to Bookstop to see if Natasha had managed to find the book she'd ordered for Roly's birthday.

As she drove into the town Kate decided that she might also look in on Michael to see if there was any movement on the sale of the cottage. Her own house had been advertised for the first time at the weekend so there might be something to report there too. Pulling into a space in the car park of the Bedford Hotel she reflected that it was odd that her grandsons had shaken her confidence by acting so indifferently to the cottage. It was foolish to allow herself to be upset by it. Had she expected that they would behave as Giles and Guy had, all those years before, with cries of delight and excitement? Her own twins had been enchanted at the prospect of sleeping in bunk beds, of having their own home after years of living in married quarters, and their joy had matched her own. Yet on Sunday she'd been unable to recapture that sense of happiness; instead she'd felt a stranger as she'd wandered through the empty rooms, as though the cottage were refusing to give up its secrets and had closed itself against her.

She went into the hotel and ordered some coffee at the bar, wondering if it had been the presence of her grandchildren that had held the memories at bay: they'd been polite but baffled by this visit, anxious to get back to watch the video of
Shrek 2
that Kate had promised as an after-lunch treat.

‘It's a bit like our cottage,' was Julian's verdict. ‘I like your house better, Grannie. There's much more room in it.'

‘Where would we have our playroom?' asked Ben, the more pragmatic twin. ‘Where would you put the rocking horse?'

This was a bit of a facer: she hadn't considered this problem and she had to do some quick thinking.

‘Perhaps in here,' she said, showing them the little room off the kitchen. ‘We'd have to take the bed and the cupboard out, of course.'

They regarded the room rather glumly, clearly unimpressed. ‘There would hardly be room for him,' Ben observed rather judiciously, ‘not with all the other toys as well.'

‘Don't you like your house any more?' asked Julian kindly. He stared up at her, concerned. ‘Are you bored of it?'

‘“Bored
with
it.” Not really, Jules.' She hesitated, not wishing to sound pathetic. ‘It's just a bit big, that's all. You know. Now that I'm on my own.'

‘You could have a dog,' suggested Ben cheerfully. ‘That would fill it up a bit.'

Julian regarded her hopefully. ‘Would a dog do? One like Bevis or Floss would be nice.'

‘Yes,' she agreed. ‘That would be very nice. Let's go and look at the garden.'

Now, as she drank her coffee, she was frustrated and irritated by her inability to come to a decision and stick with it. It was foolish to be deterred from her plan to buy the cottage simply because two seven-year-old boys weren't enthusiastic about it: she simply couldn't afford to dither. Ever since David's death fear hovered at her shoulder, ready to undermine her confidence, and now, after a brief and happy respite, it was back.

An hour later, entering the Pannier Market from West Street, she paused for a moment in the doorway. Two years after her affair with Alex had ended, unexpectedly seeing him here across the hall, she'd been shocked at how much the memories still had retained their power to hurt. When their affair ended it had come as a blow to her that he'd not only returned to his one-time mistress so quickly but also that he'd flaunted it openly. It was as if their own love, which had seemed so precious and utterly special in Kate's eyes, had been simply another run-of-the-mill affair to him, and she'd been devastated by his callousness. Coming upon him unprepared, two years on, had resurrected memories of the last weeks of the affair: the arguments, justifications, the scenes that needed so much tact, and the terror of losing everything that she loved. How hard it had been to reconcile the Alex of those last painful days with the lover and companion she'd known.

Today it was with something like relief that she saw Janna's tawny lion's-mane hair through the throng of people and Kate threaded her way between the stalls, across the market towards her. Janna greeted her with delight and her smile was full of warmth.

‘Look at this,' she said, showing Kate a piece of Mason's Ironstone: a breakfast cup and saucer. ‘Don't you think it's pretty? Nat could have his morning tea in it. 'Tis overpriced, of course, seeing it's got a chip in it and the saucer's cracked but I'm getting him down gradually.'

She winked at the stallholder, who gave a shout of laughter.

‘Don't know good value when you see it,' he said. ‘That's your problem. It's a genuine piece, that is. None of your modern stuff. Six fifty.'

Janna shook her head pityingly. ‘What are you like?' she asked him. ‘First day out on yer own, is it?'

Kate regarded Janna affectionately: as usual her T-shirt had a slogan: ‘I can only please one person each day,' it read. ‘TODAY IS NOT YOUR DAY.' Underneath in smaller print were the words: ‘Tomorrow doesn't look good either.'

‘Oh dear,' said Kate. ‘That's bad news. Perhaps I should make an appointment.'

‘What's wrong?' Janna looked concerned. So did the stallholder, who feared he might lose his sale through this new distraction. ‘Spent too much money?' Janna indicated the Brigid Foley bag, pulling out an edge of the silky slate-blue garment to have a peek at it. ‘Oh, that's so cool. Just your colour. So what's up then?'

‘Nothing,' answered Kate. ‘I was just joking about your T-shirt.' She picked up the tea-cup. ‘It's so pretty, isn't it? I love Mason's Ironware and this pattern, the Fruit Basket, is my favourite. I had a coffee pot in it once. My mother gave it to me and I thought about her every time I used it, especially after she died. I cried buckets when it got broken. So difficult to get it now.'

‘Very difficult.' The stallholder saw his opportunity and seized it gratefully. ‘Like gold-dust.'

‘A fiver,' said Janna firmly. ‘Take it or leave it.' She waved the note encouragingly under his nose. ‘'Tis up to you.'

Grumbling, the stallholder wrapped the cup and saucer carefully, and Janna grinned at him saucily as she and Kate turned to go.

‘So what's up?' she asked Kate. ‘Don't say “nothing”. Looks like you've seen a ghost.'

‘Good grief! Nothing so terrible. Just trying to make some decisions, that's all.'

They passed down the crowded aisles, jostling between the other shoppers, raising their voices so as to hear each other speak.

‘Have you made an offer on your cottage?' Janna cried into Kate's ear.

Kate shook her head, turning her head to shout back. ‘I saw Michael just now. He told me that the owners are only prepared to deal with someone who's already had an offer on their own house. I'm nowhere near that yet.' They reached the far end of the market and paused in the doorway. ‘Look, would you like some coffee? Or if you're going back to Horrabridge I can give you a lift.'

‘Thanks, but I'm going in to Plymouth to see my mum. Nat dropped me off earlier on his way to work, so I thought I'd have a coffee in Duke's and a look at the market, but I've got to get a move on now or I'll miss the bus.'

They walked out together, past the Guildhall and the statue of the seventh Duke of Bedford, into the square.

‘Is your mum OK?' asked Kate.

‘I think so. I had a text from one of her mates and I thought I'd better go and have a look for myself. First of all she'll grumble because I don't go often enough and then we'll have a laugh and yarn about the old days on the road, then after that she'll get maudlin and last of all she'll start screaming. I don't know why it should be like that. I love her. And she loves me. 'Tis crazy, really. Happens every time the same.' She shrugged. ‘You know how 'tis?'

‘Oh, yes,' said Kate as they crossed Bedford Square and walked along beside the wall of St Eustachius' churchyard. ‘I know how it is. Love and guilt, all bound up so tightly together that we can never quite tell where one begins and the other ends. We can't escape them.'

They paused near the churchyard gate at the crossing outside the hotel: Janna, who was still holding the parcel, suddenly held it out to Kate.

‘For you,' she said. ‘'Cos you liked it.'

‘But it's for Nat,' protested Kate, taken aback. ‘It's very sweet of you . . .'

‘'Tis for you,' insisted Janna. She tucked the parcel into the Brigid Foley bag. ‘You'll love it, see. Nat won't really think about it, only out of politeness and stuff like that. You'll really use it and when you do then you'll think about me and your mum. All of us sort of tucked in together.'

‘Yes,' said Kate, after a moment. ‘Yes, I shall do exactly that. Thank you, Janna.'

Driving home she thought about the question of guilt and love: she loved her twins yet inextricable from that love was guilt: that in being unable to sustain her marriage with their father she might have damaged them. Whatever arguments she might employ to justify her actions, deep down lurked the terrible fear that she'd got it wrong: that their problems and character defects were the products of some action of her own. Might that be why a tiny part of her feared to confront them in moments of crisis: that they might reflect back upon her the results of her own inadequacies and lack of foresight?

She knew that Roly had the same misgivings about his relationship with Nat: always conscious of his failure in providing him with a stable home, frustrated by Monica's manipulation of this weakness. Perhaps all parents suffered from this paranoia: realizing their mistakes only when it was too late.

So why should Janna's love for her mother be mixed with that guilty quality? Perhaps Janna believed that it was her fault that her father had gone away. When Janna was born he'd left her mother because he couldn't cope and, not long afterwards, her mother had begun to drink. Perhaps Janna blamed herself for this series of events and imagined that she saw accusation in her mother's eyes.

‘My mum loved me,' she'd said, defending her. ‘She bought me things.'

Her whole security was wrapped in those offerings of affection: the shawl, the book, the mug. Instinctively Kate glanced at the bag in the well of the passenger seat, thinking about that earlier offering of love.

‘You'll think about me and your mum. All of us sort of
tucked in together.'

Vulnerability lurked behind Janna's happy-go-lucky façade; her desperate need to be part of a family, cherished and valued, always at war with some inherent instability that drove her to flee from the very commitment she craved as soon as it began to make demands upon her.

Pierced with a helpless compassion, Kate parked the car in the drive and took her shopping into the house. She went at once to the telephone to see if there was a message from Gemma, and turned away from the red, unwinking light with mixed feelings of anxiety and relief. It was far too early, she told herself, to hope for any results just yet. Nevertheless, she placed her mobile near to hand, just in case Gemma might text, and wondered if Roly and Daisy were on their way home from Bath. Perhaps, too, Michael might telephone to say that someone wanted to view the house: so many things to think about . . .