Learning to Dance (10 page)

Hausmann said, ‘Good old Nattie! You should have been in the diplomatic service. Isn’t it enough that they are there – every bloody detail – for you to see for yourselves?’

Nathaniel stuck to his guns. ‘I want to know how you go about these things – is it just me? Am I being too inquisitive? Is that something entirely private to the painter?’

Hausmann looked across the television. ‘To be honest, Nat, I don’t know. Perhaps I am unable to make myself so vulnerable – honesty is vulnerability, is it not?’

Stanley Markham cleared his throat and everyone looked at him. He said, ‘I think it is more basic than that. Mr Hausmann can paint. He can find ways of showing us exactly
what we are missing when we look at things. But … perhaps he cannot find the words to tell us. Perhaps someone else might do that. A poet?’

The silence was one of sheer astonishment. Stanley had spoken at last.

Hausmann said nothing. The silence was broken by Sven. ‘A poet? Or perhaps a teacher like yourself? What is your so-realistic saying in England? “If you can’t do it, teach it!”’

The silence changed and became apprehensive. Sybil’s grip was painful and Judith could see that in the chairs opposite the sofa, Margaret and Jennifer were also holding hands. She looked across at Hausmann. He was bending down unplugging the projector. He straightened slowly and began to wind the cable on to a spool.

‘I think you are right, Mr Markham. I have no words. My eyes and hands are what I use.’ Suddenly and unexpectedly he looked round the room and gave a mighty grin. ‘I am not known for tact – that was always the area of my good friend Nathaniel.’ He made a little bow towards the sofa, and for once Nathaniel Jones was silent.

Everything changed. There was much laughter, congratulations for Hausmann, a general discussion about his work, during which he seemed enabled to talk about the process of painting. Irena brought in coffee, cheese and biscuits. Bart produced chocolate mints again.

Judith said, ‘I’m going to slip away. Thank you for today, Sybil.’

‘Shall we do it again tomorrow? Perhaps Porlock?’

‘I … I don’t know.’

‘I could persuade Robert to come with us. I might tell him who I am.’

‘Oh … oh. I really don’t know. Honestly.’

‘Sorry … don’t mean to pressure you. See you at breakfast. Yes?’

‘Yes. Yes of course.’

She escaped and made for the stairs. Once in her room she locked the door carefully and leaned back against it, steeling herself physically not to cry.

Then she emptied her bag on to the bed and found her address book. She skipped through it and found the private number of the
Magnet
’s editor. William Whortley. She propped the book against the two teacups, which were still on her bedside table, and sat on the edge of the bed.

Almost automatically she looked to see what the last call to her mobile had been. She started to write it down and then stopped in mid-flow. It was her home number. She held the receiver away from her, staring at it. Then rang it back. She counted eight rings and then her own voice said, ‘Can you leave us a message, please? We’ll ring you back as soon as we can.’ Jack had wanted her to do it – friendly but firm, he had said. Short and to the point. Keep it short, Jude, don’t use two words when one will do.

Nobody left a message and the phone sang emptily into her ear.

She sat still for some time, wondering whether she should ring enquiries. One of Jack’s golfing companions lived on the same road and was a policeman. She could tell him where she kept the spare key. It took an age to get the number, but eventually she was able to tap it out. There was no answer, not even a machine. She remembered him saying to Jack that his private phone was his private phone. Jack had kissed her later and told her never to be as precious about the English language. ‘It’s not only that he was stating the obvious – it’s because if he really wanted privacy he’d go ex-directory!’

And then she suddenly had a wonderful thought. Jack was the only one who had a key, and even if he’d lost it he knew that she kept a spare one underneath the third rock in the rockery. It must have been Jack. Jack must be alive.

She sat on the edge of the bed, eyes closed, so deeply thankful she almost forgot that he had left her for another woman. Even when she did, the thankfulness did not go away. She didn’t care – for the moment – that he might love someone else. The fact that he was still on this earth was enough.

After some time, she stood up, collected her things and went to the bathroom, showered, and returned to her room. And then, and only then, did she ring William Whortley.

The phone in the Surrey house – genuine Elizabethan with stables at the back – rang a lot of times before the answering machine kicked in. She left a brief message asking whether William had any idea of Jack’s whereabouts. No mention of the rerun of his cartoon strip. Just a bare question with her phone number. And then she went to bed.

She slept fitfully. She thought at one stage that someone tried her door, but she had locked it and left the key in. She slept again. This time she dreamed of Matt. He was asking someone where Toby had gone. And then he was running along a road, absolutely straight with no beginning and no end. He was wearing shorts, and she watched his beautiful legs pumping rhythmically and his arms punching the air with each stride. He looked round and saw her and shouted, ‘I’ll find him for you, Mum. He’ll be with Dad!’

She woke up sweating and lay straight, telling herself over and over again that it was a dream, absurd, ridiculous, like all dreams. It was no good, she could not sleep. She got out of bed intending to make some tea. The phone rang.

It was William Whortley.

‘Judith. My dear. We’ve just come in from the theatre and I listened to the messages. I hoped you knew where Jack was. I have no idea, and I am worried about him because he hasn’t been himself, has he? I’ve emailed him, sent him texts.’

She said blearily, ‘I think he’s with Toby – one of our sons – not sure. If he is he won’t be able to text. Poor signal.’

He laughed; a gust of relief that filled her ear. ‘Thank God. Judith, I can tell you now. I thought he might be on his deathbed! I expected something to come through from him: a skull – alas, poor Yorick – you know the sort of thing. Your message sounded desperate, somehow.’

‘Bad hair day.’ It was one of Jack’s sayings, and convinced him more than anything. He became bluff and avuncular.

‘Don’t worry, my dear. You know what he’s like. First one to hear from him gets in touch, all right?’

‘Sounds good.’ She was responding like Jack again. He said goodnight, and she said, ‘Sleep tight’, and they rang off. She sat on the edge of the bed. It was just past midnight. The Whortleys had come in from the theatre and would be having nightcaps and going to bed. And she had done with sleeping, yet was still tired.

She made the inevitable tea and drank it slowly, remembering her dream and the rattle of her bedroom door before that. Hausmann had got away from all the sudden interest in the sitting room and followed her to make sure she was all right. She pictured him cradled in Jack’s arms, ill and haunted by ghosts. He had probably run to Australia in search of solace, and had found it with Jack. Jack was good at solace. Jack had always been good at solace.

She refused to weep; weeping could become a habit. And she refused to stew in her own juice. She put on her dressing
gown and then wrapped herself in the duvet, suddenly realizing how cold it was. Then she pocketed her key and went along the landing towards the Long Gallery. The heavy old double doors were unlocked. She pushed them open clumsily, duvet slipping down, another rush of cold air finding her shoulders. She got through somehow and closed the doors carefully, then hoisted the duvet almost over her head. She looked down the length of the gallery; it was flooded with moonlight. It was breathtaking.

She waited for some time, not even looking, simply waiting for her perceptions to settle into this new dimension. Nothing was defined. Because she already knew that the display units were set at angles and that every flat surface held the Hausmann paintings, she could start from there. But the silver-grey light showed few details; the Long Gallery itself was what she was seeing, the zigzag of the units was its artery system, the unseen paintings its nerve-ends.

She held the duvet tight to her shoulders, and the corner that had shielded her head fell back. She could hear. She listened.

There were myriad sounds and she was alarmed, wondering whether someone else was in the gallery; Hausmann himself, perhaps. But he – anyone – would have made themselves known when she had opened the doors. These sounds belonged to the castle itself. The wind pressed against the windows and the walls breathed it in. Timbers expanded and contracted as if the gallery were the prow of a ship; an old sailing ship, rising and falling in a swell. And the tiny sounds … were they mice who had lived behind the wainscoting for years and rightly considered the gallery to be theirs? She smiled, thinking of the stories she would have made from these sounds when the boys were small. Easier to
think of mice dressed in Beatrix Potter ginghams than rats seeking refuge from the full tide. She began to move away from the door.

The sofas were placed back to back for easy viewing; there were three pairs, one commanding each alcove of paintings. She sat in every one of them, looking through the moonlight, identifying the pictures, feeling again the ineffable sadness of something that was perhaps as relatively ephemeral as a moth’s wing. Yet at the same time seeing the amazing and glorious hope that Hausmann was offering – perhaps unknowingly. Humankind … nesting … in the face of chaos? She remembered her sketches; yesterday’s, today’s. The battling cliffs and insidious seas. Then the tiny haven of the Lantern Inn set among pillows of trees.

She came to the last of the squashy sofas and sat very still, no longer looking, sensing the moonlight bathing her, incorporating her into the gallery. She saw that her terrors were now separate from herself. Toby was looking for Jack, and Matt was close behind. Everything was out of her hands: the human plight and the domestic one. She surrendered, curled herself into the back of the sofa, tucked her head against the arm and went to sleep.

When she woke the moonlight had gone and the sun was sparking the diamond-paned windows and glowing lovingly on the pictures in the final alcove. Judith turned on to her back and stretched, bracing her feet and shoulders against the arms of the sofa. The wonderful sense of freedom that had released her into sleep last night was still present, though she acknowledged with a little self-mocking smile that it could not last.

She hoisted herself up to look over at the paintings behind her. They were the ones that had earned Hausmann the name of the ‘Constable of Somerset’. No wonder he was bitter. They were so much his own, so very much his own.

She leaned her head back against … a pillow? She wriggled and pulled it out. It matched her duvet. Staring down at her feet she saw a blanket.

She propped herself up again; so Hausmann had sought her out and done what he could to make her comfortable. She had become a sort of homage to Jack. Yesterday that might have made her weep; today it made her smile. It would make Jack smile too. She closed her eyes and imagined them reaching for each other, caught – first of all – in a level of emotion neither could sustain. And so bursting into laughter.
She opened her eyes quickly before the threat of unwanted tears could overcome her … and the door at the end of the Long Gallery opened.

Hausmann entered back-first because he was holding a tray. As he came nearer she saw it was beautifully laid even to a slender glass holding a cornflower. She began to laugh when he was half way along the gallery, and by the time he set it carefully on the floor within her reach, she was almost unable to speak.

He sat on the floor. ‘What is funny?’ he demanded.

She controlled herself. ‘Nothing really. Just … the situation. Did you fetch my pillow and this blanket? You did, didn’t you? Thank you, Mr Hausmann. Thank you very much. I have had a wonderful sleep. And now – this.’

‘I do it for Jack.’

‘I know.’ Her voice became very gentle. ‘So I have to tell you. Jack is not dead. He is doing what you did. He is walking in the deserts of Australia. Perhaps wanting to die – as I think you did – but his rescuers are close.’

‘How do you know this?’

‘I had a dream. And then I came in here and your paintings told me.’

He said nothing, just looked down at his feet, then leaned forward and poured tea, then added a full spoon of sugar, then a dash of milk.

‘You remembered!’ she marvelled.

‘It is my curse. I remember everything. Even when they are not my memories, I still remember.’

She stared at the top of his head. His hair was like a bush, but it was soon going to turn from grey to completely white.

She said, ‘Somebody has to.’

He looked up. ‘Why should it be me, Mrs Jack? Why should
I carry the burden for others – others who are dead – why can’t they take their memories with them?’

She wondered whether he had looked at Jack the way he was looking at her. If he had, what had Jack said?

She leaned down and took the mug of tea from his hands. She inhaled appreciatively as she always did, and then she said matter-of-factly, ‘Because you can put down the burden whenever you will.’

He looked at her incredulously. ‘Because I can paint? You think I could paint those memories? I would be sectioned – put into a secure unit where I would be watched in case I found a weapon—’

She put a hand down and over his lips and made shushing noises, as she had to the twins years ago.

‘No. That would never happen. But you could do a Manley Hopkins. You should read his poetry – beauty in the midst of death or Nature’s cruelty. None of his work was seen until he had died.’

She took her fingers from his face, and he grabbed them, opened her hand, and put it over his eyes for just a moment, then released it. She put it back on her mug of tea and sipped again.