Learning to Dance (22 page)

Two hours later, with four green bags of weeds and an aching back as evidence of her labour, she went inside again. Earlier, Jack had waved from the kitchen and held a coffee mug on high, but she had shaken her head and continued to trowel around the perennials and clear beneath the shrubs. Now, she realized she needed some coffee and probably a sandwich or some soup. Or something. She was tired and aching.

The kitchen was as she had left it, except for Jack’s coffee mug on the draining board. She stared at it in disbelief. Was this how it was going to be? They had done everything –
everything – together, hadn’t they? And Jack was well enough to have made some sandwiches, wasn’t he?

Angrily she washed her hands at the sink, reached for the roller towel, found it very damp, and practically tore it down and threw it into the machine. Suddenly she wanted to cry. She held on to the edge of the sink and squeezed her eyes tightly shut and let the questions hammer inside her head. She blanked them all out … but, even unacknowledged, they were still there, and were the kernel of a much bigger question. How long could they go on without some kind of explanation? Once Matt went back to Perth, how would they spend their days? All right, like Matt, she accepted that Jack’s mind and body had broken down, but had his memory gone as well? Was he expecting everything to go back to how it had been?

She found a clean towel and hung it up, then began to assemble crockery and food on the kitchen table, made herself some coffee. Perhaps she should look for a job. She sat down with a bump; who on earth would employ a middle-aged woman without a single qualification?

The door of the study opened and Jack’s voice – quite strong – came down the hall. ‘That you, Jude? Is it time for lunch?’

And suddenly the anger – simmering everywhere, it seemed – overwhelmed her, and she yelled back childishly, ‘Food and skivvy await the master!’

It did not help one bit when he took it as banter – as it might well have been in the old days – and came into the kitchen grinning widely and looking, she had to admit, very like Jack had used to look: energized, almost excited.

He sat down carefully, however – his movements were still conscious efforts – and moderated the grin. ‘William has
sent a bundle of newspapers. Seems a few journalists have been messing about with all the rules and a scandal is about to break. The suggestion is there’s been a mole – not quite Establishment, but hanging on in there. I thought I’d call him Maurice the Mole. I’ve got an email ready for William: a bit of a storyline with some attachments – sketches, notes. That was why I was waving at you.’

He put his hands on the edge of his chair and changed his position slightly.

She said, ‘You’ve been sitting for too long.’ She stood up and put both hands beneath his elbow. ‘Come on. A turn around the garden, then I’ve got some soup.’

He groaned. ‘How long does soup-time go on for?’

‘This is Mexican bean soup with chillies.’ She opened the door with her back, just as Sybil and Robert had done at Castle Dove. ‘Puts hair on your chest.’

‘Oh goodie,’ he responded, following her on to the patio, stopping, drawing in long appreciative breaths of the autumnal air. He lifted his head, closed his eyes, and then moved away from her and leaned on the rail where Matt had flung his wetsuit after a dip in the Bristol Channel the day before. She felt a dull acceptance somewhere in her chest, and thought that it was not that difficult, they could keep it up, perhaps even pretend nothing had happened.

Then he said, ‘I’d love to see Lundy Island. All I remember is wind and rain. Robert says it’s microcosmic, a state of mind.’

She came and stood beside him, gripping the wrought iron hard.

He said, ‘When I ran away to Perth – after it happened – there was Robert, in hospital after he, too, had tried to run away! So I knew that didn’t work.’ He shook his head. ‘He
kept on and on about Lundy. Wanted to take me back and show me. But by then I knew nothing was going to work without you.’ He glanced sideways at her and gave her a wry smile. ‘Stuck it out for weeks, as you know, told myself it was better for you – fresh start – that sort of thing. Then I had an email from that master of understatement – Arnold McCready – he’d seen you somewhere and said you “weren’t good”. So I told Len I was going home, and he said he’d come with me, and I didn’t want that, so I walked out. Matt caught me up at the airport.’ He shrugged. ‘All the wrong things …’

He turned and leaned his back against the railing. ‘Jude. I’m sorry. I see now that you must have known all the time, and you were trying to make the best of a bad job. I would have gone along with that for ever, my love, but … it wasn’t right. I was responsible for her death, Jude. The only other person who knows that is Robert Hausmann. It was one of the reasons Robert wanted us to go to Lundy. Apparently you learn acceptance there.’

He stopped speaking. She found she was gripping the railing much too hard. A death? Who had died? She relaxed her hand with some difficulty. He was not talking sense; she must be … reasonable.

‘Jack. You’ve got it wrong. I have
not
known what was happening. I
still
don’t know. I was wrapped in sadness about losing Mum. I was devastated at losing Naomi. I admit I wasn’t putting much into anything. And then you left. I hated you; but when I thought you were dead … oh my God, Jack, I was poleaxed.’ She tried to smile and felt her mouth tremble. ‘Perhaps this isn’t such a good time – you’re still pretty weak and this new project with the
Magnet
, it’s something upbeat at last. But, I do need to know. Who died?’
She saw his distress and strengthened her voice. ‘Listen. Let’s go and have that soup. And then, perhaps …’

He nodded. ‘That sounds good. Things never seem so bad on a full stomach!’

It was a pathetic attempt at one of their old exchanges. She held the door open for him and they went inside.

Amazingly, he managed a full bowl of the soup; it was strong stuff and he drank a glass of water afterwards, then put his bowl into the sink and sat up very straight in his chair. It made her nervous, and she started to wash up noisily. When he asked her to sit down she suggested they go into the sitting room and ‘make themselves comfortable’ as if they were guests in their own house.

He repeated quietly, ‘Sit down, Jude. Please.’

She sat opposite him this time. He was out of accidental reach, no fear of their knees touching. She put her hands on her lap beneath the table and pulled at her fingers as if trying to lengthen them.

He said quietly, ‘I cannot believe you had no inkling. We weren’t easy together any more.’ She said nothing and he took a breath. ‘It happened at the office party, of course. She was – she was so unhappy. Everyone was at it – you remember from other years. She said it made her feel the odd one out even more. I got some more drinks … Jude, please believe me when I tell you it was impossible not to … not to …’ She made a sound and he said, ‘OK. I knew immediately that I’d done the wrong thing, simply because she was so happy – Naomi seemed contented enough when I met her here, but I’d never seen her like this. She lit up. I wasn’t surprised when she came round on Boxing Day with that champagne and the chocolates for you. I was surprised – and aghast – when she came into the study
and … well, obviously thought there had been much more to the party than I had.’

He had not heard the tiny scream of protest as he spoke Naomi’s name. He was somewhere else, deep in a time from which there was no escape. He rested his elbow on the table and put his head on one hand. ‘Yes, all right, I could have – I should have – clamped down that day. But I thought she’d come to her senses of her own accord. Oh, I don’t know what I thought, Jude. Only that I was sick with myself for letting you down. You were still so fond of her – dependent on her – and far from easing her away, my efforts to talk to her properly seemed to make her dependent on me.’ He stopped talking. Strangely he left an echo circling oh so gently around the kitchen. Naomi. Like a chord played on a guitar. Naomi. Naomi. So obvious. Yet never suspected. Never imagined.

Judith held on to her thumb and forced herself to make an effort. Naomi and Jack. It did not work. Naomi wouldn’t have let it happen. So … Naomi was someone else, not the Naomi she had known. Naomi was a widow who had nursed a sick husband for – how many years? She had never spoken of him, never described him. She had said once, ‘I was Naomi Shannon – I might go back to that name. Naomi Parsons is so hard. I never liked it.’

So was it Naomi Parsons or Naomi Shannon who fell in love with someone else’s husband? She had warned Judith about it – tried to put her on her guard, perhaps? Judith found, quite suddenly, that she could indeed imagine someone called Naomi Shannon falling in love with Jack. She could almost see the long neck, the head tilted back, the brown eyes as clear as milkless tea. She looked up and said, ‘So. I was betrayed twice. By my husband and then by my friend – my only friend, actually.’

‘I’ve said that to myself so often, Jude. That’s why I went to see her in London during the spring bank holiday.’

‘Ah, I see. When the boys were here.’ She wanted to hurt him. She could not remember the holiday, but she said in the same level tone, ‘Yes, of course. That was the day they went to Woolacombe for the surfing championships. I thought of walking down to Arnold McCready’s and seeing if Arnie wanted to come and play but—’

‘Jude, please don’t.’

‘All right. Is there much more? Only I’ve got one or two jobs—’

‘She arrived. She had insisted we meet at the Ritz. Tea at the Ritz. She had an overnight bag – said she thought I had booked us in for the weekend. It was horrible. Horrible. When she saw my face she began threatening again. I told her she could do what she wanted – tell the whole world – it would make no difference. I would not see her again. At last she believed me. And she looked at me, picked up her bag and bolted. If she’d left the way she had come she would have gone into Green Park. As it was, she ran out into Piccadilly, which was packed with holiday traffic and … and … and …’ He opened his hands, then clenched them and put his fists on the table. ‘They said the car mounted the pavement. But it killed just Naomi, and there were other people all around her. It had to be deliberate, Jude. And it had to be because of what I’d said. I can’t even remember … I had told myself – schooled myself – to be brutal. I couldn’t go on any longer. It had to be final. And it was.’

She was aghast. This was most definitely not the Naomi she had known. Naomi’s serene ambience had been part of her, never deserting her, not even when her long legs were twisted inextricably behind her washing machine. This was
a different Naomi. Naomi Shannon. Passionate rather than compassionate. For a moment Judith saw those same long ungainly legs, unrecognizable beneath the wheels of a car. She coughed, then choked.

He sat there, stone-still, probably seeing it all again like an endless strip of film. She saw it herself. And more; it had been she who had urged Jack to take Naomi to that office party, and she should have known only too well how easy it was after a few drinks to let a flirtation become something more.

She stood up abruptly and ran water into a glass and drank it. She leaned over the sink and choked again, drank again. Stood upright.

Jack was sitting there. Staring.

She said levelly, ‘Why didn’t it come out at the inquest? Did you give evidence?’

He looked up at her and said drearily, ‘I didn’t know. Not then. I left immediately and went through the park and on to Paddington for that six o’clock train. I heard it on the car radio the next day. When I got in you had heard it, too, and told me. If I’d had to tell you I would probably have started from the beginning. I don’t know.’

‘You said nothing? To the police? To – to
anyone
?’

‘No. What was there to say? I thought it was over – I told myself it was her choice. But it was just beginning.’

‘Someone might have seen her – been able to tell you it was an accident.’ Judith heard her own voice, offering what? Some kind of comfort? She gripped the sink again, battling with another wave of nausea. After a moment she ran the tap, splashed water on her face.

‘I don’t think I’m taking this in, Jack.’ She turned and leaned her back on the edge of the sink. Jack had not moved, but his stare had slightly changed, and he looked defeated.
She said, ‘I learned something from my weekend at Castle Dove – people are rarely what they seem to be. Behind every bully there’s a victim. Hiding. And behind the victims there are many bullies. Manipulators – that’s probably what I mean.’ She shrugged. ‘That’s obvious, isn’t it?’ She leaned forward. ‘But … oh, Jack, I thought we were above that. I thought that moment in the lecture room – and then the few days in Paris – I thought that’s how it would be always. Always and always.’ She sounded childish, silly. She raised her brows self-mockingly. ‘Same applies to Naomi. Naomi had nursed her husband for ten years – I remember now, she told me it was ten years. She missed him terribly. Just as we missed Mum. But Naomi must have seen it as an escape.’ She could not look at Jack any more. She closed her eyes. ‘Oh God. Oh, Jack … you should have told me … after the party … you should have told me.’

‘Yes.’ The single word seemed to fall heavily to the floor. They had come full circle. Another silence filled the kitchen as the sun began to make for the sea.

It was warm; somewhere a fly was buzzing and she hadn’t turned the tap off properly, it was dripping.

She said, ‘I have to walk round the garden, Jack. Perhaps you should go and sit in an armchair, you don’t look safe there.’

She went through the utility room and out on to the patio, then straight down by the border that fourteen days ago she had tidied so carefully before deciding to answer the advert in the local paper about the exhibition at Castle Dove. She dropped down the steps into the vegetable garden and walked alongside the single row of bean sticks to the wall that overlooked the sea. When she came to the gap where the top stones had fallen away during the year of the snow,
she leaned her elbows on the opening and looked across the roofs towards Wales.