Learning to Dance (25 page)

‘Well, he can be. But not always. And I think he would prefer tea, actually. I’ll take out the rest of the citrus tart and the biscuit tin.’

But she had never seen him other than unkempt, and felt she was meeting him for the first time when he pecked at both her cheeks. Then he took the biscuit tin from her and opened it up. ‘D’you mind? I missed breakfast.’

Quite suddenly, she felt herself relaxing. She said, ‘What do you think of the patient? He made the citrus tart for lunch. And he’s started work again.’

‘What? Well done, Jack. But steady as she goes. This time last week they were varnishing a coffin for you down in Porlock woodyard!’

Martha, coming up with the tea tray, looked shocked. Matt said, ‘Charming. Guaranteed to make a recovering patient feel heaps better.’

‘Cheers him up – listen. That’s a Jack Freeman laugh!’

It was indeed; Judith smiled at Jack, knowing that Hausmann had brought the same reassurance to both of them. He stopped laughing, but his gaze fixed on Judith became different.

She turned quickly to Hausmann. ‘You’re going to see Nat in Cardiff?’

He lifted his eyebrows. ‘How do you know that? Oh, of course, the dream. And other things.’

‘I heard you talking to Matt.’

‘Ah. Well. Yes. Yes, I thought I might look him up. Everyone disappeared last Tuesday morning before I got back from the hospital. Apparently there was a bit of a fuss with Nathaniel. Thought I might be able to smooth it over.’

Judith found Sybil’s letter in her pocket and passed it to him without a word. He read it, folded it into its creases and handed it back.

‘I thought perhaps it was the other way round.’ He looked at her and shrugged. ‘All I intend to do is to talk to Nat.’

She smiled. ‘Of course.’

‘Seriously, Judith. What else can I do?’

‘Nothing.’

‘If you mean I should step right back, then nobody will do anything, and Nat will go on being alone, and Sybil will marry someone like her husband – who will stifle all her real personality.’

‘But perhaps Nat would be happier on his own, and Sybil needs to be kept in wraps?’

‘Do you believe that?’

She did not reply and Jack said, ‘Of course she doesn’t. Jude believes in family.’

Hausmann said quickly, ‘Also it was a chance to see you and ask whether you are ready for Lundy yet.’

Matt broke in. ‘Lundy? You didn’t say anything about Lundy – Dad can’t go back there, not after last time.’

Hausmann said strongly, ‘He barely saw the place. The weather is set fair. You both need a proper holiday. Matt will go home and—’

Matt said, ‘I am not going back to Perth, Robert. Len and Toby are coming here. We’ve bought in to an auxiliary air service – four copters based at Filton Airfield.’

His voice had changed, and Hausmann looked at him, surprised.

Jack said quietly, ‘I am ready, Robert. I am not certain about Judith.’

Matt was definitely angry. ‘Dad, how can you consider going to that godforsaken place again? Mum can cope here all right, but in an emergency she will need help. You have no idea what it was like last time. Robert’s cottage leaked in three places!’

Jack said, ‘I was there, actually.’ He smiled as if they were discussing just the weather. ‘I could work there. And I could repair the leaks, too. And we could walk down the combe and watch the birds. And Mum could plant the garden for next spring. And paint.’ He looked at Judith. ‘You would have time there, Jude. You should start to paint again.’

She was silent, realizing that Hausmann was determined not to interfere this time, hearing Matt take his place and sink Jack’s arguments.

Unexpectedly it was Martha Gifford who spoke.

‘Matt showed me some of your work, Mrs Freeman. And
Lundy is sort of magical. I went there once on a field trip. They grow prehistoric cabbages.’

Everyone looked at her and then burst out laughing. Hausmann explained about the cabbages, which indeed were ancestors of the modern, hearted variety.

He then stood up and announced he had better get on the road to Cardiff.

‘Nat is expecting me. He’s doing macaroni cheese for six thirty prompt!’ He shook Matt’s hand. ‘Sorry, Matt. And congratulations on the new business. Really good news.’

He moved to Jack. ‘Will we see anything of your new stuff in the near future?’

Jack nodded. ‘Hope so. I’ll be in touch. Take care of yourself.’

‘Likewise you.’

Hausmann grinned at Martha. ‘Every time I see one of those forlorn cabbage leaves, I’ll think of you!’

He followed Judith up to the patio and through the house. The car – borrowed from Bart as usual – looked terrible. It was still streaked with mud and caked with salt. He followed her gaze and grinned.

‘Irena was beginning to love me till she saw the state of their vehicle.’

‘What a shame,’ she said.

‘I wasn’t comfortable with her approval.’

‘I can imagine.’

He unlocked and opened the driver’s door, then held it against his body like a shield.

‘He has told you?’

There was no point in pretence. She nodded once.

‘What are you going to do?’

She said, ‘I suppose we should do something … official.
I did think I would try to contact some of the witnesses … but even if she didn’t deliberately kill herself, it would make little difference to Jack’s sense of guilt. There’s more to it than that.’

‘That is why I asked you what you are going to do.’

‘Absolutely nothing.’ She looked up at him. ‘We are complete opposites, Robert.’

‘You mean, you will stay with him?’

‘There is no alternative.’

‘The alternative is that you leave him. Make your own life.’

‘No. That is not an alternative. He needs me. The boys need parents who live together and run a home together. Someone has to make a safe place.’

He nodded. ‘You are good at that.’

‘Did you know that my maiden name was Denman?’

‘No. Is it relevant?’

‘Very. Think about it on the way to Cardiff.’

‘All right.’ He eased himself into the driving seat and fastened the seat belt. ‘I am not about to interfere with Nathaniel’s feelings. But I need to know they are genuine. I can’t ask Sybil to wait for him if he’s simply got cold feet, can I?’

She smiled and shook her head as if in despair.

He started up and revved the engine, then clutched and used the gearstick and began to ease away from the pavement. In the comparative silence he said, ‘Thank you, Jude. You know I will always love you.’

She watched him go. He had given her time to tell him that she loved him too, but she had said nothing.

The next few days coined a new adage for Judith and Jack Freeman. Whenever anything went particularly wrong or particularly right, one of them would glance at the other, nod knowingly and say, ‘I blame Martha Gifford for this,’ and then they would laugh. It was a small and silly bond, but it was a bond. And Martha seemed to encourage it.

It started that evening after Bart Mann’s muddied car had disappeared round the corner to join the motorway slip road going south-west, and Judith had gone slowly back through the house and into the garden, where the others were discussing Robert Hausmann avidly. She had leaned on the patio rail and heard Martha say, ‘I don’t know why, but I feel sad for him – all that lovely work. I took my class to see his stuff at the West of England Gallery and they enjoyed it so much … it … it’s absolutely accessible to children and adults alike. And yet there’s no pleasure in him. I mean, he gets no satisfaction from his work.’

Matt added, ‘Just the opposite. It’s driving him round the bend. When we picked him up from the desert floor I could have sworn he’d gone there to die.’ He looked at Jack, sunk again in his deckchair. ‘He might still have done, if it hadn’t been for you, Dad. I remember seeing you holding him …
literally holding him in your arms in that hospital bed. Not letting him go. He was trying to discharge himself, wasn’t he?’

‘In a way I suppose he was. But actually, I think I was trying to hold him together. Stop him from disintegrating.’

There was a silence and Judith walked down the steps and across the lawn.

‘Has he gone, love?’ Jack lifted his head and for a moment Judith felt his fatigue as her own.

‘He has. He’s driving his brother’s car.’

‘Thank God. I thought he would have been on that motorbike.’

‘Yes, I wonder why he was not? It’s quicker, especially on a Sunday, when so many cars are on the road.’

Matt said, ‘He was hoping he would be taking you both back with him. I’m glad I put the mockers on that one! He’s definitely losing his marbles!’

Martha chirped quickly, ‘Bit like you then, young Matthew!’

They both laughed, but Jack said, ‘You were only too glad to see him last week, Matt! And when he brought Mum up to the hospital you thought he was some sort of conjuror!’

Matt sobered. ‘He’s terrific at times. Just … over the top, I suppose.’

Judith started to gather the tea things on to a tray. She paused and balanced the tray on her hip. ‘But his painting … he needs to paint memories. The memories of his family, terrible memories. But all his ’scapes are future paintings of the past.’ She shook her head. ‘That doesn’t make sense, I know. What I mean is, he’s painting the present from a viewpoint somewhere in the future. When all our beauty may well be gone. That’s what gives it that poignancy. We think of it as everlasting. And he knows it is not.’

There was a silence, then Martha Gifford breathed, ‘Oh my God.’

And Jack said, ‘You’ve got it, Jude. That’s why he was being torn into pieces and wanted to end it all.’ He turned to Martha. ‘You understand that too, don’t you? He’s painting for the kids in your class. Maybe for your own kids.’

Martha said tearfully, ‘But it’s so sad, because he won’t be here to see it happening. I feel that I should tell them … explain to them—’

‘Nature walks. More of them.’ Matt spread his hands at the sheer simplicity of his solution. He registered her response to his suggestion, and added irritably, ‘Listen, Martha, you’re not to blame for the world going to pot!’

Quick as a flash Jack quipped, ‘Why not? Let’s blame everything on Martha Gifford.’

Judith held her breath, wondering if this girl could take that kind of banter. Then, quite suddenly, into the startled silence came the rush of starlings as they swept towards the sea in perfect formation for their evening dance. They watched as a family, very aware of the ephemeral. Then Matt said roughly, ‘Let’s go inside before Dad catches another cold, then pneumonia, and we’re back to square one!’

Martha swept them all with a grin. ‘I might be held to blame for that, too. So come on, Mr Freeman, give me your hand!’

Judith watched as Matt and Martha pulled Jack out of the deckchair. She walked behind them to the patio, very conscious of them as a family; she could see that ever so gently they could drift into something resembling just that. But something had to happen first. Forgiveness? How could she forgive herself for drifting away from her husband and
her sons? She could justify it, but not forgive it. And Jack, how could he forgive himself for Naomi?

She thought of Hausmann, who was always fighting for some kind of redemption. Were they all doomed to disintegration?

She shook her shoulders as if to rid herself of such pessimism, and followed Jack into the living room, held the cushions in his chair so that he could settle into them, then went across to the windows. She held the curtains for a moment, staring out at the darkening view. A lighthouse in Wales flashed and was gone. The answer came to her with the light. They should go to Lundy. Not only for their own sakes but for Robert’s. He loved Jack; he had said he loved her. Certainly he had done what he could to hold them together. They might become his form of redemption.

She laughed aloud at the thought, almost hearing him furiously renouncing such a pious motive for doing a good turn.

Jack said, ‘What’s funny, honey?’

It was a line from one of his cartoons, and she turned and smiled at him. ‘All of us, this afternoon. It’s Fish-Frobisher stuff – pure and simple.’

‘Yes. We’ll have to fit Martha into the Frobishers – give her a name. Daisy, perhaps.’

‘Doesn’t fit with the other one – Stargazer.’ She wondered if that might be their solution; to reduce real life to the size of a cartoon. She closed the curtains and went back to Jack.

But that night she still slept in her mother’s room.

The next morning she overslept and went downstairs still weary, limbs heavy, mind dull. Martha had already left for
school and Matt was sitting at the kitchen table, obviously at a completely loose end. Judith was so used to seeing the twins as a twosome that at first she thought it was Toby’s absence that gave Matt that lost look, then realized that the missing half was now Martha Gifford. For an instant she felt a pang of – what? Envy? Because that was how it had been for Jack and herself and could never be again? At least she knew how Matt felt, and she made herself smile down at him. ‘What about your swim?’ she asked.

‘Tide’s not quite right. And it’s really cold this morning.’

‘Is it?’ She actually sniffed at the air, then grinned again. ‘I don’t think it is, my little lost lamb.’

‘Lost lamb?’ He sounded outraged. ‘And why are you looking sort of … smug?’

‘Because you look lost, incomplete. And that’s probably how you feel. And I’m looking smug because I know the reason for it. I blame Martha Gifford.’

‘Mum, for Pete’s sake. I’m meeting her out of school, and I’m hoping you and Dad will join us, and we’ll go and look at Len’s new project.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I don’t think I should feel lost when there’re only six and a half hours until the school bell goes.’

She busied herself at the cooker; made fresh tea and put bread in the toaster. She waited a while before she said, ‘Unfortunately, logic has nothing to do with emotions. So I still blame Martha Gifford.’ She put a poached egg on top of his toast. ‘I think she’d be tickled pink, don’t you?’

He acknowledged that with a rueful grin and started on his breakfast. She sat opposite him and let an unexpected content soothe some of her weariness.