Learning to Dance (27 page)

Then, as if in response to that thought, they arrived. They sounded like a breeze coming from the top of Millcombe combe, then a wind; then came an unholy scream, and they landed on Hausmann’s slated roof. Jack had told her about the landings. ‘Considering their feet are webbed, it’s amazing. They could be wearing hobnailed boots. It wouldn’t be so bad if they stayed where they were for the morning conference. But no, they walk about – all the time stamping
and yelling fit to burst! I might have been delirious, but I didn’t imagine that!’

That first morning, in spite of all warnings, Judith sank her head beneath the duvet as the successful landing was followed by shrieking commands from half the arrivals – probably at least thirty of them, by the sound of it – and the other half began a stamping march around the squat chimney. Some latecomers appeared to be wailing helplessly as they slid from the ridge down the steep roof to the gutter above Judith’s cowering head.

Jack protested as he rolled on to his back, ‘My God, I’d forgotten what noisy blighters they are!’ He thrust his arms above his head and stretched luxuriously. ‘I’m back, boys! It’s only two weeks since I was here last, and you’re still having the same arguments!’

Judith emerged from the duvet and hoisted herself up. ‘Is it only two weeks? Yes, it is. Oh, Jack, I think Hausmann is right and this is a magic place. Listen to them – they’re welcoming you back!’ There was a momentary silence from the roof, then a single squawk, as if in agreement. Judith laughed and called, ‘Me, too? Am I welcome, too?’ Another silence, then another squawk. Jack moved an arm from above his head to around Judith’s shoulders and they both laughed; it was absurd, but it was another moment shared in many that had happened during the past week of planning and arranging and phone calls between Bristol and Australia.

She had fussed and fretted about Len and the boys taking over the house, and had insisted on walking Matthew around, pointing out the contents of the airing cupboard, the whereabouts of her special drain cleaner, the sell-by dates of foods in the refrigerator. She had written lists about watering the plants and sorting the rubbish for recycling.
Matt had said without intentional irony, ‘My God, I didn’t realize running a house was worse than running a business! I’m booking the helicopter for tomorrow, and you are going to Lundy – OK?’

And here they were, no more lists. Just birds. And once started, neither of them could stop the ridiculous dialogue with the gulls. They called comments up to the roof and it seemed that the birds responded. The hobnailed boots marched around outside, waiting for a pause in their laughter before yelling a response. Then, just as suddenly as they had arrived, the birds left. There was a short interval of chattering, quite a different sound during which their beaks audibly clicked. Then some kind of assembling, then a mighty shriek, and they all flew off at once, and the roof seemed to lift very slightly and to creak with relief.

Judith shook her head helplessly. ‘D’you know, I had a dream that Matt had boiled my favourite undersheet and completely ruined it – how could my subconscious become so … so
trivial
!’

Jack stared at her. ‘You’ve got a favourite undersheet?’

‘Yes. The corners are deep enough to go under the mattress properly – no good you laughing, Jack.’ But she was laughing, too, and then reminding him of their one and only weekend at the Whortleys’ country house, when Jack had been paranoid about forgetting his dressing gown, and then had met William’s father-in-law outside the bathroom wearing only socks and a badly draped towel.

Eventually, she went to the wardrobe-like cubicle housing the lavatory, and was at the sink washing her hands prior to filling the kettle when Kitty Davies announced her arrival with a brisk tattoo on the door.

‘You awake then, my ’ansoms?’ She opened the door a
crack and bellowed through it. ‘Kin I come in, then?’

‘Come on, Mrs Davies. Just making tea.’ Judith hugged her coat around her as a blast of October air filled the single room. She noticed Jack prudently pull the duvet up to his chin; he looked incredibly prim. ‘We’d be asleep still, I think, if it weren’t for the gulls.’

‘Oh, call me Kitty and I’ll manage, Judith. Your husband and son were Jack and Matthew straight off, and no messing.’ She was the shape of a cottage loaf, and as wholesome looking. ‘So you’re well on the way back to health if you’ve slept like that – the wind was something awful about two o’clock this morning. Settled down now, and the cows is all standing, so we won’t expect no rain for a bit.’

She went over to the rank of cupboards above the fireplace. ‘Robert did put a few groceries up here. Porridge and eggs for breakfast, he said …’ She pulled down a package of porridge oats. ‘An’ I got the eggs in me pocket safe and sound.’ She placed a carton of eggs on the table next to the porridge, opened the tiny fridge and took out a jug of milk. ‘Now, I got his list here.’ She fished in another pocket and held up a piece of paper, frowned in the half-light, and went to the shutter by the door. ‘That’s better. I told Robert he should have curtings for the summer months, but he didn’t seem to know what I was talking about.’ She gave an indulgent laugh and consulted the list. ‘Dave will be coming over today with the milk.’ She looked back at the other two. ‘That’s my husband – David Davies. He’s Welsh and I’m Cornish. It’s a good mixture. He’s a farmer and I’m a cook.’ She went back to the list. ‘You still got bread from what I left in the crock, I expect, but he’ll bring some more. Robert did say as it’s chicken and fish only – Dave will bring what you need in that line – and there’s plenty of vegetables. Believe it or not, we’re
still picking beans – a great year for them – and tomatoes. The kitchen garden is sheltered, else every vegetable on every stalk would be blowed over the cliff by now! Robert did say – plenty of vegetables. He’s fussing as usual, and you are looking ’ansome, I have to say, Jack. But I won’t forget that night. Your son – poor lamb – he was frantic.’ She looked at Judith. ‘How is the poor lad now?’

‘Well …’ Judith widened her smile as she began to pour tea. ‘He’s going to marry a girlfriend he’s had since he started school. And he’s moving back to Bristol.’ It sounded so simple, so completely ordinary and right. She passed this wonderful Kitty a mug of tea. ‘Kitty, thank you so much for looking after us like this. It’s the perfect place for Jack to convalesce, but I had wondered about the day-to-day living.’

Kitty took the tea and sipped appreciatively. ‘It’s Robert what arranges it all. All these lists – as if I don’t know what people need to keep body and soul together. I told him straight coupla year back, when he had a young artist chappie here: “Stop fussing around him. The island will heal his poor brain and I will keep his body going.”’ She helped herself to more sugar, and stirred vigorously. ‘Robert wanted to be here to welcome you in. I said, “Leave them be.” But he didn’t like it when Matthew brought you over in that helicopter.’ She laughed and sighed at the same time. ‘Trouble is, he wants to look after the whole world, and as Dave says, look after number one and it gives you the strength to look after others!’

Again Judith was struck by this simple analysis of the complicated human being that was Robert Hausmann. She sat down at the table, and smiled up at Kitty Davies.

‘Perhaps underneath it all, Robert is the original old hen fussing around his helpless chicks?’

Kitty laughed inordinately. ‘Oh, he wouldn’t like that at all, Judith! Don’t you go telling him he’s an old hen!’

‘I wouldn’t dream of it. He’s given us all this …’ Judith gestured widely with one hand, ‘… for as long as it takes to get Jack back on his feet. How could I ever call him that?’ Suddenly she recalled Hausmann as she had last seen him, using the car door as a shield between them, saying, ‘I will always love you.’ And she had said not a word in reply.

Kitty left, and the day began.

They started with the breakfast: porridge stiff and stodgy and then creamy with the milk from the farm, then scrambled eggs containing chopped tomatoes, finishing with a slice of toast and some of Kitty’s marmalade.

‘Four-star stuff,’ Jack said appreciatively.

‘D’you know, Jack, I was about to say it’s the best breakfast you’ve had since the beginning of the summer, but I think it’s been much, much longer than that. I do not remember when we last ate breakfast together – is it fair to say that you were busy and I was dreary? Oh, Jack, I’m sorry. Didn’t we even do breakfasts any more?’ She looked at his face and was aghast to see the grief there. ‘Jack, I shouldn’t have talked like that – I was determined we would live in the present, and here I am, looking backwards again!’

‘My God, I am so glad you can! We must be able to talk again about anything and everything. It’s because I didn’t talk about Naomi that a ghastly mistake turned into a tragedy. Sorry, sorry, love. I know that’s going too far.’ He gave a helpless little laugh. ‘Breakfasts are important. We always ate a proper breakfast when the boys were home and when Mum was alive.’

‘Yes, we did. But it wouldn’t have mattered then if we hadn’t! We were so solid.’ She stacked the plates and put
them in the deep sink. ‘And that sort of eroded. I lost my way somehow.’ She touched his shoulder. ‘Jack, I have to forgive Naomi. And I think you do, too. It’s going to be easy to forgive each other. We’re in the process of it, and you have to admit things are going our way – being a big family again, coming here. Of course there will be hiccups, but if we just keep going … you know what I mean, don’t you?’

He nodded slowly. ‘Jude. I don’t know how to put this. There has been so much pain. Remorse. It has sucked me down like those awful old films of people in sinking sands.’ He gave an awkward laugh. ‘I’ve always been able to laugh things off – see the absurd in almost every situation. Especially those awful old films!’ He bit his lip. ‘Now
I’m
in the sinking sands.’

She said rallyingly, ‘Yet you were delighted to be on the case again when William sent you that new project last week.’

‘I think it was when I looked back at some of the old stuff and recognized the “mole” that I realized what I was doing.’ He shrugged. ‘Darling, you have learned something from the last year – you can see the way forward already. I have got to do the same.’ He glanced at her, then away. ‘It’s hard, Jude.’

She was appalled by this new insight into his despair. She had thought they were doing so well; she had forged ahead, encouraged by his return to health, by the prospect of the whole family being together again. Kitty’s simple analysis of their situation had been so comforting, and what she wanted to hear. She knew that it wasn’t going to be easy; of course there would be times when the ghost of Naomi would haunt them. For an instant she hated Naomi Parsons, those legs, that long neck …

She pushed up the sleeves of her sweater and poured a kettle of water into the sink. She had not quite seen into the
abyss of guilt and grief; had not seen it culminating in such hatred. She hid her horror with difficulty.

‘You heard what the wonderful Kitty Davies said just now, Jack. The island will heal the mind.’

‘I feel I have to do something about it. Myself. Take myself in hand.’ He tried to follow her lead, levering himself up from the table and carrying the marmalade to the cupboard.

She said, ‘Well, step number one is fairly obvious, surely?’

He started to rearrange the cupboard. She had forgotten his habit of sorting – almost cataloguing – the most homely things: dishes in the dishwasher, crockery in the sideboard.

He made a space for the condiments and said, ‘Go on, what do you have in mind?’

‘You do not lampoon your “mole”.’

‘Jude, that’s my job!’

‘Not all of it. Think of the Fish-Frobishers. They made us laugh at ourselves.’

‘But this – this is important. Someone else might have to carry the can for all the computer-hacking and line-tapping that’s been going on. There’s no proof, you see – not to my knowledge, anyway.’

She dried her hands. ‘In that case, I don’t think William would publish, surely? The
Magnet
would be sued instantly.’

‘The man is dead. I’m not certain whether his family would sue.’

‘Ah. I see. So in a way it would clear others of suspicion. That’s different, Jack. Quite different.’

‘Is it? I’m not thinking clearly any more. Is it different?’

She looked at him, surprised. He had never asked for moral judgement before. She said, ‘I think it is. Yes.’ She remembered how energized he had been from the moment William’s thick package had arrived. ‘Yes, I am sure it is.’

He closed the cupboard doors; he was smiling.

‘Thanks, love.’ Some of the strain had gone from his voice. ‘I want to plod on – like you said just now, it’s the way forward. And the only way I know is through my job.’ He took his plaid jacket from a hook near the door. ‘Shall we explore? I’ve brought a book about the birds, and the binoculars are in the bedside cupboard. Let’s sally forth!’

They did so. The breeze was strong and the autumn warmth on the wane, but as they climbed to the top of the combe the scents of summer were still all around them, the colours too. They skirted the hotel and stood in the lea of a rock, fiddling with the binoculars, looking down towards Land’s End and the Atlantic. And Judith said casually, ‘Who was this mole, then? Would I know him or her?’

‘You might. Moss Jessup – d’you remember he was always on the edge of politics? Powerful-looking man. A bit like Robert: big, dark. Robert is brutally honest, Jessup was simply unpleasant.’

She stared at a gannet as it began its long dive into the sea. She said, quietly, ‘I think I do remember him.’

She had thought Lundy would be an escape from the outside world. She should have known better. Her weekend escape to Castle Dove had proved to be a microcosm of turbulent relationships, and Lundy was going the same way.

She said, ‘Oh, Jack. His widow was at Castle Dove. Her name is Sybil. She adored him.’

He stared at her. ‘My God!’ Unexpectedly he tipped his head and laughed. ‘Well, that’s settled that. I’ll definitely turn down William’s latest project.’ He hugged her to him. ‘Look at that bird – he’s just going into a dive – he looks like one of those suicide bombers: death and glory!’