Dancing in the Dark (14 page)

‘None of that.'

‘Luna, for God's sake . . . you're sounding like something out of a cheap thriller.' I reconstitute my father, who is no longer the army officer, the musician, the gardener, but a master criminal, an undercover agent, a hitman. Some of it even makes a weird kind of sense, it explains why we moved on all the time; maybe she's the only one who can identify him and for his own protection, he needs to eliminate her. And even as this fantasy flashes through my mind, I dismiss it. It's the stuff of spy stories and conspiracy theorists, not real life. And it all began thirty years ago; it can't still be relevant. I remember the day in Rome when I realized for the first time that she was truly crazy. I wish I could put it all right, not just for me but for her as well.

‘Whether you believe it or not,' she says, ‘I so much wanted you to have a happy childhood.'

‘I did,' I say. At least, until I was eleven. Heat and balconies, flower-trailing baskets, the sound of clapping, prayers dropping from the sky, the trickle of water into mossy basins, figs and parrots, indigo evenings, tall candles flickering under vaulted ceilings, the scent of incense. Childhood had been all that, yes, but it was also standing on the fringes, watching other children play, listening to voices in another room, trying to cope with languages I couldn't understand, wishing I wasn't always on the outside, wasn't always moving on.

‘I just didn't know what to do for the best.' My mother chews at her lip. ‘Maybe I should have kept you with me instead of sending you away – but when you were born, I wasn't much more than a child myself, and entirely on my own. I didn't know how to handle the situation.' She stares unfocussed across the room, looking at a past I can't see. ‘Perhaps there was no good way to deal with things.'

‘What things?' I don't begin to understand what she's talking about and I know that if I ask, she won't tell me.

‘Things,' she says. ‘Maybe if I could have the past all over again, I'd do it differently.'

‘Not had me, do you mean?'

‘Not had . . .?' She smiles. ‘How could you think something like that? You're my daughter. You're what's made it all worthwhile.'

She's slithering away again, slippery as a fish. I sense that I am going to leave here as empty-handed as when I arrived. The lost years are an unbridgeable gulf between us. ‘All what?'

‘Don't you realize that
you're
what it's all about?'

I raise my eyebrows. ‘Really?'

‘I have no rights over you any more, I know that.' Surprisingly, her voice shakes slightly, almost as if she is close to tears. ‘I forfeited those long ago.'

‘You used to accuse me of being middle-aged.' As a child, I had imagined myself misshapen, deformed by my inappropriate years, as though they were a club foot or a hare lip.

‘I did, didn't I?' Another silence. ‘That was unkind of me.'

But we're digressing. ‘Look, I don't pretend to know what you're talking about, but why haven't you told me any of this before – whatever it is?'

‘You've never asked. I'd hoped you'd never need to.' She reaches across the table again to touch my hand. ‘There's no point in saying anything. You wouldn't believe me if I told you that you were . . . are . . .' She wipes a finger below her eyes and fumbles in the bag hanging on the back of her chair. She brings out a pair of sunglasses and puts them on. Her voice trembles as she says, ‘Look, I know I'm not the mother you wanted, but can't you accept that I'm the one you've got?'

‘I don't suppose I'm the daughter you wanted, either,' I say.

‘You are, Theodora. You always have been.'

‘I still have to know about my father,' I say.

But however much I push at her, whichever direction I come at her from, she just shakes her head.

Finally, I stand. ‘I don't understand why you won't tell me,' I say. My motherless decade drifts across my mind like a black cloud and though I want to tell her that I forgive her, I cannot force the words out of my throat. ‘And I wonder if you've ever thought about how lonely I was when you disappeared, how neglected. Ten years, without a single word, nothing, no letters, no cards, nothing on my birthday or at Christmas.'

‘Theodora . . .' she says. She reaches towards me but I ignore her.

‘Just tell me this: was it a man that made you take off like that?'

These are not things I want to be saying. I don't want my past and my present to intermesh. I try to keep Luna's absence stored in the black depths of my mind, deep, deeply buried. Envelopes inside baskets inside cartons inside locked suitcases. Chinese boxes, not to be opened, except in my most secret moments.

‘A man?' She gives a strange harsh laugh. ‘Yes, in a way, I suppose it was.'

‘I suspected as much.' Outside the windows, the street is wet and shiny, car tyres are throwing up sprays of grubby water, there's a distant rumble of thunder. I pick up a plate from the table and throw it hard against the wall.

‘Oh, Theodora, I'm so . . .' Luna comes round the table towards me. She's wearing a red skirt which shows off the calves of her dancer's legs, with a patterned top in scarlet and black. She tries to put her arms around me but I push her away.

‘Don't.' I turn and walk out of the room, leaving her there, glowing like a brilliant, heartless butterfly.

The only thing I take with me is the absolute conviction that, somewhere, my father is still alive.

S
itting on the narrow balcony at the back of Regis's house, overlooking the wasteland of her backyard, we discuss the revised set of plans I've drawn up. It's been several hours since I walked out on my mother but my heart still loops between my ribs; I am hyperventilating.

‘Marvellous,' Regis says, and her voice seems to come from somewhere miles away. ‘Simply marvellous, much more me, and very feng shui, too, which has got to be good, and I've just picked up this stone altar sort of thing which could go right
there
.' She points to the place with a purple-painted fingernail.

I force myself to concentrate. ‘OK. But Regis, I have to point out that if you want your garden finished this side of the next millennium, you're really going to have to settle for a design and stick with it.'

‘Oh, I know I've been an awful nuisance, chopping and changing.' She clasps her hands to her non-existent boobs and says, without pausing for breath. ‘Are you all right, Theo?'

‘Absolutely fine, thanks.' I paste an unconvincing smile on to my face. She's probably going to tell me she's sourced some New Age essence of green-lipped mussels, guaranteed to restore your lost youth and put the zing back into your lovemaking.

‘It's just you seem . . . please forgive me for saying this, it's none of my business, I know . . . but you don't seem to be your usual self. Have you had some bad news or something?'

‘Nothing I didn't already know about.'

Her thickly kohled eyes widen. ‘Is it something serious?'

‘Honestly, Regis, I'm fine. Just very busy.'

‘Or very unhappy,' she persists.

I put my hand on hers. ‘I'm fine.' If I say it enough, it may even turn out to be true.

Crossing between traffic lights, I find my attention caught by the window of a bookstore on the corner. In the centre is a large photograph of Fergus Costello. Around it, a display of his books. To one side, a poster announces that the author will be talking about his latest work at seven o'clock that evening. I look at my watch. There's an hour to go. I tell myself I ought to get home, then wonder why. My usual imperatives seem unimportant.

I find a coffee bar somewhere and sit with a cup of espresso, staring at nothing. Amid the hiss of steam, the clank of coffee machines, my mind roams free. Cricket on a green field, a green-and-white garden, Luna's panicked gaze. Since I'd wanted one so badly, she'd made me the gift of a father. Like it or not, that gift has now been stolen from me, and I want a replacement. I'm not giving up. I think of terriers with rats. I feel the snarling rottweiler of my determination.

Behind me, the coffee machine glugs and perks. I get out my mobile and dial my house. ‘Theo Cairns' office,' a voice says, so crisp that I hardly recognize it as Trina's.

‘How's it going?' I ask.

‘Just fine.'

‘Anything I should know about?'

‘Nothing urgent. Someone in Lincolnshire moaning that half his garden died off in the drought. I said he'd have to take it up with God, not with you.'

‘Trina!' Used now to her quirky sense of humour, I laugh.

‘Not really. One of your suppliers rang to say the special order of containers you asked for is now ready. Plus that woman from London who sounds like Donald Duck on speed, saying she'd had a really brilliant idea.'

‘Not again! I was only there this morning!'

‘I told her the contractors were moving in next week and the date couldn't be changed.'

‘Good girl.'

We chat for another five minutes, about nothing very much, before I break the connection. At quarter to seven, I stand up. As I leave the bar, I catch sight of my face in the mirrors which line one wall and think how sad I'm looking. How worn.

By the time I get back to the bookshop, a considerable crowd has already gathered. I wander between the bookshelves, pick out a couple of Fergus's books and read the blurb on the front of the jacket. He's won several literary prizes, I note. The London literati have fallen over themselves to write plaudits. But isn't he one of them, all cosily writing reviews of each other's books? At the front of the shop, I pay for the books I've chosen. I'll start reading one tonight.

I find a seat at the back of the audience. A few minutes after seven, Fergus is led in by a person from the bookshop and introduced to the audience. I think how handsome he is, the straight black hair, close to navy in the overhead lights; the warmly blue Celtic eyes.

When he begins to read, I am enthralled. He uses his beautiful voice like an instrument, weaving a spell around the audience that is quite separate from the story he's telling. His Irish accent is stronger than it had been at Carolyn Cartwright's party; perhaps he deliberately emphasizes it on public occasions such as this. When he's finished, people ask questions, not so much, I suspect, because they want to know the answer, as because they want to hear his voice again. He signs books for those who've bought copies. I hang back. Finally the bookshop person indicates that it's time to bring the event to a close, and people begin to straggle away. I linger until everyone else has left then, ignoring the pointed glance at her watch from the minder, walk towards Fergus who sits relaxed, one leg nonchalantly crossed over the other, and say, ‘That was wonderful.'

He looks up. ‘Theodora Cairns! What are you doing here?'

‘It seemed like one of those must-see-don't-miss things,' I say lightly.

‘You're absolutely right.' He turns to the bookshop person. ‘Is there anything else you need me for, Eileen?'

‘No, thanks.' She smiles at him, flaps her eyelids up and down. She clearly thinks he's terrific. ‘That was great, Fergus. It all helps to sell books.'

‘Thank you so much for setting it up.'

‘Always a pleasure,' she says, staring at me. Perhaps she's been hoping for a quick drink with him.

‘This is Theo Cairns, the garden expert,' he says.

‘Oh, yes.' Her face grows more friendly. ‘We sell a lot of your books.' She hesitates. ‘Maybe we could persuade you to come and talk about them one evening.'

‘Contact my publishers,' I say, then, afraid that I've sounded rude, add, ‘I'd love to.'

‘Theodora's an old friend from way, way back.' Having offered her this kindness, Fergus raises his black eyebrows at me. Taking my elbow, he moves me towards the door. Outside, he takes both my hands. ‘I shall be outrageously, stupendously, unimaginably disappointed if you don't have time for dinner with me,' he says.

‘I'm banking on it,' I say, and mean it.

‘How many books have you written now?' I ask.

‘Six. In fifteen years. I'm not very prolific. And I do a lot of travelling, for research.'

I pat the bag lying on the banquette beside me. ‘I bought two this evening.'

He looks anxious. ‘I hope you like them.'

‘Your friends give you terrific reviews; I'm sure I will.'

‘Are you being caustic here?'

‘A little.'

‘You must tell me your honest opinion.'

‘I can't imagine that you need it.'

‘I'd like it because somehow I don't think you go in for bullshit. Also, I'd really like to . . .' He pauses. ‘Got a bit of paper? Or a diary? I'll give you the number of my houseboat at Chelsea Reach. Not that I'm around much. It's just a place to hang my hat. I keep a change of clothes there, some books, my ten-speed bike – easiest way to get around London.'

The waiter comes and we order.
Bouillabaisse
for me, followed by scallops;
moules
marinières
and lobster for Fergus.

‘Read any good words lately?' I ask, as we wait for the food to arrive. ‘Any specific words, I mean.'

‘Alfalfa,' he says, pulling syllables from the air like a magician plucking scarves from his sleeve. ‘Frankincense, plumbago, penumbra, Ovaltine.'

‘Ovaltine?' I say, laughing.

‘Yeah, why not? Apart from sounding nice, it has all sorts of resonances. Being a kid again, warm and cosy in one's jimjams and dressing-gown, bedtimes round the gas fire, Mummy reading a goodnight story, all the spurious safety of childhood.' His face changes. ‘All the things I never had myself.'

‘Didn't you?'

‘Don't look so down in the mouth, my sweet. Nice little convent girl like you wouldn't really know how cruel the world can be.'