Dancing in the Dark (31 page)

Mr Hawkings looks up. ‘Can I get you something?'

‘No, thank you.'

‘What you got there, Trina?'

‘New shoes.' She takes off her boots and socks and puts the shoes on her feet. She slings the bag over one shoulder and begins to sashay up and down the kitchen floor, swaying her boyish hips. Take it from me: cut-off shorts and Jimmy Choo are never going to figure high on any What's-In? list – at least, not together – but on Trina they look pretty good.

‘Oh, la di dah,' she says. ‘
Pretty Woman
, eat your heart out.'

‘Funny kind of an outfit.' Her father takes a swig of his beer and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

‘They'd have gone perfectly with your hair, if you hadn't changed it.' I begin to laugh.

‘Fashion victim, that's me.' She laughs too, bending from the waist. Laughs and laughs. Her top rides up her back, displaying the thin white knobs of her spine. It's so good to see her laugh again. ‘I'll go back to the blue, if you like.'

‘Why not?'

She eyes me. ‘Thought you wanted it natural.'

‘Maybe I've mellowed.'

‘That'll be the day,' she says, but there's no sting in it. ‘Look, you know the border just outside your sitting room.'

‘What about it?'

‘Harry 'n' me was – were just talking about it the other day.'

‘The other day?'

‘Yeah. While you were in America. There's a rose there, up against the wall—'

‘
Albertine.
'

‘Whatever. It needs to be cut right back – or better still, taken out.'

‘I know.'

‘Well, I was reading this catalogue and I saw this new rose which it would be fun to put there instead. Sort of pale purplish. There's already iris in front and delphiniums and lavender. And that blue prickly stuff like thistles . . .'

‘
Eryngium
. Sea holly.'

‘It'd be lovely.'

It's an olive branch. It's a hand extended. I give her a worried frown. ‘Trouble is, I'm going to be frantically busy over the next few weeks. And Marnie doesn't know a delphinium from a dandelion. I don't know when I'm going to find the time to deal with it.'

‘I might have an hour or two spare,' she mutters.

We both know what she's really saying. I'm careful to stay businesslike. ‘You'd have to organize it with Harry. The
Albertine
's an old plant so it'll take some shifting.'

‘OK.'

‘And once you've put in the new rose, you could walk up and down in front of it in those blue shoes.'

Her relief is palpable. ‘Yeah.'

‘Rhapsody in Blue,' I say, and then we both start laughing again, while Trina's father watches us bemusedly before licking his thumb and turning the page of his newspaper.

It's dark by the time I get home. The automatic light comes on as I turn in to my drive, crunch across the gravel, open my door and close it firmly behind me. On the kitchen table is the envelope Luna had sent me and I pick it up, hold it against my chest. I can't put off opening it. Be Prepared, I warn myself. Life May Be a Test but You Don't Have to Pass. This is absolutely not going to be the proof positive you seek. You will know no more, after you have opened it, than you do now.

Thus armed, I tear off the end, although, in some secret corner of my brain, I still hope that I'm wrong and there will be birth certificates, photographs, documents. A declaration of some kind:
this is my beloved daughter, in whom I am well pleased.

What am I, crazy? Of course there is no such thing. Instead, from between two protective sheets of cardboard, I pull out a number of drawings. I recognize the spiky cartoonish style. For the most part, they're little watercolour sketches, dashed off in odd moments on scraps of paper. All are of me. Cradled at my mother's breast, her white sleeve against my cheek. Aged two or so, in a blue smocked dress with a daisy chain slung round my neck. Four or five, with a band holding back my unruly hair, and an ice lolly in my hand. Eleven, twelve, fifteen. In my school summer frock of yellow-checked gingham, all elbows and bony knees, awkwardly adolescent, half turned away. As a bridesmaid at Charlie and Caro's wedding, in rose-coloured brocade. Running along a cliff, during my last year at school, my hair buffeted by the wind off the sea. Standing in a bathing costume with my hands on my hips. Bending among flowers to pull something from the earth – a weed, a blossom – white shorts riding up the tanned length of my legs.

Where had she been, to capture these and the other images? They are so much more revealing than photographs. I look through them again and there I am, a new bride in ivory satin, a pearl necklace, white flowers wreathed in my hair. I hadn't invited her because I had no idea where she was. Yet she must have been there, she must, because how otherwise can she have drawn me holding Charlie's son, Ricky, by the hand – there are no photographs she could have copied it from. Where was she? Lurking behind a pillar, hidden behind a tree?

I suddenly understand that all those ghostly visitations really were her. Watching over me, sharing my life after all. She
was
there. If I had, after all, followed her, gone to meet her, would she have turned and run, or would she have put her arms round me, given me the love I so craved?

I feel sick. For years I've nurtured my feelings of rejection. Wallowed in them. But I'm at least as much to blame as Luna. All those sightings, which I convinced myself weren't really her . . . blood rolls like lava through my body. I remember one particular time at school, when I was sitting in a coffee bar and saw her watching me from across the street. I must have known it was her and yet I turned away, laughed at something one of my friends was saying, acting unconcerned. I'd
known
. And next time I looked, she was gone. Across the years, I feel the pain she must have felt and the sad humility which let her walk away from me. Why hadn't she said something, next time we met?

Pressing my hand against my mouth, I sniff back the tears but they keep on coming. ‘Luna,' I say, in a kind of primeval wail that comes from the deepest part of me. ‘How could I? How could you . . .' I can hear my own bewilderment and shame.

I see her red shoes dancing across cities and continents, dancing until her feet bleed, over thorns and briars, dancing from one city to the next, doors always closing in her face. Although I don't understand why, I realize that it was
me
she was trying to protect though I have no idea why or from what. And once again the closed face of the abbot sidles into my mind. Was it him she was running away from? How does he fit into this story?

‘She loves you,' Terry had said. More plainly than any words could say it, these drawings show me how true that is.

In among the scraps of paper there is a note from her.

Theodora, my gift from God, the gift He gave me in return for the gift I gave to Him. I'm sorry I can't tell you what you want to know. It could be disastrous if I did. I've cheated you of a father and, in many ways, of a mother. It was unfair of me. It was wrong. I was wrong. If I could put it right, I would. The saddest thing is that it was myself I cheated. I think we could have been friends.

I love you more than you will ever know.

I read it over and over again. I don't have the slightest idea what the first sentence means but the rest of it seems obvious. Plainly she wishes she could have been something other than she was – but how many of us manage that? At least she has recognized that there were things which should have been different.
Could have been friends . . .
the phrase stands like a gravestone, marking the lack of connection between us. Is it too late or can something be resurrected?

I turn the page over and there is a sketch of a by-now-familiar face, so lightly pencilled in that it scarcely marks the page. I hold it against the light and it's him, younger, dark haired, with the same inimical expression, the same flat black eyes. Why? What does he mean to Luna or she to him?

My fingers shake as yet again I dial the number she has left me, but of course she is not there and there is no answering machine on which I can record my need, my hunger, to speak to her. I dial the Lotus Flower Hotel, but they tell me she left a couple of days ago and no, they have no idea where she went.

I imagine her talking to Terry on the phone, asking how I am; I envision her listening with envy to Terry's descriptions of family outings, picnics, holidays, while she is cut off and alone, always an outsider, her nose pressed to the window of other people's celebrations. But it was her choice. Nobody forced her to keep travelling, to dance until her feet bled. She could have come in from the cold, any time she wanted to.

Surely she could.

I'm always alone
,
she told me once.
I've learned to be lonely
. I never stopped to think how deeply sad that is.

I sense that if I am not careful, I will learn the same thing. Unless I finally make myself vulnerable, I will shrivel, wither, die. If I step forward, take the initiative, take a risk, offer myself to opportunity, then maybe at last I can begin to flower.

T
he Embankment lies ankle-deep in fallen leaves. They float down from the plane trees along the river as the bus trundles past the Physick Garden and I reflect that one day I must bring Trina here. There are so many things to show, to teach. I'm eager to get started. Marnie's words come back to me:
you could do worse
. . .
train her up
. . .
a like-minded person.
I could indeed do a lot worse. With my help, like an apple tree, she will develop and mature, grow into lovely shapes, produce the fruits of experience combined with imagination.

I'm thinking of these matters to avoid considering the others which press so urgently upon me. I have other responsibilities now. My mother. Myself. Most of all, Fergus. Last night, I dreamed that he made love to me. I felt his buttocks in my hands, the sweat of his body between my breasts. He thrust into me again and again, and I responded, aching with pleasure, knowing this was what was meant to be.

The bus jolts to a stop and I get off. Across the river are yellow high-rise blocks, surreal in the pale sunshine, blank black windows, apocalyptic shapes against the sky. I think of the myriad people occupying them: insurance companies, detective agencies, government bureaux, illegal immigrants, weeping children, barbers and stockbrokers, neglected wives and lonely pensioners, singers, acrobats, lion tamers, geologists. The multiplicity of the human race is invigorating, euphoric.

Below me, boats heave solidly at their moorings. A ramp slopes down to a concrete jetty, from which wooden gangplanks lead to individual houseboats. One of them is Fergus's. A quick trawl through my limited naval vocabulary produces a word.

‘Ahoy!' I shout, over the rumble of buses and churn of cars from the road above me. ‘Ahoy there!' It's the wrong word for this place. ‘Ahoy!' needs anchors and gleaming brass, horizon-eyed men in blue blazers drinking pink gins, a smell of diesel, the wheel's kick and the wind's song, all that kind of stuff. Instead, there are taxis hooting above my head, and pieces of styrofoam nudging at the jetty.

I call again, less vigorously this time, feeling foolish. The only response is from a tabby cat lying on the roof of one of the boats, which stretches one leg impossibly far, the way they do, trebling its overall length. Most of the sterns have a chain across the end. I deduce that this means the owners are not at home. On the other hand, it could mean that the occupant hasn't been out that morning. I step on to the deck of one of the three boats which are not chained up and rap at a surprisingly suburban-looking door.

Again nothing happens. I regain dry land and walk further along to the next unchained boat. A mountain bike is on the deck, fastened by two thick padlocks to the guardrail. A dead geranium sticks gauntly from a dry pot. Inside, someone is singing
Amazing Grace
. Who else could this be but Fergus?

‘Ahoy!' I bang loudly.

‘
I once was lost
–' goes the soloist and then the door opens – ‘
but now I'm found.
' He is wearing a white shirt, the sleeves rolled up above his elbows, and there is a stain of some kind on the breast pocket, too red for ink, too blue for ketchup. Either he's been out in a Force Ten gale in the not-too distant past, or he's been raking his hands through his hair.

‘Hi,' I say, a smile on legs. Oh, Fergus. My hands tingle. I love him. Fergus . . .

‘
Was blind, but now I see.
' He is singing, but his eyes are cold.

He's wondered if he would ever see her again. And now she is here. The birthday of my life. Strong but timid, eyes like ice sparkling on a frosty day, hair like a cloud of blackbirds. She is here, in his life, in his book, Grace Fargo made flesh. What does she want? It doesn't matter, she's here. He has never felt awkward with a woman before this one. He wants to grab her, kiss that full red mouth, feel her breasts against him. He knows better than to try. Now then, Costello, none of that, keep it cool. Don't go overboard. Don't frighten her away.

He is less than effusive. ‘Good morning, Theodora.'

Uh-oh. This is not a man who is glad to see me. This is a man who hasn't forgiven me for shouting at him the other day.

‘Can I come in, come aboard, whatever?'

He moves aside. I step over the lintel, if that's the nautical term, to find myself in a space flooded with light from the river. The space is full of strong and complementary colours: lilacs, crimsons, purples, blues. A white lily stands in a tall earthenware vase on the floor. There are a couple of woven cotton kilims on the bare, blue-painted floorboards, three mugs on a low table, a folded newspaper. And books. Hundreds of them, on makeshift brick-and-plank shelves all the way round the room, piled against the armchairs, neatly stacked under the table. A copy of a Frida Kahlo self-portrait is Sellotaped to the ceiling, above the sofa. I imagine him lying there, staring up at her, dreaming of Popocatapétl, exploring the secret landscapes inside his head.