Dancing In The Shadows of Love (16 page)

There was no sign of her yet. No danger that she would rise and consume me with her desires. I allowed myself to enjoy the flick of excitement that heated my body as Barry swayed forward. He almost kissed me, until he realised it would smudge my make-up. As he brushed against my senses, there was a sharp, taut edge to my breathing. I wanted to call it love. But love was too dangerous a word and I let it fall from my thoughts.

‘Zahra,’ he said. He clasped my hands instead and lifted them to his lips, warm, and a little bit damp, even through the elbow-length black satin gloves I wore. ‘You’re more beautiful than ever tonight.’ He pressed my hands one last time and released them.

‘You’re handsome,’ I said. Tonight he was. His black dinner suit added stature to his placid frame and, with his thinning sandy hair neatly oiled into place, he looked suave, if a bit uncomfortable, in his finery.

The tenderness he evoked in me at night rose; too much, too quickly, for it called to Little Flower. I moved to break the spell of that small bathroom, cloudy with steam from my bath and redolent with the sharp, spring smell of the herbal oil I used to soften my skin.

‘We’d better hurry.’ I said and walked past him into the main bedroom where I picked up my fur coat. The nights were not yet cold enough, but it added a final veneer of wealth to my appearance that I enjoyed. It went well with my necklace, restrung after Enoch had collected each of the scattered pearls from around the body of the young rebel who had died for his greed. ‘I must be there early.’

‘They won’t start the ball without you,’ Barry said.

I ignored him. I wanted to stand at the head of the receiving line when Grace appeared. She would bring Enoch to the ball and I wanted him to see that I, too, was beautiful.

They arrived late. So late, I had begun to think Grace, to deny me this night with Enoch, had taken to her sickbed. The excitement that had quivered through me for days started to congeal into anger as deep as Zahra’s was, the day she went to find her Daddy’s gun. Before it could grow, before it consumed me as thoroughly as it had before, they were there.

Enoch was resplendent in his tuxedo, his over-long hair tied back with a thin string. His hands, except for the faint blue of his tattooed fingers, were white and pure as they emerged from the blackness of his sleeves. I remembered their warmth, and their slender strength, as they embraced both Grace and I in their safety, that day we lay face down in the dirt, with only Enoch and Elijah between a miserable lonely death and us.

‘You came,’ I said, looking at Grace, but speaking to him. ‘You didn’t change your mind.’

‘I came, dear,’ Grace said and turned to him. She gave a little upward peek at his face, sombre and sterner than I’d ever seen it. ‘Although Enoch said you wouldn’t be ready for us.’

‘I’m ready.’ I looked at him, confused by the inscrutable glance he threw me. ‘I’ve been ready for weeks.’

‘Yes, dear, and I told Enoch so. Didn’t I?’

‘You should be in bed, Mrs T.’ I sensed an undertone between them and Little Flower stirred, anxious and afraid, for she wanted what this man offered Grace. She wanted it badly, and I had begun to want it too.

Grace clicked her tongue at him. ‘Don’t fuss, Enoch, dear.’

‘The time is too close,’ he said. ‘You should be resting.’

‘I want to dance
tonight
,’ she said. She leaned her head back on his shoulders and her hair shone silver. Mischievous charm lent her the face of an angel as the dull light pouring out of the ballroom softened the highways of age that marked her.

‘You can dance as much as you want to,’ I said.

‘Wonderful. Will you dance too?’

‘When I can.’

‘Tonight is your night, dear,’ she said. ‘You must embrace it with your heart.’ Her fingers brushed my chest, there where my heart began to thud faster. ‘Dance with all the young men you can, but leave time for Enoch. He’s the one you must dance with tonight. You can be as carefree as a young girl, like a little flower, when it’s young and precious!’

Grace radiated a promise of redemption and, at her name—surely a strange coincidence, for where would Grace have learnt it?—Little Flower surged up from the depths. I was flooded with the same excitement that consumed her and could no longer hold back the waves of desire. They rose and rose as Little Flower did. She flexed her strength and sucked me into a whirlpool of great need, an irresistible need: I longed to plunge into Enoch’s arms. I wanted to beg him to love me, to love Little Flower as she longed to be loved. To love her as he loved Grace, so that I, too, could wear the mantle of Saint Grace’s peace, and Little Flower’s hunger could destroy me no longer.

• • •

Hours passed and I had yet to stand in his arms. Long hours of a loneliness I hadn’t felt since Little Flower cried for help in front of a heartless wooden
nova
.

Barry swept me out of a vigorous foxtrot. ‘I must rest,’ he puffed. His face, his amiable face, shone with perspiration and happiness as we sat back at the table. Roses cascaded down the edge of crystal vases and the heavy silver cutlery set on white damask tablecloths lent a suitable dignity to the occasion.

‘You’re both so happy,’ Grace beamed, in a gentle, childlike way, as she often did when pleased. ‘Are you enjoying yourselves?’

‘My wife is the most beautiful woman in the room tonight,’ Barry said. He was proud of me and eased an arm around the back of my chair so his fingers could play a tune of pleasure along my satin-covered shoulders.

I despised myself for the way I bloomed under his praise, for I had never needed Barry’s approval before. My need dislocated the power in our marriage back into his hands and I remembered the way Little Flower always sought her Daddy’s approval, an approval that only ever came in the night when Daddy called it love.

Barry needed longer than a few minutes rest to catch his breath. I shifted in my seat so my shoulders slipped free of his touch. ‘Let’s dance,’ I said.

‘Not me,’ he said. Exhaling, he pulled out his handkerchief to mop his forehead. ‘You dance if you want to.’

‘Enoch will dance with you,’ Grace chimed in, as I had wanted, as I had hoped she would. ‘You haven’t danced with Enoch yet.’ She looked at him expectantly, as did I, and Barry. Did I alone see sadness scurry across Enoch’s face?

The moment I stepped into his arms, the world and all its glitter receded. But he was uncomfortable with me in his arms and yet we were no closer than he had held Grace when they danced. He held me with one reluctant arm around my waist and the other clasping my hand at shoulder height as the opening bars of a waltz started. Something fierce and proud forced me to confront his resistance.

‘If the dance steps are unfamiliar,’ I said, ‘we can return to the table. I wouldn’t want to embarrass you.’

Those eyes. Oh, those eyes! They flickered with layers and made me want to weep as I stared into them, haughty to hide my hurt. And there, in-between the layers, I imagined I saw a young girl. She ran free and happy and loved. Her dark hair flew out behind her as her Daddy’s strong, safe arms picked her up and swung her round and round, until she screamed with laughter, her face alive with joy and innocence.

‘I can waltz,’ Enoch said eventually. ‘But it’s too soon.’

‘For what?’

‘For us to dance.’

‘You’ve danced with everyone else at our table! I’ve waited hours tonight!’

‘It’s too soon for us,’ he said. ‘You won’t understand yet.’ His eyes flared with the shadow of a movement and I realised the carefree child who danced in there was me, as we twirled and twirled around the dance floor.

I
did
understand. I understood that he was wrong. It would never be too soon for him to hold me in his arms once more, so I let myself sink into his embrace. I didn’t even try to fight Little Flower anymore. ‘Let’s go outside, onto the balcony,’ I said, and wedged myself along his length. In my imagination, fingers were already closing over my breast. Not my Daddy’s hateful grip or even Barry’s clumsy love. This time they were another man’s fingers, as light and as graceful as the breath of wind that resonated with the sweet, sweet music of the ocean.

He tried to move away, but I clung. I clung to him so tightly his shiver of resignation slid through me as well. I no longer cared. I could no longer resist Little Flower.

‘It’s too soon for you,’ he whispered. His breath rippled the strands of my hair that fell loose from the chignon with which I’d completed my careful toilette. ‘Patience, child, have patience.’

‘Now,’ I demanded. ‘Now.’

Perhaps because Zahra’s will was so strong; or perhaps because he heard Little Flower’s desperation, on the next beat of music, he swung us effortlessly in a new direction, out of the ballroom and into a dark, isolated corner of the balcony.

I didn’t wait for him to bend his head. I let Little Flower free. I let her loose. She reached and pulled his head down so she could savour his lips. This tide that rose in me was not the cunning deceit of an
ezomo
, but love. And so I showed him how I could love him in return and gave him Little Flower’s love. In the safety of his arms, I loved him as I loved my Daddy, as I’ve loved no man—no, not even Barry—since my Daddy last held me in his arms.

For a time beyond time I clung to him until, with slow regret, it penetrated my euphoria that he did not love me back. He stood there, dappled with the moonlight that crept into the corner where we stood, his arms loose at his sides and his body unresponsive and unloving.

All the warmth drained out of me. When my Daddy had held me, he had called me his love, his Little Flower, and he would say he didn’t mean to hurt me, but love hurt, sometimes love hurt. But my Daddy’s love never hurt as much as Enoch’s immobility did, as I offered him all the love I had and he did not call me beloved.

I turned away and wiped the taste of him off my lips. I gathered myself and called on Zahra to come forth and banish Little Flower’s weakness, that
ezomo
called love, which hurt and hurt.

Before I found myself, Enoch pulled me towards him. I resisted, but ultimately surrendered to his irresistible gentleness. I leaned back into his chest and his arms enfolded me in a touch as soft as an angel’s wings.

‘Little Flower,’ he sighed. ‘Ah, sweet Little Flower.’ His chin rested on the top of my head and he rocked me from side to side, as he murmured words in an ancient tongue I didn’t understand. They soothed me anyway and I sank into the comfort of his embrace. I waited, and longed for, his hands to cover my breasts. Perhaps then, I would find the answers to the restless uncertainties Little Flower had spawned since this stranger came into my life.

‘I love you, Enoch,’ I murmured, as I had often whispered to my Daddy, even when I wept and wished that love could be different. ‘I love you.’

‘Not really,’ he replied. ‘Not yet.’ He swept his hands over my body, up and down. The same fleeting warmth that rose in me when Barry touched me, after I had invited him into my bed, flickered on the edge of a consuming flame. ‘This is not love,’ Enoch said. He pushed me away until we touched with clasped hands and he held me captive with a gaze that contained the wisdom of aeons.

I began to drown in those eyes. Deep, deep they took me, to the centre of my world, that centre where there was no secrets. There, I delved into Little Flower’s face, unadorned except with the truth. I saw her tears and I could not tell whether she wept for loving her Daddy too much, or whether her tears were for the day Zahra conquered her and she discovered that love had many faces, one of which was hate.

With a gasp, I dragged my hands from Enoch’s clasp and drew on all the dignity I had as I said, ‘We’ll ignore this, shall we?’

‘Tonight is already a memory,’ he said. ‘Let it be a good one.’

‘A foolish one!’

‘Love is never foolish,’ he said. ‘But you’re not yet ready to love me as you can.’

He cupped my cheek in his palm. I reacted instinctively and nestled my face into his warmth. What did he want from me? I had already offered him the best of me and the best of Little Flower too.

‘How else can I love you?’ I asked.

‘Let your heart’s voice speak,’ he replied. ‘Look with your inner eye. There you will find the truth of what love is.’

Before I could answer, before I could ask him what he meant, he melted away into a moonbeam. He followed it off the balcony to the edge of a rose garden, where an old woman waited.

I thought he had joined the old crone, the healer woman I once saw in the shadows of his eyes. I leaned forward over the balustrade, unconcerned that the late evening damp stained my dress. I saw the silver hair and realised he had left me for Grace.

For Grace. That bitch, that whore, Saint Grace, had stolen Little Flower’s love. Even though people loved her more than anyone could love me, she had stolen my Enoch.

And he, he had left me there, alone. I began to weep with anger. Later, I wept for Little Flower, a lost young girl whose
ezomo
was not that she had never loved at all, but that she had once loved her Daddy too well to ever love again.

“One that loved not wisely, but too well.”

From the day I witness
Prior
Ajani prepare for his ritual, the altar calls to me. I resist its lure but the wooden
nova
continues to beguile me. I stare at each leopard skin rosette in the coronet around the
Spirit King’s
forehead. Each rosette, carved as a hole into the hard olive wood, has a hollow wooden bell suspended from it, a symbol of the
Spirit King’s
spirit tempted by the
Levid
and saved by his love for his people.

I must wrench myself free from the sweet promise in his face as I ignore the supplication of the
nova
. But his wooden eyes burn into my back as, hearing the clink of the coffee percolator, I hurry through to the court office. I smile. That’s Jamila. She likes to make the dark, bitter brew the old
Prior
sweetens with six heaped spoons of sugar. She’ll take him his coffee; then she’ll fill my mug, before pouring her own.