The Horse Dancer (32 page)

She stopped dead as a tall blonde woman dressed only in a man’s T-shirt and knickers stepped into the hallway, carrying two glasses of wine. She had the kind of hair you see in shampoo adverts, impossibly fine and glossy, and endless lightly tanned legs. Her toenails were little seashells of rosy polish. ‘You must be Natasha.’ She smiled, balanced the glasses clumsily in one hand and held out the other. ‘I am Maria.’ The smile was wide but not friendly. It had something of a smirk in it. Sarah stood behind Natasha, fascinated, as the hand dangled, outstretched, in the air.

Natasha seemed to have lost the ability to speak.

‘Mac has told me so much about you,’ the tall woman said, taking back her hand with no apparent offence. ‘I was going to make tea, but you don’t have any soya milk, do you? Dairy is
so
bad for the skin.’ Her eyes lingered on Natasha’s complexion a moment too long. ‘Do excuse me. I must get back upstairs. Someone is waiting . . .’ Grinning, she moved past Natasha, her braless breasts buoyant under the T-shirt, a faint musky scent trailing in the air as she passed.

Natasha didn’t move.

Sarah watched the scene, her mouth slightly open. Natasha was quite pale, and her knuckles had whitened on the handle of her briefcase. She looked like Sarah felt when she was going to cry and didn’t want to.

After a few moments, Sarah took a tentative step forward. ‘Do you want me to make a cup of tea?’ Someone had to do something. It was awful to see anybody going through that. ‘
I
like normal milk,’ she added feebly.

But it was as if Natasha had forgotten she was there. She looked up, her eyes widening, and forced her face into a smile. ‘That’s . . . very sweet. But no thank you, Sarah.’ She didn’t seem to know what to do.

Sarah hugged her bag. She wanted to hide in her room, but if she went upstairs she might look as if she was taking sides, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about what had just happened.

‘You know . . .’ Natasha raised a hand to her cheek. Colour had returned to her face, and she was quite pink now. ‘You know . . . I think I might . . .’

They heard a door open and laughter. Then Mac was scrambling down the stairs, his hands on the banisters. He was wearing jeans and his top half was bare. ‘Tash.’ He halted halfway down. ‘I’m sorry. I thought you were . . . I thought Sarah was . . .’

Natasha stared at him. She looked, Sarah thought, suddenly very tired. ‘Classy, Mac,’ she said, in a small voice. She stood there a little longer, nodded, as if confirming something to herself, then turning on her heel, walked out of the house, shutting the door firmly behind her.

 

 

 

Sarah lay in her bed, her knees pulled up to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. The goosedown duvet rested lightly on her curled form, creating a soft nest, a cocoon she pretended she need never leave. The Egyptian cotton sheets still held the delicious linen-spray smell that the cleaner used when ironing; it contained lavender and rosemary. The curtains, a heavy grey silk lined with voile, let in a soft light that buffered her from too abrupt an awakening. But as the room, with its antique chest of drawers and huge Venetian mirror, its little glass chandelier, lightened, she felt herself grow darker.

She stared at the wall, concentrating on her breathing. If you didn’t think about it, your breath just travelled in and out of your body regardless. Didn’t matter what you did, running, riding, sleeping, it just went in and out, doing its job, keeping you alive. As soon as you thought too hard about it, it became a passive thing. Waiting for you to fill your lungs. Stalling when you thought bad thoughts, when you felt your stomach tighten with fear.

There was no avoiding him now. He would be there on Friday; he always was. He would be there at the weekend. He would not be fobbed off with what she had scraped together so far. She closed her eyes, forcing the thoughts away, breathing in and breathing out again.

Papa would probably be awake now; he had always been an early riser. Was he staring at the wall? Waiting until daylight revealed the images of the horse, the granddaughter he loved? Was he picturing himself on lost horses he had known, locked in silent concentration as they danced their way across some vast arena? Or was he drugged into a half-sleep, dribbling, being sponged brusquely by agency nurses who talked to him as if he was not only too old to understand but stupid? Sarah hugged her knees tighter, a shudder escaping her.

The previous evening, Papa had held her hand in his trembling fingers. His skin had felt papery, his old scent now replaced by something sharp and disinfectant. He was no longer himself. Every time she saw him, no matter what they said about recovery, he was a little more distant, a little more despairing, as if the bits of him that made him Papa, the Captain, Nana’s adored husband, were being expelled with each breath. Sometimes it seemed she knew exactly how he felt.

Two miles away, Natasha woke to the sound of her neighbour’s bath running and mused sleepily on the selfishness of people who thought it acceptable to turn their television up to full volume even at a quarter past six in the morning. Why did anyone need to listen to the television while they were in the bath? Was there nowhere they could simply sit in silence?

A news break. Half past six. She could even make out the time through the paper-thin walls. She pushed herself upright, felt the first warning shots of a weighty headache and, for a moment, struggled to work out where she was, a nagging sensation of some half-remembered event already hinting at a greater problem. A cloud was creeping overhead towards her. And there it was: an unfamiliar bedcover. Her handbag, slung over the back of a chair. Patterned beige carpet. A near-empty bottle of red wine.

The previous night flooded back to her and she lay on the hotel pillows, closing her eyes. The way that woman had looked at her, as if she was an irrelevance. The laughter in her eyes that hinted at secrets exposed, a past derided. How could he have done that? She wiped her eyes. Then, why would he not? What had this been for, after all, if not their final separation? What could she expect of him? So many images: Mac, when they had been together, surrounded by women who seemed to regard her as something less than an obstacle. The look of him: a man who turned women’s heads, always one step higher than her on the ladder of human attraction, and the women knew it. They had let her know it too. At first she hadn’t thought it mattered, when he had shone the full beam of that charm only on her, when she had felt adored, needed, wanted. She had told him jokingly, at parties, to ‘go off and flirt’, watching as his eye met hers later, telling her they were nothing compared to her.

And then, with each miscarriage, her confidence in her own femininity had shrunk. She would find herself silently assessing other women’s fertility, comparing herself unfavourably. To her eyes, they looked fecund, ripe. Young. She had begun to feel old, dried up inside. And there he stood, charming them, perhaps already planning some new relationship with a younger, more beautiful partner. One who would give him children. How could he be expected to hang around now? He got angry when she said as much. In the end it had been easier to say nothing. Conor had been the first man to make her feel that Mac had been the lucky one.

Mac was not hers. It was entirely possible he never had been. It had simply been disguised again by their having lived together, the artificial closeness forced upon them by circumstance.

Natasha got heavily out of bed, walked into the bathroom and turned on the taps. Then she went into the bedroom and turned on the television. Very loudly.

Sarah’s mastery of the near-silent footfall would have put an Indian tracker to shame. These last weeks it had not been uncommon for her to appear unheralded behind him on the stairs or beside him in the kitchen. It was as if she had decided to be as unobtrusive a presence as possible, to take up no space, disturb the house with no sound. Normally the faint creaking of a teenage girl making her way downstairs would not have roused him. But Mac had been awake for hours.

The previous evening Maria had left shortly before eleven, a good half an hour after Natasha had driven off. There had been little point in following her: he had had no idea where she was going or what he would say to her if he found her.

Maria had snorted scornfully when he came back upstairs, sat heavily on the bed and declined the glass she held towards him. ‘She is pissed off about the wine? I will buy her a new bottle. Is only supermarket wine anyway.’ She took a sip. ‘In Poland is very rude to be so inhospitable.’

He knew that Maria knew it wasn’t about the wine and, just for a moment, he felt intense dislike for her. It had been deliberate cruelty, and she had enjoyed it.

‘I think you’d better go,’ he had said.

‘Why you care anyway?’ she exclaimed, pulling on her jeans, wiggling ostentatiously. ‘You not even see her for a year. You getting divorced in weeks. You told me this.’

He couldn’t answer her. Because he didn’t want to hurt Natasha’s feelings? Because when he had first moved back in he had thought, in some stupid, optimistic way, that they might somehow end up as friends? That once they had made their way past the mess and trauma of divorce, that funny, sarcastic, brilliant woman might still be in his life? Or because the sight of her face, pale with shock and hurt, the reproach behind the glittering fury in her eyes, would haunt him through the small hours?

He rose, splashed his face with cold water, pulled on his jeans and padded downstairs. Sarah was in the kitchen, her school uniform neatly pressed, making a sandwich. ‘Sorry,’ he said blearily. ‘I should have made your lunch.’ He rubbed at the bristles on his chin, wondering if he had time to shave.

‘Natasha usually does it,’ she said.

‘I know. I guess I wasn’t thinking straight last night. You off to the stables?’ He glanced at the clock. ‘You’ll be cutting it fine.’

‘I’ll be okay.’

‘I’d give you a lift but I’ve got—’

‘I don’t need a lift,’ she interrupted.

‘You want an apple for Boo?’ He reached into the fruit bowl and threw one at her, expecting her hand to shoot out and catch it. It had become something of a routine for them. But she stepped aside, letting it thump on to the limestone floor.

He picked it up and studied the stiff, slim back, the self-consciously erect posture. ‘Are you angry with me?’

‘Not my business,’ she said, packing the sandwiches neatly into her schoolbag.

Mac picked up the kettle and filled it. ‘I’m sorry about last night.’

‘I don’t think it’s me you should say sorry to.’ She was pulling on her coat.

‘I didn’t know she was coming back,’ he said.

‘But it’s still her house.’

‘
Our
house.’

‘Whatever.’ She shrugged. ‘Like I said. It’s not my business.’

He made himself a coffee, astonished at how bad a fourteen-year-old girl could make a grown man feel. He had known Natasha would be angry. He hadn’t expected this.

‘Can I have some money?’ She was standing behind him, ready to leave.

‘Sure,’ he said, glad to do something, anything, that might lift the atmosphere of opprobrium. ‘How much do you need?’ He began to rifle through his pockets.

‘Fifty?’ she ventured.

He sorted through the money in his hand. ‘Here,’ he said, holding out a silver coin.

‘Fifty pence?’

‘You wanted fifty pounds? Very funny. Look, I’ve got a job this morning. I’ll get some money out of the machine this afternoon. You can have a tenner. Treat yourself. Go for a burger with your mates later.’

She didn’t seem as pleased as he had hoped she might. But it would be better if he didn’t have to worry about what he was going to do for supper this evening and if Sarah was safely out of the way.

He needed to speak to Natasha. But he didn’t know what the hell he would say when he did.

Each legal brief received by a barrister – other than those concerning government business – was tied with a pink ribbon. This anachronism was not just a matter of tidiness, or some arcane method of filing. The ribbon had a purpose; it symbolised the barrister’s ability to detach him or herself emotionally from the case. The barrister was instructed specifically for their independence, their objectivity. When the ribbon was retied, the brief was returned. The barrister left behind the facts of the case.

That said, some cases, Natasha thought, as she sat opposite Michael Harrington, were easier to be objective about than others. They had met at his office to discuss the Persey divorce case, which was about to begin. ‘You look tired, Natasha,’ he said, and called for his pupil. ‘I hope the details of this brief aren’t keeping you awake.’

‘Not at all.’

‘I think we should have a con with Mrs Persey tomorrow morning. I see we’re also awaiting statements from the forensic accountants. Can you bring them to that meeting? I’d also like to finalise which witnesses each of us will take.’

He was staring at her, and she wasn’t sure how long she had been peering down at the papers.

‘Natasha? Are you okay?’

‘Fine.’

‘Can you be there?’

She glanced at her diary; one day was already hideously tight. ‘I’ll make time.’

‘Good. Right. That’s probably it for today.’ He stood, and she gathered her things together. ‘No, no. I didn’t mean you to go immediately. Do you have a few minutes? Time for a quick drink?’

She thought back to the previous evening. ‘Tea will do me,’ she said, and sat down again. ‘Thank you.’