Learning to Dance, page 25
He said, ‘Jude, I think I should go. Now. Before this wind works itself into the sort of storm we had last month.’
She gave a small cry of protest. ‘Oh, Robert – please! Is this because I said … what I said?’
‘I don’t know. If it is, then it’s not driving me away from you and Jack, it’s urging me to go on. Shine a light into all that darkness? Learn to dance?’ He drew her down into the heather. ‘I have done some work on the Holocaust, Jude. I always end up at some pub, trying to forget it.’
‘Is that how it was that first night at Castle Dove?’
‘Yes. Worse still when I was in Australia.’ He looked sideways at her. His hair, free of the hood, was on end. ‘Then there was Jack. And then there was you. Esmée. Nat. God – Bart and Irena too.’ He snorted a laugh. ‘And then that crazy couple in the orangery.’ He took her hand and gripped it hard. ‘It all meant something, Jude. Are all of us learning to dance? Is that why I’ve come back to the castle and my studio and those drawings?’
He waited for an answer and she said in a small voice, ‘Oh, Robert. I don’t know.’
‘Of course you don’t! And neither do I – and I thought I did, I’ve always thought I knew how to live. The places I must avoid, the people I must stay away from. And then … my God, I sent invitations to Esmée and Nat like some ridiculous matchmaker! And you turned up too! It was frightening. You were so ordinary, so practical, and yet – Jude, that bloody nightie, I have to tell you it was completely see-through!’ She started to laugh. He went on, ‘I never thought you’d manage the Exmoor trek – my famous trek when everyone was so exhausted they would show their true colours!’ He laughed too.
She said, ‘Well, it worked, didn’t it? Robert, none of this means you have to leave now. Surely?’
He shook her hand and let his laughter die into a smile. ‘I haven’t told you. I’ve left Nat and Esmée – or Sybil or whatever she calls herself now – at the castle. They wanted to come, but I talked them out of it.’ His smile widened to a grin. ‘I need to keep an eye on them!’
Judith stared back at him. She said, ‘I can’t keep up with you – you are the most volatile person I have ever met. All I can say is – tea and Welsh cakes are obligatory. How does that sound?’
He pretended to give the question his full consideration. Then he nodded. ‘Perfect,’ he said. And he enveloped her in a bear hug.
It was as if Jack knew what had been said. The tea was made, the Welsh cakes lay in the griddle, and they sat around eating and drinking as if they had the rest of the afternoon and all the evening together. When Robert suggested that the two of them should come with him to help launch the boat, Jack nodded immediately.
‘Changed your mind about the dinner party?’ It was more of a comment than a question.
Robert grinned again; there was an assurance in that grin.
‘Things to do,’ he said.
They trooped down the long combe to the beach. Two fishing boats were arriving, and Robert helped to pull them in and then recruited more help with his bigger boat. Judith and Jack stood back watching as he scrambled into the small well and started the engine, then grabbed the tiller.
Jack said into her ear, ‘I couldn’t have been completely unconscious the last time I was here – I remember David Davies and Matt lifting me under the canopy.’
‘Oh, my love …’ Judith hugged his arm to her side, reliving her own memories of that time and realizing how close they had come to disaster.
Robert waved and called something, and then the tough little boat got under way and began the short trip to the mainland, and Jack and Judith started the climb back up the combe, pausing now and then to look out to sea and wave. Below them on the beach the fishermen were unloading lobster pots. Above them smoke came from the chimney of the hotel.
Jack said, ‘I think we should go home too. Soon.’
‘Let’s leave it with Matt and Len.’
‘Sounds sensible.’
They paused to get breath. The wind had been minimal on the beach, but already the stronger gusts were bending the trees and the few birds which had ventured from their cliffs were being blown about the sky like rags.
He said, ‘Could be that we have to wait for the weather. A day or two, perhaps. It will give us time to clear up properly. I’ll have a go at some of the wood. There’s a chainsaw in the lean-to.’
She did not ask whether his strength was up to such physical labour. She hugged his arm again. ‘Good thinking. I’ll do a clean-up indoors.’
He put his head against hers. ‘We’re going to be all right, Jude.’ It was a statement, but then he added a question. ‘Aren’t we?’
She answered in her most matter-of-fact voice. ‘I remember, in Paris, your … your sudden diffidence – yes, that is what it was, diffidence – somehow made me feel very secure, very safe.’ She rubbed her head against his. ‘I feel it now.’
He held her close. She knew he was weeping, just as he had done then.
She kissed him. ‘I love you, Jack. But more than that. We really are two parts of a whole.’
‘Yes.’ He steadied his voice. ‘That’s it. Exactly.’ He kissed her hair. ‘Robert said something similar.’
She nodded. ‘Come on. By the time we’ve washed and changed it will be time to meet the others.’
‘Yes. Pity that Paula won’t meet Robert. There are similarities there. She deals with her demons differently, but she has them.’
They fell into step as they turned on to the track leading to the cottage.
She said, surprised, ‘You think so? We only talk of the book.’
‘Her childhood was cut off when her parents were killed in that air crash. D’you remember? I think it was seventy-three or four. A plane-load of people visiting graves in Germany? Charter flight?’
‘Oh, how awful. She must have been about ten. Oh, Jack, how dreadful.’
‘Yes.’ They went inside the house and shut the door firmly on the wind. Jack kept his back to it as she began to shrug out of her jacket. ‘I wonder whether she will stay on here during the winter? She seems to need the actual place – to live the book, as it were.’
Judith looked at him. ‘Jack …’ She spoke almost warningly.
‘If you think I’m matchmaking you are quite wrong!’ But he was laughing, dropping his coat to the granite floor, taking her in his arms, swinging her around the table, stumbling against a chair.
The bleep from the phone interrupted them.
It was a text from Toby.
‘Me and Alice getting married next Friday. All welcome.’
They stared at it. Judith felt the outside world suddenly pressing in indefatigably. She stared at the message. The phone vibrated on the table, and it was Matt to tell them that Toby was at last making an honest woman of Alice.
‘Lots to do. Coming over for you tomorrow, weather permitting. Got to juggle itineraries. Typical Toby, yeah?’
Jack said, ‘Yeah.’
Judith waited to feel anxious for all of them. Instead she felt a tiny spurt of sheer excitement. They were all going to a wedding. They would meet Alice, who had obviously been part of them for some time.
Matt rang off, and for a moment they listened to the wind as it whistled down the combe. Jack opened his arms again. ‘May I have this dance, Mrs Freeman?’
She went to him but they did not move for a long time.
The room gradually filled with a sense of peace. And then at last they moved. She thought it was a slow foxtrot.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Susan Sallis is the author of twenty-seven bestselling novels, many of them set in the West Country. She was born in Gloucestershire and now lives in Somerset with her family.
Also by Susan Sallis
The Rising Sequence
A SCATTERING OF DAISIES
THE DAFFODILS OF NEWENT
BLUEBELL WINDOWS
ROSEMARY FOR REMEMBRANCE
SUMMER VISITORS
BY SUN AND CANDLELIGHT
AN ORDINARY WOMAN
DAUGHTERS OF THE MOON
SWEETER THAN WINE
WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE
TOUCHED BY ANGELS
CHOICES
COME RAIN OR SHINE
THE KEYS TO THE GARDEN
THE APPLE BARREL
SEA OF DREAMS
TIME OF ARRIVAL
FIVE FARTHINGS
THE PUMPKIN COACH
AFTER MIDNIGHT
NO MAN’S ISLAND
SEARCHING FOR TILLY
RACHEL’S SECRET
THE PATH TO THE LAKE
THE SWEETEST THING
THE PROMISE
THE KISSING GATE
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LEARNING TO DANCE
A BANTAM PRESS BOOK: 9780593072042
Version 1.0 Epub ISBN: 9781448167661
First published in Great Britain
in 2013 by Bantam Press
an imprint of Transworld Publishers
Copyright © Susan Sallis 2013
Susan Sallis has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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Susan Sallis, Learning to Dance
