Dancing Backwards (17 page)

‘I suppose in a way it’s obvious.’

‘You don’t need me to tell you, Vi, that what seems obvious may not be so easily grasped.’

‘Or avoided?’

‘Or avoided.’

‘So the bat-wing purse?’

‘Remind me what your friend said about it.’

‘He was not a friend.’

Baz looked at her hard. ‘In that case I’m sorry.’

‘He said it had the power to keep the soul of anyone who loved its owner.’

‘You know, I would say that if someone loves you, or is in some way powerfully attached to you, then naturally you have the power to entrap their soul.’

Baz walked her to the stairs. ‘You’re not going back to the dance?’

‘I think I’ve had enough for tonight. The stairs to Deck Twelve will be enough exercise.’

‘In case we miss each other tomorrow, I hope if you’re ever Harvard way you’ll call us up. Martha has taken to you. She doesn’t always like the women I like.’ He put a hand on her shoulder and smiled his heartening smile. ‘You know, I’m pretty weary myself. Do you think I can safely leave Martha with Ken?’ The brown eyes were wryly humorous.

‘I would say she’s in safe hands.’

‘I think so, too. It’s good for her to be admired a little.
Husbands are lousy at that. I’ll go let her know I’m off to bed and she can let her hair down.’

Renato had already shifted Vi’s case out into the corridor ready for collection. She went out on to the balcony, her last chance to be alone with the Atlantic. The moon was not quite full and was floating, an eccentric luminous yellow disc, in the indigo sky. She went back inside for her notebook and a pencil.

She had just finished writing when the phone rang.

‘Mrs Hetherington? Sorry to trouble you, ma’am, it’s Tim Troubridge the crew purser here.’

‘Oh yes, about my room. I’ll let you know as soon as I can whether I’ll be wanting it for the next leg of the voyage.’

‘It’s not about your room, ma’am. It’s about your ring.’

‘Has it been found?’

‘If the one I have in my hand is yours, I’d say so. I would be surprised if there were two missing diamonds like this on the ship.’

‘That’s marvellous.’

‘Would you mind coming down to my office, ma’am? There’s a couple of things I need to ask.’

When Vi left the purser’s office, she returned to her room where she contrived to squeeze her jeans and t-shirt into the suitcase outside. Now there was nothing but the clothes she stood in, her nightdress and her spongebag to remember tomorrow. And Ted’s ring.

She looked fondly at the ring glinting in its familiar place on her left hand. Ted would be pleased. He would say that he had been watching over her, like a Providence.

She opened the notebook and re-read what she’d written. It was a start.

There was a voice at the door and she called out, ‘Hello, Desmond. I’m just coming.’

His naturally dark skin had gone quite pale and she felt a sharp dart of compassion for him. Poor boy. It wasn’t such a great crime, the sin of omission.

‘Come in. Would you like to sit out on the balcony?’

‘If you like. I’m not fussed.’

‘Have you a cigarette to spare?’

‘Sure.’

The Atlantic, having shown who was master, had subsided into a gentle threshing roll. Moonlight glanced off the water. As if in response to the lulled weather the ship was unusually quiet. Those who were not preparing for disembarkation by having a few last drinks for Auld Lang Syne, or dancing to The Supremes, had sensibly gone to ground.

Des lit their cigarettes. His eyes, she saw in the lighter’s flare, were tiny points of black fear.

‘I wanted to thank you for finding my ring. I explained to Mr Troubridge that I’d particularly asked you to look for it and that you had tried to find me earlier but that I wasn’t in.’

Des, quite at a loss, resorted to a dumb nod.

‘The message, you know, that you left on my phone.’

He hadn’t the faintest idea what was going on but he had to say something. ‘Is the message still there?’

‘I erased it. But as you only said that you had some news for me of course I didn’t immediately understand. I explained to Mr Troubridge that we have been dancing partners, and that I had spoken to you about the ring’s importance to me, so it was highly understandable that before saying a word to anyone else you wanted to give me the news in person that you had found my ring.’

‘And what did he say?’ Des was now totally out of his depth.

‘He said he would be having a word with the girl who seems to have been illegitimately snooping among your private possessions. I gather you’d put my ring away to keep it safe. She told Mr Troubridge that she was looking for something she’d left in your room. I expect that was a story.’

He might have known it. Sandy. ‘It’s a bloody lie.’ How did the fucking little bitch get into his room?

‘She does sound like trouble but perhaps in the circumstances you will be lenient. I expect she was angry with you for dropping her.’

The penny dropped. Boris. That was how the little cow had got into his room. He’d heard a rumour that mother-fucker had a spare set of keys. ‘She was a mistake and a half all right.’

‘We make them, I’m afraid. Long ago, I made a terrible mistake and let down a very dear friend, very badly. He’s a poet now, rather a famous one. And for a time, while we were friends, I wrote poetry too. I gave up writing, largely, well, entirely, I suspect, because of what I did to my friend. But tonight I managed a poem.’

Des, preoccupied, said, ‘A poem?’

‘I wrote one this evening.’

‘That’s great.’

‘It’s a start. So this is a double celebration. Would you like a drink? I can offer you almost any drink under the sun except Coke.’

‘A beer would be great.’

Vi went inside to the minibar.

‘Stella Artois or Becks?’

‘Becks, if there’s one going.’

‘A glass?’

‘I’ll drink from the bottle, thanks.’

They sat outside with the moon sailing alongside them, its
imperturbable face shredded into myriad darting gleams on the petrol surface of the water. Des wondered whether to raise the question of the insurance money but thought better of it. He would make sure to see that cunt Boris got what was coming to him, though.

The passengers leaving the ship for good were mostly fractious, setting themselves apart from those for whom a stay in New York was a mere interlude in the round of pleasures to come. The majority had been up early in order to look into the blank eyes and uncompromising face of the Statue of Liberty and be the first to spot the Brooklyn bridge suspended, as if by elastic bands, across the East River, and were already worn out from the unaccustomed exertion and taking it out on one another.

Vi met Ken and Jen in the line for disembarkation. Ken was wearing his dark glasses and seemed subdued. Jen gave Vi their address and asked her to look them up in Basingstoke. But they all knew she never would. Heather and Greg were also in the queue, Greg carrying a sleeping Patrick, his peony cheek resting, with the peerless trust of childhood, on his father’s shoulder. Vi was almost glad that there was no opportunity to say goodbye.

The luggage for those leaving the ship was piled, according to the colour coding, in the custom sheds at the dock. As Vi was extricating her case from the stack Captain Ryle appeared, dragging a candy-pink suitcase which, decorated with cartoon bears and rabbits, could only be Kath’s.

‘Glad to spot you, ma’am. I looked high and low for you last eve but you’d vanished into thin air.’

Vi took his hand, offered in the spirit of pure uncomprehending good feeling. ‘I was spending a quiet evening on my balcony.’

‘That’s the ticket. Saying goodbye to the sea. How did the poems fare?’

‘Do you know, I wrote one.’

The captain was doomed to be disappointed by her. ‘Just the one?’

There were complications at Immigration about the date of her departure from the US. Vi explained that she had an open return airline ticket as she was visiting a friend and the length of her stay was undecided. On the other hand, she might be leaving with the ship in a few days. Luckily, Harry, in anticipation of difficulties, had organised the appropriate paperwork through a friend of Annie’s husband’s in the diplomatic service.

When at last the grudging Immigration officials released Vi on the city of New York to do her worst, Miss Foot was waiting for her.

‘I spotted you in the line for Immigration and wanted to bid farewell.’

‘Thank you,’ said Vi. ‘I hope everything goes as well as it can with your sister. It was very nice to meet you.’

‘We shall meet again, my dear.’

In the taxi queue Vi encountered the bishop, trundling a compact valise and with a smart laptop case slung over his shoulder.

‘Where are you off to? Shall we share a taxi downtown?’

Vi gave him the address of the hotel in the Village where she was booked to stay.

‘I can drop you off. I’m overnighting at the Holiday Inn.’

He requisitioned a cab and bargained briskly with the driver, helped her inside and regaled her with stories about Mount Athos until they reached her hotel, where he refused to accept any contribution for the fare.

‘Your company was compensation enough. Have you got the Lagavulin safe, now? If your friend doesn’t enjoy it I’ll eat my episcopal hat. Remember, if you make it to the West Coast there’s big welcome waiting for you there.’

The reception at the hotel, where her mobile had arrived with a postcard from Harry, felt almost unfriendly after the attentive service on the
Caroline
. Vi unpacked, and then, feeling remorse for her churlishness, tested her phone with a text of gratitude to Harry. It was too early to call Edwin so, with nothing else to do, she went out.

New Yorkers are early birds and the great city was already alive with dogs and their walkers, babies in strollers and their minders, and people hustling their several ways to gainful employment, or otherwise. Vi had been warned that the weather would be humid and had changed into a cotton blouse and skirt. In spite of this, she was already sweating when she turned off by the Chelsea piers to walk alongside the Hudson.

There was a sluggish riverish smell coming off the slight breeze, so different from the whistle-clean smell of the vigorous Atlantic. Piles from one of the old piers made jagged ranks of rotting black teeth in the milky turquoise water. Across, on the far shore, splashes of light, reflections of the morning sun, showed on the windows of the impressive line of lofty buildings.

On her way back to the Village, Vi stopped for a breakfast of coffee and pancakes. But it was still only nine fifteen. Too early to call.

Several refills later—and how blessedly liberal Americans were with their coffee—she plucked up courage and rang Edwin’s number.

‘Hello, it’s me.’

‘Hello you.’

‘I’m here.’

‘Well come on over.’

When he answered the door of the brownstone house in Christopher Street he was smaller and thinner than she remembered, and his hair, once long and fair, was iron grey and cut fashionably close. But the quizzical stare of the odd eyes, one blue, one greenish hazel, was just the same. And the voice. Only the slightest tincture of the New York cadence.

‘So you made it.’

‘I made it.’

‘Come on up. It’s four flights, I’m afraid. But very good for the legs.’

The apartment was small but light, the walls closely hung with paintings and photographs. Old furniture: a polished walnut table, a long sofa, two green leather armchairs, a Turkish rug, a jug of tall lilies, cunning lighting. In the corner stood a priapic bronze figure.

‘Is that…?’

‘Lust, yes. Ralph had him shipped over for me.’

‘I brought you this. A Greek Orthodox priest advised me on the brand, if that’s what you call it. A bishop actually.’

Edwin examined the label. ‘The bishop has taste. But I no longer drink.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ She was blushing.

‘How could you know? And I still have friends who drink, though New York has grown quite puritanical. Very few of my friends smoke these days.’

‘I’m afraid I’ve started again.’

‘Feel free.’

‘I wouldn’t here.’ She looked around at his lovely things.

‘Really, it’s fine. I quite enjoy the smell. How about coffee or would you like some of this?’ He held up the whisky and smiled.

‘Not quite yet.’

He made coffee and she looked about his apartment, feeling that she was almost prying. He had changed. Or his way of living had changed. The place was orderly. Calm.

A dove of the palest coral fluttered down on to the windowsill outside.

‘They nest there, on the window ledge, in spring. I keep the window permanently open so as not to disturb their visitations.’

‘Isn’t it cold in winter with the window open?’

‘The heating here is ferocious.’

They smiled at each other, not yet at ease. Not at ease at all.

Vi said, ‘It’s good to see you.’

‘It’s good to see you, too.’

Well, now she had to be brave. ‘It’s good of you to see me.’

‘Why so? I was delighted when you wrote.’

‘Well…’

‘Well?’

‘Well, you know.’

‘Do I?’ Edwin got up, pushing his hands into the pockets of his jeans and crossed the room apparently to examine a drawing of a long-legged stork. It looked, Vi observed, not unlike its owner. ‘There’s nothing for you to be bothered about.’

‘I let you down.’ Shockingly so.

He sat down again on the arm of the green leather chair and frowned. ‘But how? How did you?’

‘When I didn’t come that time. When, you know, you rang me.’

‘From the police station?’

‘Yes.’

‘But you organised that solicitor chap to come, didn’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, then. Much as I may have wanted to see you, he was of more practical help.’

‘You didn’t mind?’

Edwin frowned again. ‘I don’t remember. I don’t remember very much about that time. Too pissed too much of the time, both before and after. What I do remember is him, quite brilliantly, getting me off the charge: procuring the commission of an act of gross indecency with another male contrary to section 13 of the Sexual Offences Act. There is something particularly threatening in that “procuring”.’

‘But you lost your job.’

‘Oh that. I hated that job. But anyway that wasn’t affected by your not coming.’

‘You told me you liked teaching.’

‘I was probably pretending—to myself as much as to you. And then losing the job brought me here.’ Edwin waved his hand, encompassing, in the gesture, the tiny apartment and the vast body of New York. ‘I’ve been very content here. They like my sort.’

Vi said, ‘Would you mind if I did have some of the bishop’s whisky?’

‘Sure.’

Outside someone speaking into a phone was saying, ‘It’s all about you. You, you, you. You and your fucking shrink.’

Edwin said, ‘I heard that you married my solicitor chap’s boss.’

‘Ted? Yes. He came and found me after Bruno pushed off.
I was in rather a state.’ That was an understatement. ‘His wife had multiple sclerosis and when she died, not very long after that, he asked me to marry him. It seemed a good idea at the time.’

‘And your children are his?’

‘Very much so. My elder son, Harry, is the dead spit of his father.’

‘And the younger one?’

‘Daniel? A bit too much like his mother.’

‘He’s lucky, then.’ He was looking at her with that old unblinking gaze. ‘His mother’s OK. What do they do?’

‘Harry is a solicitor, like his father. Dan, at present, writes lyrics for pop songs.’

‘Any good?’

‘I think so, yes. But then…’

‘Then they will be. His mother always had taste. And you, Vi?’

‘What do I do, you mean?’

‘Yes, I suppose I do.’

‘Oh, this and that. I worked for Tate Britain for a while.’

‘Not as a gallery attendant?’

‘No, slightly more elevated. Though, you know, that time, working for the Fitzwilliam, remains my happiest time of employment.’

‘You and Samuel Palmer?’

‘I missed him when I left.’

‘Yes, he was good company for you.’

This was not what she’d come for.

‘Edwin, I’ve spent the best part of my life, since seeing you last, agonising about what I did, or didn’t do, that time.’ His phone began to ring annoyingly. ‘Do you want to answer it?’

Edwin looked at the phone as if he were weighing up, from the tone of the ring, whether it was worth answering. When
the ringing stopped he said, ‘You shouldn’t have been berating yourself. It was me who owed you an apology.’

‘Why?’

Edwin got up again and went over to the window. The dove, accustomed to his presence, did not stir.

‘When you didn’t come, after I rang you from that awful place, which still gives me the willies when I think of it, which I try not to, I assumed you’d guessed or that Bruno had spilled the beans. But then later I realised you knew nothing.’

‘What?’

But suddenly she did know and a flood of light was being poured over her past.

‘Bruno and I were lovers.’

You knew this, said the voice.

‘Meaning what?’

‘Meaning he fucked my arse. Sorry to be so crude.’

‘But when?’

‘Pretty much any time we could manage it at school.’

‘And later?’

‘For a while.’

‘Would you mind if I did smoke a cigarette?’

‘Go ahead. I told you, I don’t mind.’

She lit her cigarette and as she did there came to her mind the figure of the young man, who had tried to escape what he was, and who he was, sitting abject on her balcony. She might send him a bit of money after all. ‘So did you and he…?’ she began, but Edwin interrupted.

‘Only once. You were at Annie’s and I went down to London to Bruno’s flat.’

‘I remember that time.’

‘How is Annie?’

‘She’s just the same, but stouter.’

‘I can’t picture Annie stout.’

‘It hasn’t changed the essential Annie.’

‘No, Annies are built to last. And your glamorous teacher, I forget her name?’

‘Miss Arnold. Only she’s not a Miss any more. She married.’

‘The art teacher on the motorbike? I rather fancied him.’

‘He was cashiered long ago. She married a Muslim dentist. Very dashing. I shouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t bigamy.’

‘On his part or hers?’

Vi looked over to where the dove’s mate had joined it on the windowsill. One of the birds was calling a soft ‘caroo caroo’.

‘They’re very beautiful. You’re lucky.’

Edwin looked at the doves. Then he came over and sat down on the arm of her chair. ‘I should have told you. I’m sorry. I was jealous—of you, of him, of the two of you together. But in the end, so you know this, in the end it was you I was concerned for. I was never in love with Bruno, it was only sex with us.’

‘I don’t think I was either.’

‘But he hurt you pretty badly.’ It was a statement not a question.

‘I suppose I let him hurt.’

‘He’s dangerous. See, that’s my weakness. I like them cruel.’

‘Do you have anyone now?’

‘I have a young man who is kind to me. Kind, I mean, in the particular ways I want him to be. He’s very handsome and quite fickle. But I don’t ask too much of him. And you?’

‘Ted only died last year.’

‘And there was never anyone else?’

‘There were a few offers. One man I liked a lot, and he me. Or so he said. But after Bruno I was too timid. And, you know, although he sometimes drove me to distraction, Ted was very
good to me. He was an utterly decent man. I am glad for our son’s sake that I was loyal to him.’

‘Son or sons’ sake?’

‘Son. Dan wouldn’t have minded—wouldn’t mind.’

‘Yes, I’m sorry I shall never have a son.’ He looked at her. ‘Such a shame you were not a homosexual man, Vi.’

‘Notice that I don’t say what a shame you were not a heterosexual one, Ed.’

That was more like it.

‘So, what happened to our Bruno?’

‘Oh, Ed, don’t, please.’

‘OK, sorry. But do you know?’

‘He married Tessa Carfield. I don’t suppose that you ever slept with Tessa Carfield?’

‘What a shocking suggestion!’

‘Only I was just thinking that if you had then everyone at our wedding would have slept with everyone else.’

‘I swear, you are the only woman I have ever slept with, Violet St John.’