Hester's Story (42 page)

‘I suspect it’s much easier than you think.’ Ruby was concentrating on stitching a frill to the sleeve of the Jester’s shirt, but she looked up and stopped sewing for a moment. ‘I think you don’t have to consider what you feel about him. He’s not a part of your life any longer. I think Adam’s death has made you free. For the first time in years.’

‘Yes, perhaps you’re right. I
am
free and I feel it, but that’s what they say about people who spend too long
in prison, don’t they? That the real world seems a scary place. That prison has become safe in a strange way and the freedom frightens them. I think I’m like that. I feel I can move on, but what lies ahead makes me a little nervous.’

‘I know it’s not my business, Hester, but I’ll say it all the same. I think it would be a sad thing for you to end your life all on your own.’

‘I’m not on my own! I’ve got you. And George. And Edmund. And such a busy life with the master classes. And the festival – all those dancers every year.’

Ruby didn’t answer. Hester said, ‘You think I’ll grow old all by myself, don’t you, rather like Madame Olga.’

‘I hope not. That’s all I’m saying.’

Madame Olga had always been an awkward subject between them; a subject to be avoided. Hester knew that Ruby didn’t like her, but had never been able to discover why this was. Ruby was now bent over the Jester’s shirt again and her face had taken on that closed look it often wore when the past came up in conversation. Hester knew there was nothing to be done about it.

‘I’ll be off now, leave you in peace. See you later, Ruby.’

1953

Everywhere she looked, Hester could see nothing but grey. The grey Promenade or Front or whatever they called it, followed by the grey sea, and then more grey in the sky. The wind seemed to be taking lumps of water and flinging them against the panes of the Sunporch, and Hester drew her cardigan more closely round her shoulders. I should be out there, she thought. She imagined the storm blowing in her face, imagined the spray stinging her cheeks, and longed to run out from behind the glass and straight into the freezing gale. I could cry and no one would even notice. The Front was deserted. No one with any sense came down to Brighton in February. If I ran out there, Madame Olga would stop me, she told herself, and besides, I have to appear normal. I have to seem as though I’m recovering. I’ve been brought here to recover. I am supposed to be
getting over it
.

Madame Olga had offered her the South of France, Spain, somewhere hot.

‘You need to recuperate, my darling,’ she told Hester. ‘You need sunshine. To lie in the sun and get the heat in your bones.’

‘No, no sun,’ Hester said. She wanted the cold. She wanted to step into a block of ice and stay there forever. ‘But please as far away from Gullane as possible.’

Brighton was as distant from Scotland as you could
get before falling into the sea, and she and Madame Olga were now residents of the White Cliffs Hotel, which was hardly the Royal Albion or the Grand, but which was quiet and pleasant enough. They had taken two adjoining rooms with full board for a whole month, and even after a week Hester wondered how she was going to survive the days.

Madame Olga loved the Sunporch, a kind of enclosed balcony furnished with overstuffed armchairs and small tables, and they spent a great deal of time there, with Hester staring at the vast swathe of steel-grey water stretching out before her and wishing that she could walk into it and never come back to the shore. The Sunporch was the pride and joy of Mrs Norrington, the manageress, and she regarded those few old people who sometimes sat there with maternal benevolence. For Hester, she had nothing but awed admiration. Madame Olga had exaggerated Hester’s fame as a ballerina and the ‘ill-health’ that she was presently suffering and, as a consequence, they were being very well looked after.

Today, for example, Edmund was coming to tea. That meal was usually taken in the Residents’ Lounge, but Mrs Norrington had said, ‘For you, Madame Rakovska, I’m happy to serve it on the Sunporch. I’ll keep an eye on comings and goings and as soon as your guest arrives, I’ll bring everything in.’

‘She is expecting maybe someone famous,’ Madame Olga said, peering through the rain-streaked windows, on the lookout. ‘And I did not tell her it was only Edmund, of course. Let her have some pleasant anticipations, yes?’

Hester nodded. Did she want to see Edmund? He had written to her often, begging her to let him come and talk to her; asking to see her over and over again until she had no strength left to say no. Now that she’d
agreed, however, she no longer knew whether she was capable of sitting in a room and behaving normally. Part of her wanted to see him. She longed for someone who wasn’t bound up in her agony to tell her about the rest of the world, about everything that was happening that wasn’t about her, how
she
felt, how much
she
was hurting. But I don’t know if I’m ready, she thought. A kind of panic was making it very hard for her to breathe. What will I say? How will I greet him? She blinked very hard to stop the already gathering tears from falling. Then she sat up a little straighter.

Don’t be a fool. It’s Edmund, she told herself. There’s nothing to be afraid of. It will be wonderful to see him. I want to be comforted.

‘I think,’ Madame Olga was standing with her face almost pressed up against the glass, ‘I think it is, yes, it is, Edmund, and …’

There were two men coming through the revolving doors. One of them was Edmund, hatless even in this weather and behind him … it was only two steps from the entrance to the Sunporch and there he was, behind Edmund and striding towards her.

Hester closed her eyes. If I don’t open them for a very long time, she thought, it won’t be true. If I stop breathing now, this instant, then I’ll never have to open my eyes and look at him. If it is him. It is. It’s Adam. Edmund has brought Adam here. Brought him to see me without telling me. Without asking my permission.

The fury, the rage. It was as though someone had set a match to everything that she was, everything she felt, and had burned her heart to ashes.

‘Hester, Hester darling,’ Edmund said and hugged her, pressing her against his coat. Hester stood there, stiff and angry, unable to speak. ‘I’ve brought Adam,
Hester. He … I thought it best if we could, well, you know. Meet. And speak. Have tea or something.’

He laughed, but without mirth, and still Hester said nothing. She sat down on her chair and didn’t lift her eyes from the carpet. One huge red flower merged into another and Hester concentrated on those. Don’t look up, she told herself. Don’t meet his eyes. But here he was, sitting down in the chair next to her. How did he dare? How could he? How could Edmund do such a thing? Of course he hadn’t consulted her. He knew very well what her response would have been.

I can’t stay here, she thought. I can’t have tea with Edmund and Adam. I am
not
going to talk about what happened. I refuse. Mrs Norrington was in the Sunporch now, and two young women were following her, carrying cake stands and tea trays. Hester looked at her own hands in horror.

‘Darling Hester,’ said Madame Olga, ‘we will drink some tea and then we will talk. Yes, I will go and let you speak with your friends alone. This is what you wish, isn’t it?’

‘No,’ Hester said. She was aware, as she was often aware when she was on stage, of being somehow outside her own body. Here is a young woman and she is about to make a scene. She is going to make a spectacle of herself. She can’t help it. If she doesn’t say what she thinks, her heart will explode. She is not going to behave well. She turned to Edmund.

‘Edmund, I thought I could trust you and I see I can’t. I don’t want to have tea with you. How
could
you? How could you have thought … You knew, you
knew
I wouldn’t want to see him.’

Until that moment, she’d kept her eyes turned away from Adam. In that first glimpse of him in the doorway, she’d absorbed everything about him, the hollow cheeks, the dark circles under his eyes. Good,
she thought. He looks as though he hasn’t slept for weeks and I hope that’s true. But now I must say something to him. She took a deep breath and moved till she was standing in front of him.

‘Adam,’ she said, and as she spoke she surprised herself by how calm she sounded. ‘I didn’t want to see you ever again, but Edmund has done this and it can’t be undone. I still don’t want to see you. We had a son, and he died. That’s all I have to say to you. Goodbye.’

‘Hester, please,’ Adam spoke and his voice made her shiver. ‘Please speak to me. Please sit down.’

The calmness left her. She could feel every word tearing at her throat. ‘Don’t you dare to tell me when I should sit and when I should speak. I don’t want to speak to you. There’s nothing to say. Go away and don’t come near me ever, ever again.’

She turned to Edmund and went on screaming. ‘And I don’t want to see you either, Edmund. You’re always so sure you know what to do and what’s best and this isn’t. Do you hear me? This is
not
best. You’ve hurt me and I don’t know how I’m going to be able to—’

She couldn’t continue. She ran out of the Sunporch and through the revolving doors and out on to the Front before anyone could stop her. Good, good, she thought. Let it blow. Let it blow me away. She ran towards the sea and the wind pulled at her clothes and twisted her hair and tossed salt spray into her face where it mixed with the tears that were pouring down her cheeks. Oh, Edmund, Edmund, she thought. What have you done? Why did you bring him? How will I ever be able to speak to you again, when all I feel is fury and betrayal?

‘Hester?’ There he was, bloody Edmund, always trying to help. ‘Hester, you can’t do this. You’ll catch pneumonia. Come back inside. He’s gone. Adam’s gone. He won’t come back. I’m sorry.’

She let herself be led inside after a while. I’ve become, she thought, like one of those shells down on the seashore, thin and white and hollowed-out.
Sorry
, Edmund kept saying,
sorry
, as though that were any help at all. Hester wondered whether a time would ever come when she’d be able to forgive him.

2 January 1987

Hester stood at the window of the Office just after breakfast and thought, if you were to design the perfect winter day it would look exactly like what she could see at this moment. The sky was cloudless, and so pale a blue that it was nearer to white or silver. The temperature had fallen overnight, and on every blade of grass, every branch and leaf, the frost glittered and shone in the misty sunshine. The highest parts of the moors in the distance were covered with snow. There was even a bird – perched Christmas-card style on the gate – a robin? It was hard to see from where she was. She was happy that Edmund would see Wychwood looking its absolute winter best.

She could sense her heart beating rather more quickly than usual. Edmund … This is ridiculous, she thought, I’ve known him for over thirty years. We’ve been through so many things together. I’m not going to sit here waiting. I’ll go for a walk, just up to the end of the village and back.

She put on her boots and coat and left the house, walking quickly and breathing in the clear air to calm herself. She recalled the bleak months that followed the only time in her life when she and Edmund had quarrelled. Those days were so lonely, she thought. For both of us. Poor Edmund not only had me refusing to see him but also quarrelled with Adam. When she and Edmund had at last put what happened in
Brighton behind them, he confessed to her that Adam had also felt betrayed.
He said he thought you’d agreed
, said Edmund.
He said I told him you had, which I didn’t. I would never have done that
.

It might be ages before he gets here, she thought. The last postcard she’d had from him wasn’t very specific. The message on the back read,
Will be with you as soon as I can on Jan. 2nd. Can’t wait to see you. All my love. Really. Edmund
.

She noticed that the gates were standing open as she walked back to Wychwood. Did that mean he was here already? Hester started to walk up the drive, and then she saw him. He was standing next to his car, holding his arms out. She flung herself at him and felt herself folded into his embrace. Then she burst into tears, unable to hold down what she was feeling for a moment longer.

‘Oh, God, Edmund, I’m sorry, I can’t help it. I’m so … oh, I must stop. I’m so happy to see you. That’s it. I’m so relieved you’re here.’

‘Hester, darling! How lovely to see
you
. It’s all right. I’m here now!’

Hester couldn’t speak. She allowed herself to relax in Edmund’s embrace for a moment and then stepped back. She smiled weakly. ‘Crying into your coat again! How many garments of yours have I ruined over the years?’ She smiled. ‘Let’s go inside. I’ve missed you. And it’s freezing.’

*

Silver was making an effort to put everything but the music out of her head. She and Hugo were alone in the rehearsal room, and she was going through the fiendish sequence of steps that he’d devised for the Angel’s solo, which just happened to come immediately before her
pas de deux
with Nick. There were the
jetés en tournant
, a whole run of
entrechats
and, in addition, there was the vibration that Hugo wanted for her arms. She’d pointed out to him that it was going to be a bit of a problem having wings, which would certainly interfere with her sightlines when she was trying to fix on a point during the turns. That was a challenge even without this new vibration idea he’d come up with. She’d tried to explain how hard it was going to be, all that turning; was there any other reason for having so much except to show off the wonderful wings she was going to be wearing? She’d asked Hugo and he’d explained.

‘I want you to be airborne. The vibrations are to show the movement of air in your wings. I want your dancing to be almost like flight.’

‘If you wanted flight, you should have hired a bird,’ she muttered under her breath the last time they’d been through the routine.