AS WILLIAM DRIVES to his office in Ashburton next morning his head is full of Fiona. It is a while now since he had such close contact with her and he is unsettled by it. Since Andy and Charlotte moved to Brockscombe there has been a little more interaction between William and Fiona, but not much. Fiona makes it clear that she comes to see Andy and, more recently, Oliver, and on some visits he hasn’t seen her at all.
Now things have changed. Last evening when he got back from the office she was still at Brockscombe, her car parked in his space in the barn so that he had to leave his own in the yard. Kat was listening to some music that sounded like a cross between modern jazz and medieval madrigals, and reading a manuscript. A friend, Michel Brot, a dancer and choreographer who is writing his memoirs, has asked her to check that he is getting his facts right. He sends her each chapter as he finishes it and she is enjoying the process immensely.
‘We’re in Leningrad,’ she said, flourishing a page. ‘In the seventies. La Fille mal gardée. Miche makes it sound so exciting. All I remember is how cold and hungry we always were.’ She looked at William more carefully. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Fiona,’ he said briefly. ‘I see she’s still here.’
‘Helping with Ollie’s bath, then Charlotte invited her to supper. Just as well you warned us she was here. Charlotte was a bit twitchy about it.’
‘She completely threw me,’ he admitted angrily. ‘I mean, can you imagine having her next door? Here for Christmas and Easter? Turning up at weekends?’ Even as he said it he felt guilty. After all, he lives next door to Charlotte and Oliver – and Andy, when he’s home – so why shouldn’t Fiona? ‘Don’t answer that,’ he said, sitting down at the table. ‘Tell me about Leningrad.’
Now he knows that the root of his anger is buried deep in resentment. He thought that he was over it but the corroding stain of jealousy is seeping up again; those almost forgotten sensations of hurt that Fiona should leave him so easily after more than twenty happy years. It was quite early on that she told him about Sam. She couldn’t help herself: the longing to speak the beloved’s name, to confide, overcame any sense of decency or even kindness. She needed to talk, to tell and tell again, whilst he watched and listened, disbelieving and helpless. It was as if she expected him to understand, even approve her new passion, as if it were natural that he should accept this supporting role in her new exciting life. Dear, boring old William relegated to faithful best friend. It was her right to be happy, to be in love: her feelings must take precedence over his and Andy’s.
As he crosses the A38 and takes the back lane to Ashburton, William thinks about this. It was ever thus. Perhaps he encouraged it back in those early days when he was in love with her. Fiona was demanding, amusing, driven. Her energy and ambition delighted him. He was so proud of her. That she should be head-hunted by a London practice did not surprise him though the prospect of how it should be managed appalled him. When she saw that he was not prepared to sacrifice his own way of life to this new, untested one, she’d convinced him that weekending would be the answer; that she might be able to do some of the work from home. Neither of them had taken Sam into account. How painful it was when William first suspected: watching her walking around with secrets in her eyes, the fleeting smile on her lips, the surreptitious glances at her phone. Oddly, to begin with, it made her more generous, more loving, towards him. When he challenged her she made a joke about it: there was this guy, one of the directors, who had taken a fancy to her. It was all a bit crazy, a bit mad.
When, wonders William now, did Sam stop being a joke and become a threat? From being slightly hyper, Fiona grew sullen; William’s suspicions, his questions, began to irritate her. When she saw that he was not content simply to be prepared to sit and watch her being happy, to listen to her London stories and how Sam pursued her, she became distant. Now it became clear that their life together in Ashburton simply wasn’t enough and when finally he confronted her she chose London.
Sometimes he wonders if she saw the whole thing as a game – after all, she didn’t want a divorce – and perhaps she always suspected that once the game was played out she might come back.
William shakes his head: it’s too far-fetched, too complicated a concept. Nevertheless, he feels threatened – and helpless.
Kat is practising. Each day, using the Rayburn’s rail as a barre, she works through her routine: pliés, battements, développés, port de bras. She likes to keep fit, stretched, supple. Miche’s autobiography has unsettled her, reminded her of times past, awoken a hunger within her.
‘Do you remember Jazz Calendar?’ Miche has written in a card accompanying the latest chapter. ‘The first time we partnered each other in “Friday’s Child”?’
Of course she remembers. Kat rises on her toes, turns; right hand on the barre, left outstretched, she begins her pliés ‘on the other side’. When she was just eighteen she’d danced the narcissistic ‘Monday’s Child’: androgynous, stylish, her hands flat against her thighs, she’d flaunted before an imaginary mirror. Later, when she joined Miche’s dance company, they’d danced the raunchy ‘Friday’s Child’ ‘loving and giving’ pas de deux – ‘sex through classicism’, as someone said – to Richard Rodney Bennett’s jazz score. What fun they’d had back then: what tears and tantrums and joy. When she discovered her own talent as a choreographer – the exciting prework in some small out-of-the-way studio, sculpting on the young dancers, allowing Gyorgy’s music to inspire the steps – Miche had encouraged and supported her.
‘Come back to us,’ he says from time to time. ‘Come home, Irina. There’s still work to be done. You’ve mourned Gyorgy long enough.’
In the autumn he will be auditioning dancers for a new musical scheduled for the West End and he wants her to work with him on the choreography. The temptation is very strong. Yet she is fearful; fearful that her talent died with Gyorgy, that she is too old . . .
‘Too old?’ roars Miche contemptuously, when she says this. ‘Rubbish, darling. Look at Gillian Lynne.’
He always says this – and indeed, Gillian Lynne is her icon.
‘I’m thinking about it,’ she says to Miche. ‘Honestly. Give me time.’
‘There isn’t any time,’ he says brutally. ‘I want you on board for this production, Irina.’
Yet it is hard to consider leaving Brockscombe, which has been her first real home since her childhood. Here is security, peace, family. All those years of squalid digs and dreary rented rooms, draughty church halls and stuffy studios, trains and planes and luggage . . .
A knock on the door, a voice calling, ‘Hello, anybody in?’ disturbs her reverie and she flings open the kitchen door to see Cousin Francis standing on the step, leaning on his stick. The mere sight of his tall, angular shape, his brown eyes which are already crinkling into that familiar smile, warms her heart.
‘Francis,’ she says. ‘Darling Francis. However are you?’
He follows her slowly into the kitchen, unfazed by her leggings and oversize sweatshirt and soft ballet shoes: he’s seen Kat practising many times.
‘I’m fine,’ he answers. ‘I decided I needed a little outing so I whizzed down on the stairlift and here I am.’
She gives him a little hug, feeling the bony cage of his ribs, aware of his frailty. ‘Coffee?’
‘Oh, yes, please. So what’s going on?’
She turns with the coffee pot in one hand. ‘Going on?’
Francis shrugs. ‘I just feel that something might be.’
‘Well.’ Kat busies herself with making coffee whilst she decides how much to tell him and settles on the truth. ‘We had an unexpected visit from Fiona. She wants to get a bolt hole close at hand so as to be more involved with Ollie. Actually, she was hoping for the other cottage.’
He raises his eyebrows and she bursts out laughing. ‘Well, you can imagine. A cat among the pigeons, Francis darling. Thank goodness we’ve got Tim in situ. She wasn’t best pleased, our Fi. Tim was brilliant.’
She puts the coffee pot and mugs on the table and sits down opposite.
‘What do you think of Tim?’ she adds idly.
His eyes drift away from hers, looking in the distance, as if he is able to see deep into Tim’s mind and heart. Francis has a habit of doing this, which always gives Kat an odd sense of being in the presence of someone who has an extra dimension: who can see and hear things unknown to her. It’s as if he is consulting a wisdom much greater than his own and she watches him, almost holding her breath.
‘I like Tim,’ Francis says, ‘but I sense a mystery. I can’t decide whether he is running away from something or towards something.’
‘Maybe,’ she suggests, ‘he’s just taking time out. You know. Between one thing and the next?’
Francis’ eyes drift back again and he smiles at her reassuringly. ‘Very likely. Has Mattie been down to see him?’
Kat frowns at the question. ‘No. Why?’
Francis shrugs. ‘Just wondered. And what about you?’
‘Me?’ She pours coffee, slightly distracted, wondering if he is able to read her thoughts. ‘What about me?’
‘Are you still taking time out?’
Kat heaves a deep breath. ‘Why do you ask that?’
He indicates the untidy pile at the end of the table: the manuscript with its heading, A Dancer’s Life for Me: the photos of dancers and stage sets that are splayed out beside it; a CD by a modern jazz composer.
‘But Brockscombe is home,’ she says, as if she is answering his question.
‘Is it?’
She stares at him, shocked. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Home is where you live and work and have your being. Refuge is a place where you hide to lick your wounds and recover from pain.’
‘So you think Brockscombe is my refuge?’
‘How long is it now?’
She thinks about it. ‘Two years, nearly three. I still miss him.’
His glance lingers on her practice clothes. ‘You’ll always miss him. So what? You shouldn’t let it disable you.’
Kat begins to laugh. ‘Thank you for your sympathy, dear Francis.’
‘Sympathy.’ Francis snorts derisively. ‘So undermining.’ He leans towards her. ‘Why would you want sympathy? You’ve got all this . . .’ he hesitates and then taps his head, ‘. . . this stuff going to waste.’ He nods towards the CD. ‘Go on. Let’s hear it.’
She hesitates, then gets up and puts it into the CD player on the shelf. The kitchen is filled with the sound of a Spanish guitar, drums, percussion, and Kat stands still whilst movement and colour and shapes fill her vision. Francis watches her, finishes his coffee.
‘I’ve always wished I could dance,’ he says wistfully. ‘Always had two left feet.’
She blinks at him as if he is out of focus, and then crosses the floor to bend over him and kiss his thin cheek.
‘You are a blessing,’ she says.
‘Does that mean I get more coffee?’
‘Yes,’ she says, ‘it does.’
‘And then, dear Kat, you should get back to your practising.’
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Yes, do you know, I really think I should.’
Francis pauses in the sunshine, grateful for its warmth. Slowly, carefully, he makes his way around to the front of the house and stands looking out across the carriage drive, beyond the sunken ha-ha to the woods. Here, out of the shelter of the courtyard, it is much colder: the easterly March wind scours and polishes the clear empty sky to an icy blue. Francis huddles himself more deeply into his coat. He is thinking of Kat’s question and what it is about Tim that connects with his, Francis’, own experience. There is something he recognizes in the younger man: something held back. Tim, he suspects, is a man with a secret – and Francis knows all about secrets.
As he looks at the airy clouds of spring blossom, listens to the clamour of birdsong, he reminds himself not to be hubristic. It is not in his gift to protect all these people who have gathered by chance here at Brockscombe. Nevertheless, he cares about them – his little surrogate family – and even Tim, who is a stranger to them, has awakened his paternal instincts.
It is odd for such a young man to require a sabbatical, to give up a good job and come to live amongst strangers. It seems that he has no family, though Mattie has known him for a while and is clearly fond of him. No friends visit him. Perhaps it is true that Tim is looking for a new direction in his life but Brockscombe seems an unlikely place to choose: so remote and out of the world.
‘Mind your own business,’ Francis tells himself, but he offers up a prayer for wisdom, lest help should suddenly become necessary, and feeling comforted he goes back to his quarters on the top floor.