Echoes of the Dance (26 page)

This time, when very reluctantly he glanced at his watch, she felt a triumphant satisfaction. She'd absorbed his attention so totally that he'd forgotten everything else for that short space of time: her pride was restored.

It was only after he'd gone and she was walking home that she realized that she hadn't told him about Mim's offer.

Paul arrived home very late. He'd spent part of the evening with the widow of his predecessor who, to his great relief, was preparing to vacate the house at last. She'd made arrangements to move nearer to her daughter and family in Gloucestershire, she told him, and the house would be available for him by the end of the following week. Paul had already been shown over the house when he'd applied for the post but, so soon after her husband's unexpected death, he hadn't felt able to ask questions or inspect the place too closely. Now, she seemed almost relieved to be going, encouraging him to look about at leisure and explaining the secrets of the rather antiquated central heating.

She'd made coffee and taken it into the garden that looked across the playing fields towards Larkhall village.

‘Such a good garden for small children,' she'd said rather wistfully. ‘You have two, I think you said? Will they be able to join you now? I've felt rather guilty to be holding you up from moving in but it's taken a little while to find the right house.

My daughter wanted me to stay with her in the interim but I was hoping not to have to put my things into store, you see.'

He'd reassured her that she hadn't inconvenienced him, that Ellie hadn't been able to leave her job at short notice and that he was hoping that his family would join him sometime in the summer holidays.

Well, that was true enough: it was exactly what he was hoping. As he unpacked his shopping he was filled with relief at the prospect of the move. Things were becoming so difficult here with Daisy in such close proximity and he was unwilling to hurt her.

Earlier, when he'd heard the knock at the door, his instinct had been to get out of the flat: this was still neutral ground between the terraced house in Clapham and the school house at Beechcroft. In keeping the flat private it was as if his marriage remained intact within it, in limbo but safe, until he made the final move. He knew that as regards to Daisy he was behaving speciously: that sooner or later he must tell her the truth. Each time he left her he vowed to himself that he would be honest with her on the very next occasion they were together.

It wasn't just that he was being a coward, he told himself, or that he was hedging his bets in case Ellie really pulled the plug on their marriage: it was because he guessed that Daisy was in a vulnerable state, both mentally and physically, and he hesitated to deal her a further blow. The move out to Beechcroft would take the pressure off them both.

He closed the refrigerator door and looked at the clock. He hadn't heard from Ellie apart from a text message yesterday, to say that they were all safely home in London, and he'd texted back telling her the news about the house. As he thought about the holiday, he remembered how Daisy had thanked him earlier for the postcard and he felt a twinge of guilt. Daisy had no idea that Ellie and the children had been at the cottage in Salcombe with him. It wasn't that he wanted to deceive Daisy; it was just that it was simply impossible to discuss his marriage with her. He was very attracted to her and, if Ellie refused to join him in Bath and the marriage ended, he knew that Daisy would become very important to him. He simply wasn't ready, however, to enter into that kind of conversation with her about his private life.

He cursed at the complications of relationships, especially with women, thinking again about the holiday; recalling Ellie's reaction to the postcard.

CHAPTER THIRTY

‘Writing postcards?' Ellie pauses beside the table, baby Alice in her arms. ‘For heaven's sake send one to your mother. She's only still speaking to me because of the children. Who are you writing to?'

He decides that it would be silly to lie about it: in fact the truth might be valuable here. So far the holiday has been an unhoped-for success. The children are delighted to see him, Tom especially, and Ellie is relaxed. A rather delightfully teasing atmosphere is quickly established between them: an odd combination of familiarity and shyness that lends a frisson of excitement to the normal family scene. This is assisted by the presence of their closest friends, Jo and Ed, who are intent on bringing Ellie and Paul together again. Though they are tactful, Paul senses that they are on his side and it helps that they have already made the move from London, though Ed still commutes in from Kent.

Of the two women Ellie is the younger and more impressionable, and it becomes clear to Paul that she is enjoying being at the centre of the discussions that take place at suppertime when the children are in bed. The foursome gives her the opportunity to make points that, were she and Paul on their own, might simply lead to bitter arguments and angry silences. He begins to suspect that things are less bleak than he feared. Ellie is cross that he has acted without her approval: she wants to punish him for it, to show him that he can't dictate to her, but somehow the situation has spiralled out of control and she needs a mechanism that allows her to back down gracefully.

He says as much to Ed, who is not so patient as Jo with Ellie's behaviour.

‘I was beginning to think that she'd met someone,' says Paul, voicing his greatest fear. ‘I know all her friends are in London and she loves working at the playschool a couple of mornings a week but I've had difficulty believing that these were more important to her than me and the kids. I'd begun to believe that either she'd met someone else or she just didn't care. It throws you a bit: makes you wonder whether you've got things wrong and your marriage isn't what you thought it was.'

Ed shakes his head. ‘She's painted herself into corner,' he says, ‘and you need to offer her a plank so that she can get out. But it has to be an acceptable plank; one that enables her to hang on to her self-respect while she's crawling across it.'

Meanwhile Paul overhears odd snatches of the talks Jo and Ellie have while they are sitting on the beach with their children – Jo and Ed have two small children of their own. Jo's comments are of a practical nature:

‘. . . after all, how would you manage to earn a living whilst Alice is so small? Childcare is so expensive . . . Could you afford to continue to live where you are? I suppose you might find a flat if you really can't face the move to Bath . . . Shunting the children between Bath and London will be hell. Paul must miss them terribly. He's so good with them, isn't he, and they absolutely adore him.'

Ellie is beginning to shift from what she has imagined is a position of sassy defiance – a youthful independence flying in the face of the stodgy norm – and is rather envying her friend's placid confidence. Jo is expecting her third child and she is luscious with a sexy fecundity, peacefully maternal with the babies, calm and radiantly happy. As she describes the advantages of the village school with its own playschool, and the network she is already creating with the other mothers, she is aware of the envy she is arousing in Ellie and her descriptions climb to new heights of desirability. Listening to Jo, Paul occasionally detects a tiny note of self-convincing here – perhaps Jo misses the buzz of London more than she cares to admit. Nevertheless, she makes their new life sound idyllic: walking in the woods with the children, strolling down to the local pub, the puppy they intend to buy when they get back after the holiday.

He senses that Ellie is wavering, though he puts no pressure on her. He simply devotes himself to Tom and baby Alice, knowing that Ellie sees how strong the bond is between him and his children.

‘Look, I know it's the big one,' Ed says one evening when the children are sound asleep, exhausted after a day of sand and sun. He leans across the table to fill up the glasses with more wine. ‘Leaving London is like really accepting that you're not young any more. You've begun to think about the kids and schools and being in the country. London represents our youth: theatres and restaurants and all those things—'

‘Even if you never go out any more,' interrupts Jo, ‘because you can't get a baby-sitter and anyway you can't afford it. We miss it – of course we do – but the extra space in the house and the peace of being in the country is fantastic.'

‘But I just don't feel ready for that,' argues Ellie – but the familiar cry sounds less confident. She is ready to be persuaded. ‘All my friends are still in London. I'd miss having everything right on the doorstep.'

‘But Bath, Ellie,' says Jo. ‘Christ! You've still got everything on your doorstep. It's a fantastic city. We'd kill to be able to live in Bath.'

Paul can see that now Ellie is influenced by
their
envy and he wisely says nothing to advance his own cause.

Ed is more upfront. ‘Anyway,' he says, ‘we're talking marriages here. Surely you can't really tell me that living in London is more important than being with Paul, all of you together as a family. It's a bloody good job and a nice big house to go with it. Come on, Ellie. Time to grow up.'

Paul sees Jo's warning frown, guesses that Ed has been told to be sensitive, but, surprisingly, Ellie takes it very well. Of course, they've all had rather a lot to drink, and the holiday mood is helping, but it wouldn't take too much for the whole conversation to swing out of control and Paul decides to intervene.

‘Don't bully her, Ed,' he says. ‘She's old enough to make her own decisions. Is that someone crying?'

He gets up and goes out into the hall. He hasn't heard anything but feels that it's time to break it up and let the conversation channel off into a different direction.

‘You're crazy,' he hears Ed say to Ellie. ‘Anyone else would be telling you to stuff it. Perhaps he's found an obliging French mistress.'

‘Oh, shut up, Ed,' says Jo. ‘Give it a rest. Coffee anybody?'

Paul hears the chair legs squeak as they are pushed back over the slate floor and he hurries a few steps up the stairs. When Ellie appears in the hall he seems to be coming back down. He smiles and shakes his head.

‘Hearing things,' he says. She looks rather preoccupied, shaken by Ed's remark perhaps, and he smiles at her. ‘How about a stroll on the beach? Jo will keep an ear open. It's fantastic out there.'

He tucks her arm in his, just as he does with Daisy, and they walk slowly over the sand. He is gratified that she seems to take no interest in the calm beauty of the night but begins to ask questions about his work and his colleagues. He tells her about one or two of them, deliberately sounding rather vague, and her interest sharpens as though she suspects him of hiding something.

So it is that when he sits down at the table to write his postcard to Daisy he decides not to prevaricate.

‘Writing postcards?' she asks casually. ‘Who are you writing to?'

‘It's the girl who lives in the flat upstairs,' he says. ‘Daisy Quin. She's a ballet dancer but she's got this serious injury and has been left behind while the company goes on tour. It's really tough on her. She's rather good fun. I took her to the ballet. Remember I told you I'd been given a couple of tickets but you couldn't make the trip down? She was thrilled. It was really interesting to see it from the professional dancer's point of view.'

Careful, he tells himself. Don't overdo it.

He bends more closely over the card so that Ellie can't see the words and he takes it to the post-box himself. After this interchange Ellie is rather quiet but he pretends not to notice, playing a noisy game with the children and then taking them off to swim.

By the time the holiday ends he can see that Ellie has been shocked into a new awareness of the situation and, when they say goodbye, she holds him tightly before she gets into the car and drives away.

Paul finished his beer and put the can in the bin. He thought of Daisy's expression when he'd made some excuse about not going up to her flat and his own reaction to it: he simply hadn't been able to let her walk away with that look of disappointment and embarrassment on her face, yet he knew that it was unfair to give her any kind of encouragement. If only he could get through the next few days without seeing too much of her, then perhaps the move out of Henrietta Street might solve the problem naturally and in its own way.

In his study he paused to look at the photographs of Ellie with Alice and Tom. Perhaps he might have a call from Ellie soon telling him that she and the children would be joining him at the end of term. He'd decided to let her make the next move but, even so, he heaved a great, longing sigh: he missed them all so much.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

When Daisy got out of bed on Thursday morning she knew that she simply couldn't waste time hoping that Paul would appear at her door. On the Wednesday morning, after their visit to Bar Chocolat, he'd gone off to school early and must have returned very late. This happened fairly frequently – when he had evening duties, overseeing prep and bedtime – and she'd become resigned to it, but the prospect of another day spent waiting for him to come back after school to Henrietta Street was too dismal to contemplate.