The Stillness the Dancing

by Wendy Perriam

  ‘Good boy,’ she whispered, letting it sniff her hand, fondling its ears until it quietened.

  Was she simply torturing herself by staying in a house where she couldn’t escape Neil’s presence—his wife, his son, his pets? Even when he was absent at the office, his possessions seemed to taunt her. A pair of golf shoes lying in the kitchen or a tie flung casually across a chair could set off a flood of memories, emotions; mix rage with loss with pain with jealousy. Even in the spare room or the lumber room, she was still aware of him, as if he had left his smell on the whole house like a dog himself, cocking his leg, marking out his territory. In fact, it smelt of Bunny—her L’Air du Temps perfume, her rose verbena talc, the joss sticks she burnt in the ball ‘just for a giggle’.

  Morna could smell the joss sticks now—a faint tang of Eastern incense which didn’t fit the all-American dècor. She stopped a moment, fumbled for the light switch which had shifted its position again as if to confuse her deliberately. There was Neil’s jacket hanging on a peg—a scarlet parka with purple bands across it—ridiculous for a man of forty-five. The Neil she had known and married had completely disappeared—the City Neil with his smart grey suit and camel coat, his black calf-leather shoes. Now he wore two-tone suede loafers beneath sky-blue slacks with a white rollneck on top. And that was office gear. For golf, he went still further, dared checks and stripes, jaunty little caps with pompoms on. She had never realised that one could feel such fury for a pompom—or a pair of acid yellow socks. Men wore brown or grey socks, navy blue, maroon, but never ever yellow. She couldn’t even blame the socks on Bunny. Neil had boasted about choosing them himself.

  She trailed into the sitting room, which Bunny called the Den, switched on the dimmest of the lamps so that she couldn’t see the photographs. They were bad enough in Chris’s room back home, but here they were in every room, charting the history of the second marriage—Neil and Bunny on their own, Neil and Bunny and the baby, Neil and Bunny and the toddler, Neil and Bunny and the toddler and the puppy. She turned her back on them, slumped down on the sofa. She had sat there last night, Dean on her lap, Neil beside her, the dog at her feet—part of the happy cosy family, keeping Neil up to date with his first home.

  ‘Oh no, the Harveys moved away some time ago. We’ve got new neighbours that side, and opposite they’re … Yes, the fruit trees are doing pretty well. The wasps got all the plums last year, but …’

  You didn’t sit and mumble bread-and-butter clichès to a man you had known almost twenty years, who had pounded and thrust into you, entrusted you with his semen some five thousand times, made a baby with you, seen you young, naked, weeping, sick, afraid. Bunny was catching up with her. They had each produced a child (one all), but Bunny could go on to have a second or a third, and as far as thrusting was concerned, if she and Neil did it twice a day, then …

  She jumped up as if to drag the two apart by force, sagged down again, confused. The problem was that Bunny was too damned kind, too bubblingly good-natured. She could have attacked a classic bitch, hated a scheming Other Woman—had one clinching row and then marched out. But it was Bunny, in fact, who kept urging her to stay. Most second wives would have shown coolness or contempt, or at least have kept their distance. But Bunny smiled and glowed, arranged treats and trips, car rides, hospitality, and seemed blithely unaware of the strangeness of the situation, accepting it as normal for ex-husband and ex-wife to sit side by side on one small sofa, partner her and Dean at ping pong, or sleep three doors down from each other.

  Morna sprang up again, retraced her steps to the stairs, feeling like a burglar creeping through the hushed and shadowy rooms. Other people’s houses often felt strange at first, as if you had put on a dress which didn’t fit, or were wearing your shoes on the wrong feet. But that normally wore off after a day or two, as you and the house shook down a bit, eased and trimmed to accommodate each other. Not here, though. She remained continually on edge, and the house, too, seemed to hold its breath, waiting tense and rigid for some row or outburst, some blazing confrontation. Bunny might be cheerful, but was that just a façade? Did all the trips and outings have some ulterior motive—bait in a trap about to close around her? Would the rosy glow suddenly cloud over, darken into a storm?

  She stopped where she was, aware that she was trembling. Stupid to get so overwrought, allow the heavy-breathing darkness to prey upon her nerves. Yet it felt so claustrophobic. She could see no chink of sky nor shred of garden. Night and nature wereboth shut firmly out behind the frilled and flounced entrenchments at every window. The doors were double-locked. The dog was awake again, not growling any longer but keeping her marked, watching her every move. There was no sign of the cat. It must be out on the tiles, searching for a mate. She longed for a mate herself, someone to snuggle up to, somewhere she belonged.

  She groped on towards the kitchen, paused outside. Bunny had urged her to treat the house as her own, helping herself to anything she wanted. She wanted a drink, in fact, something hot and soothing to calm her down, but it still seemed wrong just to barge in and make one. The kitchen was Bunny’s sanctum—her food in the larder, her weight-and-calorie-chart taped above the cake tins, Dean’s drawings on the walls.

  She slipped through the door, shut it noiselessly behind her, checked through the cupboard for Bunny’s herbal teas. She picked up a box of blueberry cheesecake mix—luscious purple topping, rich and crunchy base. The picture on the packet bore the same relation to the actual cake as a film star to a stand-in. They had tried it out that evening for dessert, after do-it-yourself hamburgers and instant chowder. Neil had gorged two helpings, both with synthetic cream on top. It infuriated her that he should demolish all that junk food and still look just as slim and actually more healthy than when she had fussed about his diet, bought him low-fat cuts of meat or low-cholesterol margarine. Perhaps it was just his sun tan, or his all-American clothes.

  She had found the herbal teas now, read the blurb on all the packets, took down the camomile—for ‘jangled nerves and sleeplessness’. She switched on the kettle, sat at the table waiting for it to boil, a second Morna looking down at her. Dean had chosen her as his subject in his latest work of art; showed her overweight, lopsided, with violent carrot-coloured hair and purple eyes. ‘I LOVE MONA’ was scribbled underneath. (Chris had added the ‘R’ in a different colour and out of line.) Morna sat staring at the wobbly scarlet letters. The love was reciprocated—a painful complicated love which had something of envy in it. This was the son she might have had herself. He had taken a fancy to her, followed her round the place, joined with Bunny in begging her not to leave. Nobody was neutral in the house, nothing simple or straightforward. Chris was in her own camp, yet was fast becoming Neil’s new slave; Dean was Bunny’s son, yet spent more and more time with his new English stepmother. He even looked like her—fair, plump, blue-eyed. For one traitorous second, when he was sitting on her lap and had turned those huge eyes up to hers, she had resented Chris’s plainness, craved a pretty child, then buried the thought as unworthy and unfair. But to have both of them …

  The kettle was almost boiling. She switched it off to prevent it shrilling out, started to fill her mug; swung round suddenly as she heard footsteps at the door.

  ‘N … Neil!’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I heard a noise and thought it might be Dean.’ He was already backing off, the door half-closed again.

  ‘No, wait!’ she called, darting after him and wrenching it open. ‘Stay a moment. Have a cup of tea. Don’t go. Please don’t go.’ She was pleading with him, begging, almost ashamed to hear the tremor in her voice. She had to keep him there, seize this one God-sent chance of talking to him on her own. He had always contrived never to be alone with her, never undefended, using Dean, Chris, Bunny as his bodyguard. There had also been the barrier of clothes. Now he was in pyjamas, which made him look vulnerable, yet also somehow dangerous. Every time she saw him, it was something of a shock to have him there in the flesh after so long a sep
aration—more so now, when that flesh was actually so close to her without the defence of vest, shirt, pants and trousers. His hair was ruffled, his feet bare. She glanced down at the feet—dark hairs on the toes, dark hair creeping up his legs, up, up to … Big Sam would be hanging loose, no longer caged in Y-fronts. She could almost glimpse him through the opening in the pyjama bottoms. If she reached out a hand, she could touch his tip. She edged away, appalled by her own feelings. She herself had only a loose robe on, one made of thin material. He could probably see the outline of her figure, the dark blur of her nipples. Had he forgotten how he used to kiss those nipples, suck them into his mouth?

  ‘S … Sit down,’ she mumbled, pulling out a chair. Neil was still standing rigid at the door.

  ‘It’s … er … late,’ he said. ‘Best talk in the morning.’

  ‘It’s morning now.’

  Neil grimaced. ‘Middle of the night! I meant eight o’clock.’

  ‘B … But you always leave so early. You’re never here at eight.’

  ‘No, it’s Saturday tomorrow. I’m playing golf, but not till ten or so. We can have a chat at breakfast if you like.’

  A chat, yes—pointless, idle prattle about the garden or the waffles or whether they needed more chlorine in the pool, with Dean butting in every second minute and Chris jumping up and down and the dog barking at the postman. Playing happy families again.

  ‘Just have a cup of tea,’ she coaxed. ‘The kettle’s boiled, so it won’t take any time.’

  ‘I … I don’t drink tea.’

  Since when, she wondered? He had drunk three or four cups a day at Weybridge, taken his own Earl Grey to the office. ‘Well, coffee, then, or herb tea. I’m having camomile.’

  He suddenly strode across the room, reached up for a bottle of Bourbon concealed on a high shelf, poured himself a double. So he couldn’t face her without some fortification. She had noticed already how much more he drank—cocktails before dinner, whisky after it. Was that just America, the badge of wealth, success, or was he trying to drown some problem? Admittedly his job was very stressful, but there were also tensions at home. Even in four days, she had seen the tiny signs—his only half-concealed annoyance when Bunny’s friends breezed in, especially the more militant ones who downed his gin and then attacked him as a chauvinist; the pacing up and down when Bunny was still fussing with her face upstairs when they were already late for some appointment; the sudden coldness in his voice if she mentioned her masseur who was twenty-five and single. If only he would talk to her, break through the superficial gloss to reach the things that mattered. Yet there they were, standing like two strangers drawn up for a duel.

  She felt too tired for duelling, subsided into a chair. She could do with a drink herself, in fact, to dull the shock of being alone with him, having him so close. She glanced at his square and stubby hands, contradicted by the long lean torso, the tiny pricks of stubble on the usual morning-smooth chin. She had spent months and months remembering him and somehow got it wrong. It wasn’t just the clothes; wasn’t even the accent, although that had jolted her the first time she had heard it, and still grated on her nerves—a hybrid accent, which mixed gin-and-Jag Weybridge (fake itself since his father came from Penge) with a new Californian drawl.

  ‘Skol!’ he said, taking his first gulp of Bourbon. That was a Bunnyism. Bunny had picked up ‘Skol’ from a Scandinavian movie, used it ever since. Neil was always ready to extend his vocabulary. When he’d lived in England, it was her expressions he had cribbed, or even Bea’s. Now he borrowed Bunny’s, which didn’t suit him, only sounded bogus.

  ‘Do sit down,’ she urged, patting the seat beside her. ‘My neck’s aching with the strain of looking up at you.’ She tried to force a laugh, dispel the tension.

  He took a step towards the door, glass clutched in his hand, glanced up at the clock. ‘No, really, Morna, I must go back upstairs. Bunny will be wondering where …’

  ‘Oh, is she awake as well?’

  There was a short uneasy silence. Bunny always boasted that she slept like the proverbial log, claimed she would probably slumber on if they dropped the Bomb on Los Angeles itself.

  ‘She’s … er … got a bit of a headache.’

  ‘I’ll make her a herbal tea, then. One of them’s specially good for headaches. Rosemary, I think it is.’

  ‘She doesn’t want one.’

  ‘Have you asked her?’

  ‘Y … Yes. No.’ He was getting flustered, tripped on one of Dean’s toy cars, swore. ‘Oh, all right, make her one if you insist. But hurry up. It’s cold down here.’

  Stifling. Neil kept the heating on all night, although the daytime temperature was still in the seventies. The kitchen was the warmest room of all.

  Morna emptied out the hot water from the kettle, refilled it with cold. That would give her longer—three minutes, at least, until it boiled. One hundred and eighty seconds to cram in five whole years, not to mention the fourteen years before that—years which needed reassessing, analysing; things she had waited sixty months to say, rehearsed over and over again, lying on her own in Weybridge. She had received her decree absolute, filed it under Finished Business. But it wasn’t finished, wasn’t absolute. There were addenda, emendations, which no solicitor nor judge could ever put in writing, which only she could say, and say in person. She turned to face him, cleared her throat.

  ‘It’s … er … a nice kitchen,’ she stuttered. ‘Nice and large.’

  ‘Yeah. We had it extended, actually—knocked out that wall there and built the dining recess.’

  ‘Oh, yes? Are American builders good?’

  ‘Depends. I found this marvellous chap Greg. He had the whole thing completed in a month.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Mm.’ Neil was checking his reflection in the highly polished steel of the upper oven, surreptitiously smoothing back his hair. It was still shiny dark without a trace of grey. She wondered if he dyed it. Was he wondering the same of her? He seemed to be keeping his eyes away from her, studiously observing the floor, the wall, his own hands or feet or glass—anything but her body. Was he aware of it at all, scared he might remember old desires if he so much as glanced in her direction?

  His uneasiness was catching. She hardly knew where to look herself or how to keep her hands still. And why was it so difficult to talk openly and frankly, find any words at all? She had to take this chance before he disappeared, bounced back again at breakfast with his blandly public face. Yet every subject seemed embarrassing or dangerous, might frighten him away.

  ‘Well, wh … what do you think of your daughter?’ she asked in desperation. She used the phrase deliberately—your daughter. Wasn’t Chris the proof they had been friends once, lovers once, a proper family?

  ‘I like her,’ Neil said simply, sitting down at last, though at the far end of the table. ‘You’ve done a great job, Morna.’

  She almost jumped up and hugged him in sheer gratitude. It was the first and only time he had acknowledged that it was indeed a job to bring up a daughter—keep her well, sane, happy and at school.

  ‘She … er … takes after you, Neil. Don’t you think so?’

  He didn’t answer, gave a tiny shrug as if he were embarrassed, even suspicious. She had meant it as a compliment. Had he taken it as such, or as some veiled criticism? Everything they said was somehow double-edged, the old wounds still not healed, so that even a harmless phrase could chafe or sting. He was back to the Bourbon again, topping up his glass.

  ‘Mind you,’ he said, still clutching the bottle, hugging it against his chest as if it were a shield. ‘I’m not too happy about this Bristol business. I’d have preferred Cambridge for her myself.’

  ‘It’s not a question of preferring, Neil. Cambridge turned her down.’

  ‘You should have pursued it with them—demanded to know why. She seems bright enough to me.’

  Morna was silent, knew what he was thinking. ‘If I’d been there, whispered the right word in the
right ear, maybe a very special lunch, a memorable wine …’ That might work with certain sorts of admen, but not with Cambridge dons—or only if Neil were a don himself, did the thing more subtly, knew the esoteric passwords.

  ‘Bristol’s very sound,’ she said, feeling a sudden irrational dislike of the place. There were more crucial things to talk about than universities. She craved to go back, not forwards—back to when Chris was just an infant. They had conceived their baby when Bunny was still a child herself, a giggly kid in bobby socks and ponytail, swooning over pop-stars, playing for her high-school basketball team. They had to resurrect those years, rebuild the bridge between them.

  She could see the kettle steaming. In just a few seconds it would screech its interruption. Neil was still staring at the floor, fingers clasped too tightly round his glass. He could well be feeling the same churning mix of anger, pain, remorse. They both had masks on, had worn them since that first agonising evening when he had stepped into the kitchen saying ‘Hi!’, as if she were one more chum of Bunny’s, or some odd neighbour who had dropped in for a snack. They could strip the masks off now. They were too small and frail, in any case, to conceal the maelstrom of emotions raging underneath.

  She took a deep breath, sat on her hands to stop them trembling. ‘Listen, Neil, I think we ought to t … try and …’

  The kettle’s low rumble crescendoed to a piercing wail. Neil jumped up to switch it off, before the automatic cut-out did it for him.

  ‘Ah, good,’ he said. ‘That’s ready now. I’ll take it up.’

  ‘No!’ she snapped, snatching back the mug. ‘S … Sorry, Neil—it’s just that I … I haven’t sugared it yet.’

  ‘Bunny doesn’t take sugar.’