Dance While You Can

by Susan Lewis

  I looked up. ‘Sorry, I was miles away.’

  ‘Miles? Or a few hundred yards up the hill at Foxton’s?’

  ‘If you ask me, she’s hiding a secret lover up there somewhere,’ Peter chipped in. ‘Come on now, who is it? The Latin master? The English master? I know, it’s the Head!’

  ‘That’s typical of you,’ Ruth said. ‘Everything’s got to come down to the same thing in the end, sex.’ She turned back to me. ‘Ignore him.’

  I liked them so much. I wished I could introduce them to Alexander.

  ‘Tell me,’ Ruth said, ‘don’t you ever miss London? That was where you were before you came here, wasn’t it?’

  We chatted about where I used to work in London, and the places I used to go. Lord Belmayne’s visit to the school had unsettled me, and my mind was only half on what I was saying, but neither Ruth nor Peter seemed to notice.

  When I got back to the cottage at about half past ten, Alexander was waiting for me. I knew straightaway he’d been drinking; he was hiding in the bushes of the copse, and was making very heavy weather of getting out of them.

  ‘Where’ve you been?’ he said, as I tried to pull him up.

  ‘You shouldn’t be here. Where’s Henry?’

  ‘Gone to sign us in,’ he slurred. ‘Always good to see the old parents, you know, but they do go on. Any chance of some coffee?’

  When we got inside the cottage he insisted on making the coffee himself, then crashed over the arm of the sofa on his way to the kitchen. ‘Just how much wine did you have?’ I asked.

  ‘Not much. Must have been the brandy that did it.’

  I eased him onto a kitchen chair, and he sat patiently watching me until I went to the fridge for the milk, when he came and put his arms around me.

  ‘I wish we were married,’ he said, lifting my hair and kissing the back of my neck. ‘We will be, won’t we? One day, you will marry me?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, I will.’

  ‘I nearly told them about you today.’

  I tensed. ‘You didn’t though, did you?’

  ‘No. But I’m going to. During the summer break. I’ll go home for a few days, tell them then . . . .’

  I was shaking my head. ‘No, no, you mustn’t. Not yet.’

  ‘. . . then we’ll go away somewhere, just the two of us. Where do you want to go?’

  I started to protest. ‘Just answer the question,’ he said. ‘Where shall we go?’

  I could see there was no point in trying to reason with him now. ‘You suggest somewhere,’ I said.

  ‘Sark. It’s a little island just off Guernsey. Very romantic.’

  ‘Are we taking Henry with us?’

  ‘Are we hell!’

  I pushed him away and he followed me back into the sitting room. ‘I don’t suppose I could persuade you into making it a honeymoon, could I?’ he said, weaving his way round the sofa.

  ‘You could not.’

  ‘Thought you might say that. Still, we can always pretend. I’ll book it in the name of Mr and Mrs Belmayne, how does that sound?’

  I smiled as my heart turned over just to hear the words.

  ‘Ah, I almost forgot. Damn! I must have left it in the bushes. Now stay right there, and don’t move.’

  When he came back again he went to the record player, and put on the record he’d brought in with him. As the music began to play he pulled me to my feet and wrapped me in his arms. ‘Remember?’

  How could I forget? It was ‘Sealed With a Kiss.’

  ‘Happy birthday, and happy anniversary, darling,’ he said, as we started to dance.

  ‘Anniversary?’

  ‘It was a year ago tonight that I held you for the first time, and we danced to this record.’

  I looked up into his face, and wondered what I had done to deserve someone so hopelessly romantic.

  ‘Now close your eyes, I’ve got another surprise for you.’

  I did, and as his lips pressed against mine I felt him fumbling with my left hand. It was an eternity ring.

  ‘With my love, my heart, and my life,’ he whispered.

  When I went up to London for a couple of days, just before the end of term, I gave Alexander the excuse that I had to help Janice out of some trouble. He wasn’t very keen on my staying away overnight, but I pointed out that as he was due to play cricket at a school in Dorset, then he wouldn’t actually miss me too much.

  Miss Angrid was waiting for me when I got back, she was holding open the door to her surgery. ‘Elizabeth, come in will you?’ The moment I saw her face I knew something was wrong; despite the heat my hands turned to ice. All I could think was that something had happened to Alexander.

  She closed the door behind me and walked over to her desk. ‘What is it?’ I asked, and was shocked by the deadened sound of my voice. I tried again. ‘Paul Raven, wasn’t it measles?’

  ‘No, Elizabeth,’ she said, gravely, ‘it’s not Paul Raven.’ She looked down at the newspaper on her desk, then turned it to face me.

  I looked down at the page and at that moment I knew what it was like to feel the whole world fall out from under me. ‘EXCLUSIVE: LORD CHIEF JUSTICE’S SON IN LOVE NEST WITH GYPSY.’ For an instant I thought I was going to faint as the walls of the surgery seemed to close in around me.

  I had never dreamt, not even in my worst nightmares, of anything like this. Front page, glaring out for all the world to see. Huge black letters, and a picture of Foxton’s. A smaller picture in the bottom right hand corner showed the gypsy camp on Lord Belmayne’s estate. I read the first few lines of the article. ‘Following the allegations of gypsy child prostitution on the Suffolk estate of Lord Belmayne, the Lord Chief Justice, our reporters can now reveal that Lord Belmayne’s son, the Hon. Alexander Belmayne, has been pursuing a life of debauchery at the elite Foxton’s Boys’ School with a gypsy love of his own . . . .’ The words became a blur and I had to grip the edge of the desk to steady myself. Miss Angrid pulled up a chair for me, then handed me a glass of brandy.

  ‘Alexander,’ I said, trying to get up. ‘Where is he? Has he seen it?’

  Miss Angrid reached out to stop me. ‘He’s in the Headmaster’s study. With his father.’

  I closed my eyes and felt my hands begin to shake again. My stomach was churning, and I thought I was going to be sick. Miss Angrid pulled up a chair and sat next to me. She took my hands and started to rub them. ‘Elizabeth,’ she said, ‘look at me.’

  I dragged my eyes to her face.

  ‘I know you grew up on the fair, child, Mrs Carey told me when she gave me your references. There’s nothing to be ashamed of in that. But you’ve got to tell me, dear, are you anything to do with the Ince family?’

  I shook my head. ‘No.’

  ‘Then why does the newspaper say you are?’

  I swallowed hard, trying to control my voice, but it was coming in short gasps. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘The fairground, they must think . . .’ I looked at her. ‘I’m not a gypsy, not the way they mean it.’

  Miss Angrid squeezed my hand, then in her gruff, deep voice, she said, ‘Does Alexander know where you grew up?’

  ‘No. It never seemed important.’ I looked up at her again. ‘I knew that one day our relationship would have to end, and I’ve tried, honestly I have. But oh, don’t let it be like this. Please, Miss Angrid . . .’

  I jumped as the buzzer sounded on her phone. She patted my hand and went to answer it. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes. I will.’ Her face was grim as she put the receiver down. ‘It was the Head. Lord Belmayne wants to see you.’

  I couldn’t face him. My eyes, my face, my whole body ached. ‘They’re wrong! Please, Miss Angrid, you’ve got to tell them, they’ve made a mistake.’

  Miss Angrid placed her hands on my shoulders. ‘It’s too late, child. I tried to help you before, but now there’s nothing I can do.’

  Suddenly I was in her arms, and she was rocking me back and forth like a baby. When she let me go I saw tears wendin
g their way through the strange pattern of lines on her face. ‘I’m going to miss you, Elizabeth,’ she said. ‘Probably more than you’ll ever know.’

  I held my breath, trying to take it in.

  ‘I’ll walk down with you,’ she said, and led me to the Headmaster’s study.

  Lord Belmayne waited for the door to close behind the Head, then, keeping his hands clutched behind his back, he turned away from the window to face me. ‘So,’ he said, ‘you have succeeded in making fools of us all. I hope you are satisfied.’ He glared at me, but when I tried to speak my voice had disappeared.

  He leaned forward and put his hands on the desk. ‘You do realise you could have ruined my son’s life? But that’s what they put you here for, isn’t it? To make a laughing stock out of me – and out of my son, a seventeen-year-old boy. You failed the first time, didn’t you? Over that golf-cart business? He might have been expelled then, but for the fact that I happened to believe in his innocence. But he still took what punishment was going, because you insisted. And now it’s you again – you who have managed to get his name spread across this filthy rag. Except that your dirty little trick has misfired again, because he won’t be expelled this time either. Oh no! No, it’s you who are going, Miss Sorrill. But before you walk out of that door I want to know exactly who you are. Ince’s granddaughter, are you, or his niece? Or are you just an obliging friend?’

  ‘I’m nothing to do with the Ince family,’ I cried. ‘I’m not a gypsy. I didn’t . . .’

  ‘Listen to me, young lady. I did everything in my power last night to stop this going to press. In the end I failed, and do you know why? Because they’d done their research. They had the facts, and the facts speak for themselves. So I’ll ask you again, who are you?’

  ‘My dad was a showman. I grew up on the fairground, but. . .’

  ‘Fairgrounds! Gypsies! It’s all the same thing!’

  ‘No! It’s not! Please listen to me. I love your son, and he loves . . .’

  He slammed his fist down on the table. ‘Don’t waste your lies on me! You are nothing to my son, do you hear me, nothing! If you ever go near him again . . .’

  ‘I’d never do anything to hurt him, I swear it. Never!’

  ‘Names! I want the names of the people who put you up to this.’

  My hands were over my face. ‘It’s all a mistake. Ask

  Miss Angrid, she’ll tell you!’

  But he wouldn’t listen. He was determined to find a connection between me and Alfred Ince. And if there was no connection, as I insisted, then he wanted to know why I hadn’t told the truth about my past when I’d first come to the school. Why, of all the schools in England, I had chosen Foxton’s? And of all the boys in the sixth form, why I had chosen his son? The questions were coming at me so fast that my mind was spinning and anything I tried to say came out wrong. Why had I gone to London the day before? he wanted to know. How much were the journalists paying me for my story? What further filth were they going to print? How much longer was this vendetta going to carry on? Was there no human decency in people like me?

  ‘I want you out of this school within the hour,’ he finished, ‘do you hear me? Out! And I am personally going to see to it that you never set foot inside a decent school again.’

  Miss Angrid drove me back to the cottage in Tonto. I knew the boys were watching us from the windows, but I couldn’t bring myself to look up. As we got out of the cart Miss Angrid stopped me. ‘I think you should know who is responsible for this, Elizabeth. It was Mrs Jenkins. I gather she saw you in London at Christmas? Well, she’s been keeping an eye on you ever since. And with her contacts in Fleet Street . . . You made some friends at the local pub?’ I nodded. ‘Reporters.’

  It was a nightmare.

  Miss Angrid walked me up the cottage stairs to my sitting room. Alexander was there. Miss Angrid looked from one to the other of us, and left.

  I could see the strain on his face and guessed that his interview with his father had been no easier than my own. He had a copy of the newspaper in his hand. ‘You shouldn’t be here,’ I whispered.

  His voice was cold and sarcastic. ‘I’ve come to say good-bye.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘How could you, Elizabeth?’ he yelled suddenly. ‘You’ve made a fool of me, and of my family. Why did you do it?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ I said. ‘You’ve got it wrong, you all have. Please listen to . . .’

  ‘Stop lying!’ he shouted. ‘Why else did you go to London yesterday if it wasn’t to do some deal with this filthy rag. I want to kill you, do you know that?’

  ‘Please, Alexander . . .’

  ‘It’s too much of a coincidence, Elizabeth. There they are on my father’s land, and you’re here at the school. My father’s right, isn’t he? It’s a set-up. Well, here’s what you’ve achieved. Go on, pick the filthy rag up. Keep it with you. Then whenever you’re feeling down you can gloat over what a fool you, Elizabeth Sorrill, made of the Belmayne family.’ He looked at me with loathing. ‘And to think I believed you when you said you loved me.’

  Miss Angrid came in. ‘Alexander,’ she said quietly, ‘I think that’s enough.’

  He snatched up the box that he’d stuffed with the books and records he’d lent me and walked to the door. As his hand hit the handle he turned to look at me, and the hatred and pain I saw in his eyes I knew I would never forget.

  Miss Angrid came to stand beside me at the window, and together we watched him walk across the field to the school. I looked down at the ring he’d given me, only two days before. Now I would never have the chance to tell him why I went to London. I was carrying his baby.

  – Alexander –

  – 10 –

  It has taken me a long time to come to terms with my behaviour in the years that followed Elizabeth’s departure from Foxton’s – and from my life. Now, with the benefit of age and experience, I know why I did what I did. But still it is with shame that I recount these years, and the considerable pain I caused not only myself, but others too. At a time when every student’s mission in life was to make the world a better place, I went up to Oxford, consumed by anger – an anger that burned more fiercely with every passing year as my struggle to deny the void Elizabeth had left in my life grew ever more desperate.

  For though she had lied to me and made a fool of my family, I couldn’t forget her. Because of her my first year at Oxford is mostly lost now, dispersed, along with the sweet-smelling smoke of the marijuana that provided my only respite from the confusion and resentment that burned in my heart. And yet, on the surface, I behaved much like any other student. Now and again, if it took our fancy, Henry and I might make our way to the occasional lecture, but mostly we spent our time indulging in intellectual debate on how we, as students, should assume responsibility for world peace. Peace was the watchword of the times – though, ironically, despite our long hair and our fashionable socialism, there was very little that was peaceful, or indeed socialist, about our behaviour. We roared around Oxford in the new Mercedes 230 SL my grandmother had equipped me with on my eighteenth birthday, we threw outrageous, extemporised parties, raged against the establishment, and took aggressive advantage of the trend for making love not war. Sex was made easy for me by the succession of girls flocking to my door as though I were the reincarnation of Giacomo Casanova himself: the scandal of the ‘gypsy love affair’ lived on. All I had to do was crook a finger and they would all but fall at my feet. I relished the way I could use them, then just walk away.

  It was sometime during my second year that the boredom of easy conquest was alleviated by a new turn in events. Students in Paris struck out at the Gaullist Government, creating an unprecedented furore among students worldwide. My participation in sit-ins, boycotts and rallies was both vigorous and vociferous. We felt the time had finally come to make ourselves heard, to condemn the forsaking of revolutionary vocation for capitalist comfort, and to make known our disgust at the atrocities that were being committed all ov
er the world. Along with thousands of others Henry and I marched on London to demonstrate against the war in Vietnam, against the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia, and against UDI and the oppression of blacks in Rhodesia. Demonstrations and protests became as much a part of the times, as Janice Joplin, hippies and pop concerts . . . . And pop concerts offered yet another opportunity for rolling up a joint, taking off your clothes and making love in the grass. After a concert everything was peace and harmony and everyone loved the world.

  It was after a concert – The Festival of the Flower Children – that I first met Jessica. A crowd of us had gone back to Henry’s and my rooms at Brackenbury Buildings to listen to more music, but I was bored, only half-stoned, and in need of a new woman. The superior-looking chick who sauntered into the room late in the evening – so strikingly out of place among the spaced-out-flower children with her silent, condescending scrutiny of her surroundings and her obvious awareness of her own sexuality – fitted my bill perfectly.

  At first I only watched her, as she stood alone, taking in the scattered bodies through a blue haze of pot and incense. She didn’t seem to be looking for anyone in particular, nor did she seem to care that she was the only woman in the room who wasn’t in kaftan and plaits. In fact looking at her, petite as she was, was like watching the pages of Vogue flutter into animation.

  ‘Far out,’ Henry muttered in my ear.

  ‘Who is she?’

  He shrugged. ‘Never seen her before. Ask your friend.’ And with a grin he nodded to someone behind me.

  I turned to find a girl whose name I had forgotten glaring up at me in doped paranoia. I recognised the look immediately: I had screwed her three times – which, in her book, gave her some sort of territorial rights on me. Clutching my arm, she dragged me outside, and since there were several people on the landing freaking out to Cream, she pulled me down the stairs. ‘Her name’s Jessica Poynter,’ she hissed.

  ‘Really?’ I drawled, stuffing my hands into my pockets and leaning back against the wall. ‘Wouldn’t care to introduce me, would you?’