Dance While You Can

by Susan Lewis

  A few seconds later Christine followed. ‘Take me home,’ I breathed. She put her arm around my shoulder. ‘Come on, don’t take it so hard. Someone has to lose and let’s face it, you put up a hell of a fight. I would have lost my nerve long before that. Just wait ‘til I tell Edward, he’ll be so proud of you he’ll probably . . .’

  ‘No!’ I cried. ‘You mustn’t tell him. Please, Christine. He was so clear about the fifteen thousand pounds. He mustn’t know, he’ll never trust me again.’

  ‘Stop being so dramatic, he’ll have a good laugh about it, you’ll see.’

  I caught both her hands in mine and begged her not to tell him. To her it might seem unimportant, but she didn’t understand.

  ‘Honestly, Elizabeth,’ Christine said later, as we were driving back to Westmoor. ‘I don’t know why you’re so afraid to tell Edward, you must know he’ll forgive you anything.’

  Which was precisely the reason I didn’t want him to know. I didn’t want him to forgive me. Just for once, I wanted him to be angry. I wanted him to rant and rave at my obstinacy, shout that I’d almost cost him eighteen thousand pounds. I wanted to have to beg his forgiveness, suffer his silent anger – anything that would instil a passionate emotion in us both. But I could see already in my mind’s eye his kind and patient face, the look of sorrow in his eyes as he blamed himself for putting me in a situation that had caused me so much distress. Already I could feel his suffocating arms around me.

  Christine dropped me at Westmoor, then went on to meet Rupert. Edward was still in London, Charlotte was in the nursery playing with a schoolfriend, and David had gone to the village. The house was quiet; it smelt of polish, and the silver gleamed in the sunlight that streamed in through the windows. I couldn’t think of anything to do. I toyed with the idea of taking one of the horses out across the common, but it didn’t really appeal. The latest editions of Vogue and Harper’s were on the coffee table, I might find some new menus, we were giving three dinners in London the following week. But who cared about menus? The past week I had had the auction to look forward to. Now it was over, and those brief minutes of excitement had only intensified my restlessness.

  I flopped down on the sofa and stared, unseeing, at the porcelain and the paintings that adorned the room. I must have dozed off because it was past five when Edward touched my cheek, and taking my hands, pulled me to my feet.

  ‘Congratulations, darling,’ he whispered. ‘And thank you.’

  I blinked, trying to pull myself from sleep. ‘Thank you? What for?’

  He laughed. ‘For the sofa, of course. Well done.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘Edward!’ I looked up as Christine came into the room. ‘Ah, there you are,’ she said. She turned to me, her face incredulous. ‘Elizabeth! What happened? How did it get here?’

  ‘Jeffrey brought it, of course,’ Edward answered.

  We both turned to stare at him. ‘Jeffrey?’ I repeated.

  ‘Yes. Why are you both so. surprised? He’ll be taking it on to the warehouse later. It’s in the library now.’

  ‘The sofa?’ I said. ‘But how?’

  Edward laughed. ‘What on earth has got into you two? Did you or did you not go to the auction this morning and acquire one sofa?’

  ‘We did – it seems,’ said Christine.

  ‘Well then, shall we go and take a look at it?’

  As soon as I clapped eyes on it my heart began to thump. What on earth had happened? The man in the front row had made the final bid, so how had it arrived here? And in God’s name, how much had we paid for it?

  Edward voiced the question. I looked at Christine, but her voice seemed as far from her throat as my own. ‘Well?’ Edward prompted.

  ‘Uh, I think we’d better take a look inside the envelope,’ Christine suggested, picking it up from the seat.

  My worst fears were confirmed as she read out the total. ‘Thirty-three thousand pounds?’ Edward echoed. He turned to me. ‘I thought. . .’

  ‘Why don’t we all go and sit down,’ Christine interrupted. ‘I’ve no idea how this has happened but I’m sure we can get to the bottom of it.’

  Edward listened patiently as Christine explained. By the time she had reached the end of the story Edward was laughing. ‘My poor darling,’ he said. ‘And all for me. Well, there’s obviously been some confusion at Christie’s end, I’ll get on to them and find out who the rightful owner is.’ He dropped a kiss on the top of my head before he left the room.

  When he returned a few minutes later, with David, he was no longer smiling. ‘I’m still not sure how it happened, Christie’s are looking into it. But the sofa is ours.’ He paused as David handed him a drink. ‘For thirty-three thousand pounds.’

  I closed my eyes and groaned. ‘I’m sorry, Edward, what can I say? I don’t know . . .’

  He came and put his arms around me. ‘Sssh. It wasn’t your fault. It seems that someone contacted one of Christie’s staff, asking him to act on my behalf.’ He turned to Christine. ‘Do you know anything about it? Who it might have been?’

  Christine shook her head. ‘Shall I check with the office, see if anyone there placed it?’

  ‘They’ll have gone home now. We’ll try in the morning.’ His arms tightened around my shoulders. ‘Don’t blame yourself, darling. It was just some stupid muddle.’ But his voice held no conviction.

  I pushed him away, ‘Edward, how can you sit there and take it so calmly? OK, you’ll get some of the money back, but whichever way you look at it this has cost you personally something in the region of eighteen thousand pounds. And I am responsible. Me! I have messed it up.’

  ‘Elizabeth.’

  I looked at him, and for one blinding instant I wanted to slap him. I realised then that in a perverse way I was almost glad at what had happened. It had shaken him. He hadn’t got angry, nothing ever made him angry, but he had not been completely unmoved. Someone’s head would roll for this – not mine, of course – but Edward would fire whoever had placed the bid. I wanted to be there when he did it. I wanted to watch him be unkind to someone.

  I stared at him, shocked by my thoughts. ‘I’m going upstairs,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll come with you.’ He was already on his feet.

  ‘No, Edward! Don’t you understand? It was my fault! If I’d stopped at fifteen, as you told me to, this would never have happened. At least let me feel guilty about it.’ I swept out of the room, aware that I had hurt him deeply and feeling more wretched than ever.

  An hour later there was a knock on the door and Edward let himself into the bedroom. One look at his face was enough to send me running into his arms. He forgave me my outburst, and in his calm, gentle voice he explained that this was what he had been afraid of all along – afraid that if he did allow me to become part of the business we would end up fighting with each other. Didn’t I understand that, as his wife, I was far more important to him than any old sofa or painting could ever be?

  Yes, I understood that. I understood too that it wasn’t my failure at the auction that had really upset me, but the way I had hurt Edward by suggesting that just being his wife wasn’t enough to make me happy. Edward wanted above all things to make me happy. He loved me, and I owed him so much – all the fun, the laughter and the loving of a proper family life. I had to get a grip on myself, and put a stop to whatever it was that was driving me to try and ruin it all.

  Edward never did get to the bottom of what happened at Rowe House. I often wondered how hard he tried. Though he fought to hide it, I was never in any doubt that my decision to take no further part in the business was a great relief to him. I had made the decision – but it didn’t stop me feeling unnerved by the way all the doors to his professional life seemed closed to me after that. It was only many years later that the truth of what happened at the auction came to light – years during which Alexander returned to my life more than once, and was, in the end, to take control of events that very nearly destroyed my life.

 
A week or so after the auction we were all once again in the drawing-room at Westmoor. I was beginning to hate that room. Like Edward’s adoration, its portraits and its statues seemed to stifle me – no matter how often I tried to tell myself how fortunate I was. I stood at the window, watching the rain outside. Edward looked up from The Times and asked me if I was feeling all right.

  My reply must have sounded irritable because he put aside his paper and came to stand beside me. I turned away. How could I tell him that I didn’t want to fly to Paris that night? That I was bored by Paris, bored by Rome, bored by New York? I longed to do something different, something unplanned, impulsive. I felt as if my whole body were on the point of exploding, with frustration.

  ‘Isn’t he simply divine!’ Christine exclaimed, giving me the diversion I needed.

  David caught my eye and winked. ‘And just who are we gushing about this time?’ he asked.

  ‘Alexander Belmayne, of course, who else?’

  I froze in Edward’s arms. Had Christine found out somehow, and was this her way of tormenting me? No. I was being paranoid. How could she possibly know? I didn’t dare look at Edward – but he couldn’t know either; I’d told him about Alexander, but I’d never once mentioned his surname, and everyone thought Charlotte looked like me.

  Edward shook his head and went back to his chair. ‘He’s not in the papers again, is he?’ he said. ‘What’s he done this time?’

  ‘It says here that his father has bailed him out.’

  ‘Bailed him out of what?’ David was only half listening.

  ‘The debt he got himself into through gambling. There’s a picture of him’ here coming out of Annabel’s with some woman. God, he’s beautiful. It says here that ‘the Belmayne marriage is on the rocks and according to close friends his wife has moved out.’ Mmm, sounds hopeful. I don’t suppose we could invite him for drinks when we’re next in London, could we, Edward? Elizabeth, are you all right, you look positively pale today.’

  Edward dropped his newspaper immediately. ‘Christine’s right, you know, darling. Come and sit down. Call Mary, David, get her to bring in some tea.’

  I allowed Edward to lead me to a chair. He was talking to me, rubbing my hands. It wasn’t the first time Christine had read aloud articles about Alexander, but this time her words rang in my ears with terrifying clarity. Now I knew why I had been behaving so badly, and what it was that was forcing me to reject Edward. Did I really still love Alexander as much as my reaction said I did? Wasn’t it all buried somewhere in the past? Why had it come back now to haunt me? I looked into Edward’s face. What was I doing here with this man? Everything around me was alien – and somewhere out there Alexander was alone, alone as I was here, in this room. Then, for one wild moment, I was back in Bayswater, sitting on the bed, looking at him and listening as he swore that he loved me, that I would never be able to shut him out of my life, because no matter what happened in the future, it would always be me he loved.

  I clutched at Edward’s hand. I loved Edward. I would never do anything to hurt him. He had to save me from this . . . .

  I turned abruptly as the door opened. Canary came in, brandishing a long stick with a star glued to one end. Jeffrey followed her, miming the blowing of a royal trumpet, then bowed and swept his arm to usher someone in through the door. And there was Charlotte, her black hair curled round her face, her satin dress sprinkled with Stardust and a glass slipper balanced on the cushion she held out to Edward. Her face was beaming as she looked round the room and her eyes – his eyes – pleaded with mine for approval.

  Too late I stifled a sob, and before anyone could stop me I ran from the room.

  – Alexander –

  – 16 –

  Jessica and I were reunited the day Henry married Lizzie. She’d been living with her parents at their house in Holland Park and we’d neither seen nor spoken to each other for over six weeks. I hadn’t really cared much when she went – at least it meant no more of those macabre paintings would find their way on to the walls. Lizzie had remained at the house with me, a situation that, amazingly, seemed to cause no speculation. In fact, Henry all but lived with us, so it was only when he was out that Lizzie turned her insatiable appetite on me. I didn’t like myself too well for my weakness in giving in to her, but she blackmailed me by threatening to tell Henry. I didn’t know whether or not she would actually have carried out the threat, though I rather suspected she wouldn’t – which only went to show what an altogether contemptible character I was.

  Henry and Lizzie tied the knot at Chelsea Register Office, with a reception afterwards at the Ritz. Jessica was there. I was surprised at my feelings when I saw her. She’d lost weight and her eyes seemed larger in her pale face. Watching her, as she mingled with the other guests, brought back all the shame I felt at the things I had done to her. One way or another she had suffered at my hands ever since we’d met.

  At first we were uncomfortable with each other, but the readiness with which she turned her back on the rest of the party told me she was as keen as I was that we should at least make an effort. She put up a good show of enjoying her freedom, laughing and chattering as if she hadn’t a care in the world. But I knew her too well. Every time a waiter passed she helped herself to a drink, and as the day wore on I could see how close she was to breaking-point. In the end I took her home and put her to bed. The following day we drove round to her parents’ house and collected her things.

  In the weeks that followed our reconciliation we did something we should have done years before – we talked about our relationship, and our feelings for each other. I was shocked to discover that for the past year, up until the time she left me, she had been taking drugs. It was the only way, she said, she could cope with the fact that I didn’t love her. And the morbid paintings on the walls of our home had been intended to represent her womb as time passed and it shrivelled and discoloured in infecundity.

  ‘But it was all my fault really,’ she said. ‘I was so confused about you, and because I was suffering, I wanted to make you suffer too. I was afraid that if I couldn’t give you children, you would use it as a weapon against me, and because I was afraid of you, afraid to talk to you, the only way I had of expressing myself was through my paintings . . . I’ve always thought that you still loved Elizabeth, you see, and I suppose that’s what it’s all been about really. I wonder if you know how it feels to live with someone, and love them, knowing all the time that they love someone else.’

  I was appalled to think that I could have lived with Jessica for so long, and not known anything of the pain she was suffering. In fact, I probably had known, the trouble was I hadn’t really cared. Now I was simply grateful for the opportunity to try, in whatever way I could, to make it up to her.

  I saw to it that we spent every possible minute together. One of my favourite ways of relaxing was to sit in the corner of her muddled studio, now once again filled with bright and vivid colours, and watch as, naked – and it had to be naked, she assured me – she tied a paint brush to each hand and rotated so that the tips of the brushes swept over the canvas. I was no more au fait with her peculiar form of art than I had been before, but it reminded me of our days at Oxford, and that touch of nostalgia drew us even closer together.

  I noticed quite early on how much she was drinking, but if I ever mentioned it she became defensive. ‘I’m just having a bit of fun,’ she hiccoughed, when I came home early one afternoon and found her sprawled on the sofa, the best part of the way through a bottle of gin.

  ‘But Jess, darling, that bottle was full last night.’

  ‘Are you having a go at me, oh Godalmighty Alexander? Why are you home early, anyway?’

  ‘I live here, remember? Now come along, let’s get some coffee inside you.’

  ‘Not one of your little babies?’ She giggled as she saw me flinch. ‘Still haven’t got me pregnant, have you, Alexander?’

  ‘Jess, stop before you say something you regret.’

  S
uddenly she burst into tears. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I don’t know what I’m saying. I don’t know what I’m doing any more. You confuse me. You’ve never loved me before, and now that you do, I don’t know how to handle it. What shall we do? Shall we go and see someone? I know you want to have a baby. Well I’m not damned well giving you one!’

  I walked out of the room, knowing it was pointless to stay. When she sobered up we’d talk again. And maybe she was right, we should go and see a specialist – after all, we’d been trying long enough with no results. But how could we even think about having a baby with Jess in this state?

  So we muddled on from row to row, each more acrimonious than the last. But I was certain that once she was pregnant, everything would change; then at last she would allow herself to believe how much I cared for her. To have something in our lives that, we could share and love together was what we both needed.

  It was on the day Jessica and I finally plucked up the courage to go for our fertility tests that I received instructions in the Pinto case. No one – with the possible exception of Raddish, the clerk at chambers – was more surprised that I was. It was a case that had been in and out of the press for some time and I came across it when I had to attend a Section I at the magistrates’court. The committal proceedings were brief, and I barely met Ruth Pinto. However, I succeeded in getting her bail, and it was because of this, her solicitor told me, that she later insisted I should be the one to continue with her case. He was determined to make it abundantly clear that the decision had nothing to do with him.

  The British Government, or more precisely, the Ministry of Defence, had accused Ruth Pinto of stealing top-secret defence documents and selling them to one of the hundred and five Russian diplomats who were subsequently expelled from Britain. These documents, I was told – I never got to see them – outlined certain key details of Royal Naval manoeuvres in the Baltic.