Dance While You Can

by Susan Lewis

The case, with much press coverage, lasted four days, and the interaction between myself and prosecuting counsel was bitter, amusing and, for me, increasingly exhilarating as my certain, and public, victory drew closer.

  The night before the final day of the trial Jessica and I dined at home. I was edgy because of an unexpected turn in court that day, when Pinto’s boyfriend took the stand and all but handed the prosecution their case on a plate. I’d have my work cut out preparing my summing up before I went into court the following morning, so I was even more depressed than usual when I realised that Jessica was drunk.

  I watched her across the table as she helped herself to minestrone. She slapped the ladle back into the bowl and I stared pointedly at the mess she had made. She glared back at me, then picking up the ladle, she emptied it over the salt and pepper.

  Swallowing hard on my anger, I held out my hand for the ladle. ‘I’d like some of that soup, please.’ For a moment I thought she was going to throw it at me. Instead she burst out laughing, and soon I found that I was laughing too.

  She stopped. ‘Why are you laughing?’

  ‘I was laughing because you were.’

  ‘But you don’t know why I was laughing, do you? I was laughing at you, Alexander, so you were laughing at yourself. The great Alexander Belmayne, he who knows everything. I suppose you think you know what’s wrong with me tonight, don’t you? Yes, of course you do, because you know everything. But even if you did know, which you don’t, what would you care? What do you care about anything, except yourself?’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, don’t you think I’ve got enough on my mind tonight of all nights, without having you and your childish tantrums to contend with. Either tell me what’s on your mind, or shut up. Frankly I don’t care which.’

  We glared at each other, the air between us simmering. In the end I put my napkin on the table and stood up. ‘I’m going to do some work. Why don’t you do yourself a favour and go upstairs and fiddle around with your paintbrushes. It might improve your temper.’

  I saw a dangerous gleam leap into her eyes and her fingers tightened on the knife beside her. I turned away, and as I walked into the hall the telephone began to ring, drowning the string of obscenities she was screaming after me. Suddenly I felt all the old antipathy surging back into my veins. I’d tried, I kept on trying, but there was no point; I didn’t know what she wanted, or what I had to do to make her happy. She couldn’t accept my love, and now she had me so confused I didn’t know which way to turn.

  ‘Answer that bloody phone!’ she screamed.

  I picked up the receiver. ‘Someone sounds out of sorts.’

  ‘Father.’

  ‘Haven’t rung at a bad time, have I?’

  ‘No, as a matter of fact, you’ve rung just in time. How are you?’

  We chatted for a while until I realised that he was actually saying nothing at all. It wasn’t in my father’s nature to indulge in idle chat – here was someone else who wouldn’t come right out and say what they were thinking. Trying to keep the irritation out of my voice, I asked him if there was something on his mind.

  ‘No, nothing really. Just wanted to know how you were feeling about the Pinto case. The jury goes out tomorrow, doesn’t it?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Mind if I offer a word of advice?’

  I did, but nevertheless told him to go ahead.

  ‘Go easy on the summing up,’ he said.

  I looked at the receiver, uncertain whether I had heard him right. ‘I beg your pardon.’

  ‘You heard me. In your own and your client’s interest, go easy on the defence. That’s all. Goodnight, son. Love to Jessica.’ And he’d gone.

  I slammed the receiver down and spun round to find Jessica standing in the doorway. ‘What did he want?’ she asked.

  ‘Good question. He’s someone else who’s talking in riddles tonight. Now, if you don’t mind I’m going to my study and I don’t want to be disturbed. By anyone!’

  ‘In that case, I’ll go and fiddle with some paintbrushes,’ she spat, and flounced off up the stairs.

  My summing up speech would have been difficult enough to prepare without my father’s words ringing in my ears. ‘In your own interest,’ he had said. But just how could it be in my interest deliberately to lose the case which is what I supposed him to mean and see the girl go to prison? With the sort of press coverage the case was receiving I’d be on the map if I won, and there weren’t many barristers who could say that at the age of twenty-four.

  Then it dawned on me: I was being subjected to government pressure . . . . Outraged, I picked up the phone, ready to demand that my father – more accurately described, under the circumstances, as the Lord Chancellor – should explain exactly what he was after. I didn’t even finish dialling; it wouldn’t be any use, he wouldn’t tell me anything. I must simply ignore him. The girl was clearly innocent, and it was my job to see that justice was done.

  But the doubt had been planted, and the question that until then I had refused to ask myself – why had the government decided to proceed with the prosecution at all when the defence case was so strong? – danced about in my mind until I couldn’t see the papers in front of me. I dropped my pen and rubbed my fingers over my eyes. Something was wrong with this case, something fundamental that I must have overlooked. And I was convinced that whatever it was, was staring me full in the face – which only added to my frustration.

  ‘In a better mood, are we?’

  I turned to see Jessica leaning against the door. ‘I told you I didn’t want to be interrupted,’ I said.

  ‘I was bored upstairs alone, and you know how you getting angry always turns me on. I thought you might like to play.’ She ran a hand over the thin white silk of her blouse, pulling it tightly against her skin. The pink nipple stood out enticingly.

  I looked at it for a moment, then sighed as I turned away. ‘Jessica, I’m not in the mood.’

  The ice clinked against the glass as she finished her gin and tonic. For a second or two there was silence, and then the glass smashed against the wall in front of me. The ice cubes melted across the pages on my desk, turning the ink to an illegible blur.

  ‘Actually, darling, it wouldn’t make a lot of difference to me if you were in the mood. What I need right now is a real man.’

  I made no answer. I could neither trust myself to speak nor move.

  ‘Got any suggestions? How about one of the husbands of the hundred wives you’ve fucked?’

  ‘Jessica, just get out of here.’

  ‘At least there’s one thing you can be sure of, there won’t be any little Belmayne bastards running around anywhere, will there?’ And she swept out of the room.

  I was behind her like a shot. ‘What the hell was that supposed to mean?’

  She stopped, and staggered against the wall as I turned her round. ‘What do you think it means, Alexander darling?’

  Blood was pounding through my ears and my hands were sweating, but I forced myself to remain calm. ‘You’ve had the results?’ I said.

  ‘To the little testie-westies we had? Yes.’ She started to laugh.

  I caught her by the wrists and pinned her against the wall. ‘Well?’ She gave a nervous giggle and looked away. I shook her, and twisted her arms painfully behind her back. ‘Well?’

  She giggled again, but couldn’t meet my eyes as she spoke. ‘Well’, she sighed, ‘it would seem that your little testie-westies simply don’t work, Alexander. It had to be one of us, didn’t it? And it’s you! Defunct, I think the word is. But don’t worry, I’ll stick by you, darling.’

  ‘Are you trying to tell me. . . ?’ I looked at her, and felt myself physically recoil.

  ‘That you’re infertile? Yes, that’s exactly what I’m telling you. You can’t have babies, Alexander. You can’t have heirs, because what’s coming out of you is nothing.’

  I let go of her. She was lying. She had to be lying.

  ‘What’s the matter? Not go
ing to cry, are you? Not Alexander, the big man. It’s not the end of the world, you know, and as I said, your loving wife is prepared to take on your deficient manhood. Now how’s that for devotion?’

  I walked slowly down to the sitting-room and sank into a chair. Several minutes later she followed me in, another drink in her hand. She stood in front of me, smiling, waiting for me to speak.

  ‘Why Jessica? Why did you have to tell me like that?’

  ‘You mean, with the contempt you always treat me to? Hurts, doesn’t it, Alexander? And after all you’ve put me through, all you’ve done to me, at last you’ve got what you deserve.’ She gave a sickening laugh. ‘Just look at you, all white and shaking. I wonder what your darling Elizabeth would say if she could see you now. Well, I’ll tell you something, she wouldn’t stay with you, no woman would, because you’re a sexual cripple. You’re pathetic, do you know that? Pathetic!’

  Looking at her then, her bright blue eyes bloodshot and puffy, her skin mottled, I felt myself drowning in the sorrow of our lives. ‘Shall I tell you something, Jessica?’ I said quietly. ‘Shall I tell you the truth about me? The truth is, you were right. I’ve only ever loved one woman, and that was Elizabeth. She was everything to me. I begged her to marry me, but she said I was too young. I asked her again and again, because I thought if she left me I’d die – and that’s just what I have been doing, all these years, dying. But it’s my fault, because I turned my back on-her at a time when she needed me. I’ll never forgive myself for that, never. But I’m paying for it. And you, Jessica, are the price.’

  – 17 –

  After that night I could no longer be in any doubt about our marriage. The way I had used the one weapon I knew would wound Jessica more than any other was unforgivable, but the shock of hearing I was sterile, and the way she’d told me, had pushed me over the edge. ‘Defunct’, she had called me, ‘a sexual cripple’, and I would never forget the look on her face when she’d said it. It haunted me, persecuted me, and I started to see that same look on the face of every woman I met. Triumph and contempt. I understood it – they saw it as their just revenge – and I felt everything they meant me to feel; inadequate, futile and sick.

  Somehow I dragged myself through the days that followed. Ruth Pinto was acquitted – despite the judge’s summing up, which I have to say was shamelessly biased. However, she was free to go, and as she shook me by the hand she said something that was only to make sense to me later:

  ‘I don’t know what will happen to my life now, Mr Belmayne. I was convinced my stupidity, coupled with your inexperience, would put me in prison.’

  That evening the papers led on the case. Triumph was mine, and Henry held a party to celebrate at his flat in Eaton Square.

  ‘Oh come on now, no false modesty,’ he protested when I tried to tell him that it had been an open-and-shut case from, the beginning. ‘You wait ‘til the morning, you won’t be able to see old Raddish for the pile of briefs he’ll be carrying into your office.’

  I laughed, and promised to pass my overload in his direction. Robert Lyttleton was the next to congratulate me. We saw very little of him these days, as he slogged it out at the Foreign Office, working his way towards that elusive overseas posting. Whenever we did meet, we neither of us referred to his affair with my wife, nor mine with his mother. I was glad that these near-incestuous involvements, and my jealousy, had not affected our friendship – even though I had no idea at that time just how valuable a friend Robert would turn out to be.

  Now he nudged my arm and nodded towards Lizzie as she slid past us with a tray of hors d’oeuvres. ‘She’s not wearing any knickers, you know.’

  ‘And how would you know that?’ I enquired.

  ‘She showed me.’

  I shook my head, not in the least surprised. ‘I take it Henry was nowhere in sight?’

  ‘Then you take it wrong, old chap. Henry was right there with me. In fact, he told her to do it. No, Scout’s honour,’ he said as I started to protest. ‘Henry, old chap.’ He grabbed Henry’s arm as he sailed past with Caroline. ‘Did you or did you not instruct your wife to display her private parts to me?’

  ‘Guilty.’ He looked at me. ‘Don’t tell me you want to see them too? I’m sure she’ll oblige if you ask. Or would you like me to make the request on your behalf?’

  It wasn’t until much later that I was able to get Henry alone and ask him just what was going on between him and Lizzie. ‘Apart from a series of orgies, you mean? Very little,’ he said.

  ‘I assumed you were happy together.’

  ‘I fuck her, that’s all she wants. She’s happy.’ He was smiling as he spoke, but I knew him too well.

  ‘Are you seeing Caroline again?’ I asked.

  ‘As often as possible.’ The smile faded. ‘I should never have given her up.’

  ‘Then why don’t you leave Lizzie?’

  ‘Why don’t you leave Jessica?’

  We looked at each other for several minutes before he spoke again. ‘Well, we sure made one hell of a mistake when we got into bed with those two, didn’t we? The question is, which of us is going to be the first to do something about it?’

  The following morning when I arrived at chambers I found a stack of newspapers on my desk. Perhaps Henry was right, I would see a few more briefs coming my way now, and God knew I needed something to take my mind off the situation at home.

  I sorted through the mail first, then picked up the papers to read them again. There was still something that unsettled me about the Pinto case, not that I seriously expected to find the answer in the press.

  ‘Telegram for you, sir.’ I waited for the junior clerk to go before I tore it open. You didn’t have to have lived through the war to experience a certain trepidation at the delivery of a telegram.

  There were only two words to the message – two words so unexpected that my legs gave way beneath me. I was stunned, transfixed, feeling my heart slow and somersault. I tore my eyes away and turned to the window, as if expecting to find an explanation there. The distant noise of the city faded even further as I heard her voice speaking those two words. All these years had passed, and now, suddenly, today . . . I gazed down at the telegram again, my eyes hungry, wanting there to be more. Still there were just the two words: Congratulations, Elizabeth.

  I must have sat there at my desk for almost an hour, staring into space, as slowly I unlocked the doors of my memory. I could see Foxton’s so clearly that I might have been there yesterday. I heard the stampede of feet and the babel of young male voices as boys descended from dormitories. I saw the old building slumbering amid its lawns, the clearly-marked sports fields. I saw the classrooms, the dining-room, the Head’s study. Then the cottage, the surgery and the railwayman’s hut. And almost, just fleetingly . . . I jerked my head up, half expecting to see her eyes laughing back at me. But there were only the blank walls of my office in front of me, and I dropped my head in my hands. I had shut it all out for so long now, so much had happened since, and with the pain of the last few days . . .

  I met Henry that evening at El Vino’s. As the day wore on and the telegram worked its way into my subconscious as well as my conscious mind, I had ground myself into a near catatonic state of frustration and resentment.

  ‘Two words! Two lousy words! Why doesn’t she say where she is, for Christ’s sake?’

  Henry handed the telegram back. ‘So I take it you want to know where she is?’

  ‘Of course I do! I’m surprised you even need to ask.’

  He shrugged, and let a long silence elapse before he spoke again. ‘You don’t need me to tell you how much you hurt her, Alexander. Maybe she’s afraid you’ll do it again.’

  ‘Then why the telegram?’

  ‘I think you can answer that for yourself.’ He held up his hand as I started to speak. ‘As far apart as your worlds were, you two were right for each other, you knew it, she knew it, we all knew it. Even Old Anger tried to make you face it, didn’t she, when she came u
p to Oxford? I suppose this is Elizabeth’s way of letting you know she still thinks about you, perhaps even that she wants to see you again. And if you want my advice, then go and find her. With everything that’s happening to you at the moment, well . . . find her before you hurt anyone else, because I think quite enough people have suffered as a consequence of your bleeding heart.’

  My immediate impulse was to get up from the table and tell him just what I thought of his agony aunt routine, but he caught hold of my arm and pulled me back down again.

  ‘I’ll tell you this for nothing, Alexander. You weren’t the only one who missed her after she’d gone. I think about her too. And I’ve never understood why you refused to talk about her, especially to me. I’m supposed to be your best friend, for God’s sake! So, you can talk now, and you can start by telling me – because I’ve always wanted to know – why the hell you let her go so easily.’

  I felt my anger diminish, only to be replaced by the onset of that burning misery I had thought never to feel again. ‘I wish I could answer that. All I know is that my father sounded so convincing. I think he even told me he had proof to connect her with those damned gypsies. I believed him when he said she’d made a fool of me; somehow at the time it all added up. But I tried to find her afterwards. You must remember that.’

  Henry nodded. ‘I also remember the pride that made you give up. The same pride that has hurt so many people since. So what are you going to do now?’

  ‘What the hell can I do? It’s as if she’s some sort of a ghost come back to haunt me. She’s there, but I can’t touch her. Why now, after all these years, and like this?’

  We neither of us had the answer to that, and the next two weeks dragged painfully by. I couldn’t concentrate on anything as visions of the past flooded my mind to drown the present. My eyes strained across busy streets, trying to pick her out amongst the crowd. Every time the phone rang, the door opened, the postman knocked . . . The agony of waiting seemed endless. My relationship with Jessica deteriorated even further. Ever since the night she had told me I was incapable of fathering children, I had taken to sleeping in another room. Jessica, I soon discovered, was seeking solace in the arms of her new mentor, Thomas Street. I didn’t care. If anything, I was glad. Jessica embodied all that was wrong with my life, and all I wanted was to get as far away from her as I could.