The Last Dance

by Carolyn McCrae

  “Arnold, there are very grey areas in relationships. Nothing is ever as black and white as you would like it to be. Would it make that much difference if your father had visited here? I’m not saying he did, but would it change anything? “

  Another possibility occurred to him. “How long has your mother known my father?”

  “Does it matter?” At first she didn’t see what he was getting at.

  “It might matter if we were brother and sister.”

  “Do you think that’s possible?” Kathleen realised she had sounded surprised, and had lost the initiative again in this conversation. It was something she had considered dispassionately in the past, but she knew her mother or Maureen would have told her – they knew she was ‘seeing’ Arnold and she knew they wouldn’t have allowed that if there were any possibility of that kind of relationship.

  He looked at her and raised his eyebrows in silent emphasis.

  “Hardly.” She said as she finished her drink and walked across the room to pour another. She gestured with her glass towards him, silently asking if he wanted another drink too. He nodded and they moved on.

  “To get this conversation back on track what are you going to do for me and your child?” She patted her stomach.

  “What do you want me to do for you and your child?”

  She didn’t like the way he phrased the question, but it was obvious to her that he had accepted something of his responsibilities.

  “Firstly, you will guarantee a sum of money to be paid into my personal bank account monthly, you will set up a Trust Fund for the child. If it is a boy you will pay all his school fees and any other education expenses until he is 21, 18 should do if it is a girl. You will sign a document to swear that you will never tell anyone that you are the child’s father without my express permission. You will sign this house over to me and, oh yes, I will need a husband.”

  As he listened he gave no inkling of his thoughts. It was as if he were in court or in a business meeting. He believed that the less the adversary knew of your thoughts the more powerful you were. He hoped to give nothing away, but during the war Kathleen had been in a position to learn something of the subtleties of interrogation.

  Arnold left it a few moments before commenting “You have clearly been thinking about this.”

  “Oh yes, and I have been thinking clearly. I am asking no more than is reasonable. This child will not suffer for its paternity.”

  “Did you have anyone in mind? For husband that is?” She wouldn’t expect him to divorce and marry her, they both knew that that would be impossible.

  “Absolutely, it will have to be someone over whom you have some hold, who’s not currently emotionally entangled. It will have to be someone who is available and could marry me, say, within the next month – so I will have already met him. He will be financially able to support a wife and the ‘honeymoon baby’ as he will have to believe that the child is his.”

  Arnold relaxed somewhat but the smile he gave Kathleen as he caught her eye was completely free from humour. “Perhaps he might work for me, have lost his fiancée and parents in one of the last raids of the war, and by happy coincidence be my cousin, depending on me for practically every decision he has ever made in his life. Is that, by any chance, who you had in mind?”

  “It would very conveniently explain any family resemblance.”

  “Henry. Perfect. Yes, Henry would be perfect. How do we get him to do it?”

  Arnold was more relaxed now. Her marriage to Henry would not prejudice their relationship, everything could continue as it always had.

  “I don’t really care Arnold. That is your responsibility, tell him I’m lonely, tell him you know I have always secretly loved him! I don’t care what you tell him as long as he asks me within a month. But I do advise you to get him to think it is his own idea.”

  Chapter Five

  “We’re going to the Lakes for Christmas this year” Arnold announced to Alicia at breakfast one morning in late November 1945. “Henry is getting up a party to take over a house in Troutbeck.”

  Alicia did not like Henry, he was short, weak and rather mean-spirited. He had been a great favourite of her late mother-in-law and had visited the house often with Arnold when they were on leave. Arnold had given him a job in the business at the end of the War, she thought he found him useful, though in what way she could not imagine.

  She was pretty certain of one thing, it was not Henry who was getting up the party. “Henry couldn’t ‘get up’ anything, apart from other people’s noses.”

  “I always thought your wit very sharp, my dear, but, be that as it may, we are going.”

  “What about Charles, and Nanny, will there be other children? Enough room? Has he thought of that? It will have to be a very large house.”

  “Oh no, my dear, it’s quite a small house really, but there will be plenty of room. Charles will be staying here. With Nanny and Cook. They will spoil him completely and he won’t even know we aren’t there, for God’s sake he’s only three he won’t have a clue what’s going on as long as he has a present to open. You will come with me, and act correctly in all ways, as my wife. It is about time we established that. You are my wife and I intend to get some advantage from the expense. It is, after all, about time – unless of course you have found an alternative?”

  Stung into a response she snapped “Chance would be a fine thing!”

  “You would if you could then? You do remember how? You do remember what’s required then?”

  There was no point in arguing further so she responded calmly “I suppose I have no choice but to go.”

  “No. You have no choice.”

  “Who is in this party which has been got up?”

  “Me and you, Henry and his wife”

  “His what?”

  “His wife.”

  “That’s what I thought you said. When did that happen? I thought he was in love with that young thing who was killed at the end of the war.” Her curiosity overcame her normal reluctance to say anything other than what was essential to Arnold.

  “He was married a few weeks ago.”

  “Who to? Why were we not invited?” Surprise and the awareness of a social snub mixed in almost equal shares.

  “I did not tell you because they wanted it kept very quiet, that is also the reason you were not invited.”

  “You say you were not invited, the reason you were not invited, does that mean you were? You went to your cousin’s wedding and you did not breathe one word of it to me. I don’t believe this could happen. You can’t despise me so much!”

  “Do not presume to tell me how much I can despise you. You would be surprised how much that might be.”

  “Who is she then? This new Mrs Witherby?”

  Nothing could have prepared her for the answer.

  “Her name is Kathleen.”

  There was a long pause as this latest blow was assimilated. “Kathleen.” She repeated in a very flat voice. “That Kathleen?”

  “Yes, that Kathleen.” He confirmed without any apparent embarrassment.

  It took Alicia a few moments before she could find her voice to continue. She changed tack to give herself some time. “Who are the other couple to complete this happy Christmas party?”

  “Oh, you won’t know them. He’s Monty MacFarlane, a chap I knew at Catterick. I don’t know much about her.”

  Very close to tears, she resorted to an unconvincing voice dripping in stage sarcasm “How simply thrilling darling, we will all have a simply dishy time.”

  She dabbed her mouth with her napkin, carefully folded and rolled it, threaded it into its silver ring and placed it very precisely on the table in front of her, taking a few moments to straighten it.

  “If you will excuse me, I must see Nanny.”

  He did not need to reply.

  She had known about Kathleen and Arnold’s relationship since the first week of her marriage. She had understood that it was ‘on hold’ during the ele
ction campaign but by late August, when Maureen had taken her to one side at a Drama Society meeting and explained that, since everyone else knew Alicia might as well too, she had been well aware what was going on. He had hardly tried to hide his movements. When he was at home, which was increasingly frequently now the war was over, he seemed to be visiting Kathleen two or three nights a week. His car, a dark blue Daimler, was distinctive in itself but his arrogance in parking the car outside her house so frequently and so regularly, with its personalised number plate, was breathtaking.

  Maureen had been sympathetic, but pragmatic “Look, my dear girl, as long as he doesn’t know that you know you can retain your dignity. You must act with dignity at all costs. Never make a scene, do not shout and scream, do not beg, do not show you care in any way. He really isn’t worth it.”

  “But Maureen I really don’t have to make an act. I don’t care, I really do not care the tiniest smidgeon what he does. He can do what he likes. Just so long as I never have to meet her. As to sex – I’m more than happy not to have to oblige him on that front.”

  She added “But I’m curious. What do all these informed ladies” she waved her arm in a broad sweep around the room “have to say about how involved he is?”

  “Do you mean do they think he will leave you? I don’t know about them but I’ll tell you he won’t. He’ll not leave you, nor will he let you leave him. He’s used to her, she doesn’t demand much of him so that will continue in its merry way. And he..”

  “Does he keep her?” Alicia interrupted.

  “Of course he does! He has for years. She lives in a house that belonged to his father. He also regularly pays her not insubstantial sums of money for clothes. She has some very nice ones and, of course, since she came back from the war she hasn’t had to do a day’s work. There was talk of her setting up a clothes or flower shop, once rationing is out of the way, but I can’t see her needing to do that.”

  “What about me?”

  “He needs the façade of a marriage so he’s not about to ‘split you asunder’ as they say. Divorce isn’t easy, it’s expensive, socially disastrous and he’ll still want to get into Parliament so your marriage is safe.”

  “How long have you known?”

  “That he had re-started the relationship?”

  “Yes – I don’t care about the earlier time”

  “A few weeks.”

  “That long.” Alicia was not surprised that Maureen had kept it from her – she knew Maureen would consider her feelings and be aware of how humiliating it would be for a girl, not yet 25, married less than four years, to find her husband had kept an older woman, his mistress from before their marriage.

  “Should I ask you how you know all these things?” she continued after she had made sure her voice showed no emotion.

  “Probably not.”

  Alicia valued her friendship with Maureen, her only friendship with anyone, too much to push her any further, and for her part, Maureen had become quite fond of Alicia and resolved never to tell her the truth behind her relationship with Kathleen. She knew she wouldn’t understand.

  The house that had been rented that Festive Week was actually just a wing in a larger house on the fell slopes looking down over the village of Grasmere with Rydal Water in the distance. It was a beautiful house in an even more beautiful position. With a maid and a cook supplied with the house, everything was designed for a comfortable and enjoyable stay.

  The evening they had all driven up from Cheshire, Kathleen and Arnold went to the station at Windermere to meet the MacFarlanes.

  “They failed to show up.” Was all Arnold could say when they returned alone.

  “No sign of them on the train.” Kathleen had added

  “What a surprise.” Was Alicia’s only comment

  Henry made various telephone calls to try to find out what had happened to them, professing concern and annoyance in turn.

  Alicia didn’t believe a word of it and she got no reply to her question “They never existed did they?”

  As far as she was concerned this whole house party was a pathetic ruse to allow Kathleen and Arnold to spend time together.

  When it was clear that there were only to be the four of them Alicia saw an opportunity:

  “Arnold, I will move into the Mackintoshes room. They’re obviously not coming so I’ll get the maid to move my things in there.”

  “Their name is MacFarlane not Mackintosh.”

  “Whatever. They aren’t coming so I’ll take over their room.”

  “I don’t think so. It really wouldn’t be appropriate.”

  “What would ‘not be appropriate’?”

  “We are here as husband and wife. We share a room.”

  He turned and left her alone. There was to be no discussion.

  Alicia knew why he was trying to give the appearance that they were still happy together. It would keep Henry off the scent. As long as Henry believed that Arnold was in love with her he wouldn’t worry about any relationship with Kathleen. Or, she began to think, the paternity of the child.

  Christmas Day was a disappointment despite a pleasant enough service in the village church and a decent dinner, the cook having presented turkey with all the trimmings and oranges with the plum pudding – a treat not had since before the war. Alicia drank too much at Christmas Dinner as she did at every opportunity – it was her way of getting through the evenings and allowed her to ignore the fact that Arnold and she were sleeping in the same room.

  Throughout the short days Alicia was content to be left to her own devices and to leave the others to theirs. She spent the days reading in the lounge by the log fire when it was raining, walking through the trails in the garden when it wasn’t. She was aware that Henry was walking the fells with the housekeeper’s two golden retrievers that had taken to him while Kathleen and Arnold played golf – or at least Arnold played golf and Kathleen walked around the course, from a distance giving every appearance of being a happy couple enjoying each other’s company.

  Most evenings the two couples dined together, Henry fussing about Kathleen, pouring her drinks, making sure she was comfortable. Alicia managed to avoid Arnold’s advances by getting drunk as often as possible and retiring early.

  So the week passed.

  After dinner on New Year’s Eve Henry was again plumping the settee cushions for Kathleen and obtaining a stool for her feet, fussing about her. Alicia was a little more drunk than usual and all the attention Henry was paying to Kathleen was annoying her, it emphasised how little attention she was getting, or indeed wanted, from her own husband.

  She had watched them all week and Alicia was pretty certain the child was not Henry’s. She drank more as she thought back over the past months.

  She had not heard of Henry having any relationship since his fiancée had been killed nearly a year before. He had appeared to be completely shattered by that and the death of his parents. Once demobbed Henry had gone to work for Arnold, who had given him a job that didn’t really exist in the office. Alicia was sure that if there had been anything going on she would have been told by one of the typists. But there had been no tittle-tattle in that direction.

  She looked across at Kathleen, feet up, relaxed and pampered. The pregnancy did seem rather advanced for a September wedding. It was obvious to Alicia that Kathleen must have been pregnant before the ceremony and she was damned if she would believe Henry would have the nerve to take advantage of a woman before he was married. She was irritated, drunk and spoiling for an argument with someone but her voice was apparently gracious as she laid her trap.

  “How did you two meet? It is such a romantic story – whirlwind romance and all that,” ignoring Arnold’s attempts to catch her eye she continued “I didn’t even know you knew each other, though it is quite a small town isn’t it? Do tell.” She knew she was being unnecessarily provocative but was determined to dent their unspeakable smugness.

  Kathleen looked to Arnold but he was getting to his f
eet to pour another drink and was not going to help her.

  “Henry, darling, you tell the story.”

  Dutifully he walked across the room and took his wife’s hand. “It’s really very simple. We have known each other by sight for years, since before the war, we used to attend the same evening meetings. I didn’t know her well, of course, just the occasional Good Evening, you know.”

  “No I don’t know.” Alicia was not going to help either. Henry continued, ignoring Alicia, who he realised for some reason seemed to be baiting him.

  “Well, we used to see one another, quite often. I think Kathleen knew Joan.” His tone dropped as he mentioned his dead fiancée.

  “Yes,” Kathleen saw a way out “I knew Joan quite well, she was so lovely” she turned to look at Henry, squeezing his hand reassuringly “she used to talk of Henry and how gentle and kind he was, how she worried about him while he was away – I quite fell in love with him just from hearing Joan talk about him.”

  “This would be before the war would it? You were away a lot weren’t you Kathleen? You couldn’t have had much chance to know each other during the war could you?”

  “Yes, before the war, and during.” Kathleen knew she was on tricky ground. Henry would hardly think she had carried a torch for him for all that time.

  “So when she.... After a decent interval after.... Well I asked him out – to the theatre – to take him out of his shell, just to be kind to him – he seemed so lonely.” She wondered if she had convinced anyone.

  “Isn’t she wonderful! She would never have said anything to me if Joan hadn’t.... Well, once we did meet again one thing led to another and here we are.”

  “And so happy together.” Alicia concluded in her stage sarcasm voice. She had to concede that, although she doubted every word, it was a plausible story – just. Arnold and Kathleen appeared to have been very clever. Well, she would see.

  “Do tell me about Joan, Kathleen, I never knew her well.”

  “Come now – we don’t want to talk about sad times – it’s nearly the New Year I’ll get the champagne.” Arnold had at last come to Kathleen’s rescue.