The Last Dance

by Carolyn McCrae

  The children stayed at their home, looked after by Monika. It was thought that they would feel less disrupted in their own bedrooms. Monika was not happy to be in the house but felt that Josie and the boys needed her, so she had reluctantly agreed.

  Carl had to stay in the area, the police had said they needed him until their enquiries were completed, even though his role had been entirely peripheral. Max had insisted he stay at Sandhey and made his library available. It was unspoken by all that Carl would keep to the background, rarely go into the town and certainly not visit Millcourt.

  By the end of July it was all over. Police investigations were completed, the inquest was formally adjourned and funeral held. It was the only time that Susannah left the flat that month.

  As the small group stood around the grave she did not see the tall young man standing under the trees observing them. He had no intention of upsetting Susannah even more by making an appearance in her life now.

  He would be patient, but he had had to see her.

  “I want a birthday party.” Jack had told Monika a few days after the funeral. He was going to be four years old and wanted to have a party. “Bill had a party. I want one.” Monika did her best to put him off the idea, no one needed a party just now. “But you are a big boy now, you don’t have a birthday party every year.”

  “I don’t care that Daddy’s gone away.” They had told them, but it was not really clear how much they had understood. “I don’t care that he’s not here. I want a party! I want Mummy! Mummy’s never here!”

  “Oh Jack, you must be a good little boy. I’ll see what can be done.”

  So a party was planned for 1st August. Jack’s 4th birthday. Susannah agreed as long as it was not held at the house that had been her home. Charles and Max offered to have it at Sandhey, Carl agreed only to make an appearance if it seemed appropriate.

  There had to be a time when Carl and Susannah would meet again. Perhaps a children’s party – when there was so much going on and attention would be on the children – perhaps when they would have to behave in the face of such company – perhaps a children’s party was going to be a good time. Susannah still had not been told he was so close, she had not asked where he was. Why would she?

  Food was prepared and decorations hung in the dining room at Sandhey. Lots of games were to be out in the garden. Children from Jack’s kindergarten were invited – with their parents. It is highly likely that a number of them only accepted out of curiosity, after all, the Sandhey household had been the subject of much speculation over the past weeks. In the social scene it was a prized invitation for the parents, the children were less pleased to go – Jack and Josie were not very popular.

  Monika arrived with the children in good time, they were cleaned and dressed in their best party clothes. “They look wonderful!” Charles was so pleased to see Monika with the children. “They are easier to manage than you and Max.” was her response, but in truth she was ready to come home.

  The guests began to arrive, unusually almost exactly at the appointed time. The garden filled with the happy cries and excited shouts of the young things. The parents were kept happy with tea, cakes and the odd glass of something to keep them comfortable.

  They had told Susannah to arrive a little late – when all the guests were there.

  I drove Susannah and her mother down the road towards Sandhey, turning into the driveway as I had so many times before. But this time I had such a feeling of dread. Susannah was only just strong enough for company of any sort. Alicia had taken so many pain killers to get through the day that she seemed almost unnaturally alert and talkative. And Carl was here. I couldn’t help but think that this party was a monumentally dreadful idea.

  Alicia held Susannah’s hand. “Chin up old girl. They’re only children!”

  “I can’t do this. I can’t go in. I don’t want to see them.”

  “You must child. You must go in, be strong, show all those gossips and ghouls you have nothing to be ashamed of. You must go in and show them how much you love your children. You are my daughter, Susannah, be as much of an actor as I have been through the years. You must do this. If you don’t the rumourmongers will go even harder at you. More people than do already will think you connived with Monika to murder your husband.”

  “Is that what they think?”

  “Unfortunately, many do. We have shielded you from the worst things that have been said, Ted has dealt with their lawyers....”

  “Whose lawyers? What’s going on? What’s going on that you haven’t been telling me?”

  “Now isn’t the time to go into all that – just believe me when I say you must put on a good act for all these mothers – the only reason they’re here is to get inside information on you to report back to their friends about how you are.”

  “So I’ve got to look like I love them all and am the grieving widow, the doting mother with nothing on my mind other than the good of the children?”

  “Exactly.”

  Susannah hadn’t seen her children since she had left for Liverpool two months before and they were shy when they saw her. Monika was carrying two of them – one on each hip, the other two were holding onto her skirt, thumbs in mouth, half hiding behind her. She had gathered them up from the lawn to take them to their mother.

  Josie was the first to speak, resentfully. “Where’ve you been?”

  “Oh, darlings, I’ve not been well. You must forgive Mummy when she is ill. She doesn’t mean to be. It just happens.”

  How could she know that that was the speech, almost word for word, Alicia had given her when she was young. “You’ve been all right with Monika haven’t you?”

  “Oh yes,” said a very grown up Josie “but she’s not our Mummy.”

  “No she isn’t darlings. We’ll all get back together soon.”

  Fully aware that all the mothers were closely observing the reunion – though their children still rushed around oblivious – Susannah reached out to take the children from Monika with all the appearance of the loving Mother.

  At that moment, doing what she had to do for the many curious eyes around her, she was truly her mother’s daughter.

  He watched them from the window for an hour as they played musical bumps and pass the parcel, and musical chairs. He watched them all eat their ice cream and jelly and he still didn’t go outside.

  He watched Susannah. She looked so different, yet so much the same. Her hair was different, her figure fuller, but she was undoubtedly his Susie and he loved her still. “I love you so much but how could you ever love me enough?” He longed to go out and talk to her, start up again where they had left off.

  But he couldn’t.

  He looked at her with her brood of children. She looked so happy to see them. He had held back for the past weeks, he had to give her time.

  He knew as he looked out at her that if he stayed much longer he would have to talk to her, he couldn’t keep away from her much longer.

  She still had not seen him.

  She was hugging her children, and seemed completely happy. However much he needed her it seemed obvious that she did not need him.

  As he watched her silently through the glass he hated what his mother and his father had done to him more than he had ever thought possible.

  He could get away and no one would notice.

  At the end of the party, all guests and their parents finally gone, the family sat around in the drawing room, the children with glasses of home-made lemonade and bottles of pop, the adults with something stronger. Charles asked Max “Where’s Carl?”

  “I don’t know – I haven’t seen him all afternoon.”

  “He was in the dining room earlier? Have you seen Carl?”

  Monika had spoken the words before she realised it was Susannah she was asking.

  “Carl?”

  They ignored the question for a few minutes, making comments about how well the party had gone and how well behaved Josie and the boys had been, trying
to cover up.

  “You haven’t answered me. Carl?” There was desperation in her voice.

  “Max, you’re hiding something. So are you, Charles, Monika? What’s going on?” She looked from one person to another in the room – increasingly fearful of the answer she knew was coming. “Alicia?”

  “Don’t ask me darling.”

  “I know you think I am, but I’m not completely stupid. You’re all hiding something – someone – from me aren’t you?”

  No one responded. More drinks were poured into cups, more wine into glasses, more straws put into lemonade bottles.

  “It’s Carl isn’t it. He’s been here.” There was no questioning in her voice. It was complete certainty. “Where is he? I want to see him.”

  It was Monika who eventually spoke “He appears to have gone. Yes, it was Carl, he has been here and he has now, apparently, gone.”

  “Carl was here? Today? Here at Sandhey? What’s he doing here? How long’s he been here?” Her voice, originally hysterically high pitched was now flat, cold.

  “A few weeks.”

  A gasp of disbelief from Susannah.

  “He has been here since the day of the...., the day of the accident.”

  Susannah looked around the room. Charles, Max, Monika – the people she most trusted in the world. Her mother who she was just beginning to think she could love. Her children, sitting unaware of what was going on watching the mute television in the corner.

  “You all knew didn’t you? You all knew he was here and you didn’t tell me.” She spoke slowly, as if each word hurt. She had raised her arms – as if in supplication towards them but let them drop to her sides.

  She was completely defeated.

  Her legs bent and she crumpled down to the ground, sitting cross-legged, childlike, and she began to sob. She sobbed as she hadn’t been able to throughout all the pain and anguish of the past few weeks.

  “He....was.....here.....and .....you.....didn’t......tell.......me.”

  Alicia and I took her daughter back to Millcourt. We put her to bed, and all she did was cry. She appeared to have so much pain inside her it was best to let her get it all out of her system.

  The shock of the events of the past few weeks had been almost impossible for her to deal with. The whole afternoon had been a strain – putting on an act Putting on a face to meet the faces that she meets as Alicia frequently misquoted.

  She didn’t want to see her children, she didn’t want to see anyone. It was heartbreaking that Alicia wanted to care for Susannah so much but she just didn’t have the strength.

  I only found out afterwards what Max had done about the children. It was obvious that Susannah could not cope with them and probably would not be able to for some time. Monika had been an angel – but enough was enough.

  In the autumn of 1970 Max had bought a small terrace of houses at the bottom of Fore Street. The houses were immediately opposite the cinema that could be said to have started the whole thing. He arranged for Joe’s mother and the remaining Parrys to live in part of the terrace and for Josie, Jack, Al and Bill to live in the other part with a live in Nanny.

  It was, I suppose, a buy off. With Susannah in the state she was it was entirely likely that Joe’s brothers would have tried to obtain custody of the children, and they could possibly have won. They had even talked of having her committed as ‘incompetent’ if they’d not been given access and it could all have got very nasty. They would not hear that there was another side to the story until Max bought them the houses.

  Perhaps it was for the best. Perhaps they were all as mercenary and money-grabbing as Joe had been, as nothing more was heard about litigation and committals after they had moved into Fore Street.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  And so we all rubbed along, some licking our wounds having lost, some learning to live with their gains from those appalling events.

  I must admit being one of the ones that could be seen to have gained.

  I had Alicia and Susannah.

  As Susannah recovered her physical and mental strength so Alicia became weaker and weaker. Her cancer was spreading, inoperable and victorious. She was taking more and more painkillers. Day by day she weighed herself, marking any slight gain triumphantly in a diary. But it was never Alicia who was gaining the weight – it was the cancer.

  Susannah would sit in the window seat reading aloud as Alicia listened, her eyes either shut or gazing out, unseeing, over the golf course. On her better days Alicia would read and record those poems, those sections of Dickens and Shakespeare that had meant so much to her over the years, Susannah carefully marking up each tape with the contents and duration.

  Their favourite was Sir Henry Newbolt.

  There’s a breathless hush in the close tonight

  Ten to make and the match to win

  A bumping pitch and a blinding light,

  An hour to play, and the last man in.

  Alicia told Susannah of the day she had been born. Of the cricket match, the people, the sunshine. “You mustn’t think it was all bad.”

  And it’s not for the sake of a ribboned coat.

  Or the selfish hope of a season’s fame,

  But his captain’s hand on his shoulder smote

  “Play up! Play up! And play the game!”

  She must have recorded and re-recorded that poem ten times to get it right, to get it the way she wanted to be remembered.

  She was preparing to die with dignity.

  It was heartbreaking.

  We had heard nothing from Carl for several months when I got a phone call at the office.

  “Ted, it’s Carl.” He sounded nervous, tense.

  “Hello Carl, are you well?” I tried to sound unsurprised at his call.

  Ignoring my pleasantries he continued,

  “I understood that there would be some money coming to me on my 25th. That’s on 1st May. Was that true or is it just one more fiction?” I wondered why he sounded so bitter.

  “No, it was not a story – there was a trust fund.” I was surprised, I hadn’t thought Carl had any interest in money.

  “Was?”

  “I have a letter here for you. It was written and left here by your father to be sent to you on your 25th birthday. I haven’t known where to send it. Since you walked out of the party last summer we have had all our letters returned ‘gone away’ we haven’t known how to contact you.”

  “I moved.” He wasn’t going to explain why he had left so suddenly. He wasn’t going to ask any questions about Susannah and the children.

  Carl gave me his address, he had moved from Cambridge to Oxford, and the call ended abruptly.

  I forwarded the letter unopened. I had no idea what the contents were and I had no copy.

  On the following Monday I took another phone call.

  With little preamble Carl began to read from the letter and, although I felt I had to interrupt at times he continued over my protests.

  My Son,

  You are now 25 years old.

  Many Happy Returns.

  If you do not know by now I must tell you the truths behind some of the skeletons in our family cupboard. I will be brief as you will probably have guessed or been told much of it. I do, however, find it necessary to write it down.

  Both Charles and you are my sons – the elder with Alicia, conceived before we married in what I can only describe as “circumstances brought about by the war” and you, during a long love affair with your mother. I am grateful to Henry for having given you a home and having been such a good father figure to you. As far as I know he never knew your true parentage.

  I have to tell you that I discovered the day you left home that Kathleen is my father’s daughter. For years her family kept the truth from her and from me.

  Do not judge us too harshly for things we could not know.

  Be assured that from that day on we are not Man and Wife.

  Susannah, on the other hand, is not my child. You would have b
een free to pursue her and for the pain it has caused you I regret that. She has made her own way and I neither know nor care what she will do with her life.

  To other matters.

  You will, no doubt, remember that there was a trust fund set up by your grandfather to ensure there was something for all my children, also your mother insisted I set up a fund for you alone.

  These Trust Funds were the first things I used to try to clear my debts when it became obvious the business was in trouble. Max had left loopholes when he set them up, loopholes of which I was aware and of which I took advantage.

  So there is nothing for you, for either of you.

  Even if there had been I am not sure inheritance is wise. The substantial sum I received from my father has done me no good. I have inflicted enough on you I will not add the “burden of wealth”. You must make your own way.

  Ever, your father

  Arnold Donaldson.

  “How long have you known the contents of this letter?” His voice was accusing, harsh, cold so my response was defensive.

  I did not try to hide my shock.

  “I did not open the letter, I have no copy. I did not know what the letter said until you just read it to me. I had no idea.”

  “You must have known about the money.” Still accusing. He was concentrating on the Trust Funds. He must have known the other things before, but it was his father’s relationship to Kathleen that was making me think.

  I should have realised.

  “I knew nothing about the Trust Funds until Charles’ 25th. I didn’t draw it up – Max did – I was just a junior in the office when your grandfather died. I had no knowledge that you would have been included in it so I had no knowledge that you had lost out. I am sorry, Carl but there is nothing else I can tell you.”

  I could say nothing that could justify the actions of others. It was not for me to apologise for them.