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Given the eight-year age gap, it would have been quite understandable had Bobbie chosen to ignore me altogether during these visits, but she had been angelically kind and looked after me like a mother – which was just as well as my real mother was too busy to have time for me. Laetitia became more demanding with age. She had to have shawls, spectacles, hats and pills fetched, and constant cups of tea and cakes made while she lay either in bed, on a sofa or in a deckchair in the garden. Her cook and her daily gave notice almost hourly and had to be cajoled into staying. During the sulking periods, my mother had to vacuum acres of carpet, polish her way through cupboards of silver and rustle up lunch and supper for Major Pickford-Norton, a small man with a peppery temper and a selfishness quite as colossal as his wife’s.
Bobbie had taken us for walks and helped us make daisy chains and grass whistles or collect conkers, depending on the time of year. Sometimes we went to the beach. Bobbie would give us piggybacks down to the place where it briefly became sand and we’d make mermaids with shells and bladderwrack and skate’s-egg cases and she would plait my hair so that it wasn’t torture to brush afterwards. On wet days she took us in turn on her knee and read us stories and played Happy Families and Ludo. I thought her the most beautiful creature in the world, with her long fair wavy hair and eyes that were the colour of the sea. Despite my dislike of Cutham Hall and my fear of Major Pickford-Norton, it was a huge disappointment when Laetitia wrote to say that her indifferent health precluded any more visits.
‘How’s your mother? Is she managing without your father?’
Bobbie’s father had died two years ago.
‘Very well. She has a companion called Ruby who’s a dear and looks after her brilliantly. She’s put on two stones since my father died. The marriage wasn’t a happy one, you know. How’s darling Dimpsie?’
Despite being very different kinds of people, Bobbie had always been very fond of my mother. Most people were.
‘All right, I think. She came backstage after a performance of Swan Lake when we toured the north last year. We had supper together.’
‘And Kate? And your father?’
‘I haven’t seen either of them for ages. We only have a few days off at Christmas and it’s too far to go home. Tell me about Ireland. What made you rush back there so suddenly? Are you really going to live there permanently?’
Bobbie’s life had been interwoven with mysterious comings and goings. I had received several enigmatic notes from her over the last few months postmarked Eire.
‘Oh, yes.’ Bobbie stretched out her hand to show me a wedding ring. ‘Finn and I were married six weeks ago.’
‘Married? Bobbie, you might have told me! And who is Finn?’
‘I know it was bad of me but truthfully we didn’t tell anyone. We married in the register office in Dublin with two colleagues from Trinity College as witnesses and afterwards we went out to dinner, just the two of us, and that was it. He has three children, you see, by his first wife, and we didn’t want to make a fuss. Most people in Connemara – that’s where we live – wouldn’t even consider that we are married. Divorce isn’t recognized in Ireland, though Finn went to a lot of trouble to get his first marriage annulled. I wouldn’t have minded living in sin for the rest of my life as long as I could be with him.’
‘Tell me about Finn. It’s a beautiful name.’
Bobbie smiled. ‘Oh … he’s very clever. And very good … though he’d laugh if he heard me say that. He’s very handsome, very Irish, though that could mean any number of things. He’s writing a biography about Parnell – the Irish politician – and he’s an advisor to the government on education. Does that make him sound dull? He certainly isn’t that. I only have to see the back of his head and I get butterflies.’ She was silent for a moment, thinking. ‘He’s in everything I do, in everything I see, in every thought, in every hope, every dream. Yet I don’t really know how to describe him.’
I laughed. ‘Well, the picture so far is encouraging. Tell me about the children? How do you get on with them?’
‘I love them. And I hope they love me. It would take too long to tell you the whole story now and I want to hear about you, but Curraghcourt – that’s Finn’s house where his family have lived for centuries – is the most wonderful place and we’ve opened it to the public to help pay for repairs. And I’ve started an antiques business. That’s why I’m here, looking up dealers, people I used to know when I worked for the auction house. Finn and I never have a minute to call our own, except sometimes after dinner we sneak off alone together and then – well – it’s paradise.’
I tried, but failed, to imagine wanting to be with someone that much. This was worrying. Was I a cold heartless person, incapable of love? I had no time to answer this question because Bobbie was asking me about my leg.
‘I’ve got an appointment in six weeks.’
‘And how long till you can dance on it?’
I looked down at my glass. ‘About two months. That’s if …’ Despite my best intentions my nose began to prickle and my throat became tight. Tears began to well. ‘Bobbie, I’m terrified … if it doesn’t heal properly I may never be able to dance again.’
‘Oh, darling!’
‘And the awful thing is, life without dancing seems … utterly pointless. If I try to imagine myself not dancing – I don’t even know who I am!’
After this confession I broke down completely. Bobbie got up and put her arms round me and I sobbed hard on her shoulder. At last the storm of weeping blew itself out. I mopped my face on the handkerchief she offered. ‘Thanks. I never seem to have one. I’ll wash it and send it back.’
‘Keep it. I really am sorry to have touched such a tender place.’
‘I needed to say it. It’s something we’re all so frightened of that it’s like a taboo. But it’s been in my mind all the time, haunting me like something terrifying you think might be under the bed only you can’t bring yourself to bend down and look in case it’s staring at you with glaring red eyes …’
‘Your problem is you’ve got so much imagination. Don’t you remember, when you were little, that story about a scarecrow who came alive? Kate thought it was funny but you woke screaming for several nights after. Not that imagination isn’t generally a good thing, and you wouldn’t be such a good dancer if you didn’t have it.’
‘If I can’t dance again I’ve just got to try to face up to it. I certainly won’t be the only one. It happens all the time. Mostly feet but sometimes backs and knees – then it’s goodbye career, hello teaching, reviewing, whatever you can get.’ I was annoyed to hear my voice wobble pathetically. ‘When you think how few opportunities there are to dance the principal roles and how many good dancers there are I ought to be grateful that I’ve had the chance to do Lac and Giselle and Manon and all those brilliant parts.’
‘What you need is—’ Bobbie broke off with a little yell as Siggy poked out his head from beneath the eiderdown and bared his incisors at her.
‘It’s all right, it’s only Siegfried. He’s hungry, I expect.’ I leaned over the side of the bed and put a morsel of chicken on his saucer. He pushed his head out further, looked at Bobbie with unfriendly eyes and hopped down to the floor. Siggy was possessive and jealous, but his marked preference for me above all other beings was good for my morale.
‘A