Too Beautiful to Dance

by Diana Appleyard

  ‘You could start with me,’ Helen said. Sara looked at her in surprise.

  ‘I’m not a builder,’ she said. ‘But I am an architect and I know most of the builders round here. I used to have my own practice in Surrey, and I work from home now. It’s amazing how much work there is around here, although most of it’s on second homes, admittedly. People round here don’t want to pay my rates.’

  ‘How do you know I do?’ Sara said, smiling.

  ‘Big car?’ Helen said.

  ‘Oh, that’s getting on now, and anyway it was given—’ Sara had been about to say, ‘It was given to me by my husband,’ but stopped herself. ‘I am on a budget,’ she said. ‘Honestly, I don’t have lots of money. I wouldn’t want to take you on, on false pretences. I’m hoping to do a lot of the redecorating myself.’

  ‘I’d like to help,’ Helen said. ‘I tend to have two rates, anyway, one for jobs I don’t particularly want to do but have to, to pay the bills, and one for work that really interests me. How old is the cottage?’

  ‘I’m not exactly sure. About three hundred years?’

  ‘Maybe even four. I’d love to come and have a root about. Is it in a dreadful state?’

  ‘Pretty bad. I’ve tidied up, but there’s no point painting anything, until I decide what I’m going to do. I didn’t want to rush at it, and to be honest I’ve never actually renovated an entire house before, just bits and pieces, you know, rooms.’

  ‘I’ll come this afternoon, if you like. I haven’t got anything on, apart from clearing out the henhouse, and I’d be thrilled to put that off.’

  ‘That would be great. Thanks.’ Sara smiled. ‘About two?’

  ‘Ideal. I’ll see you then.’

  From the interior of Helen’s beaten-up Land Rover Defender came the sound of loud, hysterical barking. ‘I won’t let him out,’ she said, fending off a large hairy Airedale dog as she climbed out. ‘He’s dreadful at jumping up and he gets thoroughly over-excited at meeting new people. His name’s Nigel. Grim, isn’t it? The kids called him that for a joke and I’m afraid it stuck.’

  ‘Hector – my Labrador – is a bit timid. Maybe we need to introduce them slowly?’

  ‘Nigel’s all right once he gets to know you, but it is a bit like being attacked by a carpet.’

  Sara laughed. ‘We could always walk them together, later – if you’ve time, that is?’ I mustn’t rush this, she thought. I can’t seem desperate to make a friend. Let’s take it one step at a time. But thank God, oh, thank God, there seems to be at least one normal, intelligent person living nearby. Most of the women she’d bumped into so far in the Spar shop had been perfectly friendly, but either elderly or young mums coping with crying babies and hyperactive toddlers.

  ‘He was my husband’s dog and neither of the children will have him, understandably. So I got stuck with him, the silly old fool.’

  ‘How long ago . . . ?’

  ‘Three years. A heart attack. One of those things. He was older than me, but it was a shock all the same.’

  ‘Come in.’ Sara walked ahead of Helen and held the front door open for her, before following her inside. Helen peered into the two small front rooms. ‘Hideously poky,’ she said. Sara smiled. Helen was clearly not one to mince her words.

  ‘I know, aren’t they dreadful?’ she agreed. Helen tapped the wall from inside one room, and then went back outside into the corridor. ‘You may be all right,’ she said. ‘This is a stud wall, and the other one is probably the same. Not stone,’ she added, catching Sara’s baffled expression.

  ‘I had thought I’d like to knock them both through into one big room and get rid of the passageway, but that would mean you’d step straight into a living room, which isn’t ideal, is it?’

  ‘Hmm. Unless you made a feature of the front door with a little porch, but never actually used it, and put the main entrance around the back. Most people don’t use their front door, anyway, not when you park at the back.’

  Sara smiled. ‘That’s a good idea. I want lots of light, but I doubt I’d get planning permission to make the windows bigger, would I?’ She walked over and looked out of one of them, towards the sea.

  ‘Is the cottage listed?’

  ‘No. It probably should be, but it isn’t.’

  ‘That’s good news. It’s a bugger trying to get any kind of change, especially to windows, on a listed property. Now, show me the rest.’

  She laughed out loud as Sara led her into the kitchen. Sara had swept the grey slate floor, polished the round oak table until it shone, and the fridge and stove were spotlessly clean, but even the vase of pink roses on the table could not hide the fact that this was a prefabricated excuse for a kitchen. ‘Demolition,’ Helen said, succinctly, looking up at the tin roof. ‘What kind of kitchen do you want?’

  Sara looked at her hesitantly. ‘I’d really like to stretch out the whole of the back of the cottage, towards the road – I think there’s room – and add another bedroom upstairs. I know it would have to be small, but I’d like a bedroom with a little en suite, so I’d have two bathrooms. And I’ve got this idea for the kitchen – I hope you don’t think it’s silly – but I’d really like part of the roof to be made of glass, like an atrium, so it would be a kind of conservatory.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Helen, slowly. ‘But you’d look out on to the road, wouldn’t you, if you keep the kitchen at the back? How about building an extension at the side, stepped back from the main façade, obviously? So then you’d make the cottage longer rather than wider, which would look much better. You could keep the existing kitchen as a boot room, very useful when you have a muddy dog. Part of the roof would have to be flat, obviously, if you wanted to have another bedroom and shower room above, but then the end part of the roof could be a glass atrium. It would look great.’ She smiled. ‘Then you’d be able to look out over the sea – the view really is fantastic from here.’

  ‘I would never have thought of that,’ Sara said, gratefully. ‘Thank you. I really need another bathroom, and with the children, one spare bedroom . . .’

  ‘How many children do you have?’

  ‘Two girls. They’re not children, they’re in their twenties now. Lottie’s on a gap year – she’s living here with me, she’s just out shopping – and Emily, the older one, works for a radio station. She lives in London with her . . . with some friends, renting a flat.’

  ‘So you came from London?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Helen looked at her, seemed about to say something, and then stopped.

  ‘Let’s drink our coffee outside,’ Sara suggested. ‘It’s so lovely today. The smell of damp gets to me after a while. I’ll show you upstairs later.’

  They sat down on the wall, facing the cottage. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t got anywhere proper to sit. I’ve just ordered some garden chairs, and a table, Lottie and I chose them last week. Very exciting, my first big purchase.’

  ‘Didn’t you bring any from London?’

  ‘No. They wouldn’t have suited here, anyway. Can you see stainless steel in this garden?’

  Helen laughed. ‘Hardly. You didn’t have an old house, then?’

  ‘No. We, I, lived in a loft apartment. Part of a converted warehouse, in the docks area, with a roof terrace. Great view of the river, but not what you might call a garden.’

  Helen looked at her, consideringly. ‘I can’t see you in that kind of environment,’ she said.

  Sara tucked a stray lock of hair behind one ear. ‘No. I can’t really see me there now either. Do you want another coffee?’ She looked at Helen’s empty cup.

  ‘That would be lovely. I keep trying to give it up but I can’t get started in the morning without it.’

  ‘I’m the same.’ They smiled at each other.

  As Sara rinsed the two mugs out under the hot tap in the stained old sink, she thought, ‘I must stop being so mysterious. Helen told me straight out that her husband was dead and she’s obviously waiting for me to volunteer more informati
on, but I’m really not ready to tell her yet that I have left my husband – it’s so easy for word to get round and then – no. I don’t want any labels. I don’t want anyone I meet here to know. Not yet, anyway. Here, I am Sara Atkinson. That’s all.’ Only, she knew, she wasn’t. She was still legally Sara de Lall, and this morning a thick A4-sized envelope had arrived. Turning it over, she saw the name of Matt’s solicitors printed on the back. It was sitting on the hall table, under the mirror, and one of the reasons she had gone to the shop in the first place when she didn’t really need to buy anything was as a kind of displacement activity, so she didn’t have to open it just yet. Quite why she feared it, she didn’t know. It was probably something to do with the sale of the apartment, it was unlikely to be anything too vile. Like divorce. Quite why she feared this, she wasn’t sure. ‘I just don’t think I’m ready to consider that yet,’ she thought. Too much was still unresolved.

  With Lottie here, life was settling into a pleasing routine. Yesterday they’d climbed Raphael Cliff, and later today, if Lottie wasn’t too late back from Liskeard, she had promised herself they would walk over Chapel Cliff before dropping down into Polperro and exploring the town, maybe have dinner there and get a taxi back. Living here was fun, Lottie had announced this morning, at breakfast. Like being permanently on holiday.

  Helen was sitting with her eyes closed and her face turned towards the sun, as Sara walked towards her, carrying the mugs. ‘Here you are,’ Sara said.

  Her eyes flew open. ‘I’m just enjoying the warmth. This must be the hottest day, so far. You wait until the height of the summer, last year we had temperatures in the nineties, day after day.’

  ‘How long have you lived here?’

  ‘Three years. I waited a few months in Surrey after Jack died, and then I did what I’d promised myself I would – I sold everything up and moved down here permanently. We’ve had the house for years, as a holiday home. My kids thought I was mad, and that I’d die of boredom. But I adapted really quickly. Now I can’t imagine living anywhere else, and when I go back to Surrey, or into London, I feel no connection at all.’

  Sara smiled in recognition. ‘You don’t get bored?’

  ‘God, no. I’ve got my work and I can pick and choose what I do. I’m lucky. It’s all rather Good Life, really – I’ve got a flock of sheep, too, on the hill. Not to mention a couple of very dopey pet ones in the small paddock at the side of the house. Are you sure you haven’t met them on the road as well? Very occasionally they make an arthritic bid for freedom and are spotted tottering down the road towards the bright lights of Liskeard. Everyone around here – especially Tom the farmer – thinks I’m mad because I won’t eat any of them. Have you met Tom yet?’

  ‘A couple of times. I’ve seen his son, too, on the tractor.’

  ‘Jim. Poor boy. He longs for city life, you know, but Tom won’t let him go. Cheap labour, you know what farmers are like. He must be worth millions, but tight as a duck’s arse, never spends anything on the farmhouse and it’s a beautiful old place. He’s a widower.’

  ‘Do your children visit much?’

  ‘Daniel pops down from the Midlands with his wife, usually in the summer – they’ve two young children – and Meg’s away travelling in Australia for a year. On a gap year after university, if you please. Putting off real life, I suppose. I can’t blame her.’

  ‘They do seem rather slow to get down to work,’ Sara smiled. ‘Although Emily, my daughter, she got a job straight out of university, or at least, Matt –’

  ‘Matt?’ Helen raised an eyebrow. ‘My husband. My ex-husband,’ she said. ‘Well – sorry, I don’t know how to describe him. We’re not legally separated, or anything like that. We’re just living apart. That’s why . . .’

  ‘You’re here.’ Helen stood up decisively. ‘Do you want to show me upstairs?’ Sara realized she was not going to pry, and was relieved.

  ‘This has real possibilities,’ Helen said, minutes later, ducking her head to avoid the beams in the bedroom. ‘These are really sweet rooms, and the bathroom’s not too tiny, is it?’

  ‘I know. Very Anne of Green Gables, don’t you think, with the sloping roofs and little windows?’

  ‘How big is the attic?’

  ‘I honestly don’t know,’ Sara said. ‘I haven’t been up there yet.’

  ‘No time like the present,’ Helen said. ‘Have you got a ladder? Here’s the trapdoor . . .’ She reached up, with both hands, and pushed the hatch away from her head. A shower of dust fell on both of them, and they peered up into the darkness, the rafters of the roof just visible through the gloom.

  Sara went off to fetch a small wooden stepladder she’d uncovered earlier in the week in the shed at the far side of the cottage. It was grey with age, extremely rickety and covered in paint. She manhandled it, with difficulty, through the front door and up the stairs.

  Helen climbed up first. ‘Wow,’ came her muffled voice as she peered up through the hatch. ‘There’s a lot of space up here. God, it’s full of stuff, too.’ She climbed up and stepped off the top of the ladder, making it wobble alarmingly, and Sara looked anxiously up after her. She didn’t much relish the idea of having to balance on something so wobbly, but there was no other way up. Helen leant down to hold her hand as she reached the top, and heaved her up through the trapdoor.

  In the dim light she could make out the outline of cardboard boxes, covered in twigs and straw, coated with a thick layer of bird dirt, and something much darker and more sticky. ‘Bats,’ Helen said, looking upwards. Sure enough, arranged in neat rows from the overhead rafters, were about twenty small bats hanging upside down, their wings carefully folded. They were barely bigger than plums. ‘Pipistrelles,’ Helen said. ‘It’s a wonder we haven’t disturbed them.’

  Sara was surprised to find she could stand almost upright, and moved quickly to one side, as she was directly under the bats. Charming they might be, but she did not like the thought of them flapping in her face. ‘You could get at least one other room up here if we didn’t tell anyone about the bats,’ Helen said. ‘Hang on, I think there’s a light.’ She reached out her right hand, and flicked the switch. The attic was abruptly illuminated by a bare bulb, hanging from a dangerous-looking, twisted brown wire in the centre of the roof. One of the bats opened an eye and regarded them solemnly.

  ‘This must be such a fire risk,’ Helen said, looking at all the straw. ‘There’s too much here for the birds to have brought in. The old man must have used this straw as insulation. Goodness.’ She laughed.

  Some of the boxes had split open, and Sara could see they were full of papers – not newspapers, but documents of some kind. In the far corner stood what looked like an old toy box. She picked her way over, making sure to stand on the wooden struts, terrified of putting her foot through the floor into one of the bedrooms below. As she reached it, she saw that on top of the wooden box was painted, in curly faded red letters, a name. Charlotte. What an extraordinary coincidence.

  ‘Look at this,’ Sara said. Helen, taking cautious small steps around the cardboard boxes, came over to stand beside her. Sara, crouching down, carefully lifted the lid. Inside was a pile of very old painted wooden toys. A clown, a puppet and a doll, with an astonishingly life-like face, and wide, unblinking eyes, lay staring up at them.

  At that moment, unearthly music filled the attic – a haunting, sad tune, like the music from a carousel. They looked at each other in horror. ‘What the hell . . .’ Helen exclaimed. Then Sara started to laugh. ‘It’s a music box, as well as a toy box,’ she said, pointing at the tiny figure of a ballerina on the back ledge, pirouetting amidst the swirling dust particles caught in the light from the naked bulb. ‘Goodness, I thought we’d stirred up musical ghosts,’ Helen said, sitting back on her heels, laughing.

  ‘What an amazing antique, and I bet these toys are worth a fortune. There’s something really spooky about dolls, isn’t there?’ She lifted the porcelain doll out of the toy box, and turned her slowl
y and carefully over in her hands, brushing the dust from her stiff white dress.

  ‘I know. They scare me rigid, I didn’t even like them as a child. You know . . .’ An idea dawned on Sara. ‘I met a funny old chap a while ago, walking the cliff path – you might know who he is. He wore a very strange pair of cut-off wellingtons, rather lecherous, lots of wild grey hair.’

  ‘Harold,’ Helen confirmed. ‘Be careful with him, he thinks he’s a real ladies’ man. Anyone female is fair game. Never be enticed into his house to play Scrabble.’

  Sara nodded. ‘He said the old man who used to live here – Mick, I think his name was – had a daughter. He didn’t tell me her name, but she might be this Charlotte. And he said something odd – he wouldn’t tell me what happened to her, saying I’d find out soon enough. Most mysterious.’

  ‘This is like something out of Daphne du Maurier,’ Helen smiled. ‘Our very own conundrum.’

  ‘Have you ever heard anything about him, or his daughter? You’ve been here quite a long time, counting holidays . . .’

  ‘Yes, but no one ever really talked to us. I’m only just being accepted as a local, and it’s been three years since I moved. They don’t confide in second-home people, we’re just inblowers. God, I have to stand up. My knees have locked.’ Creakily, she straightened up.

  ‘Let’s take the toy box down,’ Sara said. ‘I want to show it to Lottie. She should be home soon.’

  Just then, they heard the front door slam.

  Sara carried the box in both hands as she walked down the stairs. It was surprisingly heavy – she’d had to pass it to Helen very carefully down through the narrow hatch. Every time she bumped down a step, the lid opened fractionally and a squeak of music escaped.

  They found Lottie in the kitchen, unpacking a white carrier bag. ‘You’ll never guess what I’ve found,’ she said, triumphantly lifting out a bottle. ‘Cloudy Bay!’ As she lifted her head she saw Helen. ‘Oh!’ she said, surprised.

  ‘Darling, this is Helen. I met her at the shop this morning, she lives down the road in the yellow house . . .’