Too Beautiful to Dance

by Diana Appleyard

  ‘Maybe. I hardly get any holiday, though, and I’m using two weeks to go with Dad.’

  ‘You could come at the weekend.’

  ‘It’s such a long way.’

  ‘It isn’t so far. Only four hours or so. You could be here by ten, if you left work at six on Friday night.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound very positive.’

  ‘I will try. I do miss you.’

  ‘I miss you too. Are you sure Dad isn’t ill? He looked very tired.’

  ‘No,’ Emily said definitely. ‘He isn’t ill.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  Sara gazed up at the church roof, as around her the congregation sang a ragged but enthusiastic rendition of ‘All things bright and beautiful’. She hadn’t heard the hymn since primary school, kneeling on an itchy sampler cushion, her hands clasped in a facsimile of piety as her lips moved noiselessly, while she was actually planning where to go on her bike with her friends.

  Back then, the air within the Yorkshire village church had seemed stale and oppressive, but here the atmosphere was bright and airy. The morning sun poured in through the huge stained glass windows, a colourful rainbow of light dappling the heads of the congregation.

  The church had a magnificent roof, with arched wooden timbers. Why were church roofs so high? Sara wondered idly. To encourage you to feel the majesty of God? Were your thoughts bound to soar with seemingly infinite space above you?

  Every seat in the pews was taken – when she was handed her hymn book by John who ran the village shop, who was also apparently a churchwarden, Sara spotted practically everyone she knew from the village. Helen was right – it was oddly comforting, she thought, to be part of a community drawn together like this. There were lots of children in the congregation too, dressed in their Sunday best, and Sara thought how sad it was that in most parts of Britain religion was no longer a uniting force of the community.

  The conversation with Emily was plaguing her, and here, in the peace of the church with half an ear to the sermon and prayers, she had time to think. Something was evidently worrying Emily deeply about Matt. It wasn’t just that she disliked Karina – that was obvious and she was bound to feel jealous. What she had said – or not said, rather implied – was that Matt was hiding something, that he had changed in a way Emily did not like – or feared, even. Emily’s worries corresponded with her own – when they had met he had been contradictory and nervy. And even though she had joked with Helen about the street-kissing incident, it really was not in character. Matt was quite a private person, and disliked public displays of affection. Perhaps it was simply his lifestyle with Karina which was pushing him close to the edge – she probably encouraged him to burn the candle at both ends and would have all the energy of youth, able to stay up late without feeling completely exhausted the next day. Matt may look young for his years, but he’d still feel the effects of repeated late nights, Sara thought. Karina presumably wanted them to go out clubbing, out drinking with friends. Emily was possibly just very worried about how tired and irritable his social life was making him feel.

  That must be it, she decided, looking at her hymn book. I’m tired of worrying about him anyway, she thought. This shouldn’t be a sad day – yesterday they had heard through the post that Bristol was prepared to offer Lottie a place.

  ‘I’ll take you to Pip’s,’ Sara said, as they had a celebratory cup of tea. ‘Treat ourselves.’

  ‘Brilliant.’

  ‘Can I ask Helen?’

  ‘No,’ Lottie said. ‘This is a family celebration.’ She hesitated, smiling. ‘Well, all the family we can muster for now.’

  ‘You’d better ring Granny.’

  ‘Do I have to?’

  ‘Yes, go on, she’ll be thrilled. It’s about time we gave her some good news.’

  ‘Have you told her about your plans for a job?’

  ‘There’s nothing to tell, yet, is there? Anyway, I want to make sure it’s going to happen before I start telling anyone, I don’t want to look foolish. You should ring Dad too.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘And French Granny.’ This was the family term for Matt’s mother, a tiny, bird-like woman who smoked constantly and still lived in the council house in which Matt had grown up in Manchester. He had tried to persuade her to move down south, but she said all her friends lived in the area and there was no point. She was a very nervy woman and Sara realized she did not have the confidence to make such a dramatic life change. She absolutely doted on Matt, her only child, and after his father had left – which was a relief to both of them, he was the hard-drinking feckless kind of Irishman – she poured all of her hopes into her clever, good-looking son. Sara and she had never seen eye-to-eye and the girls didn’t enjoy visiting her, mainly because her house stank unbearably of smoke. Sara felt guilty the girls were much closer to her own mother, but then she found visiting Matt’s mother a trial too. His parents had met when his mother was working in a hotel in Manchester as a chambermaid, having come over from France when her parents died unexpectedly, and he was a porter. An illustrious upbringing Matt would say, with a smile. But the combination of cultures had given him his dark good looks plus a determination to succeed so he never had to experience life in that way again.

  Lottie had hugged her mother. ‘I’m so pleased! I have a place! Let’s go up to Bristol soon and have a good look around. Maybe Dad will buy me a flat.’

  ‘Please, Lottie,’ Sara said. ‘Don’t go there.’

  ‘I’ll have to make a whole load of new friends,’ Lottie said, her face suddenly worried. ‘And I don’t want to leave you on your own.’

  Sara smiled. ‘You won’t be leaving me, silly. It’s hardly any distance from here, no more than two hours or so. I can easily pop up to see you, or you can come home at the weekends. Anyway, the cottage is going to be like a building site soon, you’ll be well out of it. I may well come and live with you, if things get too uncomfortable here.’

  ‘No way,’ Lottie said, firmly. ‘I’m not having an ancient mother cramping my style.’

  The thought of this conversation made Sara smile, as she mouthed the words to the hymn ‘Jerusalem’. Helen was singing very loudly, if tunelessly, beside her. Sara had felt a warm sensation of pleasure when she’d walked into the church and seen Helen, who motioned she was saving a seat for her. Like being back at school, Sara thought.

  On the way out of church, she joined the queue to shake hands with the sprintin’ vicar.

  ‘Call me Bob,’ he said, when it was her turn. ‘So pleased you’ve found us. You’ve moved into Tremain Cottage, haven’t you?’

  ‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘I’m Sara Atkinson. I’m sorry I haven’t been before, I’m still settling in.’

  He waved his hand carelessly. ‘That really doesn’t matter. We’re just pleased you came. If there’s anything I can do to help, I know nearly everyone around here,’ he added. ‘If you need anything, do call. I’m not just useful for spiritual guidance, you know. I’m an expert in local plumbers as well.’

  Sara laughed. ‘That’s very kind of you. I’m about to start renovating the house, Helen’s helping me,’ she added, turning to look at her friend.

  ‘Ah, Helen,’ he smiled. ‘Now she does know how to get things done. Gets us all organized. I’m not going to put any pressure on you whatsoever because I know you must be so busy, but we do have a few little groups here you might enjoy. A reading group, on a Tuesday, and we’re always looking for help with the church flowers. Have you met Pam yet? She’s the chairman of our Women’s Institute. Or should I say chairwoman? I do get confused. She can come across as a little . . . intimidating, but her heart is definitely in the right place and they do some tremendous good works.’

  That’s it, Sara thought. I have become my mother. She smiled. ‘I’m not sure if I’m Women’s Institute material,’ she said. ‘And I’m rather useless at arranging flowers. But I will try, if you like.’ Amazed, she realized that the thou
ght pleased her. She liked the thought of decorating the church, working inside the calm, cool walls during the week, when it would be quiet.

  ‘Marvellous,’ he said, smiling. ‘I’ll tell Pam. She’ll pop round, if that’s all right, not an imposition?’ He looked at her questioningly. ‘I don’t want to rope you in, but if you’d like to get involved . . .’

  ‘I would,’ she said firmly. ‘I didn’t go to church, before I came here. Not often, anyway. I’m afraid I am something of a lapsed Christian.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter,’ he said airily. ‘We all have our reasons for being here. God means many different things to different people, doesn’t He?’

  ‘Church, blimey,’ Lottie said, sitting at the table in the garden, munching toast. Sara was browsing through the Sunday papers she’d picked up on the way home, as the village shop was open until twelve on a Sunday. There really were too many supplements, she thought, opening a glossy magazine. At least five brightly coloured leaflets fell out on to her knee. ‘I do wish they wouldn’t put in all this rubbish,’ she said crossly.

  ‘You’re turning into a grumpy old woman,’ Lottie said, drinking a mug of tea. ‘Did they get you on the flower rota, then?’

  Sara smiled. ‘I rather think they might have done,’ she admitted.

  ‘That’s it,’ Lottie said. ‘Tweed skirts, sensible flat shoes, hairy chin and big knickers. Old age has set in. What’s the vicar like?’

  ‘Rather nice,’ Sara said. ‘Young, a beard, two small children. He runs marathons, looks terribly fit. Not a fogey by any means, the sermon was all about Iraq – quite political, really. I don’t think he’s out of touch. It was very soothing, actually.’

  ‘Soothing!’ Lottie laughed, from behind the newspaper she’d picked up. ‘What with Pilates and God, you’ll end up completely catatonic.’

  ‘Hardly,’ Sara said.

  ‘By the way, when are you going to get around to doing something with that toy box by the fridge? I nearly fell over it this morning.’

  ‘Oh,’ Sara said. ‘I meant to clean it up, it’s rather beautiful, isn’t it? It just needs sanding and re-waxing. The wood is lovely. Although it’s not ours, is it? I wonder who it did belong to.’

  ‘The old man who used to live here?’

  ‘I suppose so. But apparently he died without leaving any family, so maybe it does belong to us, now. There was nothing else of any value in the attic, just that load of old documents in cardboard boxes. I really ought to have a bonfire, start clearing the rubbish.’

  ‘Have you ever actually made a bonfire?’ Lottie asked, putting down the newspaper and looking at her mother with some concern.

  ‘No. Fires were always Dad’s domain. But it can’t be so hard, can it? I’ve got a can of petrol in the shed – we should just collect all the rubbish together and then pile it up outside the gate – not in the garden, there isn’t room, and it’s a bit too near the house.’

  ‘I have a bad feeling about this,’ Lottie said. ‘You plus petrol strikes me as a dangerous combination.’

  Heaving everything down from the attic was a marathon job which took Sara and Lottie well into the afternoon. At first they kept getting sidetracked by reading old newspapers, but then realized how long it was going to take at that rate, and started piling everything regardless into black binbags. Most of the documents Sara found were old insurance policies and bank statements, dating back up to fifty years, so she decided it wouldn’t do any harm to get rid of them. Once they had cleared the entire attic, Sara sat back on her heels, pleased with their industry, as Lottie tied the last knot in the final binbag full of paper.

  Above her, the bats swung gently in the breeze – she had opened the tiny skylight in the roof to try to get rid of some of the dust. It really was quite a big area – maybe Helen was right, and they could put a little staircase up from the landing, and make this into one big bedroom or studio, even have a little shower room at the end. But what about the bats? She regarded them balefully. Blasted protected species. She was sure Lottie, who would probably end up having the attic room, could not co-exist with bats. Their droppings stank, as her hands testified.

  Lottie stood under the hatch, as Sara heaved down the binbags.

  ‘How many more?’ she complained. ‘I want to go to the beach. I fancy a swim.’ She looked up at her mother. ‘Do you want to come?’

  ‘I’ll come to the beach, but I’m not going in. It may be officially summer, but that water will still be freezing. I’d need a wetsuit to get me in.’

  ‘Coward. Go on, Mother. Live a little.’

  ‘Hmm. Maybe.’

  ‘Whose idea was this?’ Sara was standing up to her knees in the chilly water, as it surged and eddied around her increasingly numb feet. Fortunately there was no one else on the beach – she doubted she would have got this far if there had been anyone watching. She had managed to unearth a swimming costume. It was not flattering, bagging around the stomach and lacking in support at the top.

  ‘Come on!’ Lottie called to her. She was wearing a tiny pale yellow bikini, which showed off her tan, and she’d put her hair up into a bun. She was already standing up to her waist, holding her arms outstretched at either side of her. ‘It’s not that bad, Mum, really. You get used to it.’

  Sara looked up at the cliff. The rock face, eroded into a series of ledges and crags by the tide, was covered in yellow gorse towards its summit, and its steep sides cast long shadows over the water, blocking out the warmth of the sun. Pebbles and rocks were sharp under her feet, and she winced as she edged forward, then recoiled as her toes touched a slimy clump of seaweed. The water around her was very clear, a pale, translucent blue, but beyond Lottie the colour darkened to steel grey towards the misty line of the horizon. The image of the basking shark flashed through Sara’s mind. Harmless, she said firmly to herself. No teeth. It just sucked in plankton, gummed it about a bit and then spat it out. No danger to humans whatsoever, as were the porpoises, dolphins and grey seals. The most they might do was accidentally bump into you. You were more in danger from jelly fish. Then another thought flashed through her mind. A great white shark had been spotted off the coast of Cornwall last month. Surely it wouldn’t come in so close to the coast? She peered out to sea, imagining a sleek grey fin scything through the water, heading towards them with deadly intent . . . She let out a little squeak.

  ‘What on earth is the matter?’ Lottie called. Then, seeing her mother was still upright, she held her breath and dived under the surface of the water. The next thing Sara saw was a pair of neat white heels as Lottie disappeared.

  ‘Lottie!’ she cried, suddenly overcome by a quite irrational hysteria. Moments later Lottie reappeared, shaking her head, laughing, some twenty feet away from Sara.

  ‘It’s amazing!’ she said. ‘So clear! I kept my eyes open and there were these little tiny grey fish, a great shoal of them! Honestly, once you’re under you don’t feel the cold. You get acclimatized.’

  ‘Numb,’ Sara corrected.

  ‘Oh, come on!’ Lottie said impatiently. ‘What harm can it do? Swim, Mother.’

  At that moment, from behind Lottie, a rising crescent of water appeared. Sara stared at the wave horrified, quite unable to move. Until now, the tide had been little more than a swell, barely a foot high, just lifting the sea further up her legs in a gentle, pushing motion. But this was a definite breaker. As she watched, the water began to define itself into an overhanging curve, before erupting into a thin snow-like crust of spray. ‘Lottie!’ she called, pointing. ‘Look out!’ Lottie turned, just as the wave hit her, and she screamed as it lifted her clean off her feet. Then she disappeared. Sara felt rooted to the spot – she turned to try to get back to the shoreline but the previous much smaller wave was pulling her back. She was, inexorably, being drawn into the path of the wave. She felt herself being lifted up, tugged backwards, and then the water broke over her. The wave was huge, at least eight feet high, and for an instant her world turned upside down as she s
pun, helplessly, the salt water rushing up her nose, choking, trying to keep her mouth closed, feeling her thighs, her knees, crashing against the stony bottom of the sea, and then it passed, leaving her floundering on the surface, her chest heaving, her eyes, nose and throat full of water and sand. She turned, rubbing her eyes.

  Lottie was treading water some thirty feet away. ‘Are you OK?’ she called. ‘That came out of nowhere!’

  ‘It certainly did,’ Sara shouted back. She was OK, nothing was broken, she’d survived. It was only a wave. Why had she been so fearful, when there was nothing to fear? ‘Wait there,’ she called. ‘I’m coming.’ With an awkward, jerky breaststroke, holding her head high out of the water, she made her way over to her daughter.

  Lottie was right, once you were fully submerged, the shock of the icy water became almost warm against your body. She’d never liked swimming out of her depth, but now, treading water next to Lottie, she realized there must be at least twenty feet of sea beneath her. But she did not feel afraid. Tumbling in the chaos of water, seaweed, sand and stones, she had realized that as long as she remained calm the sea would not hurt her. There was nothing to fear.

  Chapter Sixteen

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Sara,’ he said, lifting a banana skin off the chair and dropping it into an overflowing waste-paper basket. ‘I’m Nick, by the way, and this is Tom.’ Tom waved a greeting without looking up from his computer. The office, Sara noted, was extremely untidy, with piles of papers and photocopied pictures teetering on each of the desks, amidst a litter of empty coffee cups. Sara had to suppress the urge to have a good tidy-up. But they probably had far more important things to do than worry about mess.

  ‘Your letter came at just the right time,’ Nick said, lifting up a pile of documents which had lain beneath the blackening skin of the banana, so Sara could sit down. A girl with long dark hair and a pencil in her mouth wandered by. Ignoring Sara, she leant over the desk towards Nick. ‘The Echo called about a quote, you know, the shark thing. What shall I say?’