‘Well, I know you called him ‘‘him’’, but I reckoned that was just a ruse to put me off the scent.’
David laughed delightedly. ‘I’ll have to introduce you. Colin’s six foot six and balding, with a bushy ginger beard.’
‘Colin? And there I was imagining a Samantha or a Jezebel.’
‘No, the last time I stayed there, it was Morna I was sleeping with. I took you back to bed with me after our marvellous day together.’
‘And what … er … happened?’
‘I’d blush to tell you.’ He leaned over, touched her cheek. ‘It does mean beloved.’
‘What does?’
‘Your name. Beloved and beautiful and sensual and special and …’
She was blushing now herself. ‘And what does David mean?’
‘A crazy nervous fellow who’s in too much of a rush, but may improve, given time and a loving woman. No, actually, David means beloved, too—in Hebrew. Isn’t that strange?’ He sat up, dislodging half the covers. ‘The root is DWD which probably means ‘‘to love’’, though it’s a bit obscure. As a noun, it definitely means ‘‘the beloved’’ and is used that way in ‘‘The Song of Songs’’ at least a score of times. And as a proper name …’
Morna hid a smile. Even post coitum, David couldn’t resist a scholarly digression.
‘So we’re both beloveds,’ she whispered, when he was silent again, lying back beside her, one arm across her body as if to make sure it couldn’t stray.
‘Yes.’ He kissed her, very gently, on the mouth. ‘Goodnight, beloved.’
‘G … Goodnight.’ Morna could hardly get the word out. He was going so fast, had promoted her from colleague to beloved in just one evening. She settled herself against him, closed her eyes. How could she ever get to sleep with that ‘‘beloved’’ dazzling in her gut as if she had swallowed a spinning sparking firework, or taken a pep pill which had made her gloriously uproariously awake? She shifted position, felt the warm and solid buffer of his thigh.
‘David …’
‘Mm?’
‘I’m not sure I can sleep. I’m flaked out physically, but …’
David half sat up. ‘Shut your eyes and join your hands.’
‘What for? We’re not going to say the rosary, are we, or an Act of Contrition? I draw the line at that.’
‘No, just an ancient prayer for peace and sleep.’ He joined her hands for her, stroked her eyelids shut, recited some words aloud. She recognised the strange guttural softness of the Gaelic.
‘Want me to translate?’ he whispered.
She nodded.
He took her hand, kissed the palm, clasped her fingers round the kiss, then held them in his own. ‘May the peace of the tallest mountain and the peace of the smallest stone be your peace. May the stillness of the stars watch over you. May the everlasting music of the wave lull you to rest.’
‘Amen,’ she whispered, drawing him down towards her. ‘Now we’ll sleep.’
Chapter Twenty Three
Morna stood pressed against the wall, watching the crush and press of dancing bodies, wincing at the insistent beat of the record, angry drums and shrill guitar. She could hardly make out the words, but those she caught seemed anything but sweet. She wished she could choose a record—something passionate, romantic—moons and Junes, whispered vows of love on lonely beaches, long lingering kisses as the wild waves crashed and foamed—something to match her mood, her thoughts of David. She tried to remove the smug contented smile. She was meant to be the chaperone, the stern and watchful parent, not just another party guest mooning around singing vacuous love songs in her head.
A saxophone yelped and sniggered, bawled out by the drums. The photos on the bureau were trembling with the beat, the whole room vibrating, thick with cigarette smoke. Morna picked her way between the couples—girls in spangled minis or junk-shop dinner jackets, boys with earrings and dyed hair—edged into the hall. A new squall of guests had just arrived—the front door jammed with bodies, people hugging, handing over bottles, one girl carrying a huge home-made birthday card for Chris, the figures 18 cut out in red felt and glued with sequins. The girl herself had a V of sequins stuck on to her neck and pointing down her cleavage; her purple plastic eyeshades clashing with the hot-pink micro-skirt which barely skimmed her crotch. Morna glimpsed a flash of black lace knicker as the girl reached forward to hug a friend. When she had been that age, she had worn Terylene pleated skirts with pastel-coloured home-knits, one daring pair of slacks. Yet the clothes had seemed exotic after years and years of frumpish school uniform. She remembered her first thrilling dab of lipstick, her first pair of shoes not regulation brown, the almost sinful ecstasy of dangly rhinestone earrings borrowed from her mother for a dance. Even today she was sedately dressed—the only female present in a classic navy two-piece with the hem below the knee, the only over-twenty-five at all. Yet if they could see beneath the clothes, pare away the conventional outer shell, realise how like a kid she felt herself—a lovesick teenager waiting for the postman, replaying all the love scenes of the last few weeks, continually sneaking back to the island in her head. It was good to be eighteen again at forty (well, forty-one)—enjoying the excitement without the fears and shyness, the kisses free of guilt. She longed to be dancing like the other couples, arms around David’s neck, their two bodies touching all the way down.
‘Hi, Mrs Gordon! How you doing?’
Morna jumped. It was Anne-Marie who had come to tea a year ago in pigtails and gymslip, now squeezed into a tight and tarty skirt and tottering towards her on three-inch scarlet heels.
‘I’m great.’ Morna borrowed Chris’s word. ‘Absolutely great. Know where Chris went? She was here a moment ago and …’
‘Yeah. She’s in the study.’
Neil’s ex-study was barely recognisable. The desk had been pushed back, the bookshelves hung with streamers and balloons, the thick-pile carpet lost beneath sprawling arms and legs. Morna couldn’t spot Chris at first, finally made her out at the far end of the room, sitting on the window seat, squashed between Martin and another boy who was sporting a black tail coat over denim dungarees. Her daughter hadn’t bothered to dress up, was wearing her third best jeans with one of Martin’s drabber shirts. Her only concession to the party was a pair of grey suede buttoned ankle boots which she had bought from a stall in the Portobello Road and treasured as genuine Victorian. The clothes which Neil had bought her or Bunny bequeathed, had been pushed to the back of her wardrobe, the blonde streaks in her hair fading, growing out. The diamond looked too opulent against her drab and boyish clothes. She kept glancing at it, twisting it round and round, moving her left hand stiffly and self-consciously as if she had injured it, could no longer really trust it. It was the first time she had worn the ring in public, on her finger rather than concealed around her neck. Morna felt a pang of guilt and envy every time she saw it—envy because she was romantic (and stupid) enough to want David’s diamond on her own third finger; guilt because a daughter’s ring spelled a mother’s freedom, and she feared she had agreed to the engagement partly to liberate herself. Chris was now Martin’s responsibility which left her free to live her life around David. If there hadn’t been a David, would she have put up more objections, played the heavy-handed parent? Yet what good would that have done? Sowed anger and resentment, turned Chris into a Juliet.
Morna glanced across at the two dark heads, the almost matching grey-blue shirts. Strange how Chris and Martin seemed better matched all round now. It was only David who had made her see it. Always before, she had ignored the simple fact that her daughter went to bed with Martin, had a whole complex secret bond with him beyond the one she showed the world. It was the same with her and David. They might seem incompatible to those who judged them just from the exterior. But now she knew David from the inside out, knew his body in all its tiny details—the damaged nail on the third toe of his left foot which a shire horse had trod on when he was in his teens and staying on a farm; the way the hair on his chest
and stomach seemed to grow in two different directions—that above his navel springing up and out, that below softer and less curly, running down to his shock of pubic hair. She liked to touch the hair, groom it, comb it with her fingers, stroke it flat or ruffle it up, even tug it, tease him. Those were the sorts of crazy things which bonded you—together with the words you coined, the silly games you played. She and David were seals one day, Abelard and Héloïse the next. How could she ever say that Martin was wrong for Chris when she saw only half of their relationship, the public, superficial half? She had been unfair to Martin, anyway, judging him by Neil’s standards, expecting a different sort of son-in-law—Neil’s sort—with a briefcase and a diploma in business management and bridge-playing parents who would vote Conservative and invite them round for canapés.
She watched him kiss her daughter on the forehead, whisper in her ear. They both giggled and touched noses before Martin got up, stepped across the tangled arms and legs, making for the door. He stopped when he saw Morna, reverted to his usual awkward self. He was still shy with her, had been almost tongue-tied when he had tried to discuss the engagement earlier that week. Neil should have been present, laying down conditions for his daughter’s hand in marriage, driving a hard bargain as he did with all his clients. She hadn’t even told Neil; nor had Chris. That was wrong. Yet he had walked out on his daughter, stayed out of reach during all her vital years, so why should he start interfering now? She would inform her ex-husband when it suited her, present the engagement as a fait accompli, something decided by his legally adult daughter and her fiancé. All she had said to the fiancé himself was ‘Look after Chris. Make her happy, Martin. Please.’ No point hassling the lad again. Bea had upset him quite enough and she herself had been through all the arguments already—in private—with her mother first, and then with Chris.
‘Congratulations,’ Martin mumbled now, hands thrust in his pockets, shoulders hunched.
Morna tensed. Why congratulations? Had he somehow guessed that she and David …? ‘What d’you mean? The congratulations belong to you today—and Chris, of course.’
‘You as well. I’ve got this mate in Holland who told me its the custom there to congratulate the parents if it’s their son or daughter’s birthday—you know, for having produced the kid at all, brought it up.’
‘That’s nice. Thank you, Martin.’ She longed to say more, but somehow all her effusions about future happiness or marital bliss came out pompous, sentimental, however much she meant them genuinely. She had even searched the other languages to see if there were phrases which went deeper, sounded less pretentious. There weren’t. She still felt a vague sense of unease. Martin was now permanent, official, would become woven into the fabric of their lives, sharing Christmases and birthdays, taking over Chris.
The silence was uncomfortable. She tried to fill it, stick to safely trivial subjects. ‘You look a bit loaded down, Martin. All your worldly goods around your neck!’ She gestured to the chain which was dangling down his shirt-front, hung with keys and penknife, dog whistle, mini-compass.
Martin grinned sheepishly. ‘I don’t like my pockets bulging.’
‘Why the whistle, though? You don’t have a dog, do you?’
‘No.’
‘Planning to call Chris to heel?’
‘You’d need more than a tinpot whistle to do that!’
They both grinned, then, both relaxed a little. She had feared once that Chris seemed too submissive, but maybe that was only in her mind, the submission of all females to all males, which the priests had urged, the Blessed Virgin typified. She mustn’t confuse her own case with her daughter’s, Neil with Martin.
‘What’s that?’ she asked him, pointing to a small piece of dull grey metal which had been drilled with a hole and was hanging from the chain with all the other things.
‘Grapeshot. I found it on an eighteenth-century wreck. There was a whole mass of it lying on the sea bed. I nicked this piece and cleaned it up a bit. Don’t worry—it’s worth nothing, really. I just like the thought of it being—you know—old and …’
She nodded. It was battered like her silver coin, dented on one side. Had she been blind as well as stupid not to see that Martin and David shared vital things in common—a curiosity, a love of history, a determination to find the things it hid? Chris had told her often enough that Martin was pretty damn sharp as well as brave, had a whole deeper side they rarely saw, but somehow she had never quite accepted it. She reached forward, hugged him suddenly, his narrow boyish body tensing in embarrassment.
‘I think you deserve a hug today, don’t you?’
He looked pleased, despite the flush, didn’t pull away. It was she who stepped back, a red mark on her neck where the keys and grape-shot had pressed into her flesh. Okay, they were too young, but were you ever not too young, even at forty-one? If she and David made a go of it, there would still be problems—scores of them.
Martin was trying politely to get away. ‘Well, I’d … better help John out with the disco. I promised I’d relieve him half an hour ago.’
‘Off you go, then. And try and play something with a few less decibels!’ Morna squeezed past a kissing couple, both stretched out full-length on the floor. Should she try and part them, suggest food or some distraction? After all, she was meant to be in charge. The man had a scruff of beard. David’s beard was fuller, felt incredibly exciting when he scratched it down her breasts. She had taught him that, taught him to rub it hard across her nipples. Shameless, he had called her again. The stupid grin returned. ‘Shameless’ had become one of their joke words, especially when he said it in Father Burnett’s shrill falsetto voice. She left the couple kissing, edged round the side of the room, joined her daughter on the window seat.
‘All right, darling?’
‘Yeah, great, thanks. You don’t have to stay around, you know, Mum.’
‘I know.’ Morna got up again. The dismissal hurt. She was too old and square for an eighteenth birthday party, should be strapped safely in her bath chair, or banished upstairs with her aging mother. Bea had long ago retreated to the bedroom to escape the noise, was hoping for a comparatively early night in the peace of her own home.
‘I was just wondering when you’d planned to cut the cake. Grandma’s leaving soon, you see, and she’ll be disappointed if …’
‘You cut it, Mum.’
‘No, you and Martin must. It’s your engagement party. And it’s bad luck on your birthday not to blow your candles out.’
‘Oh, no, Mum,’ Chris wailed, still fiddling with her ring. ‘I don’t want all that fuss—speeches and things, and everybody gawping. I didn’t even want a cake.’
Bea had spent three days on the cake—an impressive creation in the shape of two interlocking hearts, iced in red and white and with rosettes and lattice-work piped all along the sides. Chris had been embarrassed by it, complained in private that it looked like one of Bunny’s more outrageous cushions. She would have preferred a simple party with a few crisps and Twiglets or hunks of bread and cheese, whereas Bea had made vol-au-vents and quiches, soufflés, mousses, flans—her recompense to Chris for opposing the engagement in the first place.
‘They’re far too young,’ she had objected, shouting down the mouthpiece to make herself heard above the crackling and interference on the line. Morna had been phoning from Oban, the first time she had been able to reach the mainland for well over a month. She and David had been literally cut off. Cormack was still nursing his bronchitis and refused to take his boat out. Four whole weeks had passed since that enchanted Valentine’s—weeks in which delight had fought with worry in her mind, both jostling and tussling to get the upper hand. Delight had won, in fact—at least until the last week. She had somehow managed to stuff her fears about her daughter and guilt towards her daughter under the makeshift double bed, or keep reminding herself that Bea wasn’t senile nor Chris a silly child. That was the trouble, though. Chris’s eighteenth birthday was approaching—official adu
lthood—a red-letter day, a landmark. She couldn’t be away for that, had to plan a party, buy a present.
She had persuaded David to walk up to the croft with her, to enquire how Cormack was. They found him quaffing whisky, his breathing back to normal, and looking generally so robust they suspected he’d been malingering for some time. He had already arranged to fetch the pensions either that week or the next, agreed to take her with him the first day that the wind dropped. She had still not planned to leave. She would have to make the trip, of course, just so she could phone, find out how things were. But if Bea were well, and Chris preferred a quiet and simple birthday, perhaps a meal à deux with Martin, or a disco with a few close friends, then no point rushing home to arrange catering or guest lists. She could go back again with Cormack on his boat, enjoy a few more weeks of David and the island, return to Weybridge in time for the birthday itself.
David had gone with her on the boat, bought her a pie and coffee in Oban to help her thaw out after the wet and blustery crossing. It was raining by the time they found a phone box. He waited outside while she dripped and shivered in the booth. Bea’s voice sounded very far away, muffled in a sort of droning hum.
‘I’m sorry, Mummy. I can hardly hear you. The line’s absolutely terrible. Can you shout? That’s better. Yes, I see, but did they admit they were engaged? I mean, maybe the ring was just …’ Morna dropped her glove, swore. She was shivering as much from shock as from cold. Bea seemed so distraught, had found a diamond on a piece of string, started firing questions at her granddaughter. She was acting mother in Morna’s absence and therefore felt it was her duty to know exactly what was going on. Chris had slammed out, accused Bea of snooping, interfering, threatened to run straight off with Martin there and then, write to Bristol and tell them they could stuff their place and she would rather be married anyway than slaving away at stupid languages which no one even …
The pips had gone mid-sentence. Morna had no more coins, and an old man was waiting to use the phone box, huddled against the sleeting rain. She found David sheltering in a doorway, clung to his arm, poured out the whole story—irrationally angry with both her mother and her daughter, even with Cormack who was pressing to get off, wouldn’t give her time to phone again, sort things out long distance. There was no way she could go back with him and David—not now. All the guilt and worry she had been suppressing for the last six weeks and more, had come surging, churning up. She had never left her daughter for that long before, nor behaved so irresponsibly. Chris might have eloped, thrown away her future, turned her back on a decent education while she played Seals with David. She caught the train alone. A journey had never seemed so long and arduous—not even the rough crossing in Cormack’s tacky boat made just a few hours before. That had been an adventure, exciting and exhilarating because David was beside her, pointing out the landmarks, bringing Dubhgall’s words to life. Now every mile she travelled took her further from him, broke their precious bond.
The Stillness the Dancing Page 49