by Angela Huth
But their real pleasure was the hotel : built of white wood at the end of the last century, it threw an aristocratic shadow over the beach, a magnificent and chipped monument to more glamorous seaside days. Its long wooden terraces leapt beneath the feet of running children, and the older guests were not disturbed : perhaps because of the dampness of the wood all sound was muted, muffled, no sharper than the soughing of the waves. There were no carpets. The lino floors were newly streaked with sand each day, so that every evening guests were aware of a slight crunching underfoot. Two unhurried waiters served drinks to vast parties of grown-up relations on the terrace, while the children played ping-pong in a room behind them. The dining room smelt of fish and fried herbs, and the checked tablecloths and napkins were always slightly damp. Idle had arranged a window table : it was during their long, delicious meals, looking out upon the spumous sea and wide sands, that Emily most missed her mother. She would have liked this: the baby lobsters, the icy white wine, the funny shouting French families in their man-made fibres. She should have been there.
But Idle made great efforts to entertain the children. Late mornings in bed, reading, were his only selfish pleasure. Eleven onwards, he was theirs. He drove them to heathery cliff tops for proper picnics – provided by the hotel – of melon and runny cheeses, and croissants and chocolate. He climbed over the rocks with them, stepping in and out of warm shallow pools: he swam, and played boules on the beach, making an effort, it seemed, to consume as much energy as he could. Marcia Burrows was a contented spectator to these activities. She would sit on a rug, legs straight out in front of her, linen hat with a floppy brim on her head, a white hand always sheltering her eyes. Sometimes she would look anxiously at Idle and warn him not to overdo it-he would laugh at her to conceal his irritation at her anxiety, and tell her not to worry. He was enjoying himself, he said.
One evening, after dinner, Idle agreed that they should go to the local discotheque for an hour. Emily was delighted : friends at school had been to discotheques. The experience would be new to her. But when they arrived, her excitement vanished at once. She wished they hadn’t come. The music hurt her ears, and the strobe lighting, slashing everything as it did into strips of livid colour, was unnerving.
They sat at a dark table, an incongruous foursome. Idle and Marcia Burrows looked twice as old as anyone else in the place. Emily wished they were younger. She also wished that Miss Burrows would stop holding her hands up to her ears in that pained fashion, and that Idle would stop grinning round at everybody as if determined to enjoy himself. Wolf, who had always thought dancing was stupid, and whose mind was in no way changed by the writhing creatures before him, blew patient bubbles into his Coca-Cola, longing to return to the hotel. Then the thing that Emily most dreaded happened : Idle suggested that he and Marcia Burrows should dance. Miss Burrows leapt up, all of a dither in her keenness, saying she didn’t know if she could manage this kind of thing, but she would like to try.
In the violent lights that ripped about them, the grown-ups were absurd. Idle moved with stiff-hipped enthusiasm, and held up his hands in a position of surrender. Marcia Burrows bounced about with small skips, quite out of time with the music, like someone used to maypole dancing. Her sunray pleated skirt, printed with snakes and ladders, flicked about her knees, and her face was radiant with effort. Emily noticed the strange glances the couple were receiving from the other dancers. She wondered if her father was aware of the mirth he was causing … And if he cared.
‘They look bloody loony,’ said Wolf, embarrassed as Emily by the performance. ‘Your mother, now, if you don’t mind me saying so – if she was here they’d all be looking because she dances the best I’ve ever seen.’
‘Oh, shut up,’ said Emily.
She looked once more at her father. Behind his grin, as he watched his frolicking partner, his eyes were dull. Mama: I can’t bear for them to go on. It was suddenly clear to Emily what she must do. In order to get Marcia Burrows off the floor, she must dance herself. She must dance as she did with her mother, as her mother had taught her. Her best. She stood up.
‘Where are you going?’ Wolf was puzzled by Emily’s determined look.
‘To dance.’
‘You can’t expect me to.’
‘Don’t want you to.’
Emily danced her best. Slowly at first, bending her body to the sounds, stretching her arms, feeling the weight of her head and the swish of her hair as she rocked her neck from side to side. Through the squalls of music, she heard Marcia Burrows’ shriek of amazement, her giggle. Then dimly Emily saw her cavorting back to the table. Idle was now before Emily, hopefully practising a kind of rhythmic bow, like a courting pigeon. But she swung away from him, impatiently. So he, too, shuffled back to the table.
Emily was left on her own among tall, teenage strangers. Some of them, tanned boys with dark eyes, divided from their partners, danced opposite her for a while. The music, encouraging, grew faster, louder. Emily became a totally pliant thing, wild but never uncontrolled, intoxicated now by the flashing lights that turned her movements and the shadow of her movements into a quivering film. She was oblivious to the attention she caused – didn’t notice for some moments that she was alone on the floor. Her only thought was that she had to dance her best for Mama. It didn’t matter, really, that Mama would never know …
When the music finally subsided, Emily returned to the table. Applause, like rain, splattered the newly still darkness. Sweat pricked everywhere on Emily’s body. Her tee-shirt was damp, all the fire had left her.
‘That was pretty good, Em.’ Idle was proud, sad.
‘What a little dancer! ‘ Marcia Burrows was still clapping her feathery hands. Wolf sniffed.
‘Let’s go, shall we?’ Idle was paying. The music had started again – strange, distant sounds now that Emily had climbed down from them. ‘That was quite fun, wasn’t it? There was gooseflesh on Idle’s arms.
‘No,’ said Emily, ‘it was horrible. All wasted.’ Too late to take back what she had not meant to say. Apologies would confuse.
‘Really,’ said Idle, ‘I don’t understand you.’
‘Your father and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, didn’t we, Idle ?’ Miss Burrows enthused. In reply, Idle merely sighed.
The next day the sky clouded over. Emily, tired and irritable, found nothing to enjoy. Idle suggested that everyone should rest that afternoon, and if the evening was fine they would go to their favourite beach. But Emily remained hot and alert on her bed, unable to read or sleep. Eventually, she decided to go along to her father’s room, suddenly wanting to see him on his own, unsure what she should say to him.
She knocked on the door, opened it without waiting for an answer. The room was dusky behind drawn blinds. Idle was lying on the bed, dressed in a both-robe. Marcia Burrows stood beside him, a glass of water in her hand. She, too, was in a dressing gown. On hearing the door she made a clumsy pirouette towards Emily, swatting the dressing gown around her knees.
‘Oh, dear. Is there anything the matter?’ Her face was a deep plum.
‘No.’ Emily shut the door. Stood watching them. ‘I wanted to see Papa.’
‘I was just insisting he took his pills.’
‘Are you ill, Papa?’
‘No, darling. I’ve probably been overdoing the good food.’ His voice was tired. One hand rested on his stomach.
‘It’s your ulcers, Idle, whatever you may say.’ Marcia sat down on the end of the bed and patted one of Idle’s ankles. It was stuffy in the room in spite of the open window.
‘What are ulcers?’
‘He should be having lots of milk. That’s what they always recommend for ulcers. But the French milk …’ Marcia Burrows clacked one of her leatherette slippers against her heel. Emily’s head ached.
‘I’m all right, Marcia.’ Idle gently twitched his foot from out of her grasp.
‘Shall I go away?’ Emily asked.
‘No. Stay.’ Idle smiled, half in pain.
‘I’ll go. I’ll go and carry on with my siesta.’ Marcia Burrows stood up, her face lively with offence. ‘It was only remembering your father’s pills made me leap out of bed.’ She addressed Emily in some confusion, then left the room quickly. Idle seemed amused by her manner of departure.
‘What’s the matter with her?’ Emily asked. Papa was closer now Marcia Burrows had gone.
‘I dare say she doesn’t like her nursing routine to be interrupted. She’s a woman of inflexible habits. The sort of thing you and I aren’t entirely used to.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t be silly. Come here.’ Idle patted the bed beside him. Emily sat down. ‘You all right? Enjoying yourself?’ Emily nodded silently. ‘Only two more days. Funny how the time goes so fast. I think it’s been a good time, though. Being with you so much.’
‘But I wish …’
‘I know.’
A small breeze shifted the blind, making it tap at the window ledge. Emily swung her feet on to the bed and rested her head on her father’s chest. From this position she could see half her mother’s face-half her smile of a few years ago – in the photograph on the bedside table.
She cried. Quite suddenly, surprising herself by the tears.
‘Don’t, darling. Don’t, my Em.’ Idle’s hand was gentle on her head.
‘I don’t know why I’m crying, Papa.’
‘You’re tired from last night.’
‘Yes.’ Her body heaved. ‘But I hate crying.’
‘You hardly ever do. You’re a pretty brave one, you know.’ His voice was medicine. Emily lifted her head. Idle dabbed at her eyes with a corner of his bath-robe. His London smell had absolutely gone, now.
‘You smell of the sea,’ Emily said, ‘and there’s sand in your hair.
Idle smiled.
‘Tell you what, we’ll never get to sleep now, will we ? Shall I read to you ?’
Emily nodded. Warm, better.
‘Great Expectations. Mama and I got to page sixty-eight.’
‘You go and get it for me, then later we’ll go out. Look : I think it’s getting brighter.’
But when the time came, although her spirits were temporarily restored, Emily felt disinclined to join the beach party. Wolf was desolate at her lack of enthusiasm. He kicked moodily around her room.
‘We’ve been stuffing in all day. Why don’t you want to come now it’s sunny?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘Gloomy old Emily. Emily gloomily gloomily Emily. I could make a tongue twister out of it. Do you want to be on your own ?’ He was sarcastic.
‘Yes.’
‘Women and girls always want to be on their bloody own. Stupid spoilsports, I think. Well, anyway, your father-he’s not a spoilsport, at least-he said he’d help me fly my model aeroplane.’
In the end, Emily went with them. Although the sun had broken through the cloud, it was a cool evening. The cove they went to was deserted. Idle and Wolf flew the plane on the cliff top. Marcia Burrows, in a new cardigan to protect herself from the light breeze, watched them patiently. She wasn’t a bad old stick, really, Emily thought. Kind, and not much trouble. But brittle, somehow. Frail. Good but uninspired. The sort of woman who, if she married, and had children, would make an easy grandmother. But rather an embarrassing mother.
All the same, she looked a bit out of things, sitting here. Ill at ease.
‘Don’t you want to help the others fly the kite?’ asked Emily.
‘I wouldn’t be much good at that.’
‘Mama loves kiting.’
‘Your mother and I have different kinds of stamina. She’s physically energetic – admirably so. I’m, well, more of the persistent kind. Privately persistent, so that you’d never guess.‘ He eyes, blurred from the wind, were on the horizon. She seemed to be speaking to the elements rather than to Emily.
‘But are you just going to go on and on being a secretary, for ever and ever, until you’re old?’
Marcia Burrows roused herself a little.
‘I don’t see what that has to do with anything, but probably not. Who can say? One thing you learn when you’re as middle-aged as I am’ – she smiled to herself – ‘is your exact role. And you accept it, even if it’s second best. You accept your role in the lives of other people. There’s no use in reaching for some sort of unobtainable heaven if you’ve been born equipped only with a step ladder. So very persistently you stick to your minor role. — That’s not to say you can’t imagine, sometimes.’
‘I don’t understand what you mean.’
‘Well, I can’t explain myself better than that.’ Marcia Burrows stiffened herself against a new gust of wind.
‘Then can you tell me what flamboyant means?’
‘You ask so many questions! Wherever did you pick up such a word?’
‘Mama said Papa had flamboyant admirers, but you weren’t the most flamboyant.’
‘Oh. Did she? She’s right, of course.’ Marcia Burrows crumpled a little. ‘It means – showy, decorative. Not dowdy. Not a secretary for life. People like your mother and father are flamboyant in the best sense of the word. They attract other flamboyant people. They always will. It’s a sort of luxury. Perhaps well deserved, perhaps unfair,’ she added. ‘Now, Emily, do leave me, will you? I like to look at the sea without all this chatter.’
‘All right.’
Emily, shivering in her bathing trunks, wandered away. She had the feeling there was no longer any need to feel sorry for Miss Burrows. In spite of all the laughable things about her she seemed to be quite happy on her step-ladder, whatever that was, persisting away privately in her own peculiar world. Emily scrambled down the cliff to the beach – a long, shell-shaped curve of sand. It was windless down here. Quiet, except for the distant rasp of the breakers. The sand was soft warm ridges under her feet, cold if she wriggled her toes more deeply.
She walked towards the sea, wondering at its sadness. Perhaps it was just because it was evening. Perhaps the waves don’t like the end of days, the coming of night, the lighthouse flash. And yet it was lucky, the sea. Because even if it was quite boring, millions of years of swirling up the beach and slipping back again, at least it was always the same. The tides would go on till the end of the earth, you could count on that. Whereas with people, even the people you knew best, you could never tell. Their ways, in fact, were much more mysterious than those of the oceans. Most peculiar, sometimes. Put out if you went to see your own father in the middle of the afternoon. And … oh! Here was a cluster of shells, lying in the sand like a family. Such pretty ones. Emily stooped to pick them up. She would take them home as a present for Mama. Mama would like them. She could make them into a new necklace. Papa, of course, being a man – well, Papa wasn’t much interested in shells.
They returned to England. Idle and Marcia Burrows stayed in London: Emily and Wolf went home. Fen was already there, welcoming and gay. In a mood of capricious energy, she had arranged bowls of cream and white roses in most rooms, and trailed honeysuckle, already dying, across the mantelpiece in the kitchen. She had made summer puddings and left them to cool in the larder : and in the evening she threw lavender on to the fire so that the house itself became infused with the peaceful smell of summer gardens. Emily wondered at her happiness.
Fen asked questions about France but hardly seemed to listen to the answers. She sat at the kitchen table, a yellow chalk in her hands, shuffling through a pile of large photographs. Emily, too, looked at them, with less interest than her mother. Pictures of some theatre, some play: shadowy men in long robes, girls in togas and sandals, garlands of flowers on their heads.
‘Do you mean this was your job, photographing this play?’
Fen nodded.
‘I told you. What d’you think of them?’
‘They’re good.’ Emily sighed. She studied one particular picture. One of the actors with a long beard looked very familar. She looked again at the wild eyebrows. Of course. ‘Is this Kevin?’ she asked.<
br />
‘Yes.’
‘Was he in the play?’
‘Yes.’
‘But I thought he wasn’t an actor any more.’
‘He missed it too much. He’s going back. He’s going to sell the factory. He had awfully good reviews-you know, the critics were nice about him. They said the play wasn’t up to much, but his performance was marvellous.’ Fen had no hope of containing her smile. Emily let the photograph fall on to the table with a click.
‘So that’s why you were asked to take the pictures?’
‘It could have had something to do with it.’
‘So Kevin was there all the time ?’
‘Rehearsing.’
‘Did Papa know? Did he know Kevin was in the play?’
‘Of course. He was pleased it was a chance for me …’
‘I wish you’d told me.’
‘Oh, Em. Why? I didn’t think it was important.’
‘All the time in France, I imagined you being sad in Scotland, just working.’
‘You silly old thing. I was having a lovely time. Whatever are you looking like that for? Come here and tell me which of these you like best.’
Emily moved closer to her mother, who was far away, absorbed in the photographs. And the pleasure of being home again, for all the warmth of the evening kitchen, and the flowery smells, was a little dimmed.