The Last Dance

by Carolyn McCrae

  “Ideally, Charles, probably you are right. But I am not a perfect mother. No, listen to me. I did love your father, when you were conceived, I did love him. I had had a very unhappy childhood because my Father and Mother were always quarrelling, I don’t think your father was happy either. I don’t think his parents were very good for each other either, I think they caused your father a lot of problems. Please believe me. I didn’t want that for you. I didn’t want you to grow up with parents who were always rowing. Your father and I both knew we couldn’t live with each other any longer. He and I were so very different, not good for each other, we could give nothing which the other needed.”

  “Except fucking.”

  She was surprised to hear her son use words like this, but he was getting older and it seemed pointless to make a fuss especially when it was exactly the right word to use.

  “As you say, Charles, except fucking. But you will understand one day that that is not enough. You heard what we were saying earlier? I thought so. Yes, your father and I ‘fucked’ this afternoon, and I put the word in inverted commas for you. It was not an enjoyable experience for either of us. ‘Making love’, ‘having it off’, ‘going all the way’, ‘number 10’, whatever you want to call it, should be a thing of beauty between people, but it can become a weapon, a weapon to show power over someone you no longer love. A way of showing that there is nothing left. But it can be a beautiful thing, and I pray that that it will be for you when the time comes.”

  “I won’t ever do it.”

  “Yes you will, Charles. You will find a girl you love and you will ‘do it’.”

  “Not when it causes so much damage.”

  He said the words with finality and it was some time before he continued hesitantly “Anyway, I already love someone.”

  This surprised Alicia, surely Charles was not old enough to go out with girls seriously enough to ‘fall in love’.

  “You’re still very young.”

  “Stop saying that! I’m old enough to know who I’m going to spend the rest of my life with.” He refrained from the ‘so there’ that sounded like it should have finished the sentence. “You don’t know anything about my life or who I love so stop saying “I’ll understand when I’m older” I understand now. I will never do what you did. I’ll never ‘fuck’ anyone. I’ll never do it. It does nothing but hurt people.”

  Alicia was surprised at the force and venom in his voice. She was shocked at how adult he sounded, how sure of himself, how certain of his decision.

  She waited for him to calm down a bit and asked him “Who do you love?”

  He gave no answer, his love for Monika was his secret.

  Monika had told him such stories of what people do to each other in the name of love’ and ‘sex’ that he knew he would never harm anyone like that. His mother could not know that what she and Arnold had done that afternoon had simply confirmed to Charles something he believed he already knew. Sex was a tool to hurt people and he would never harm anyone like that.

  Instead of answering her he talked.

  “I’m 16 on Tuesday. All my friends at school are boasting what they get up to. One of the girls in the town is taking them in groups to show them all what to do and they all practise, they all touch each other and find out things I don’t want to know. I haven’t done anything like that. I couldn’t. If anyone touched Susannah like that I would kill them.”

  “You love your sister?”

  “Of course I do. She is the only one I’ve got, but she’s all tied up with Carl, neither of them care about me, Dad doesn’t, Kathleen doesn’t.”

  “I care about you Charles, I am your Mother, of course I care about you.”

  “Then why did you leave us?”

  “I did it for the best.” She was on the defensive as she knew it was a question she could never answer without exposing her selfishness.

  “Was it better for us? Was it? Or was it just better for you? Imagine what it’s been like for us. Having everyone at school laugh at us because our father is living with his cousin. Of yes, that’s what people say. One day one of the chaps came to school and said that Aunty Kathleen was Dad’s sister, but I knew that couldn’t be true because Carl was...., as I knew Dad was Carl’s dad as well as mine. There’s so much mystery Mother. No one talks to us. Everyone assumes we don’t care or we’re too young to understand or it doesn’t matter anyway. But it does.”

  “I’m sorry you know about Carl, it can’t be much fun knowing. You and he are so very alike to look at now. But you like him don’t you? I must be nice having another chap around the house?”

  “He’s alright.” He was not going to tell her how he really felt. “There’s nothing wrong with him really. He’s Susannah’s friend more than mine though.”

  “Don’t you do things together?”

  “I’d like to but when we do play together he’s going for it all the time – always as if it were some sort of competition to beat me at everything. It’s not fair when he is so much younger than me. I just have to let him win, or at least do well, and then everyone thinks I’m no good. I do well at school though, when he’s not there.”

  She was shocked at Charles’s lack of self-confidence. She had always thought of him as strong yet he was obviously a lonely and frightened boy clinging to his Nanny, imagining himself in love with her – for it was obvious who Charles wanted to spend the rest of his life with as he hadn’t mentioned anyone else but Monika.

  Alicia changed the subject.

  “Tell me something, Charles, when did Kathleen come to Millcourt?”

  “Just after Henry’s funeral. They just arrived. Carl had his own room anyway, he often came to stay over when his parents,” he corrected himself “when Aunty Kathleen and Uncle Henry were away.”

  “What did they tell you?”

  “That they were staying for a while until they got things sorted out. But she acts like she owns the place. She even wanted me to give up my room to Carl as it was nicer than his. She walks around the house in her dressing gown, she orders Cook and Monika around as if she’d lived here for years. And she’s always telling me and Susannah off about the stupidest things. And now she’s sacked Monika.”

  Alicia couldn’t ask where she slept. She didn’t need to. Charles answered her thoughts for her.

  “She’s taken over your old room. It’s been painted. It’s all pink and twirly.”

  Alicia’s room. It had been her haven, decorated in beige and pale blue it had been her sanctuary. Its main door opened onto the landing but it also had double doors opening directly into Arnold’s suite. They couldn’t be making their relationship more obvious.

  “I wish she would leave. I wish Henry hadn’t died. I wish Carl and Aunty Kathleen would go away. I don’t want them here. They don’t belong here. It’s not fair. It’s all your fault. Everything’s your fault!”

  She was amazed at how one minute her son was so adult and the next minute talking to him was like having a conversation with a nine year old. One minute he was planning the rest of his life and the next verbally stamping his foot like a child.

  “No, Charles, not everything. Lot’s of things maybe. But not everything.

  “It’s not fair!”

  She stopped him from walking on by holding gently onto his arm. He reluctantly, truculently, turned to face her. “Charles, if I never say anything to you ever again, and if you never listen to anything I ever say to you hear this. No one ever said life should be fair. Don’t expect it to be and you won’t be so disappointed. Life isn’t fair. Life has never been fair and life will never be fair. It’s not what life is for. Life is supposed to be unfair. It is unfair so as to test you, to see what you can cope with. Life will give you all the trials and tribulations you can stand. The worse it gets, the stronger you become and the stronger you become the more is heaped on you because you’ve shown you can cope. Do you understand? Never complain, just decide what you are going to do and do it. Never worry about what others t
hink, what others want you to do, decide what you know is best for you and do it.”

  He waited a few moments, realising how serious she had become.

  “Is that what you did?”

  “Yes, Charles. I decided that I wasn’t good for your father or you, I knew you would be better off without me.”

  “So you left.” He said the words with finality.

  “So I left” she confirmed.

  “So you won’t be coming back?”

  “So I won’t be coming back.” Her turn to be final. Had he really thought she ever would?

  They walked further along the promenade. The street lighting had come on, every alternate one was broken. Someone had deliberately thrown stones breaking every other lamp.

  But neither Alicia nor Charles was going to say he should go home. It was the longest conversation they had ever had. They were really talking to each other for the first, and as it turned out, for the last time.

  “Mother, you never talk about Susannah.”

  The sun had set and the evening was getting colder. The wind was getting up and the fine May afternoon was turning into a stormy evening and she knew they should be turning for home but somehow she couldn’t do it.

  “Mother? I said you never talk about Susannah. You were always talking about me. You never include Susannah.”

  “I heard you Charles. I was trying to find the right way to answer.

  How could she explain how much she hated the child and what she meant. Charles may appear grown up in some ways and she had told him things he had guessed anyway, but there was no way he could or should bear the burden of that knowledge.

  “Susannah was very young when I left. I do not know her. She was always in the nursery.” It was a weak excuse but it was all Alicia had. “I never got to know her and I don’t suppose I will now you don’t want to go on holiday with me.”

  “That’s all over.”

  “I know that’s all over now. When you called last week were you thinking that while everything is changing at home it might as well change everywhere? Get it all over and done with?”

  She found it easier to talk to him as if he was a grown man, not her son. Had she ever thought of him as her son? Probably in the very early days, in that wretched bungalow, but certainly not since she went away.

  “Probably. I hate Kathleen. She doesn’t care about Susannah and me. She wants us out of the way so she and Carl can be a proper family with Dad – no awkward bits of history like us lying around.”

  “You may be right, Charles, and I know I’m not the answer for you, you would hate it if you came to live with me. Though you mustn’t think of yourself as ‘an awkward piece of history’ you know you were very much loved and wanted when you were born.”

  “Was I?”

  “Of course you were.” She convinced neither of them. “Let’s get out of this wind.”

  The road they turned up was Deneshey Road. When they reached the bungalow Alicia stopped and put her arm on Charles’ shoulder to stop him too.

  “We used to live here, you know?”

  “What? Here? It’s tiny!” So Arnold had never told him about the days before Millcourt.

  “It may be tiny compared with Millcourt but you lived here for the first few years of your life, along with me and your Grandfather and Grandmother.”

  “Where was Father?”

  “It was during the war – he was only here when he was on leave.”

  “Were you happy here?”

  “No, Charles, I was never happy here. Though” she continued quickly in a rare moment of concern at her selfishness “I was happy when we used to play, you and I, in the garden.”

  “There was a sandpit!”

  “You remember! How wonderful! Yes! There was a sandpit, you used to make castles, not very large or elaborate ones but you were very proud of them.”

  “I don’t really remember – I think I must have seen a photograph. Why did we leave?”

  “Your Grandfather died and left all his money to your Father. He wanted to live in a bigger place, make a bit more of a splash.”

  “So we’ve been at Millcourt ever since?”

  “Indeed.”

  “What were my grandparents like?” So as they walked to the end of the road and turned, into the deserted Market Street she told him a very edited, almost fictional version of his grandparents. She only talked about George and Ellen, she didn’t mention her own parents and he didn’t ask.

  “Here comes the rain. We’d better dash or we’ll get very wet.”

  It was raining far too hard for them to get far so they sought refuge in The Lighthouse Keeper. The pub was not crowded and they easily found seats around a table near the fire in the Snug Bar.

  “What can I get you?”

  As the girl behind the bar disinterestedly asked the required question she did a double take as she saw Alicia. “It’s Alicia Donaldson isn’t it?”

  When Alicia had inclined her head in assent the girl continued in a rush “You won’t remember me I’m Brenda. I was in the drama group, you always said I should go into acting but look at me still here. It is good to see you. And this is your boy?”

  “Charles. I’m Charles. How do you do?”

  “Very well thank you Charles. But before I get you and your Mother a drink I must ask how old you are, we can’t have youngsters in the bar.”

  “I’m 16 on Tuesday.” He said proudly.

  “Well I’m sure that will be fine then. And many happy returns.”

  When they had got their drinks they went over to a table by the fire and sat down.

  “We’ve come a long way this evening Charles, you and I, and I don’t just mean walking.”

  “Yes Mother I know.”

  They sat round the table for an hour or more as they talked. Charles found that he quite liked this woman who was his mother, she was very pretty and the men who came into the bar tipped their hats to her and said ‘good evening’ very respectfully. He decided she must have had good reasons for doing what she did that afternoon. He was sure she didn’t do it all the time. For her part, Alicia decided that she rather liked her son. He was intelligent and spoke eloquently when he started talking about his bird watching. She decided that he would probably turn out all right in the end – as long as he was left to himself. She would not need to worry too much about him as long as he got away from Arnold and Kathleen.

  It was after 10 o’clock when Charles got back to Millcourt. He walked into the drawing room, tired, wet and looking rather bedraggled.

  “I’m sorry I was away so long Father, Aunty Kathleen. Mother and I went for a walk and were caught in the rain.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “I think she’s staying at the Derby overnight.”

  “You should have let us know you were safe”

  “What could possibly have happened to me Aunty Kathleen? We just went for a walk along the Prom and then got caught in the rain so had a drink in the Lighthouse Keeper.”

  “She took you into a Public House?” Kathleen was more shocked than Arnold.

  “Yes, they were OK about it because the weather was so bad, and the girl behind the bar knew Mother from, from before. I only had ginger beer.”

  “I should bloody well hope so! Now go to bed we have some talking to do in the morning.” Arnold knew that he could no longer put off talking to them. In the morning he would have to tell them what was happening and how their lives were about to change. It didn’t matter that it was Charles’ 16th birthday.

  The gathering the next morning was not a happy one. Kathleen marshalled the children into Arnold’s study, as mystified as they were as to the reason for the formal meeting. When he had something to tell the children he usually told her first and then they raised it at dinner.

  She had got used to living in Millcourt, with Nanny to look after the children, with Cook to run the house – for she was more of a housekeeper than just a cook. Kathleen enjoyed the space, she took pride
in watching her son enjoy what she thought of as his birthright. She hadn’t really enjoyed those years of living with Henry in their semi-detached. Her regular visits from Arnold meant that she was always reminded of what she was missing.

  Henry had been a very boring, insignificant little person, though she did come to care for him as a friend and he obviously cared a great deal for her and Carl. She cared enough about him to hope that he had never guessed the reasons for their hasty courtship and marriage.

  Since Henry’s death she had picked up life at Millcourt as if she had never lived anywhere else. Being with Arnold every day, seeing him at breakfast and welcoming him back from the office with a glass of whisky and a sympathetic ear had quickly become ‘normal’ for Kathleen. Unlike being able to share Arnold’s bed as and when he chose, the novelty of running the big house had not worn off after a couple of weeks.

  12 year old Carl loved living in the big house. He missed his father of course, he had cried briefly at Henry’s funeral, but his sadness was tempered by the excitement of moving. He enjoyed moving all his things into the bedroom he had occupied on a regular basis since he was a young boy at Millcourt. It didn’t bother him, as it seemed to bother his mother, that he didn’t move into the bigger room that was Charles’s. His mother made such a fuss about it “Charles will be leaving home soon, he doesn’t need all that space” Carl liked the room he had always had. After he had found a place for everything he had sat on the window seat and stared at the glimpses of the sea over the dunes on the other side of the golf course. He loved to sit there. He would spent many hours watching men pitching up, playing out of the bunkers and putting with varying degrees of skill.

  He was very fond of Susannah, he felt sorry for her because she was always on her own. Charles was so much older, he never wanted to play with her. He never minded when Susannah followed him around, when she sat on the floor of his room reading or even perching at the other end of the window seat badgering him to explain the rules of golf. In the summer she would tirelessly play with him in the garden, fielding, bowling or batting as much as he wanted her to.