The Last Dance

by Carolyn McCrae

  She had had a life of her own then.

  Max was very aware that there would not be any money in the Donaldson household and he was concerned about how Carl and Susannah would fare.

  He knew he could do nothing directly to help them but he was a resourceful man.

  In all the papers I had to go through that related to Arnold and his father Max managed to ensure I found one which referred to an investment that Arnold had not managed to get his hands on and that was in the name of Kathleen’s mother. He found the deeds to a shop, which, conveniently, had just become empty – the people who had been running it having recently retired. Mrs McNamara had died some years before so the shop was now available to her daughters, Maureen and Kathleen. I didn’t make too much of the fact that I had never come across this shop before in all my dealings with old Mr Donaldson’s estate and there was no reference to his purchasing it.

  But then records may well have been mislaid during the disruption of wartime.

  So Max managed to ensure an income for the Donaldsons and a happier Kathleen, both circumstances would ensure a more comfortable life for Susannah and Carl.

  In order that we could keep an eye on them Max arranged for me to join the board of Governors of the school they both attended. In that way I was able to follow their progress from a distance.

  They both seemed happy growing up together. They spent every moment they could together, loved living in the same house, becoming closer and closer. They met each other after school every afternoon, and went to the local coffee bar along with a group of others.

  At home they would always be in and out of each other’s rooms, Susannah frequently wearing Carl’s jeans and sweaters. They would do their homework together, read together, play records together. They liked the same groups and played pop music hour after hour in their bedrooms.

  Arnold and Kathleen were happy that they got along so well and were such trouble free teenagers. So much was heard of the messes that young people got themselves into at that time. But Susannah and Carl didn’t get into any trouble, they did well at school and were normally polite to their parents.

  At that time it was only their friends who knew the real nature of their relationship. They knew that Carl and Susannah were cousins and stepbrother and sister. Stepbrothers and sisters could go out together, cousins could even marry each other, so it must be OK mustn’t it?

  With all the changes in his life Max stopped visiting the office in London, sending me in his place. It was only some years later that I knew what this meant to Alicia.

  No longer did she have her fortnightly escape to the luxury of the Savoy or her regular deliveries from Harrods and Fortnum and Mason. She found herself in the position of having to earn her living.

  Her portrait painting bought in something and Maureen found her a part time job teaching drama in a local school, but she became something of a recluse, not eating well enough and worrying too much.

  It was Harry, her next door neighbour, who called the ambulance and went with her to the hospital when she collapsed just before Christmas, six months after her last trip to the north. It was Harry, more or less a complete stranger, who shared the visiting with Maureen as Alicia recovered in hospital from those operations; who looked after the empty house every time she was in hospital and who supported her day after day as she recuperated.

  It was Harry who put a vase of marigolds in the dining room window to welcome her home when she came back from hospital, and who went with her every time she had to return.

  She never gave him any reason to do all these things other than a smile. She was not well enough to give anything else.

  Harry’s wife never understood the power she had over him.

  I did.

  It was the power that only a beautiful, vulnerable woman can have over a lonely man.

  Chapter Nineteen

  They did not celebrate Monika’s birthdays as she wasn’t entirely sure what day it was, nor exactly how old she was. Nor did they really celebrate Charles’, but just before his 21st she had asked him to take her to the cinema ‘to mark the day’.

  He later told me that he hadn’t wanted to go to see the film in the first place. He didn’t like Cliff Richard and Summer Holiday was really not going to be his sort of film but Monika had wanted to see it. He had taken her to see The Young Ones the year before at the local cinema and she had loved the energy and the songs.

  “It will be a good film, Charles, you will enjoy it. You see that you don’t”

  “Oh no!” he joked. “More tunes to remember, more songs to sing.”

  “It is good to get out of the house. Good that you take me to the cinema.”

  They were walking the mile or so from Sandhey to the cinema, along the promenade.

  “I like going out with you, you are a good looking boy!”

  “I like going out with you, too Monika. But I’m not the boy you always call me! I’m officially an adult next week.”

  “Even when you earn your own living, look after me, are Max’s friend and equal you will always be a boy to me.”

  “I’m catching up with you, you know. When you first came to our house you were, what, 20?”

  “18. No more than 18.”

  “And I was what? Six?”

  “At least six and a quarter.”

  He laughed.

  “You were nearly three times my age. But now, you are, what?”

  “Nearly 33.”

  “And I’m nearly 21 – I’ve practically caught you up!”

  They walked along this road most Sunday mornings but now it seemed different. The tide was in and the waves were gently lapping against the sea wall. He grabbed at her hand and pulled her round to face him. He reached for her other hand and held her at arms length from him. They stood there, to any casual observer, a young man and his girl friend. She looked up at him, as she had to do for several years now.

  “I want to say something, properly, formally, and you’ve got to listen.” He had rehearsed what he was going to say for weeks. He had been going to tell her on his birthday but now seemed the right moment.

  He looked into her eyes and very slowly said something they both knew.

  “I love you, Monika.”

  “I know.”

  “But I will never do anything about it.”

  “I know.”

  “I will never try to kiss you, I will never try to do anything with you. I will never do anything to hurt you. Just know that I love you and that I will always love you.”

  “I know.”

  “I have always loved you. Since the day you came to the house I have known that I would never love any other person as I love you. Everything you have told me about your life before you came here, the war, everything you went through, everything just makes me want to take care of you more. I would never ever want you to have to go through anything like that again. I wouldn’t ever want to make you have a baby, I wouldn’t ever want to make you suffer that again. I will always, always, be with you. I will never, ever let you down. I will only ever go away if you tell me to.”

  He stopped with a satisfied pursing of his lips. He had said everything he had wanted to say and she wasn’t laughing at him.

  She understood why Charles was speaking so formally. She knew how important it was to him to be taken seriously, so she replied in the same formal manner.

  “Too much has happened in my life to let me love anyone. But I trust you. That, to me, means more than love. I would like us always to be together but you will meet someone, you will find a young woman who you will want to kiss, who you will want to go to bed with, who will want you too. Then I will step aside and watch as my Charles walks into his life and out of mine.”

  “Never. It won’t happen Monika. How could I meet anyone like you? I don’t want to meet anyone else.”

  They stood for several minutes, then he tucked her hand into the crook of his arm and they walked on. “Come on, we’ll miss the beginning of the film.”


  There was a queue at the cinema, it was half term and it seemed that every young person in the area was celebrating by going to the cinema.

  They would have been much nearer the front of the queue if they hadn’t stopped to talk on the way. If they hadn’t stopped they would have had seats a lot further forward than they did. But they had stopped, they were late and they were shown to seats near the back of the small cinema, one row in front of the double seats.

  Cinemas at the time understood that many young people went to the cinema not to watch the film but to be close together in the dark. The double seats allowed boys to wrap their arms around their girlfriends’ shoulders and hold them tight as they kissed them, without the inconvenience of a separating seat arm. These double seats were prized and there was much competition for them, the first in the queue running up the stairs to claim the darkest and most secluded corners. The row in front of the double seats was the last to be filled – in unpopular films it was usually empty.

  But Charles and Monika were amongst the last to be shown into the cinema and it was to this row, in front of the double seats, that they were directed. They settled down to watch the film, Monika to enjoy every moment, Charles to try not to listen to the sounds behind him.

  Shuffling hands and bodies could be felt as well as heard, as legs and arms entwined and, no doubt, mouths and tongues. Charles knew what other young people did with each other, even if he was not interested in it himself.

  He could not concentrate on the film. He couldn’t help listening to the pair behind them. He would have been embarrassed whoever it was. It didn’t seem to be worrying Monika, who was engrossed in the story of the young people travelling through Europe on a London bus. He kept changing his position. He fidgeted, he could not get comfortable, he felt his insides would never settle down and be right again. He felt he had to get up and walk about. But he couldn’t, so he fidgeted, changing from crossing one leg to the other, then back again a few minutes later. Monika ‘shushing’ him and telling him to sit still. He was consumed by such a mixture of fear and anger that he could not understand.

  He had recognised the muffled voices.

  The couple behind him were Susannah and Carl.

  He hadn’t seen them for a long while. He never visited their house nor they his. How old were they now? 17? 18? Old enough to be doing it. Together. With each other. How long had it been going on? Did his father know? Surely not. What about Kathleen? It would be just like her to know what was going on but allow it, even encourage it, as it would tie Arnold even closer to her. What could he do? Should he do anything? How far had it gone? This was 1963, no one waited until they were married to go all the way.

  So many thoughts rushed through his head.

  As the plot unfolded on the screen he realised he couldn’t allow anything between Carl and Susannah to go on. He knew he had to stop it somehow but he had no idea how. It was all he could do not to turn around and hit Carl for taking advantage of a girl who had worshipped him from the nursery. But he knew he wouldn’t be able to make any punch hurt in these circumstances. He knew that he would have to sit out the film and do nothing to embarrass either Susannah or Monika. He spent the duration of the film working out different courses of action in his head. He could talk to Max, he could jump in with both feet and go around to Dunedin Avenue and confront his father and stepmother with the facts, he could take Carl to one side and explain what was so very wrong with what he was doing. He could think of pros and cons with each of these ways of tackling the problem which was so obviously developing.

  Chapter Twenty

  When Charles called me the next day to tell me what he had seen and heard at the cinema I wasn’t as worried as Charles thought I ought to be. I knew they were very friendly, but this? “It wasn’t just kissing and stuff” Charles had said “he had his hand up her blouse.”

  “Did you know this was going on?” Charles was angry and accusing.

  “Charles, they are young, they will grow out of it.”

  “But what if they don’t?”

  “He’s her cousin, it’s a close relationship, but not too close.”

  “It’s far too close.”

  “Henry was your father’s cousin, Charles, that makes Charles and Susannah second cousins. I know there’s been a lot of rumour and tittle tattle but even with your father’s marriage to Kathleen they’re only step brother and sister. I don’t think that is a legal impediment. The relationship isn’t close enough to cause any problems.”

  “But they’re not second cousins, not even cousins. I know they aren’t. I’ve known for years that they aren’t. Didn’t my mother ever tell you? “

  “What do you mean?”

  “Henry wasn’t Carl’s father.”

  I hoped I was wrong, but I thought I knew the answer almost as he spoke, but I had to ask the question anyway. “So, who was?”

  “Father. Carl, is my half brother. Susannah is his half sister. What they are doing is immoral, totally and completely wrong.”

  I should have known, but up to this moment I had had no idea.

  “If what you say is true, Charles, what they are doing is more than immoral it’s illegal. Are you sure you are right? We can’t possibly say anything unless you’re absolutely certain of your facts.”

  “Of course I’m right. I’ve known since that day before my 16th birthday.”

  Why hadn’t I thought of that possibility? I knew Kathleen and Arnold had been close. Kathleen had married Henry quite unexpectedly, Carl had been born very soon after the wedding. But the thought that Carl was Arnold’ son had never occurred to me.

  “Are you absolutely certain?”

  “Absolutely. Mother told me. She admitted it. She said Carl and I were so alike she wondered how no one else had realised.”

  “Who else knows? Max?”

  “I haven’t told anyone but he must know.”

  All manner of thoughts went through my mind. If what Charles said was true why hadn’t Arnold and Kathleen stopped it. They must know what’s going on under their noses – or were they so self absorbed, that they didn’t care what was happening to their children.

  I really hoped they had no idea. I didn’t like Arnold and I knew he was completely self-centred, but was he capable of allowing his son and daughter to get so close in such an inappropriate way? I really hoped he was not.

  It seemed that the people who knew the secrets of the parentage didn’t know the nature of their relationship and the people who knew the way the relationship was going didn’t know the problems of their parentage.

  That is, until Charles had gone to the cinema the previous evening.

  And now it was my problem.

  I didn’t think I could discuss it over the phone so I drove straight round to see Arnold and Kathleen. Arnold was out, it was Sunday and Arnold always went out on a Sunday afternoon.

  Kathleen was distant when she answered the door. The children were out but Arnold was bound to be back soon if I cared to wait.

  I hadn’t seen them for several years, but it seemed that we only ever met at times of crisis. Kathleen, to her credit, did try to be civilised.

  We made polite conversation.

  “How are the children? Hardly “children” any more I should think.”

  “They’re fine, but growing up far too fast. It’s all this odd music now, Arnold can’t bear it.”

  “I should think it’s all boyfriends and girlfriends now.”

  “They do seem to spend a lot of time in that coffee bar, listening to the juke box and meeting up with some very strange people, not our sort at all. It’s impossible to control them any more. Still, they stick together so they’ll be looking out for each other, making sure the other one doesn’t get into any trouble.”

  It seemed obvious that she didn’t know what was going on.

  How could I tell her? How could I explain?

  “It’s such a blessing, their being so close. They seem interested in the sam
e things, they go everywhere together. I do sometimes wonder if they aren’t a bit….” she hesitated a little too much “… too close.”

  Maybe she was suspicious but was keeping up a brave face.

  I decided to take the bull by the horns.

  “Kathleen. You know don’t you? You know they’re brother and sister. If there is anything, anything, beyond just spending a lot of time together you must stop it.”

  She turned to me with such a great sadness in her eyes. This woman who had loved the wrong man and won him at the wrong time, whose life had never been straightforward or easy, realised that the sins of the parents were now being visited on their children. I wondered how long she had worried about this, how long she had wondered how she could explain to her son the lies that they had always lived. Her life was about to fall even further apart, and she knew that she had no one else to blame.

  “Is it so well known then?”

  “Not widely, I should think. But people do talk and perhaps some others have drawn their own conclusions about you and Arnold and your children. I didn’t know until this morning, maybe I should have guessed – you and Henry got married so quickly, it all happened in a rush and then Carl was born nearer the wedding than perhaps he should have been.”

  “But it was happening a lot at that time, just at the end of the war, all sorts of people were getting married quickly.” She was clutching at straws, and we both knew it.

  “But ever since Henry died you and Arnold have been together, as if you didn’t care what people thought. My mother tells me what the women in the town say, they remember and you weren’t always as discreet as perhaps you might have been. Mind you I didn’t put two and two together. But maybe I just don’t think that way.”

  “Who told you?”

  “Charles.”

  She seemed to take that in her stride.

  “I suppose Alicia told him. She never did care how much she hurt other people. What’s brought all this out now?”

  I ignored the dig at Alicia, if it ever came to a contest as to who had used more people, and who had treated their children worse, then I think it might have been close between the two of them, and I believe Alicia had better reasons for her behaviour.