Only Dancing Read online

  “Oh Mark,” I whispered, mortified.

  He was already awake. He turned his head and kissed me. “I know,” he said. His eyes linked with mine in the streetlight coming in through the window. Twin tunnels of loss. Infinitely sad, infinitely loving. “I’m so sorry, Caro. It’s killing me to say this, but this didn’t happen. It can’t have done.”

  “I know,” I replied. I was glad it was dark. Mark was my best friend and this felt the most right thing I’d ever done in my life. But he had Jean and their two little girls. He had commitments. We were honourable people. I touched his face. “Don’t worry. I’ve forgotten it already. Are you going to get into trouble for staying out?”

  He gave a short laugh. “And then some. She’ll have bolted the door by now. I’ll ring from work as soon as the switchboard opens and tell her I slept on the office floor. I had to do it once before.”

  A tiny treacherous gladness warmed me that I didn’t have to be alone tonight. “Your front door’s not the only thing to be bolted. The BBC will be too.” I turned to rest against his chest. “You can leave when the alarm goes.”

  He lay very still. “Are you sure, Caro?”

  “I’m sure.”

  ~~~

  “We never have talked about that night,” I said now as Mark and I paused once again at the photo of Jilly arguing with Blake.

  “Too precious,” said Mark simply.

  I felt a jolt of pure surprise. “You thought that too?” I said, looking up at him.

  He smiled ruefully. “Always have. We were so grown up, weren’t we? So full of ideals and rightness. I didn’t even dare tell you how lovely it was. What were we, early twenties?”

  I nodded. “Compared to today’s kids, we were far more independent. Can you imagine letting any of your girls step on a plane to Italy, age twenty, to bring back their cousin’s ashes?”

  “God, no. But us... we all took serious decisions about the rest of our life as if it was second nature. It wouldn’t have occurred to us to do otherwise.”

  “Tell me about it.” I was silent for a moment, staring at the photo of Blake, thinking of all the decisions I’d made over the years for what had seemed at the time to be entirely the right reasons. “I’m glad that night was precious for you too.”

  “Let’s just say it was a damn good thing I was taking the girls and Jean and her mother to Margate for the next fortnight. Out of sight, if not out of mind. As it was, when I came back...”

  I sighed and finished his sentence. “When you came back, everything in the whole world had changed.”

  ~~~

  Italy was a confusion of people and noise and heat and red tape and just plain strangeness.

  “Caro.” A man in his early thirties strode towards me across the Arrivals hall at Verona airport. His hair was flowing, he was wearing a billowing, full sleeved shirt, gathered at the wrists, and flared linen trousers. His hands were outstretched, his entire bearing expressed compassion. And yet... and yet I was folded into an air-embrace that left me lonelier and more confused than ever. There was nothing to Alessandro at all, just empty space and grandiloquent gestures. In contrast, Mark’s warm, solid parting hug sat in my memory. I’d let it stay a little longer before making myself forget it.

  “Ah, you have a look of Jilly," said Alessandro. "I recognised you from her photos. So sad. We are devastated. Come, the car is outside.”

  “Where is Jilly? What happened?”

  He made a grief-stricken gesture. Jilly was in the morgue in town. We would call there on the way home. I must not expect too much. A car had hit her with some force and she had fallen from a great height. Recovering the body had not been easy. In short, there was little that was suitable to see for one so young and with such delicate sensibilities as myself.

  I took his word for it. At the morgue they uncovered a tiny portion of Jilly’s face and flame-coloured hair. My heart squeezed almost to nothing. I nodded painfully, signed where I was told to, turned blindly away. The cremation, Alessandro told me, would be that afternoon.

  “So soon?” I protested, startled. “But what about Jilly’s family, my family? I need to ring them. They should be here.” There couldn’t be no one from the family here. There just couldn’t.

  It was explained with many sweeping continental gestures that it had been several days already and there were regulations and I could take the ashes back for a remembrance service in England. This was the best way. Even had Alessandro found my details in Jilly’s papers immediately, there would likely not have been time to arrange travel for all my family.

  I was in severe shock, swept along too fast, surrounded by foreigners and a different culture. All that on top of a broken heart. I didn’t have the ability to protest further. “Jilly had papers?” I said, picking on the most ridiculous thing to be unsettled about.

  Yes, naturally, because she was Alessandro’s employee. Papers were necessary for the tax and the insurance. As well as being an artistic dilettante, it seemed Alessandro was a practising lawyer. Everything was in order, he said, and I was down as Jilly’s next of kin.

  That did startle me. “Me? But what about Auntie Pam and Uncle Frank?”

  Alessandro shrugged. “You are named. You are the executor of her will. We will go through the details over a cup of tea, yes? Jilly always preferred tea.”

  The fight went out of me. I slumped in the car as limp as a rag doll. Outside the windows, the small town at the head of the lake was pretty enough, but I saw it through a haze of tears.

  I wanted to howl, as I had last night. There was no Mark, though, to hold me close and fill the aching void left by Jilly. There was only this chilly dilettante with his pretend concern and the soul of a lawyer. I was too British to weep on his shoulder. Instead I roused myself to pass some inane comment on the garlands of flowers hanging from lamps and the corners of houses.

  Another look of bright concern. “Ah, yes, there was a sagra here, a local festival. Many tourists and visitors come for it. The tables are all pulled out, you understand, there is much eating and drinking and music and dancing. All was laughing and confusion. None of us can remember when Jilly went back. She was there, and then she wasn’t. No one knows why. She must have decided to walk home early. It is a pleasant stroll, as you see.”

  As he talked, the car had negotiated the last turns out of the town and was climbing a hill. With a sudden rush of nausea, I realised Alessandro was talking about the day Jilly had died.

  “So this is...” I clamped my hand across my mouth in horror, the sinuous loops of road now etched into my vision.

  He gazed out of the window. “Where the accident took place. Yes. A car must have come too fast around these bends and hit her. She was pushed off the edge. The car didn’t stop.”

  God in heaven, I was being driven along the exact same route that Jilly’s killer had used. I screwed my eyes shut, my mind screaming. I couldn't have made any more conversation now if I'd tried.

  ~~~

  “Are you all right?” asked Mark now.

  “Not really.” I swallowed. “I was remembering Italy. It was such a nightmare rush. First Jilly’s poor, broken body in the morgue, then being casually told we were driving past the place where she’d died, and then - I don’t think I ever told you this - then when we got there, they gave me her room to sleep in. Her room! Alessandro said he was sorry there was nowhere else prepared, but Jilly had run the house, so all was in confusion.”

  “No!”

  “Yes. I still feel sick, thinking about it. Alessandro indicated a couple of suitcases, presumably to pack her belongings into, put my case next to them, waved vaguely down the passage towards the bathroom, then went off to see about tea. I sat on the bed and howled.”

  And I missed you. I missed you so much, Mark.

  “How could there be no other bedroom?” said Mark, outraged. “I thought you said this place was a castle?”

  “Ah,” I said, and explained.

  ~~~

  T
he Castello Acqua di Fonte lay to the north of Lake Garda. The medieval castle itself was a ruin. Alessandro and Maria lived in the sprawling eighteenth century farmhouse below it. It was, needless to say, unlike any farmhouse I’d ever seen in England. The car deposited us in a beaten earth courtyard and purred off to insinuate itself into an ex-barn, now a garage.

  Once I realised what was required, I went round Jilly’s room in a frozen trance, packing as fast as possible. I just wanted to get through the cremation and be out of there and back home again. I don’t even remember doing it now. Instinct took over. Jilly had surprisingly little. Her ornaments went between layers of clothes, her makeup and writing case went in my own bag. I was still wondering why I’d been given two suitcases when Alessandro came back with tea to tell me we must go to the cremation in half an hour.

  I cried all the way through it. Funerals should be grey and sombre and rain-swept. This was hot, sunny and Italian. In the background, people wailed noisily. There were children there, pent up, pushing each other. In a weird, back-to-front way it was like all our family gatherings in England, but they were what Jilly had wanted to escape from, so why had she remained here? Why hadn’t she told us where she was? All these thoughts jostled restlessly in my mind. I still couldn't believe it was happening.

  We came out into the heat, piled into cars, were driven back to the Castello. Alessandro, it seemed, did not lack for money. While people talked and squabbled and put tables together in the loggia outside, setting out glasses and plates for the funeral tea, I was ushered into the study. It was quiet in there, crowded with beams and heavy furniture. A rich square of carpet glowed in the centre of the stone flags.

  Here was the will, Alessandro said, laying a crisp sheet of paper on the desk. Jilly had left everything to me. I must let him know my bank account so he could get her money transferred across.

  I fumbled for my cheque book to give him the details.

  There was a noise at the door. An elderly woman stood there with a toddler, one of the children from the service. I’d noticed his hair, because it was bright auburn, reminding me a little of Jilly’s. I waited for the woman to talk to Alessandro and go away. She did so, gesticulating sharply, rattling her words like bullets. Then she nodded once at me and marched out of the door, leaving the boy in the study with us.

  “This is Skye,” said Alessandro, getting out another sheaf of papers.

  The little boy took a step towards me, attracted by the long leather fringes on my shoulder bag.

  “Hello, Skye,” I said, giving him my finger to hold rather than the fringes. I looked at Alessandro. “Is he one of yours?”

  “I am his godfather,” he said, as if surprised he had to tell me. “Skye is Jilly’s son. Now he is yours.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “I’ve never understood why Jilly didn’t tell you or the family about Skye,” said Mark as we strolled thoughtfully back to South Kensington tube station after the exhibition. Evidently, the reminder of the Davie Bowie years had set him recalling that time as well.

  “Nor me,” I said. “There was still a stigma attached to unmarried mothers, then, of course."

  "Tell me about it," muttered Mark.

  "Jilly would have paid very little attention to that, though. She'd have just breezed through it. Not telling the family was completely unlike her. I remember sitting in Alessandro’s study in absolute, unutterable surprise as Skye stared at me with Jilly’s eyes.”

  ”Your eyes too.”

  “Family eyes, then. I gathered him onto my lap and cuddled him, and he didn’t let go of my hand for the next month.”

  Mark grinned. “He’s a good lad.”

  “That lad is now thirty eight and up for a prestigious architecture award.”

  “Don’t. Lydia’s eldest is sitting her A-levels, for goodness sake It doesn’t seem two minutes since I was building sandcastles for Lydia herself at Margate.”

  Yes, I thought. I remember that too.

  ~~~

  In a daze, I signed everything Alessandro told me to sign and took Skye outside to where they were holding the Italian version of a wake for his mother. He sat trustingly in my lap at the long tables spread with food, helping me get through the evening just by the awareness of his small life within my arms.

  Jilly's son. Jilly's son. It was almost too much to take in, except he was there, solid and warm, with a thicket of baby-fine hair and Jilly's eyes, making me feel in the weirdest of ways that she hadn't gone after all, that she'd left part of herself with me.

  Which, of course, she had. I was Skye's guardian, but she had also stipulated in writing that no one, no one at all, was allowed to adopt him except me. In view of this, Alessandro had already had the adoption papers drawn up. This was why he had been so insistent on me coming out.

  I was used to children. They were scattered throughout the family, underfoot at all gatherings. My brother had twins only a year older than Skye. I was a good aunt, I liked kids, I just hadn't ever expected to be looking after one full time this soon. Or ever, come to that. I was going to need help adjusting.

  I left most of my food on the plate, balanced Skye on my hip and found Alessandro. "I have to talk to my mother," I said. "May I phone, please?"

  "What?" shrieked Mum, on first hearing the news. "Oh my goodness. Oh, the poor little scrap. Why ever didn't she tell us? Skye, did you say? Typical Jilly. Well, he'll be a comfort to Pam at any rate. Laura will take him, I should think."

  Laura was Jilly's older sister. I held Skye tighter. "No, I have to look after him myself."

  My mother's voice took on a careful tone. "Caroline, darling, I know you loved Jilly and you mean well, but you're only twenty and..."

  "Mum, I have to. Jilly made me Skye's guardian. It's in her will. No one else can adopt him."

  "That's as maybe, love, but..."

  "Alessandro is his godfather and he's going to see it happens before I'm allowed to bring him home. Can you tell Aunty Pam, please?"

  "Caroline, do you know what's involved in bringing up a child?"

  "No," I said on a half-laugh, half-sob, "but you do and you'll only be a phone call away. I can't not do this, Mum."

  I swear I heard her mental cogs engage and her backbone stiffen along eight hundred miles of telephone wire. "Leave it to me, then. Let me know when you're flying back. Dad and I will pick you both up from the airport. I'll borrow one of your brother's car seats for Skye."

  Say what you like about my family - and Blake has since said plenty - when the chips are down, they rally round. By the time I'd landed - Skye still attached to me like a determined, auburn-haired limpet, Mum had gathered enough toddler gear to kit out a medium sized orphanage and paid the first quarter's rent on a garden flat, two streets away from her.

  "I know it'll be a longer commute for you," she said, "but you can't manage a toddler and a push-chair up four flights of stairs with no lift. It also means Skye can come here for the day while you're out."

  Like me, Mum was under no illusions about my need to work. Unfortunately, the Personnel department thought otherwise.

  With hindsight, I was extraordinarily lucky that the day I went back to work (taking Skye as he still refused to be parted from me), was the one day Blake had come down to the BBC canteen mid-morning in search of a coffee. Normally he worked single-mindedly through until lunch, but he’d only recently returned from a climbing holiday and his body clock was still tuned to mountain schedules.

  The first I knew of his arrival in the canteen was a sports jacket, crisp white shirt and tie halting inches in front of my face and his concerned voice above my head. “Caro! What ever is the matter?”

  I raised my eyes from the sodden mound of tissues next to my mug. I remember being surprised Blake had stopped, much less spoken to me. He generally spent breaks with his team, focused on the current project. He was gaining quite a name for himself in the drama department for edgy psychological productions. Yet here he was, pulling out a chair, barely glan
cing at Skye, just concentrating on me.

  “I’ve been sacked,” I said, swallowing a sob.

  He made a surprised noise. “I find that difficult to believe. Why?”

  “Because Personnel have loathed me ever since I moved out of Drama without applying for a transfer through the proper channels, my new director hates me, and I took unauthorised leave.”

  “That last bit doesn’t sound like you. There must have been a good reason.”

  I gave an unhappy laugh. “The best - or the worst, depending on how you look at it. I had to go to Italy because my cousin was killed in a hit and run accident. Jilly - do you remember her? She’d been living near Lake Garda.”

  “Living there?” he said.

  “She was managing a commune, of all things.” I groped for another tissue. “I had to identify her, and then there was the cremation, and then we had all Skye’s paperwork to sort out. His godfather is a lawyer so he whizzed it through, but it still took an extra few days. I did ring here straight away to say I had been delayed. Apparently that doesn’t count.” And the rest of my team had clearly been told not to talk to me, and Mark was on holiday so I couldn't have a sympathetic tea and buttered bun with him and ask him what to do and all in all, I just couldn't cope.

  “I don’t understand,” said Blake. “What paperwork?”

  “For Skye.” I stroked Jilly's son's hair as he nestled against me, staring at Blake with wide eyes. “Jilly named me his guardian, but he was born out there, so the authorities needed something more official before I could bring him home. Fastest adoption on record.”

  I knew why it had been so quick. Alessandro’s driving motive had been the will. Jilly had stipulated that nobody else but me was allowed to adopt Skye. Therefore, once Skye was legally tied to me, his godfather’s main duty would be discharged. I’d promised to send photos and update Alessandro with progress letters, but essentially that was it, done.

  There was a moment of absolute silence. “This is Jilly’s son?” said Blake slowly. He sat back, his eyes resting on Skye. “Well, that is a surprise. How old is he?”