Our Dancing Days

‘It’s wild,’ said Tessa; ‘it’s like a dream …’

Tessa, in her cream Morris Traveller, turned into the courtyard. It was neatly gravelled, but the chestnut tree was as massive as ever. Its branches skimmed the roof of restored barns. In front of the house was an area of lawn.

She glanced at her brief. The owners were a Mr and Mrs B. Hallivand. Tessa had always used the side door by the kitchen but she supposed a Mr and Mrs B. Hallivand might not. The main door was in the porch, very like a church porch, two-storied with a tiny room above. Gargoyles gaped. The knocker was twisted brass, heavy. No answer. She knocked again and the noise echoed through the house. She tried the side door, no answer. Shit. She studied the brief. ‘Copy of letter sent to Mr and Mrs’ etc. ‘Thank you for your co-operation in the production of The Historic Houses of Suffolk’ (in red letters). ‘This book will be a unique document examining the most beautiful and,’ etc.

‘Schedule of work. The artist, Ms Tessa Foolks’ (spelt wrongly) ‘will arrive at your home on Saturday 24th August at one-thirty promptly.’ Typical Pumpkin. It was now one-twenty-five. Tessa waited and smoked a French cigarette, which was something she did in times of extreme stress. St John’s was locked and silent.

Shit. Stupid rich bums, I should have phoned! She much preferred working at a house not privately owned; at least she could cold-shoulder inquisitors. ‘Yes, thank you, it is very good and I’ve got one more hour to finish it.’ You couldn’t say that to an owner. They always hovered about making sure you included their favourite meconopsis, or got the patina exactly right on the hautboy. She waited and smoked another cigarette.

Damn you, she said, partly to the house, partly to the Hallivands and also partly to her invading memories, but she was holding them back, concentrating hard; this house, the present, this job. Except at that moment there was no job.

She stared at the house. The stonework had been recently cleaned and was buff-gold, the chimney stacks were straight, there were flower beds alongside the walls. Marguerites, artemesia, not bad choices, well weeded, probably had a gardener. To the left was a brick wall surrounding the orchard. The old apple trees leaning and twisted, they were still there, a good crop of apples coming, no vegetables, that was to be expected.

The grass was closely cut. On it were white metal chairs round a table, old ones, looked French. A striking herbaceous border ran down this side of the house; behind were espalier pear trees. The lawn fell down to the moat. From here it seemed as if the house were completely surrounded by water but in reality the moat was crescent-shaped, the furthest end of it under the tall trees in a dank wilderness. Between the moat and the Hall was a narrow strip of grass. Three doors opened out onto this. It was the most sheltered part of the garden, protected from the winds that always blew across Suffolk, straight from Russia. This narrow lawn led to another enclosed area. Tessa felt proud of the gardens. The Hallivands’ beautiful borders would not exist had she not spent nearly ten years in her wellies, chopping, cutting and digging. Gardens were the one thing Tessa still let herself be emotional about and she was actually smiling as she approached the rose garden.

Old roses with trailing stems and heavy flowers, dark red petals on the lawn. In June a deep musky scent only old roses have …

There was a door there now. Of course in August there would only be a few blooms, perhaps one or two on the Zépherine Drouhin …

There was concrete under her feet and what? … at first she couldn’t take it in: there was a swimming pool …

‘The peasants!’ shrieked Tessa. She couldn’t believe it, what about the Provence rose and the musk rose? The damask roses?

White concrete, flowers in tubs, a square of blue-bottomed swimming pool. Tessa felt sick. The Zépherine Drouhin still climbed the wall, but her garden, her special place, lying on the grass breathing in sweet rose air, her quartered roses of burgundy and darkest crimson, almost purple … There were glass doors and a patio with barbecue furniture. I’m going, she thought, but a car was coming.

A maroon Volvo estate turned into the courtyard. Tessa was storming across the orchard. The owner flounced towards her unstably on high heels. They met on the lawn in front of the house.

‘I’m so sorry, didn’t you get my message?’

‘No.’ Tessa was obviously furious.

‘How dreadful, it’s simply unforgivable.’

‘Yes, it’s unforgivable.’ This digs up roses, thought Tessa. It was tall and glamorous, hair unnaturally strawberry-blonde and shiny. It smiled determinedly. ‘You see, I had to go to Norwich, there was a snuff box in Elm Hill … Bernard’s at an auction … I phoned the hotel … It’s so awful when this happens, have you been here long?’

The owner wore silky peach and a face trying to be cheerful but visibly unsettled by Tessa, scowling, in black trousers and a tight T-shirt like a dark urban angel. But Tessa was less angry; she decided this person was not a malicious vandal, more an ignorant one with a high-gloss finish. It offered an elegant hand with pearly fingernails.

‘How do you do, I’m Mirabelle Hallivand, and you must be the artist, Tessa Fooks.’

‘Fulks, they always spell it wrong,’ and she smiled.

Mirabelle laughed and threw her head back, showing perfect white teeth. ‘Well, here we are … What a day … and the snuff box was a fake, I could tell at once … and you’ve been waiting, and the help’s off …’

‘I’d better start work,’ said Tessa; ‘I do have a schedule.’

‘Of course, but please, do come in and let me make you some tea.’

What Tessa noticed first as they stepped inside was the familiar smell; wet stone, damp rush-matting and woodsmoke. She always supposed people gave houses their particular odours, but St John’s seemed to have one of its own. The porch was not filled with gardening tools, flower pots and muddy boots; on the floor was an exquisite rug.

‘This is the great hall,’ said Mirabelle, opening a door in the panelling. There were tapestries on the wall. An ornate brass lantern hung from the rafters. ‘Make yourself comfortable,’ said Mirabelle, showing Tessa an enormous sofa.

There was a grand piano, Persian rugs on the stone floor and large Chinese vases. Mirabelle brought tea in fluted porcelain. She perched on an embroidered chair near the mouth of the huge fireplace.

‘So, you’re going to paint St John’s.’

‘Sketches, really, I finish them off later, they’ll mostly be for page decorations. Has the photographer come?’

‘Last week, he was most charming … It’s nice to have company, it gets isolated here.’ Mirabelle was extremely thin, like a whippet, and had a whippet’s habit of trembling. ‘Bernard has to go to auctions, you see, he’s a dealer.’

‘Got a shop, has he?’

Mirabelle laughed extravagantly. ‘This is the shop. It’s all for sale!’ Her gesture included the entire contents of the great hall. ‘It’s much nicer for clients to decide in a relaxed atmosphere.’

‘Do people come out here?’ Tessa was amazed.

A tremble ran down Mirabelle’s arm into her teacup. ‘We don’t sell to the popular market, our clients are very discerning.’

Tessa quietly estimated the cost of the rug under her feet. To think they had slept on this floor huddled by the fire.

‘I’ll have to start work now,’ she said.

‘So you like painting houses?’ said Mirabelle, keen to continue.

‘I like painting gardens.’

‘Well, we’ve got lots of those here,’ she laughed.

Tessa put down her drink. ‘I believe there’s a rose garden here, with old roses. I was looking for it earlier … some rather rare roses, I thought,’ and her brown eyes fixed on Mirabelle.

‘Ah … well, yes, there was.’ Mirabelle’s bracelets jangled. ‘I’m afraid there was a rather bad winter … well, in the end Bernard had the swimming pool.’

‘What a shame, I love roses.’ Tessa stood up and Mirabelle stood up too.

‘It happened before … me … you see, I’m the second Mrs Hallivand.’

The light through the church windows struck her sideways, emphasising wrinkles under her make-up. In her youth she would have had petal-pink skin but she hadn’t aged well.

She’s as old as me, thought Tessa. ‘I see,’ she said. Mirabelle’s eyes were the palest blue; curiously, the more uncertain they became the more she smiled.

‘Well … well, I shan’t keep you.’

‘Yes, I’m better working uninterrupted.’

‘I could show you the house, the photographer was very impressed.’

‘Not today, I’m already late.’

‘And if you wanted anything, you will ask, won’t you?’

‘Yes,’ said Tessa opening the door. ‘Thank you, Mrs Hallivand.’

‘Oh, please, please, call me Mirabelle,’ and a tremble ran right through her, clanking all her jewellery.

CHAPTER THREE

Tessa took her sketchbook to the far side of the moat, where the cornfield met the grounds of St John’s. Here the Hall could be seen through the trees. This was the first glimpse one saw from the road, so it seemed the best place to start. Murray would be impressed by St John’s, she thought, and this made her smile because he would never see it now and when they were together he had shown no interest in this section of her life. He loved gardens and it was gardens that had brought them together. Tessa had advised him about the tiny courtyard garden at the back of his gallery. The gardens of St John’s would make him very quiet and put his head to one side, and say, as he did when he was interested in something, ‘Hmm, possibilities …’

The Hallivands’ improvements were not noticeable from this angle. Through the trees the Hall was as mysterious as it had ever been when weeds grew in the courtyard and the gardens were a knot of brambles and nettles. In the field the ripe wheat was prickly against Tessa’s legs and she began to draw.

They stood staring at the house feeling out of place and uncomfortable. Don, whom nobody embarrassed, was at a loss for words. ‘Er, um,’ he said, and it had been his idea in the first place.

Then a door opened and a woman strode out, short, squarish, a broad face and black hair scraped into a bun. She marched towards them as if they were dirty geese. ‘Shoo! Shoo! Off you go.’

Don ran up to her. ‘Molly, it’s me! Don’t you remember? It’s me!’

Molly was not impressed.

‘Oh, Molly, it’s me, I’m Donald, George’s boy, George and Hetty, the Bells, you know; Miranda, Donald.’ At each name he showed how high they used to be. ‘Frances and little Marsha, she’s twelve now …’

Molly threw up her hands. ‘Donald! It is you, and you so grown, when I last saw you, you were …’

‘A squirt, and I was always up the apple trees, and Miranda played the grand piano …’

‘She had a lovely voice.’

‘She’s at the Royal Academy now, she is, she plays the cello too.’

‘And Frances? Such a serious little thing, dark, not like you.’

‘She’s a scientist, she’s brilliant, she’s going to Cambridge.’

‘And the baby?’

‘Oh, Molly, you wouldn’t recognise her, she’s the beautiful one, blonde …’

‘Like you.’

‘Like Mummy. Well, Marsha’s twelve, she’s quite a lady,’ and they both laughed.

Tessa and Dee-Dee were still standing by the car, Dee-Dee tugging her mini skirt. Don pulled Molly over to them.

‘You must meet my friends! This is Tessa and Dee-Dee.’

Molly looked them up and down gravely. Tessa’s mascara had smudged into her cheeks.

‘Gosh! I don’t know their surnames … I met them a week ago … they’re at art school, London’s great at the moment.’

‘I’m Theresa Fulks and this is Deirdre Stallard,’ said Tessa, feeling the whole situation needed clarifying. ‘Don invited us to see his cousin.’

‘Yes, yes, and how is Geoffrey, I’d heard he wasn’t too—’

‘He’s bearing up very well,’ said Molly stoically; ‘rests a lot, we try and look after him.’

Tessa and Dee-Dee gazed at the overgrown garden and the sorry state of the barns. Molly was embarrassed. ‘Charlie’s back’s been bad, he can’t do much now, and I can barely keep up, what with the cleaning and all.’

‘Oh dear, Molly, I didn’t realise, I should have written. Have you got a phone yet?’

‘Oh, no, Mr Bell won’t have it … shall I tell him you’re here? He will be pleased, Donald.’

‘We shouldn’t have come,’ Tessa whispered to Dee-Dee.

Molly led them through the porch and into the blackness of the Hall. It smelled of wet stone, damp rush-matting and woodsmoke. Dee held Tessa’s hand. Molly opened the door in the panelling. Light through the high church windows streamed onto an old collection of broken furniture, stuffed animals under glass, piles of books, Indian dhurries and half-dead geraniums. The great hall was lofty and damp, there were broken window panes and on one of the rafters was a bird’s nest. Beside the stone fireplace, in which a few logs smouldered on a heap of ashes, was an armchair, and in this slept an elderly man in a dressing gown. They moved closer and Tessa could see he wasn’t really old but had the shrivelled yellowish appearance of the terminally ill. His dressing gown was brown checked wool, bought for someone once larger than he. His wrists were thin.

‘Mr Bell, Mr Bell,’ said Molly shaking him gently, ‘there’s somebody to see you.’

The sick man opened his eyes and smiled. He had a kind face, which even illness could not hide. ‘Molly? Is it tea-time already?’

‘No, Mr Bell, there’s Donald to see you, come all the way from London.’

Don rushed over and shook his hand enthusiastically, but Tessa could see how upset he was, he had not expected to find his cousin so frail. ‘Geoffrey, it’s been ages.’

‘Dear Donald, what a surprise. Let me see you, doesn’t he look like George, Molly, a blonde George.’

‘He’s brought some friends, Mr Bell.’ Molly pushed Dee-Dee and Tessa nearer.

‘What modern ladies … and you too Donald, quite the thing, and such a shirt.’

‘Oh, everybody in London wears this sort of stuff, Geoffrey.’

‘“With it”, that’s what they say now, isn’t it?’ He held Don and Dee-Dee’s hands. ‘How splendid of you to come all this way, and such beautiful ladies …’

Dee-Dee’s knees went pink.

‘Molly, make some tea, bring out your best fruit cake. Donald, find some chairs, and let’s celebrate.’

An hour or so later everybody was relaxed, laughing and stuffed with Molly’s cakes. She kept running into the kitchen to make more sandwiches. ‘There’ll be no more food left at this rate, Mr Bell.’

‘Never mind, Molly, tomorrow we’ll get Ram’s to deliver.’

Geoffrey insisted his guests be well fed. ‘I like to see ladies with good appetites.’ He offered Dee another slice of fruit cake. She was completely taken by him, he was absolutely charming. She gazed at him rapturously.

‘What beautiful hair you have, my dear, like the ripest wheat in the afternoon sun …’

‘Geoffrey, you are a one, you used to say things like that to my mother.’

‘Quite right too, Hetty was a beauty, still is. Her and George, so romantic, they were. They still write … Young lady, boys these days are not romantic. Is Donald romantic?’

‘Donald?’ And they screamed with laughter.

‘But tell me, George says you’re “dropping out” of Oxford.’

‘Yes, yes, I am, and I’m not going back … Oxford’s dead, Geoffrey, everybody’s so out of touch. I want to read about Ginsberg and Kerouac and Michael X, not dead people. It’s all happening now, in people’s houses, in pubs and on the street, Geoffrey. Art and literature isn’t stuffed away in libraries, it’s alive … Tessa and Dee-Dee, they’re artists, they know, it’s not just paint and paper, is it?’

‘No.’ Geoffrey was smiling knowingly.

‘It’s true, Geoffrey, it is. What do I get if I stay at Oxford, a degree, a piece of paper? I’ll know all about Milton and Shakespeare and Donne, oh they’re OK, but what about Bob Dylan … it’s poetry, it is … don’t laugh, Geoffrey … it’s got meaning and rhythm and most of all it’s got life … I don’t want a job and work from nine to five, I want to … Be … Read Thoreau, Geoffrey, and Tolstoy and Gandhi, and William Morris and Steiner and Huxley, they got it right … oh yes, and Jesus …’

Geoffrey was laughing. ‘And Jesus … what it is to be young!’

Don’s face was pink, but he wasn’t embarrassed; he was never embarrassed. Tessa and Dee-Dee exchanged glances. Don was the most un-hip creature on earth but he could be pretty inspiring.

Geoffrey was quiet. He poked the dying fire with his walking stick.

‘We were all young, George, Hetty, and I, we all awaited the imminent transformation of the world …’

Molly hovered behind them. ‘Don’t let them tire you, Mr Bell.’

‘Molly, you take good care of me.’

‘Are you tired?’ asked Don. ‘Shall I show the girls the rest of the house, I know they’ll love it.’

‘It’s not like it was, my boy.’

‘We don’t mind, do we, it’s years since I was here.’

‘This is the kitchen,’ said Don. China sink, one table, pots and pans hanging from the beams. ‘Hetty said it was impossibly archaic. We used to come here every summer. This is the breakfast room.’ An Aga, a long table, a sofa under a window which looked out over the moat. A stone floor. ‘The dairy’s in there, nobody uses it now. You see, it was a farm here before Geoffrey.’ Up winding stairs. ‘That’s Molly’s room, it’s private.’ Another bedroom. ‘This is the solar.’ A pile of old furniture covered with dust sheets, a huge bed, carved. ‘I think Geoffrey sleeps downstairs now …’ More bedrooms, more stairs, Dee-Dee and Tessa were quite lost. ‘I always slept in here, it’s called the chapel because it’s above the porch. In winter there’s ice on the inside walls, can you imagine? We only came here once in the winter, though … This room’s above the hall, my sisters slept in here.’ The ceiling had fallen in, there was more unused furniture. Don examined some. ‘I think it’s his mother’s, my great-aunt, it all came here when she died. Oh look, the hat stand, I do remember that …’ Up more stairs, down more stairs, narrow corridors, everywhere damp and dusty and crumbling. Don looked out of a window at the courtyard. ‘I love this place,’ he said thoughtfully.

‘What will happen when Geoffrey …’ Dee-Dee couldn’t bear to think of him dying.

‘I suppose it’ll be sold. George said it should have been sold years ago. Geoffrey could never really manage it. When we used to come down George used to help, but … I don’t know, Geoffrey wasn’t well, we grew up, Hetty and George, they’re getting old too … I like Geoffrey, I wish I’d seen more of him now …’

‘It’s so sad,’ said Dee-Dee and a tear ran down her face.

Three of them in a car all the way back to London and Dee-Dee sobbed copiously because Geoffrey was going to die. He had bravely walked to the door to see them off, leaning on a stick and helped by Molly, and that was Tessa’s last memory of him, a sick gentleman in a dressing gown.

‘Bye-bye, Don old boy, come again soon.’

‘I will, Geoffrey, I promise, I’ll come and see you.’

‘Goodbye, ladies, so pleased to have met you. Goodbye, goodbye,’ leaning on Molly and waving his stick until they were all out of sight.

Some weeks later, Don was with Tessa. She was painting a mural in a friend’s flat in Fulham. She was covered in paint and the walls and the floor were covered in it too, but it was cool, it was OK.

‘… And that’s the sea, where all living things come from, and these are the molluscs and the reptiles and the whole of evolution,’ said Tessa, splash. ‘And at the top is man in the clouds, and the sun is Ra the sun god giving out light and inspiration.’ Splash, a shower of yellow droplets splattered Don.

‘I’m going to see Geoffrey again,’ he said.

‘Good, I am pleased …’ Splash, red paint.

‘But I can’t take you this time, I’m afraid, you see Hetty wants me to persuade him to go to a hospice.’

Tessa stopped. ‘That’s heavy.’

‘Isn’t it, but the doctors say if he doesn’t he’ll die in three months, if he goes to a hospice he might …’

‘Linger for years … Shit, Don, Geoffrey’s pure, he’s real, it makes me sick when people want to destroy that.’ She splashed black paint angrily. ‘Why can’t people do what they want? Do you think he wants to linger in a fucking-stupid-full-of-morons-hospice?’

Donald laughed. ‘No, he doesn’t, he’s very single-minded.’

‘Shit! That’s too much black, it doesn’t look inspirational any more.’

Don wasn’t listening. He wiped the paint off his shirt. ‘I like Geoffrey,’ he said.

It was September, a year since they’d visited St John’s. Geoffrey was still there, dying, but comforted by his life’s clutter, Molly and Don, who visited him frequently. Tessa and Dee-Dee were established in London. They called themselves artists but didn’t really paint much; they never stayed in one place long enough. They had moved twelve times since the previous spring. They worked evenings in a dismal Greek restaurant off the Charing Cross Road, but this too was temporary. They changed jobs as frequently as their addresses. When they’d first met Don that summer they had been ingénue suburban art-school students, but they were now real hippies, much to the bewilderment and disgust of their parents.

Dee-Dee and Tessa’s families had known each other for years but since their daughters’ abandonment of all that was proper and respectable a certain coolness had developed between the Fulks and the Stallards, one silently blaming the other. ‘If it wasn’t for their daughter and her ways …’ But to Tessa and Dee-Dee their parents were uptight, straight and uncool. What did they know?

Dee had grown her hair long. It was ginger-blonde and crinkly, like a Pre-Raphaelite maiden. She wore round-rimmed sunglasses day and night, dressed in purple with a purple crocheted pull-on hat, and moved in a mist of patchouli. She was always in love, and the latest was called Jeremy. He played the flute, often, and had wild curly hair. He looked like a dissipated cherub and he was only sixteen. They stayed in bed most of the day.

Tessa was leaner, dark and frizzy-haired, which made her look Caribbean, another source of irritation to her parents; in crimson crushed velvet, with her tarot cards and brown gypsy eyes, her intense murals and love of things Eastern, she was known as a freaky lady.

They lived in King’s Cross in the basement of a partially demolished house. Tessa had painted all the walls yellow to cheer it up, but it was so damp she preferred to go out. Her ambition, if it could be called that, was to live in Notting Hill. Don, of course, lived in Notting Hill. His flat was the top floor of a house overlooking a square. He lived in some style. Tessa and Dee-Dee owned virtually nothing – their clothes, some records – but possessions seemed to cling to Don like burrs on a tweed skirt. ‘Doing his own thing’ was working as a porter in Bonham’s, but he also had the knack of finding pieces of junk in Portobello that later turned out to be valuable. His flat was a cave of Indian paintings, hookahs from Morocco (bought last summer), Turkish rugs (the spring before), seventeen different types of tea and seventeen tea-pots, books everywhere and on the ceiling one of Tessa’s murals, ‘The awakening of Consciousness’. It was here she spent most her time.

It was Tuesday but it could have been any day of the week, and what time it was was unclear; Don’s four clocks bonged hours and half-hours intermittently. Outside, yellowing leaves fell in the square. It was misty. Tessa and Dee-Dee were lying on the floor listening to Astral Weeks. The music was dreamy and melodic, Van Morrison’s peculiarly nasal voice felt right for their mood. Don’s room was autumnal too, brown, yellow and crimson. They were sad. Geoffrey had finally died, Don was at the solicitor’s with his father, the will was being read.