Learning to Dance by Susan Sallis Page A

was what she was seeing, the zigzag of the units was its artery system, the unseen paintings its nerve-ends.
    She held the duvet tight to her shoulders, and the corner that had shielded her head fell back. She could hear. She listened.
    There were myriad sounds and she was alarmed, wondering whether someone else was in the gallery; Hausmann himself, perhaps. But he – anyone – would have made themselves known when she had opened the doors. These sounds belonged to the castle itself. The wind pressed against the windows and the walls breathed it in. Timbers expanded and contracted as if the gallery were the prow of a ship; an old sailing ship, rising and falling in a swell. And the tiny sounds … were they mice who had lived behind the wainscoting for years and rightly considered the gallery to be theirs? She smiled, thinking of the stories she would have made from these sounds when the boys were small. Easier tothink of mice dressed in Beatrix Potter ginghams than rats seeking refuge from the full tide. She began to move away from the door.
    The sofas were placed back to back for easy viewing; there were three pairs, one commanding each alcove of paintings. She sat in every one of them, looking through the moonlight, identifying the pictures, feeling again the ineffable sadness of something that was perhaps as relatively ephemeral as a moth’s wing. Yet at the same time seeing the amazing and glorious hope that Hausmann was offering – perhaps unknowingly. Humankind … nesting … in the face of chaos? She remembered her sketches; yesterday’s, today’s. The battling cliffs and insidious seas. Then the tiny haven of the Lantern Inn set among pillows of trees.
    She came to the last of the squashy sofas and sat very still, no longer looking, sensing the moonlight bathing her, incorporating her into the gallery. She saw that her terrors were now separate from herself. Toby was looking for Jack, and Matt was close behind. Everything was out of her hands: the human plight and the domestic one. She surrendered, curled herself into the back of the sofa, tucked her head against the arm and went to sleep.

Seven
    When she woke the moonlight had gone and the sun was sparking the diamond-paned windows and glowing lovingly on the pictures in the final alcove. Judith turned on to her back and stretched, bracing her feet and shoulders against the arms of the sofa. The wonderful sense of freedom that had released her into sleep last night was still present, though she acknowledged with a little self-mocking smile that it could not last.
    She hoisted herself up to look over at the paintings behind her. They were the ones that had earned Hausmann the name of the ‘Constable of Somerset’. No wonder he was bitter. They were so much his own, so very much his own.
    She leaned her head back against … a pillow? She wriggled and pulled it out. It matched her duvet. Staring down at her feet she saw a blanket.
    She propped herself up again; so Hausmann had sought her out and done what he could to make her comfortable. She had become a sort of homage to Jack. Yesterday that might have made her weep; today it made her smile. It would make Jack smile too. She closed her eyes and imagined them reaching for each other, caught – first of all – in a level of emotion neither could sustain. And so bursting into laughter.She opened her eyes quickly before the threat of unwanted tears could overcome her … and the door at the end of the Long Gallery opened.
    Hausmann entered back-first because he was holding a tray. As he came nearer she saw it was beautifully laid even to a slender glass holding a cornflower. She began to laugh when he was half way along the gallery, and by the time he set it carefully on the floor within her reach, she was almost unable to speak.
    He sat on the floor. ‘What is funny?’ he demanded.
    She controlled herself. ‘Nothing really. Just … the situation. Did you fetch my pillow and this blanket? You did,