Let's Dance by Frances Fyfield Page B

him. Andrew passed on the bundle of flesh, bones and shawls with practised tenderness. George hoisted Cathie over his shoulder, holding her under the nappy, letting her fingers claw at his eyes, bending back so she lay on a curve, free as a bird. Murmuring, My aren’t you a beauty? Aren’t you just a little beauty? The crying descended into a series of hiccups. The women recovered from paralysis. Robert moved.
    â€˜I should let her stop here a minute if I were you,’George said amiably. ‘She’s just filled her nappy. That’s what all that fuss was about. What a treasure. Is she yours? What’s her name?’
    T hey packed the Ford Sierra and had left within the hour. George had gone before them. Robert said he was not staying in a house where his child was not safe; he would not believe that his mother had simply forgotten how to hold a baby. Enough was enough. Serena was Isabel’s responsibility. He would be consultant.
    Serena had no idea what she had done. How silly people were. She cried when Robert left, but he could not bear to touch her. She turned on Isabel a face of puzzled desolation.
    â€˜Why doesn’t he love me?’ she asked.
    â€˜He does, Mum. He does, of course he does. We all do.’
    L ater, when all the dishes were done and the place restored to tidiness, Isabel saw the ferret, waiting outside the door.

    3.30 in the morning
    â€˜I T IS NICE AND WARM TONIGHT,’
Serena wrote in block capitals. Writing in capitals took up so much time she began to scribble. ‘Someone stole my doll. Someone stole my man. I can’t remember which was worse.’Sitting on the big carver chair watching the moon from the window reminded her how these clearer spells were becoming briefer, since she had obviously been en route to another place entirely in order to do something different and useful. She sat upright and considered the problem.
    She had been looking for snow to fall, snow being an easier option than a knife, but it was too early for that. Or she might have been looking for a book to read. Or, more likely, she had realized that Isabel had heard her tiptoeing downstairs, and that was enough to suspend all movement. It was awful to be followed, terrible to be captive in her own house, and purgatory to have some other woman dancing attendance. Any female with sense, Serena announced with her breath reaching the table, hates the dominance of her mother, but not nearly as much as the other way round.
    There was fucking dust on this buggering table, which was nicer than paper, and the light of the moon was preferable to bursting lightbulbs, which blew up in her face out of sheer spite. She watched her own finger waver, hesitant to commit. Something was important. Nothing she couldremember. Serena got up and made her regular parade of touching things, as if she loved them. She had never had much time for things, only people. Edward, her husband, had loved things like trophies. She had loved him first as long as he loved her first; she had loved other men second. There was about as much time left for women as there was for God. Neither had ever saved her from anything.
    She looked at her fingers. Still five of them. What a relief. Nothing really changed, then. She did not change. Bits of her died was all, like gangrenous toes on bodies in frost. All those lovely manners, which had covered her like a coat. It was not the same as being mad, Serena told the table: she could still dance, still march to a different tune. As for being good, she was not good, never had been.
    She added an extra
‘
s
’
to the word in the dust, so that the sound of it would end in a hiss. Lonelinessssss was a fact of life sometimes cured by illusion, mitigated by the love of a man. For some women, she wrote, being alone on the planet is cured by the love they have for their children. She had loved hers, but never to death and never as a replacement. Mab had loved them as if they were