Dancing the Charleston Read online

  ‘I know! She danced beautifully. Everyone said so,’ Roland agreed. ‘Where shall we go then? Can we get to that big hill, the one with all the bushes? It’s difficult to gauge how far away it is.’

  ‘That’s Blackberry Hill. I know the way. It’s about an hour and a half,’ I said. ‘Aunty and I go in the autumn to pick the berries for jam and pies and crumbles, but they won’t be ripe just yet.’

  ‘Never mind. I’d like to go. You don’t mind walking that far?’

  ‘That’s not far,’ I said, though I always moaned when Aunty dragged me along, our bowls and basins clanking at our sides.

  We strode down the driveway towards the gates. There were several cars parked there, one with a dishevelled-looking couple snoring loudly on the back seat.

  ‘Idiots,’ Roland said again.

  ‘It’s like “The Sleeping Beauty”,’ I said. ‘They’ve all been enchanted and must now sleep for a hundred years.’

  ‘I shall never, ever give balls when I’m grown up,’ said Roland emphatically. He shook his head and then shut his eyes briefly.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘I’ve got a bit of a headache,’ said Roland. ‘It’s my own fault. I drank a couple of those cocktails last night.’

  ‘You didn’t!’

  ‘They tasted disgusting too. Still, I think Esmeralda drank more. She didn’t have anything else to do but drink, stuck in that ridiculous mermaid costume.’

  ‘I was a mermaid too,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, but you had enough sense to make sure you could walk around properly, and dance if you felt like it,’ said Roland.

  ‘You didn’t ask me to dance!’ My mouth said it before I could stop myself.

  ‘I was going to, but Marcella said you didn’t want to.’

  I felt a little flare of happiness in my chest. ‘I’m a hopeless dancer anyway,’ I said. ‘But you’re quite good at it.’

  ‘Barbara forced us to have dancing lessons when we were little. Luckily there aren’t any dancing teachers near us in France,’ said Roland.

  ‘Do you like it there?’ I asked.

  He shrugged. ‘I do, rather. But they were going to send me to school back here in September. Stanley’s idea. He just wants to get rid of me. But then Uncle Benjamin said that English public schools were worse than prison and that Barbara was mad to send me, and he made her have second thoughts. She’s always been very fond of Uncle Benjamin.’

  ‘Everyone’s fond of him,’ I said. ‘Even the villagers like him, though they think he dresses funny.’

  We walked down to Rook Green, Nigel springing about with joy at the end of his lead, his ears flapping up and down. I hoped Maggie might be around, wanting her to be impressed, but her cottage was quiet. Maybe they were all at church. I saw a few families going to church in their Sunday best: Peter Robinson was walking along between his mother and father, looking very pink and scrubbed in his high white collar and Sunday suit. I nodded at him and he nodded back, though his mother tossed her head at me.

  ‘Do you know that boy?’ Roland asked.

  ‘Yes, we’re in the same class at school.’

  ‘He looks as if he likes you.’

  ‘He used to, but we’re not really friends any more,’ I said.

  We walked all the way through the village and along to the crossroads.

  ‘They hang people here,’ I said.

  ‘What?’ said Roland.

  ‘Not nowadays. Back in the past. They once hanged a woman for witchcraft,’ I told him.

  ‘What did she do?’ He sounded fascinated.

  ‘I don’t think she did anything very much. They just didn’t like her, and blamed her when things went wrong. I used to wonder if I might be a witch,’ I said.

  ‘Really? Did you boil up a magic potion and cast evil spells? Eye of toad and toe of newt and all that stuff?’

  ‘I just put some herbs in a bottle of vinegar. I was going to sprinkle it on the children who teased me, but then I made friends with Maggie, and she bashed them for me. She can be very fierce,’ I said.

  ‘So can you,’ said Roland.

  I felt proud. At first it felt strange to be chatting to Roland without the others around, but it was a help having Nigel with us. If ever there was a break in the conversation we talked to him: ‘Hey, Nigel!’ ‘Here, boy!’ ‘Nigel, stop doing that! Come back! Bad boy!’

  Nigel took no notice, not caring whether we thought him good or bad. When we left the village he strained at his lead so much that I let him off, which was a big mistake, because he immediately dashed off after a rabbit and disappeared entirely. We spent an anxious ten minutes calling and whistling, to no avail.

  ‘What if he never comes back?’ I said. ‘He might have gone right down a rabbit hole and got stuck. I was the one who let him off the lead. It’s all my fault!’

  ‘Of course he’ll come back. I’m sure he’s perfectly all right. And it was just as much my fault as yours. If anything has happened, I’ll say I was the one who let him go,’ Roland said.

  I was very touched, but insisted we both take the blame. And then Nigel suddenly reappeared, cutting a swathe through the long grass and dashing back to us.

  ‘There! See? I told you he’d be all right,’ said Roland, but he looked relieved, and quickly slipped the lead on him again.

  ‘He can pull us along when we get to the really hilly part,’ I said.

  By the time we got to the top we were both hot and breathless. We perched on the little rocky bit. Roland rolled up his shirtsleeves and I peeled off my socks and rubbed my feet. I saw him glance down at my shoes, looking at the soles where they were worn thin. I hid them quickly.

  ‘We often have holes in our shoes too,’ he said. ‘Barbara forgets that sort of thing. I think that’s why she makes the girls wear those hideous sandals. They’re practically indestructible. I refused to wear them, and Bruno copied me, much to Barbara’s annoyance. She made us go barefoot for a while.’

  ‘She’s a bit weird, your mother,’ I said.

  ‘She’s trying so hard to be Bohemian. It’s because Stanley’s an artist. She was never like that when my father was alive. I wish, wish, wish he hadn’t died,’ said Roland.

  ‘I wonder if my father and your father knew each other,’ I said. ‘Perhaps they fought in the same regiment … Though I suppose your father would have been a colonel or something and mine would have been just an ordinary soldier,’ I said.

  ‘My father was a captain,’ said Roland.

  ‘Will you be a soldier too?’

  Roland peered down at the yellow and green and brown fields below us. ‘I fancy growing things. And I love animals. I shall rear the most tremendous pigs like the one in the village.’

  ‘I don’t think you’d like to do the killing part if you love animals,’ I said. ‘I heard Mrs Higgins’s last pig having its throat cut and it was simply terrible. I still dream about that squealing sometimes.’

  ‘You’re right, I’d hate that part,’ said Roland. ‘I think I’ll just rear pigs because they’re comical and delightful. And I’ll keep sheep for their wool. I’d never turn the young ones into lamb. And I won’t kill cows for beef, I’d just have them milked.’

  ‘But that’s upsetting too, when they take the calves away. The cows moo for days, missing them.’

  ‘You’re relentless, Mona,’ said Roland, giving me a little push. ‘Maybe Bruno will have to run the farm too. He can be very tough. Marcella’s soft, so she can help rear the baby animals and feed the chickens.’

  ‘What about Esmeralda?’

  ‘She wants to live in London, especially now she’s chummed up with Desiree. She’s no fun any more. She just fusses about her hair and her clothes all the time.’

  ‘Her hair’s so beautiful,’ I said, and then blushed because I sounded soppy.

  ‘Esmeralda doesn’t think so. She hates it – she says long hair is old-fashioned. I didn’t know hair could go in and out of fashion, but there you are.’ Ro