Ice Dancing Episode 82

TThe relief of saying it aloud. The blessed relief of confession. But I saw the shock on her face...

here were long gaps in our conversation. It had almost never happened to Annie and I before and it puzzled me. I thought we had put our differences, such as they were, behind us.

“Where did you say Sandy was?” “He’s gone into town to see Mary.” “Has he?”

“We thought he should try to sort something out with her. Get them at least to talk about the kids and make some kind of arrangement for her to see them or for them to visit her. Morris doesn’t want Sandy to interfere. But she does want to see them, seemingly.”

“So they’re managing all right up at the farm?”

“Yes. In fact Morris looks 10 years younger.”

“That figures.” Annie pulled a face. “Mary can’t be the easiest of people to live with.”

“But isn’t it incredible how quickly everything can just crumble like that?” “It’s alarming, isn’t it?”

“Sandy’s right, you never know what’s going on behind closed doors, do you?” “No. You never do.”

She was looking at me strangely again, frowning, holding her wine glass in both hands. We were sitting beside an open window. You could hear the roars and yells from the kids playing football in the park.

Somewhere in the garden, a thrush sang a long and complicated theme with variations. The heron cruised over, long pterodactyl legs trailing as he eyed up the garden ponds for fish and frogs. I found myself thinking bizarrely that the heron wouldn’t eat the whole frog. Just the head. You would find revoltingly headless froggy corpses in your garden from time to time. Annie fell silent again.

I had phoned Joe that afternoon. He had still not made up his mind whether he was coming back to Scotland, but he couldn’t leave it much longer. Crunch time was coming. It had been good of the Kestrels’ coach to keep the option open for him as long as this. Joe was using the accident as an excuse, but I think he was fit enough now.

“I’ll do whatever you want,” he said. “If you don’t want me to come, just say the word. I’ll sell you and Sandy the cottage and you can do what you like with it.”

But I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t say come and I couldn’t tell him to stay away either. I was caught in the net of my own principles. There was no solution.

“For God’s sake, Joe, just decide, one way or another. Just decide and let me know!”

I had slammed the phone down on our last conversation and now I felt forlorn. With Annie sitting opposite and staring at me in that peculiar, quizzical way, I found the tears running down my cheeks. There was nothing at all I could do about them. They just poured quietly out of my eyes. I wasn’t sobbing or anything like that. I was just shedding tears, copious quantities of tears. I felt as though they had been building up for months and now the dam had burst. Much like Joe, earlier in the year.

She was beside me instantly, her arms around me. “Oh God, Helen, you know, don’t you? I thought you must!”

“Know what?” I asked, but she ignored the question.

“Don’t cry. You’ll set me off. It’s not as bad as all that. It’ll get better. Honestly. It will get better. You just have to decide what you’re going to do.”

“But that’s the problem. I don’t know what to do, Annie!” Had she guessed then? Had she finally realised exactly what had been going on?

“How can I upset everyone? How can I turn everything upside down and ruin things for everyone? When it might not work out after all.”

She sat back and looked at me. “No. There’s that of course. It might not work out. And that’s very tolerant of you. But surely, that’s not your problem.”

“Of course it’s my problem. If I ask him to come back and it doesn’t work out…”

“Come back?” She stared at me in open amazement. “Has he gone already then? When did this happen? My God, I didn’t know he’d actually gone. Did he go today? Did he tell you?”

There was a long pause while we looked at each other, realising that neither of us knew what on earth the other was talking about.

“Wait a minute,” said Annie, who was marginally less confused than I was. “Who exactly are we talking about here, Helen?”

“Joe. I’m talking about Joe. I thought you’d guessed.” “Guessed what, for heaven’s sake?” “In the hospital that night. I thought you must have guessed.”

“Guessed what?” she repeated. “That we’ve been having an affair.” The relief of saying it aloud. The blessed relief of confession. But I saw the shock on her face.

“Jesus. Are you sure?” Annie said. I started to laugh in the middle of my tears.

“It’s not something you can be mistaken about, is it? I may be a bit daft, but I’m not deluded. I know it seems unlikely but we did have an affair. I’m telling you the God’s honest truth. I know there’s almost 10 years between us and you don’t know what he sees in me, but he must have seen something because we’ve been...”

“You are, aren’t you?” She stopped, her hand over her mouth. “Oh no,” she said, outrageously. “I suppose he was sleeping with you.”

We began to laugh. We laughed until we cried. She poured out more wine.

“Tell me about it,” she said. “Christ, I must have been blind. Either that, or you’re a bloody good liar!”

“It’s a long story but we just...” I was going to say, “we just get on” but I changed my mind. “We love each other, Annie. We still speak all the time. I phone him. He phones me. He’s even asked me to go to Canada with him.”

“Has he really?”

“I know it seems incredible and I know I’m years older than he is, but he has.”

“I wish you’d stop saying that. You’re not exactly old. If it was the other way round, nobody would even comment.”

I knew it was true. And I knew Annie had changed her tune. But it made me feel a bit better to hear somebody else finally saying it.

More tomorrow.

Ice Dancing by Catherine Czerkawska, Dyrock Publishing, £9.99 and Kindle E-reader from £2.99. For more of her books, including The Posy Ring and A Proper Person To Be Detained, see saraband.net