Free Learning to Dance by Susan Sallis Page B

sketchbook and chose a pencil. She followed suit. They fell silent, both absorbed, almost unconscious of the other. Judith chose her defining lines carefully. In spite of the enormous view this was a domestic scene; no fiercely aggressive pencil strokes could capture the intimacy of the inn. It was made tiny by its surroundings, but still offered a homely sanctuary to a traveller. She thought of the wild sea and the snarling cliffs so near to that open beacon at the end of the jetty; she thought of her mother, Eunice, wooed with a dozen red roses day after day and then so cruelly struck down; she thought of Jack, who had whispered, ‘I can’t cope with all the housework any more, Eunice, you’ll have to come and live with us.’ Exactly the right thing to say to her mother. She thought of Jack trying to keep the family thing going: trips to Perth, meeting the boys when they came home, yet never ever trying to persuade them to return permanently, setting them free. She thought of Jack, without anger.
    Tears blinded the view. What had happened? How had it happened, whatever it was? There had been no time for him to conduct some sort of clandestine affair; anyway, that wasn’t Jack. Yet … yet … even through the grief of her mother’s death, hadn’t she noted a change between them? How long since their gazes had locked, since they had reached for each other’s hands and then, once joined, had laughed at themselves? Had it started before Eunice’s death? Jack had wanted her to socialize. She did remember him saying, ‘Livelife again, my love.’ When she had taken his advice and asked Naomi for that cup of tea, had he imagined that she was moving away from him?
    She was no longer seeing the view, no longer visualizing Jack with his straw hair and blue eyes, so like her own, yet not one bit like hers. She was seeing Naomi. Naomi Parsons, who had been the best friend she had had. And might – could have – become a tiny wedge between Jack and herself.
    Beneath her hand the pencil head snapped against her sketchbook.
    Sybil looked up. ‘I wondered what that was!’ She saw Judith’s face and said quickly, ‘Have you had enough? Let’s pack up and go for lunch. It’s almost two o’clock. We must start back in good time. Can’t imagine Martin being a minute late, can you?’
    She began to tidy away her things, giving Judith plenty of time to recover. And Judith looked at her sketchbook where, already, she could see the gently shaded pillow shapes of the trees, the tiny inn standing steadfastly beneath the crazy lighthouse with its empty brazier raised to the sky. She began to close the book page by page. Four pages of the sketches she had made yesterday. Four pages of the harsh cliffs of Dove. The force of nature and – not far behind – the absurd efforts of man to tame, to subdue. She drew a trembling breath. Denman and Freeman.
    They struggled back up to the terrace, and a waiter took them to their table. They were both out of breath; Judith’s silence was not obvious. They ate mussels and Sybil turned the discarded shells so that the light caught their iridescent blue. ‘What does that remind you of?’ she asked, placing a shell against the plate, then dabbling her hands in the finger bowl. ‘I suppose it’s some sort of camouflage?’
    Judith made an effort and blinked at the mass of shells. ‘Just the opposite – they seem to be signalling their presence.’
    ‘How do you mean?’
    ‘Well – a mass of blue police cars all flashing like mad.’
    Sybil threw back her head and laughed unrestrainedly. Her neck was like Naomi’s: long, terribly vulnerable.
    She said, ‘You certainly know how to bring things down to earth! You remind me of my husband.’
    Judith was startled. ‘I thought … he was an ideas man, surely?’ She saw the instant change in Sybil’s face and added quickly, ‘Sorry. Newspaper knowledge – always unreliable.’
    ‘No. It’s all right. And – in a way – the