‘Well?’ she demands. The long tresses hang around her face. She can feel the unfamiliar weight of them bumping against her back. Not long ago, her hair was long – although perhaps not as long as this. How quickly she has got used to it being gone, when at the time it was shorn she felt as though she had been stripped naked in a public place.
‘You look quite lovely, Cat,’ Robin says, softly. ‘Yes. You will do very well indeed.’
‘Then let’s get this charade over with,’ she replies. Robin watches her for a moment, and then chuckles.
‘It won’t work if you just stand there scowling with your arms folded, my dear girl.’
‘I am not your dear girl. And how should I stand, then?’
‘Do not stand at all. Dance. Over there – down by the water’s edge where the mist is thickest. And take off your shoes.’
‘Dance?’
‘Dance,’ Robin says, quite firmly.
Cat walks away from him, the grass cold and wet on the bare soles of her feet. The soft fabric of the dress brushes the skin of her legs lightly, makes her shiver. She has never danced. Not properly. Occasionally, The Gentleman had musical evenings, not big enough to be called balls, but with a quartet of musicians to play waltzes and quicksteps for twenty or thirty glamorous pairs; and the staff would sneak to the bottom of the stairs, or even to the doorway of the grand salon, to listen, to grab each other and make a parody of the steps that set them all to laughing. This is her sole experience of dance, and this will not do now, she knows. An elemental would not waltz with an invisible partner. She thinks of the way she felt the first time she managed to ride the vicar’s bicycle all the way to George’s barge. The push of the wind in her face, the way her blood ran faster through her veins; the thrill of speed and movement. She thinks of Tess, in the workhouse; of The Gentleman who did not save her. Cat draws in a shaky breath, anger making her burn.
She throws out her arms and leaps, as high as she can; arching her body and tipping back her head. She lands heavily, coarse grass stems jabbing into her feet. She pauses, takes a deep breath and then runs forward, gaining more momentum and leaping again. And even though she feels ridiculous at first, feels as though the world is laughing at her, capering like an idiot, she soon forgets this. Her heart beats hard and she breathes fast, running and jumping like this, lifting up her front knee, pointing her toe behind her, holding her arms out wide or pulled back or high above her head. She kicks and storms and spins, and there is freedom in this, in the abandonment of propriety; the burn of her muscles and the rush of air into her nose and mouth. She pounds them all beneath her feet – Robin Durrant, The Gentleman, Mrs Heddingly, Hester Canning. She dances until she is out of breath, and leans against the old tree to rest, Robin Durrant and his camera all but forgotten; and then she dances some more, the same exhilaration in movement coming back to her – the possibility of life and freedom. When she falls still at last, the damsel fly circles her curiously, wings humming, flashing blue as the first rays of the sun creep into the sky. She catches her breath, and realises that she is not coughing. Does not need to cough. She smiles, until in the corner of her eye Robin Durrant stands up, slowly screwing the lens cap back onto his camera.
With a sinking feeling, Cat lets her arms fall to her sides, and the damsel fly darts away, vanishing into the widening day. She tugs the wig from her head, runs her fingers through the sweaty hair at her brow and walks towards him.
‘That was simply wonderful. You looked … amazing. Beautiful, Cat,’ Robin tells her; his voice quite different, almost deferential. Cat looks away, holding out the wig for him to take.
‘There’s no beauty in a lie,’ she says, coldly. ‘Can I go now?’
‘Yes,’ he says, meekly. ‘Yes, we should get back before you’re missed.’
‘You have important work to do,’ Cat says sarcastically, nodding at the camera.
‘You must never speak of this to anyone, Cat. Not even to the man who can tempt you out in a thunderstorm. We must keep each other’s secrets from now on,’ he says, his tone peculiarly companionable. Cat glances at him in disgust, and walks a few steps ahead, to keep her back to him. An odd, desperate feeling gathers in her gut. She feels suddenly powerless, vulnerable. She feels that she will never quite be free of what they have just done.
8
2011
Leah drove all the way into Newbury to find a comfortable café with free wi-fi. The sky was low and sullen for the third consecutive day, and she frowned at the road as she crawled along, stopping at incessant traffic lights, hearing grey water crackling beneath her wheels. Finding a café from a chain she recognised, she collected a large hot chocolate from the counter, tucked herself into the corner of a sofa and turned on her laptop. The tips of her fingers were pink and numbed with cold. Blustery rain hurled itself at the window panes, smearing them with crystals of sleet, and the floor shone with watery footprints. The place stank of wet coats, wet hair; a pile of wet umbrellas by the door. She scanned through her inbox, finding little of interest until she got to the previous day’s emails. There was a message from Ryan. Leah’s heart gave an exaggerated thump. She took a deep breath, hating this reaction that any contact from him caused in her, and opened it.