almost bounced underfoot. The walls were white except for the long left-hand one, which was entirely of looking-glass. The music, warm and insistent, invited rhythmic response.
Serena herself danced with her back to the mirror. Facing her, in three spread-out rows, was a collection of clients, all female, bouncing in unison on springy ankles, arms and legs swinging in circles and kicks. On every face, concentration and sweat. ‘Go for the burn,’ Serena commanded, looking happy, and her class with an increase of already frenetic energy, presumably went.
‘Great, ladies, that’s great,’ Serena said eventually, stopping jumping and switching off the music machine which stood in a corner near where I’d come in. She gave me an unfriendly glance but turned with radiance back to the customers. ‘If any of you want to continue, Sammy will be here within a minute. Take a rest, ladies.’
A few of the bodies stayed. Most looked at the clock on the wall and filed panting into a door marked‘changing rooms’.
Serena said, ‘What do you want?’
‘Talk.’
She looked colourful but discouraging. She wore a bright pink long-sleeved body-stocking with white bouncing shoes, pink and white leg-warmers and a scarlet garment like a chopped off vest. ‘I’ll give you five minutes,’ she said.
She was hardly out of breath. A girl who was apparently Sammy Higgs came in in electric blue and started taking charge, and Serena with bad grace led me back through the refreshment area and the entrance hall and up the stairs.
‘There are no classes up here just now. Say what you’ve come for and then go.’
Upstairs, according to a notice on the wall, Deanna offered ballroom dancing tuition, also‘ballet and posture’. Serena stood with her hands on her skinny pink hips and waited.
‘Malcolm wants me to find out who bombed Quantum,’ I said.
She glowered at me. ‘Well, I didn’t.’
‘Do you remember the day old Fred blew up the tree stump?’
‘No,’ she said. She didn’t bother to think, hadn’t tried to remember.
‘Thomas gave you a ride on his shoulders out of the field, and the blast of the explosion knocked old Fred over.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Why are you so hostile?’
‘I’m not. Where’s Daddy?’
‘With friends,’ I said. ‘It saddens him that you’re hostile.’
She said bitterly, ‘That’s a laugh. He’s rejected all of us except you. And I’ll bet you killed Moira.’
‘He hasn’t rejected you,’ I said. ‘And I didn’t.’
‘He kicked us all out. I loved him when I was little.’ Tears appeared suddenly in her eyes and she shook them angrily away. ‘He couldn’t wait to get rid of me.’
‘He tried to keep you, but Alicia wouldn’t have it. She fought him in the courts for custody, and won.’
‘He didn’t want me,’ she said fiercely. ‘He only said so to spite Mummy, to make her suffer. I know all about it.’
‘Alicia told you?’
‘Of course she did. Daddy couldn’t wait to get rid of us, to get rid of Mummy, to get married again, to… to… throw everything about us out of the house, to tear out all the pretty rooms… blot us out.’
She was deeply passionate with the old feelings, still smouldering after twenty years. I remembered how upset I’d been when Alicia tore out my own mother’s kitchen, how I’d felt betrayed and dispossessed. I had been six, as Serena had been, and I still remembered it clearly.
‘Give him a chance,’ I suggested.
‘I did give him a chance. I offered to help him after Moira died and he still didn’t want me. And look at the way he’s behaving,’ she said. ‘Throwing money away. If he thinks I care a tuppenny damn about his stupid scholarships, he’s a fool. You can toady up to him all you like, but I’m not going to. He can keep his damned money. I can manage without it.’
She looked hard-eyed and determinedly stubborn. The old man in all of us, I thought.
‘You’ve had your five minutes,’ she said. She side-stepped me in swift movements and made for the stairs. ‘See you at the funeral.’
‘Whose funeral?’ I asked, following her.
‘Anyone’s,’ she said darkly, and ran weightlessly down the stairs as if skimming were more normal than walking.
When I reached the entrance hall, she was vanishing through the white double doors. It was pointless to pursue her. I left Deanna’s studio feeling I had achieved nothing, and with leaden spirits went back to the car and drove to Wokingham to call on Ferdinand.
I half-hoped he wouldn’t be in, but he was. He came to the door frowning because I had