Page 71 of Under a Dancing Star

“I know that,” I manage. “I understand it logically, but I – I don’t feel rational about you.”

I find myself suddenly swept into a kiss that is frantic, wild. It’s a kiss that says so many of the things I’ve been struggling to find the words for. It’s ferocious, all-consuming and almost painfully intimate. It feels as though I’ve been stripped back to something shining and elemental. As if I have shared my whole self with Ben, and he has shared his whole self with me. Our bodies coil around each other as if that’s what they were made for, as, I suppose, they were. It’s a kiss full of longing, of tenderness, of sorrow, and by the time we break apart I am trembling.

“I don’t feel rational about you either,” Ben says finally. “But that doesn’t change the facts. We always knew it was just for the summer. That’s why we put the rules in place.”

“You must not, under any circumstances whatsoever, fall in love with me,” I say dully.

“Right.”

“You’ll go to Spain, will you?” My voice is bitter; I fling the words at him angrily. “And what will you do there? Paint? Flirt with women? Ignore what’s happening in the world around you? It’s not just me you’re running away from, you know. You’re burying your head in the sand, too afraid to look at what’s going on. You’ll take a commission from whoever pays you, no matter what they stand for. Don’t you see that these people, all these rich patrons who will happily have dinner with a dictator – they’ll hurt the people you care about. Ursula and Klaus. Gert and Lili.” He flinches at that and I wonder if I’ve hit home. “You’re afraid,” I say, and to my surprise my voice is steady. “Too afraid to stand up for what you want. What you believe in. Do you think I care about your background? Do you think I wouldn’t fight for you, defend you? You’re a coward. You’re a coward and you’re turning your back on something that could be real.”

There’s a long pause. Anger and sadness and hurt and a million other emotions rush through me, and I see them all reflected in Ben’s eyes.

“Maybe you’re right,” he says finally, with practised nonchalance, though his voice is hoarse.

And that’s it. I want to punch him on the nose and I want to kiss him senseless. I’ve done both and, at the moment, I’m not sure which one would be more satisfying.

He puts a hand to my cheek. “I didn’t mean to break the rules,” he whispers. “But I couldn’t help it.”

And then, just like that, he’s gone.

CHAPTER FORTY

As I stand on the deck of the boat I watch the white cliffs of Dover come into view with mingled emotions. I’m not the same girl who left England, who turned her back on those same cliffs and experienced her first taste of freedom. My heart is battered, bruised, not quite as open as it was before. I managed to acquire all that experience I so badly wanted, I think, with a rueful grimace. It’s funny how much older I feel than just a couple of short months ago. How one summer can change a person so dramatically.

I wouldn’t take it back, though. Even the sharp pain in my heart that tells me I’m alive, more alive than I have ever been.

My uncle is somewhere below deck, fawning over Lady Bowling. I wonder what will happen now, if he will change again, become something else to please someone else. He’s inconstant, I realize, turning with the tide.

I clamber up on to the rail, and it’s easy, thanks to my trousers. I left my old clothes behind me at the villa, along with the girl who used to wear them. I’m stronger now. I know what I want and I know how to get it. I am going to squeeze every last drop of joy out of the life that I have. I’m not going to make myself less than I am.

These are the tangible outcomes of my experiment, outcomes that stretch beyond Ben and me. In my bag is a notebook that contains several lists – there are lists of birds I have seen, there are lists of kisses that Ben and I shared, and there’s the list of things I want to do when I get home.

“What’s that in your hand?” Hero asks, coming to stand beside me at the rail.

The flower had been sitting on top of my suitcase before we left. I hold it now, gently, between my fingers, while the wind tangles around me. Its delicate white petals, unfurled like a star, are velvety-soft to the touch. The scent of it is heady, intoxicating.

I don’t know where it came from, but I know who it came from.

“Gardenia jasminoides,” I reply.

“What does that mean?” Hero wrinkles her brow.

“It means love,” I say, and I let go, watching the gardenia dance across the water.

Epilogue: England

July, 1937

I know you of old.

– Much Ado about Nothing, Act I, Scene 1

“We have guests arriving,” my uncle says, coming into the room with a telegram in his hands. “Including some old friends.”

“Oh?” I say, lifting my eyes rather grudgingly from my textbook. It may be the summer break, but that’s no excuse for falling behind on my studies. Mother and Father used all the emotional blackmail at their disposal to get me to visit Leo and Hero in Suffolk for a couple of weeks, but as I told them, the examination period at Oxford is not something to be taken lightly.

At least it means I will escape their matchmaking efforts – I hear poor Cuthbert Astley is due a visit, and my parents still find the idea of him a compelling one. If I had hoped that my scholarship to study medicine would quell their urges to interfere, then that hope was rather swiftly revealed to be a naive one. After all, as the saying goes, a leopard can’t change its spots. (Though, of course, a leopard’s spots do change significantly as it matures into adulthood.) I might have changed that summer, but my parents hadn’t, and they’re still very much a work in progress.