Kitabı oku: «The Summer We Danced», sayfa 3
I couldn’t believe that. Everyone in the class looked so sharp and in time.
‘I’m Donna,’ the woman said and nodded at her companion, ‘and this is Victoria.’
‘Pippa,’ I replied. ‘Have you both been doing this long?’
Donna snorted. ‘About three years, but this one here—’ she nodded at Victoria ‘—has practically been in dance shoes since birth, haven’t you?’
The girl, somewhere in her late teens, I guessed, blushed and nodded. ‘I want to go to dance college, but Mum and Dad say I’ve got to finish my A Levels first. I make up for it by doing every class I can in the meantime.’
‘Even putting up with us old fogies on a Friday night when she could be out with her boyfriend,’ Donna said, laughing. ‘She can dance rings round the rest of us.’
I’d already noticed. Victoria held herself like a ballerina and her steps were clean and precise. She wasn’t one of those showy dancers, all eyes and teeth and high kicks in your face, but one of those delicate, ethereal sorts, the kind that looked so beautiful when they moved you just had to gaze and hold your breath. I would have been intimidated by her if she hadn’t reminded me of a fawn, all big eyes and shy lashes.
‘Uh-oh,’ Donna said, chuckling. ‘We’re up.’
Uh-oh was right. It was our turn. What was a riff again? And how many beats did it have? Four? Five? I didn’t have much time to remember, because suddenly we were moving and I just had to jog along behind them, trying to tap here and there, just to keep up. When we ran out of space dancing along the diagonal, we turned and headed up the long side of the hall to wait our turn at the opposite corner.
‘What brought you along?’ Donna asked as we filed in behind an older, rather portly lady and a blonde, whose high ponytail swung behind her as she walked. Even standing at the back corner of the room she was ‘on’, every move made with the knowledge she might have an audience.
I inhaled. I hadn’t really been prepared for chit-chat this evening, assuming we wouldn’t have time to talk, let alone the breath. How much of the truth did I want to tell? And how much did these people know already? The Elmhurst grapevine might have been working hard since I’d returned.
‘Well, I used to come here as a kid,’ I said, ‘but then I grew up and moved away, got married, all that kind of stuff.’ I paused to let out a heavy sigh. ‘And then I got not married, moved back home and now I feel like I’m back at square one, apart from with more wrinkles and less coordination.’
Donna gave me an understanding smile. ‘Snap,’ she said. ‘Tap was my post-divorce thing too. I started as a way of showing him—and probably myself—that I had more fun without him and ended up discovering it was true.’
We made another run at the riffs from the corner, and this time I even managed a couple of slow four-beat ones before I got hopelessly out of time and had to just lollop along behind Donna and Victoria. As we filed up the edge of the room back to our original spot, Donna pointed out a couple of the other class members. ‘The older one? That’s Dolly. She and Miss Mimi have been friends since they were chorus girls together in the West End. She moved to Elmhurst after her husband died.’
I watched the older woman with interest. Dolly couldn’t have looked more different from Miss Mimi if she’d tried. While Mimi was still petite and slim, Dolly had hardened and thickened with age, until she looked remarkably like that actress—Hattie what’s-her-name—who’d starred in the Carry On films.
‘You don’t want to get on the wrong side of her,’ Donna warned. ‘Her bite is definitely every bit as scary as her bark.’
I leaned over a little to catch a look at the woman who was tapping away beside Dolly, almost in her shadow. Donna followed her gaze. ‘Ruth,’ she said. ‘Been coming about a year, but I can’t tell you any more than that. She hardly ever opens her mouth.’
I took a good look at the woman. She was blonde, about mid-forties, and her make-up and hair was done very nicely, her clothes neat and very precise. She was tall and very slim and her arms hung off her rounded-in shoulders like sleeves from a coat hanger. With every move she made, she seemed to be apologising for taking up space.
She couldn’t be more different from the perky twenty-something blonde standing next to her, who looked as if she was ready to jump up and do a solo, given half the chance.
‘That’s Amanda. Don’t mind her. She makes a lot of noise, likes to blow her own trumpet, but she’s basically harmless. So that’s us …’ Donna said matter-of-factly, then turned as someone slipped in the door and headed for the chairs at the back. ‘Tell a lie,’ she added. ‘It seems we have a latecomer …’
I had half an eye on Donna and half an eye on the combination of shuffle hops and ball changes with a ‘break’ (whatever that was) that Miss Mimi was teaching us. However, when the latecomer finished putting on her tap shoes and stood up, my mouth dropped open.
Was that … was it really? No! It couldn’t be!
Nancy?
Nancy Mears—my partner in crime from twenty years ago at Miss Mimi’s! I wondered if I’d got it wrong, if it was really her, but when she joined in with Dolly and Ruth, spotting her turns perfectly, I knew I hadn’t been mistaken.
Oh, my goodness!
I tried to catch her eye as she took her turn and walked up the long edge of the hall to start again in the opposite corner, but she didn’t glance in my direction.
‘Come on, Philippa!’ Miss Mimi said with a chuckle, and I realised I was standing alone in the corner and that Donna and Victoria had already shot off across the floor without me. I forgot all about Nancy and charged after them.
I had no chance to catch up with her through the rest of the class, either, because the pace picked up and the steps got more complicated. It took every brain cell I had to even try and make it look as if I was keeping up.
There was even one moment when Miss Mimi yelled, ‘Time steps!’ and the whole class moved as one synchronous unit, looking amazing, and I was just left standing in my place, looking gormless with my mouth hanging open.
Donna, who I was quickly becoming dependent on, came over and tried to break it down for me. I managed the shuffle hop at the beginning, but kept ending up on the wrong leg. I was just about to ask her where I was messing up, but there was a flicker above our heads, then without warning the lights went off and we were all left standing in the middle of the hall in pitch darkness.
Six
‘Everybody stay where they are!’ Miss Mimi called out, reminding me of how she’d shepherded the three- and four-year-olds around in the Babies ballet class. ‘I expect it’s just a bulb that’s gone.’
Donna squinted up at the ceiling in the darkness. ‘I think it might be more than that … I mean, all the lights are out.’
‘And the music’s gone off,’ Amanda added.
I made my way gingerly to where I thought I’d left my bag and patted around on the plastic chairs until I found it, then I pulled my phone out and turned on the torch facility. Once I’d illuminated the small area where we’d left our belongings, Donna and Amanda did the same.
‘What do you think it is?’ Victoria asked in her soft voice. ‘A power cut?’
‘Hang on,’ Donna said and stood on a chair so she could peer through one of the windows that looked on to the street. ‘It’s definitely not a power cut. The street lights are on.’
‘Probably the fuse, Mimi,’ Dolly shouted as Donna, Amanda and I headed back to the rest of the group. ‘Where’s yer box, girl?’
‘Oh, pfff,’ Mimi said, and without actually being able to see her properly, I knew she’d just made an expansive hand gesture. ‘Who needs electricity, anyway? Our feet are rhythm enough and I’m sure there are some candles backstage from the Christmas show a few years ago. We can dance away in the candlelight until the moon rises.’ She sighed. ‘Ah, that reminds me of a night I spent in Paris once …’
‘The fuse box might be better?’ I said quickly. Not only did I remember how cluttered it had used to get behind the little stage at the far end of the hall, but I knew from helping to arrange many of Ed’s gigs over the years that if something happened to any of them during their candlelight dance—God forbid Dolly or Mimi fell over and broke a hip—Mimi better have pretty good public liability insurance. ‘Do you know where it is?’
Miss Mimi, however, quickly swiped Amanda’s phone and headed towards the stage area. Dolly shook her head and marched up to Donna, Amanda and I. ‘Can one of you girls shine your thingamajig this way?’ she asked, pointing towards the door which led to a row of small rooms that nestled behind the stage area.
‘I can,’ I said.
Donna moved to go with me but then stopped. ‘I’d come with you, but I think someone with a light better stay here and keep an eye on our fearless leader,’ she said, nodding in the direction of the stage, where Mimi was trying to part the thick brown velvet curtains and not having much luck in the murky light.
I nodded and followed Dolly through the door into a short narrow corridor. To the left there was a door that led to the storage area behind the stage, to the right a small kitchen and at the end of the corridor there was Miss Mimi’s office. I knew that because the laminated sign stuck to it with Blu-Tack said so in large curly letters, and from the profusion of ballet shoes and dancing figures round the edges, I suspected it had the same designer as the posters out in the vestibule.
‘What’s that up there?’ Dolly asked, peering into the darkness. I pointed my phone so the light shone where the walls, painted in a rather sickly shade of pale green, met the ceiling. Sure enough, amongst the ceiling stains and peeling paint there was something that looked like a fuse box. ‘You any good with those things?’ Dolly asked, eyeing it up suspiciously.
‘Not bad,’ I said, putting my hands on my hips. That was the good thing about having a husband who didn’t give a hoot about DIY; if I’d wanted anything done around our flat I’d really had to Do It Myself. I allowed myself a small moment of schadenfreude as I imagined the drama that might occur now Ed had to cope for himself in that department. I doubted the Tart knew how to change a light bulb, let alone hang wallpaper.
‘We need a chair or something, though,’ I added after a think. ‘I’ll go back into the hall and fetch one. Do you want to stay here or would you rather come with me?’
Dolly made a dismissive noise. ‘I’m not scared of the dark, love,’ she said, a proud tone in her voice. ‘Lived through the blackouts of the war years, so I’m sure I’ll survive thirty seconds on my own in a poky little corridor.’
I smiled to myself in the darkness. I could see what Donna had meant about Dolly. Even so, I had a feeling I was really going to like her.
I returned to the hall and signalled to Donna with my phone-slash-torch. Thankfully, she and Miss Mimi were sitting on the edge of the stage. It seemed as if Donna had managed to dissuade her from rummaging around in decades’ worth of junk behind the curtain. For now, at least.
‘We found the fuse box,’ I called out. ‘I just need a chair to stand on so I can reach it.’
‘You be careful, Philippa, dear,’ Miss Mimi called back. ‘I remember how clumsy you used to be as a teenager—when you weren’t dancing, that is.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ I replied and laid hold of the back of one of the plastic chairs that lined the hall and dragged it back through the door to where Dolly was standing.
‘Right,’ I said as I placed the chair under the fuse box. The ceiling wasn’t that high. I ought to be able to reach. ‘Can you shine this up there …’ I asked, handing my phone to Dolly ‘… and I’ll pop up and see if the switch has tripped.’
Dolly eyed the phone as if it was a hand grenade with the pin out, but she did as I asked and held the light steady.
I opened the tiny cupboard and found a metal box with a hinged door. However, where I’d hoped to find a nice row of circuit breakers, I found six old-fashioned fuses, the hard plastic sort which held a thin strip of wire. ‘I’m not familiar with this kind of set-up,’ I told Dolly. ‘It’s really old. Probably hasn’t been changed for fifty years at least.’
Dolly passed me my phone and I held it up to the row of chunky fuses, inspecting each one in turn. None of them seemed to be burned or broken. ‘I’m not sure what the problem is.’ I sighed. ‘I think Miss Mimi is going to have to call a proper electrician in.’
‘Ah, well,’ Dolly said philosophically. ‘At least you tried. I do like a girl who’s got her head screwed on right.’
I smiled to myself in the dark. Partly because Dolly was the only person who’d referred to me as a girl in at least a decade, partly because that was the nicest thing someone (other than Candy) had said to me in months.
When we returned to the hall, I walked up to the stage where Ruth, Victoria and Amanda were also now sitting. Nancy was standing off to the side, texting furiously on her phone. ‘I don’t think it’s the fuses,’ I said. ‘And if it is, I think you need someone who knows more about electrics than me to have a look at it.’
Amanda checked the display on her phone. ‘We’ve only got five minutes left now anyway and my battery’s about to die.’
Miss Mimi sighed. ‘I suppose we’ll have to call it a night. Sorry, everyone … I was going to get some of you long-timers doing wings.’
At this, Ruth, whose face I could see in the glow from Amanda’s phone, looked horrified, as Amanda simultaneously said, ‘I love wings!’
‘In that case,’ Donna said, hopping down from the edge of the stage, ‘I’m glad the power went out. There’s no point trying to get both your legs going in opposite directions if there isn’t a man involved along the line somewhere.’
There was a gasp of shocked laughter from the group.
‘Well, there isn’t,’ Donna said. ‘So it looks as if we’re going to retire to the pub early tonight.’
We all headed over to where our belongings were at the end of the hall and gathered them up quickly before anyone else’s battery failed and we had to scrabble around in the dark. Once we’d all changed our shoes and put our coats on we headed for the exit. At least standing in the vestibule with the doors open we had the benefit of the street lights surrounding the car park.
Nancy had ended up standing next to me, clutching her camel-coloured coat with its fur collar round her and staring into the distance.
‘Hi,’ I said smiling. ‘I had no idea you’d be here. It’s wonderful to see you again.’
Maybe the shadows from the street lights made the angles on Nancy’s face appear sharper than they really were, but when she turned to look at me there didn’t seem to be any trace of warmth in her expression.
‘Oh, hello. I’d heard you were back.’
The way she looked at me made me feel like a dead butterfly pinned and held securely on a collector’s board.
She knew.
She knew all about Ed and me. She knew all about the TV show.
This was what I’d been afraid of. This was why I’d carefully avoided all the lovely Christmas social gatherings in Elmhurst over the last couple of weeks. Because I’d been scared that even though this was my home, the place where I was supposed to belong, everyone would look at me differently now, that they’d smile at me when I went into the post office then whisper about me once I’d left. That every time they looked at me they’d be running those humiliating scenes of Ed and the Tart together on the reality show in their heads and judging me. Or worse, pitying me.
‘What do you say, Pippa?’ Donna asked as we waited for Miss Mimi to lock up. ‘We always end our Friday night tap session with a quick tipple at the Doves and you’re more than welcome to join us.’
I looked from Donna, back to Nancy and then round the rest of the group, all looking at me with expectant faces.
‘Sorry,’ I said, giving them a weak smile. ‘Thanks for the offer, but I really do have to get back.’ And then, before anyone could argue with me, I turned and dashed for my Mini.
Seven
I couldn’t stop thinking about Miss Mimi all that night. Every time I woke up, I kept seeing her soft, wrinkly face in the light from the car park street lights, full of determination and fire.
But there’d been something else there too—a weariness, hidden down behind the feisty smile—and I couldn’t help worrying about her. It was stupid, really. I mean, she was eighty-two and stronger and fitter than some women of my age.
When I woke up the next morning, I sat up and tickled Roberta under her chin. She’d crept up on to the bed during the night as she often did and had tucked herself into the hollow made as I slept on my side. She looked up at me and I looked down at her.
‘I know this is daft,’ I began, ‘but I really think I need to just pop down to the dance school this morning, check that Miss Mimi’s okay and see if there’s anything I can do.’ I paused for a moment. ‘Good idea or bad idea?’
Roberta kept staring at me.
‘Great! Knew you’d say that.’
I jumped out of bed and went to find something comfy—and warm—to wear. Who knew if the heaters were back on again? That hall could be horribly draughty.
I decided that it was probably better to get down there as early as possible, so I didn’t bother with toast, only a cup of tea, which I tipped into a travel mug, thinking I’d just slip along to the Apple Tree Cafe when I was finished and get something healthy, like a pot of bircher muesli or some porridge. Not a pastry. Definitely not a pastry.
When I edged the hall doors open I could hear piano music and the timbre of Miss Mimi’s voice, still clear and strong after all these years. I hesitated in the vestibule, wondering if I should just turn around and sneak away, but something kept me there. The same something caused me to push open the inner doors and slip inside the hall. I owed her this, because I’d let her down once before when she’d been relying on me.
‘Philippa!’ Miss Mimi exclaimed and paused her instructions on doing the perfect plié to sweep across the room towards me, a vision in orange and pink, her long gold chains clinking musically as she walked. ‘How can I help you, dear?’
‘Actually, I thought I’d pop by to see if you needed any help,’ I said.
Miss Mimi beamed at me and reached out a papery hand to pat my cheek. ‘You were always such a kind girl,’ she said, warmth lighting up her eyes, ‘but we’re all perfectly fine, aren’t we, girls?’
The dozen or so eight-year-olds lining up against the barres and mirrors against the far wall nodded, their eyes wide, but I saw the way their lean little bodies were quaking under their thin crossover cardigans and how some were even trying to clench down on chattering teeth. It was then that I realised, despite my coat and big woolly jumper, that the hall was perishing. The only person who didn’t seem to notice it was Miss Mimi, whose arms were bare from the elbow down and who was wearing only a colourful sheer wrap over the top of her leotard and skirt.
I touched my cheek, suddenly remembering the iciness of her fingers there. The information had arrived late, the sensation momentarily overridden by the warmth of her smile.
I looked up to the ceiling. The old-fashioned globe lights that hung down on metal poles were unlit and every time the wind hit the windows at the far end of the hall, they rattled noisily.
‘Miss Mimi, did the electricity come back on?’
She waved her hand dismissively. ‘Oh, I’m sure it will sort itself out soon enough.’
I looked over to the other side of the room. The little girls had given up pretending they were holding their places on the barre and were now hugging themselves. Two or three of them had huddled together in a group.
I stared intently at Miss Mimi, trying to work out how to respond, and then the strangest thing happened. She kind of went out of focus and went back in again, and when she was sharp and clear once more it was like I was seeing a completely different person. I realised I hadn’t properly looked at her since we’d met again.
Oh, I’d taken in the changes of twenty years, noted the new lines on her face, the thinner limbs, but it became clear that I’d been looking at my old dance teacher through the lens of my teenage self, the Pippa who’d worshipped her mentor, who’d thought she was eccentric and charismatic and wonderful.
Of course, Miss Mimi was all those things still. It was just that thirty-seven-year-old me could see other things too, things that only living with a man who thought he was Peter Pan could teach a person. It shocked me that I hadn’t seen the similarity between them before, that magical ability to reshape reality into their own design, to ignore the things they didn’t want to see.
‘Miss Mimi,’ I said softly. ‘You can’t teach in here without electricity. It’s freezing.’
‘Pff,’ Mimi replied, looking very French, as she had a tendency to do when she thought she knew best. ‘You should have been backstage at the Palladium in December. It was twice as cold as this back in the fifties. A dancer has to learn to be hardy, to deal with all conditions.’
‘But these aren’t dancers,’ I said softly. ‘These are little girls, and I doubt their parents will appreciate it when they come home from ballet with hypothermia.’
Miss Mimi stared back at me, her gaze strong and determined, but then I saw something shift behind her eyes, a subtle ‘click’ of agreement. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Perhaps you’re right.’
She walked away from me and over to her students. ‘Girls! We’re going to stop for today. You may get your clothes back on and come back and sit on the floor in front of the stage.’
All twelve of them scurried off to the little dressing room at the back of the hall.
‘Do you have phone numbers for their parents?’ I asked. ‘We might as well get hold of them and tell them to come back early.’
‘Oh, Sherri keeps all that sorted for me,’ Mimi said breezily. ‘I’m sure it’ll all be in the office somewhere.’
I pulled my mobile out of my pocket. I didn’t know what kind of phones were in the office, but if they were the kind that needed to be plugged in, they were going to be about as useful as the ancient caged-in heaters that hung from the walls of the main hall.
When we got to the office, though, I had a shock. In the back of my mind I’d been expecting a cosy little nook, the walls filled with photographs of Mimi’s glory days and memorabilia, maybe an old armchair with a shawl draped over it in the corner, opposite an old leather-topped desk. What I saw was indeed small, but not at all cosy.
Papers and folders were balanced precariously on every available surface and lay in piles on the floor. The photos and keepsakes might have been around somewhere, but they were buried by the unending stacks of clutter. I took one look and went straight back out to the main hall.
‘Hi,’ I said, smiling at the girls, who were all looking a little bit worried as they huddled together on the floor, their bags at their feet. ‘I’m Pippa. A long time ago I came here and did dance lessons just like you.’
A girl with a perfect blonde bun and a pinched expression looked me up and down, then wrinkled her nose. I knew what she was thinking: How on earth did one of us turn into that great tub of lard? I ignored her and carried on. New Pippa didn’t react to things like that. She was comfortable in her own skin, however large it was.
‘Anyway, as you can tell, there’s no heating and no lights, so we’re going to have to call your mums and dads and get them to come and get you early. Who knows their home phone number?’
Five or six of them put up their hands. The rest just looked worried.
‘Never mind,’ I said as Miss Mimi rejoined us, ‘we’ll work something out.’ And I began tapping a number into my mobile as one of the girls recited it to me.
In the next ten minutes we managed to dispatch almost all of the girls. Some had parents who passed the message on and a couple more took turns in doing lifts, so managed to drive away with two or three. That left two students sitting on the hall floor, fidgeting with their coat zips.
And then there was one.
‘Ursula’s mum never gets the time right,’ Miss Mimi explained as the penultimate girl skipped out the door. ‘Either she’s twenty minutes late or twenty minutes early for pick up. Thank goodness it was the latter today!’
She turned to the remaining girl. ‘Who’s picking you up today, Lucy? Dad or Grandma?’
‘Dad,’ Lucy replied quietly, her eyes as huge as the over-sized buttons on her school coat. ‘I stayed at Gran and Grandad’s last night. They dropped me off.’ She glanced at a small wheeled case with lots of glitter and a fluffy cat in a tutu on the front that sat beside her.
‘Do you know his mobile number?’ I asked.
Lucy nodded, then reached into her bag and pulled out a purse. Inside were a few coppers, a broken hair clip and a scrap of paper. She took the paper out and handed it to Miss Mimi. ‘Dad makes me keep this in my bag,’ she explained.
Mimi passed it to me. ‘See if you can get hold of him, will you, dear?’
I noted the neat handwriting. There was a mobile number on it, labelled ‘Daddy’, in a grown-up hand. ‘Why didn’t you say you had this when I asked earlier?’ I asked gently.
Lucy looked surprised I’d asked. ‘You said home phone numbers.’
I nodded. Yep. I had said that. It reminded me how much I didn’t know about the way kids’ brains worked, despite the amount of time I spent around my nephews and niece. Now I thought about it, it was exactly the same kind of thing Honey would say.
‘So I did,’ I said to the girl. ‘Well remembered.’
Pride flashed across her expression and I couldn’t help smiling even wider. ‘Well, I’ll just try and get your dad now …’
Unfortunately, it went straight to voicemail. I left a message, explaining the situation, then turned to Miss Mimi.
The older woman sighed. ‘I suppose I’m going to have to phone up the rest of this morning’s students, aren’t I?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘We’re going to phone the rest of your Saturday pupils.’
‘No, no, Philippa … You run along. I’ll be fine.’
It seemed I hadn’t noticed how stubborn and independent Miss Mimi could be when I’d been younger either. Now, usually I was a good girl, the sort to do as I was told by my elders and betters, but I think Miss Mimi was starting to rub off on me again. ‘It’ll be quicker with two of us,’ I said.
Miss Mimi didn’t say anything, but her expression hinted she wasn’t about to budge an inch. However, I’d been a pupil of hers for more than ten years as a child. I knew which strings to pull. ‘The quicker you contact the parents,’ I continued, ‘the quicker you can get this fixed and the quicker the classes will be up and running again. You wouldn’t want the children to be disappointed, would you?’
‘Come on, then, Lucy,’ Miss Mimi said, not taking her steady gaze off me. ‘You might as well come to the office with Philippa and me rather than sitting here on your own in a draughty old hall.’
Lucy shot a nervous glance at her case.
‘Leave that there,’ Mimi said, as she headed for the corridor once more. ‘It’ll be fine.’
Lucy bit her lip and looked at Miss Mimi’s back as she disappeared through the doorway. ‘Daddy says I’m not supposed to leave my bag all over the place.’
I smiled at her. ‘Then we’d better do what Daddy says. I’ll tell you what, we’ll put it in the kitchen. It’ll be safe there.’
It was going to have to be. Because there was no way we were going to fit one more thing in that office!
