Kitabı oku: «The Summer We Danced», sayfa 5
Ten
I picked up a pile of paper, saw it was an invoice for ballet lessons for spring term four years ago, and set it down on a stack I’d been making on the desk, then I picked up the next one: a flyer for a Christmas show and turned to put that one down too, only to discover that the invoice was now gone.
‘Miss Mimi? Have you seen that invoice I just put down there?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Miss Mimi said, popping up from behind the filing cabinet. ‘I’ve added it to my pile I’ve made for my best-ever students—over here.’ And she indicated a separate group of papers that she’d made on the floor near the door.
I was tempted to cry. We’d been at this two hours already and I thought we’d got a system going. I’d been sorting papers into promotion, newsletters, stuff to do with rent and utilities, invoices and financial accounts, but it seemed that Miss Mimi had come up with one of her own and had been emptying my piles and making new ones, everything jumbled back in together.
‘Wonderful,’ I said. There was no point in having an argument about it, no matter how frustrated I was. It was Miss Mimi’s dance school, after all. She could do whatever the heck she wanted with her paperwork. However, it did mean that it was going to make the present task all the more complicated.
‘Maybe you should think about running an ad for an admin assistant.’ We weren’t even halfway through yet. Paperwork clearly wasn’t Miss Mimi’s strong suit. Nor Sherri’s, I suspected.
We carried on hunting and about half an hour later I discovered an electricity bill—dated last September—tucked inside a dancewear catalogue that had been under a lost property box full of lone socks, ballet shoes and even underwear. That boggled my mind. How on earth could you go home and not realise you didn’t have your knickers on? And, more worrying, how did you end up losing them in the first place?
I pulled the bill out and waved it up in the air for Miss Mimi to see. ‘Got it! Shall I call them?’
Miss Mimi slumped gratefully into a chair. ‘If you wouldn’t mind, dear.’
After fifteen minutes on hold it turned out there was a very simple reason Miss Mimi had no electricity.
I shot a nervous glance at her. She was leafing through a pile of flyers for the dance shows she used to put on every year, smiling now and then at the memories floating up off the faded paper. She had no idea, did she?
‘Just a moment, please,’ I told the customer service bod on the other end of the line. ‘It’s the bill,’ I told Miss Mimi in a stage whisper. ‘It hasn’t been paid.’
Miss Mimi’s eyebrows raised in surprise. I’d been right. No idea.
‘She says we can pay it now, if you like, and power will be back on before Monday.’ I swallowed before I asked the next question, fearing I already knew the answer. ‘Do you have a credit card?’
Miss Mimi wrinkled her nose. ‘Don’t hold truck with those things.’
‘I’ll put it on mine if you like and you can pay me back.’
‘Oh, no, dear. I couldn’t do that!’
I exhaled softly. ‘It’s the only way to get the power back on before the middle of next week. You don’t want to have to cancel any more classes, do you?’
With that, Miss Mimi crumbled. ‘Very well, then,’ she said, sighing. ‘Thank you, Philippa.’
I nodded and made a mental note that I was going to get Miss Mimi to use the shortened form of my name if it killed me. Now Mum was gone, nobody called me Philippa any more.
I resumed my discussions with the woman from the electric company and five minutes later everything was sorted. I rubbed my face with my hands and let out a weary breath.
The organiser inside me wanted to keep going at the office, to conquer this mountain of paper and plant a tiny little Union Jack in it, but my inner sloth was whispering—very sensibly, I might add—that I’d already been here for hours and it was cold and damp, and my inner gannet was chiming in and adding that I’d be much better off going to find something to eat, preferably involving bread and melted cheese.
After a moment or two of dithering, the argument went the way it usually did. I stood up in a purposeful manner and heaved my handbag over my shoulder. ‘Right. I’m taking you down to the Doves for a latte and a panini. No arguments.’
Miss Mimi opened her mouth to object, but I held up a hand. It seemed I was getting a handle on this ‘being feisty’ thing. ‘I said “no arguments”.’
Maybe the whole episode had worn Miss Mimi out more than I’d realised, because she didn’t even try to talk me round. Instead she said, ‘Well, that sounds lovely, cherie. I’d rather have a coffee and a sandwich, if you don’t mind, though.’
I headed for the door and started down the corridor, hiding a smile. ‘I don’t mind at all.’
However, after a couple of seconds I realised it was very quiet in the damp, dark corridor and noticed Miss Mimi hadn’t followed me. I hitched my bag up on my shoulder and retraced my steps.
I found her back in the office, looking rather pale. She had one hand braced against a bookcase, the other pressed to her chest. I dropped my bag and ran over. ‘Miss Mimi! Are you okay?’
She flapped a hand, tried on a smile which didn’t stick, but said nothing. She seemed to be having trouble drawing enough breath. ‘I-it’s fine,’ she eventually managed. ‘I get a little bit of vertigo now and then. It was all that bending over and standing up again looking for the bill … It just made me a little dizzy.’
I faltered, not sure if I should go and help her walk or not. Miss Mimi had never liked to make a fuss, not unless she’d planned and stage-managed the whole thing for her own benefit, of course. I ended up compromising by going and helping her with her coat, then leaving a hand under her elbow as we made our way outside.
‘You’re sure you’re okay?’ I asked again as Miss Mimi locked up the hall.
‘Right as rain!’ she replied, giving me a dazzling smile and pulling herself up straight, proving that a dancer’s posture never left her, not even in a crisis. ‘Stop looking at me like that! I told you … I’m fine.’
The grey tinge to her skin told me otherwise. ‘I really think it might be a good idea to see a doctor. I could take you into Swanham, to A&E, if you’d like …?’
Miss Mimi gave me the kind of sweet smile she used on truculent children who refused to point their toes properly when instructed. ‘Now, don’t go on, Philippa … Let’s have that coffee and if I’m still feeling peaky after I’ve had some food I’ll think about it. Besides, I’ve got something I want to discuss with you.’
‘You have?’
‘I have,’ she said, and tucked her arm through mine as she steered me down the narrow pavement in the direction of the pub. ‘I’ve been thinking that I don’t need to put an ad in the Swanham Times for a new administrator, because I’ve already found the perfect person—you!’
I did a double take. ‘Me?’
‘Why not? You did a marvellous job this morning. It’d only be part time, mind. What do you think?’
I blinked, trying to process this sudden twist in the conversation. ‘I think I’d be very interested,’ I said. Now Christmas was over, the supermarket was cutting my shifts and I’d been looking for something else to bring more cash in. Ed’s maintenance covered the basics but not much else.
More than that, despite the frustration, it felt good to be needed, and even better to be doing something I knew I was good at—organising things, creating order out of chaos.
‘I don’t have much experience of working in an office, though.’
Miss Mimi batted my response away with one large flap of her false eyelashes. ‘Doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘Anyway, let’s go and discuss it over one of those latte thingies …’
It was only when I got home later that afternoon that I realised she’d neatly sidestepped the issue of going to the doctor’s.
I arrived promptly at the dance school after lunch the following Monday. Miss Mimi and I had agreed that there was no time like the present. For the first time in … well, as long as I could remember … I was actually, truly excited about the day’s work ahead of me.
My part-time job at the supermarket certainly didn’t push those buttons and working alongside Ed had been all about what Ed needed and what was good for the band, rather than a fulfilling career for me. Not that Ed had been selfish about it, demanding anything horrendous of me, and I’d been more than happy to help him reach his dreams. It hadn’t been until he’d moved on, however, that I’d realised there was a big, dark hole where my personal aspirations should have been.
I knew Miss Mimi’s School of Dancing wasn’t big business. I knew I wasn’t going to become a millionaire working there or win any Nobel prizes, but that didn’t bother me in the slightest. I’d be helping someone I cared about, doing something I was good at. I finally had a sense of purpose and it felt marvellous.
When I arrived at the hall I was relieved to see all the lights on and the temperature was warm enough that I automatically shrugged my coat off. Miss Mimi was rosy-cheeked and happily working out a routine for the Monday evening jazz class. (Was it really safe for someone her age to be kicking that high?) There was no hint of the frailness that had hung around her on Saturday. I could almost believe I’d imagined it.
I made my way down the corridor to the office. Once inside, I closed the door behind me and leant against it. I smiled as I looked around. Right, I thought. Where do I start?
My thoughts turned to the red electricity bill. Surely, the best thing to tackle first was the finances. Who knew what other payments might have been overlooked? And I needed to get an idea of how much money came in and out, so I could suggest a budget for any future big payments.
I hunted in one of the bookshelves, where I remembered seeing some handwritten accounts ledgers, and started to flick through them. They were thoroughly kept in a neat hand. Not Miss Mimi’s extravagant loops, that was for sure, and it didn’t look like Sherri’s enthusiastic round, squat writing either, which meant these must have been Dinah’s work. My theory was confirmed when I discovered I couldn’t find any books for the last two tax years, which was when Miss Mimi had said Dinah had moved to Portugal.
I put them back on the shelf and carried on my search. Surely, Miss Mimi had to have some kind of financial records since her full-time administrator had quit?
Ten minutes later I found what I was looking for. It wasn’t a proper accounts ledger, but a handful of large, hardback notebooks. Each page was labelled with a year and a month and then there was a list of fees that had come in and payments that had gone out, but I couldn’t find any corresponding bank statements. I guessed that looking for profit and loss statements or balance sheets would probably be a waste of time.
However, duplicate statements could be ordered from the bank, and even if I couldn’t find any tax returns or financial statements, Miss Mimi’s accountant should be able to supply them. The name of a local one-man firm was listed in the back of one of Dinah’s neat ledgers. I’d just fire off an email and see where that got me, and until a reply came I had my work cut out for me. I was going to clear this office of clutter if it was the last thing I did!
Eleven
When Friday came around again, I dutifully turned up for adult tap. I’d been tempted to stay home to avoid another dose of humiliation, but that was a bit hard to do when I’d spent all week working alongside Miss Mimi.
I crept in at the back again while the others were engrossed in a discussion about a dance competition show they’d all seen on the TV that week. I quietly put my tap shoes on while they talked. I’d seen the same programme, but I didn’t comment. Why would they be interested in anything I had to say? They didn’t know me from Adam.
I heard the door swing open again and a cool breeze curled into the hall, its tendrils reaching even me in the farthest corner. While I tied bows in my laces, I glanced behind me to discover that Nancy had arrived.
Part of me wanted to ignore her. The way she’d been with me the previous week had been really weird. I’d even told Candy about it, but she’d warned me I was becoming a hermit and it was making me paranoid. Of course, I’d told her not to be so stupid, but thinking back on our conversation, I was starting to wonder if she was right.
Every time I left the front door these days, I felt as if people were watching me. Judging me. And they couldn’t all be, could they? I mean, up until Ed’s spectacular fall from grace I was pretty sure most people didn’t even notice me when I walked down the street.
So maybe Candy was right. Maybe it was all in my head and I’d jumped to conclusions about Nancy last week. After all, while we hadn’t been the kind of friends who’d spent all our time round each other’s houses. When we’d been at Miss Mimi’s—which had been a lot—we’d been practically inseparable, and she had no reason to dislike me. We hadn’t even set eyes on each other for twenty years.
I stepped forward, but Nancy acted as if she hadn’t seen me. And maybe she hadn’t. She seemed to be deep in thought as she sat down on one of the chairs and changed into her tap shoes, then walked across to the barre on the other side of the room and started doing a few warm-up exercises.
You tried, a little voice in my head said. Leave it at that.
But I knew that was the coward’s way out. I couldn’t stay holed up in my house with just my cat for company forever, could I? And what better place to start than with someone who’d known me before my notorious fifteen minutes in the tabloid limelight? With someone who’d actually once liked me?
After a moment of hesitation, I followed her. Ugh. I was going to be standing right in front of the mirrors, but I supposed that couldn’t be helped.
‘Hi,’ I said, then grasped around for something else to say. ‘You’ve hardly changed at all.’ Not exactly eloquent, but at least it got the ball rolling.
She still had the same long, thick, dark hair, the good bone structure. She’d never been one of those teenagers who’d looked scruffy, her make-up had always been flawless and her clothes neat, and that had followed her into adulthood, although, clearly, she had a better clothes budget now. I wasn’t very good at identifying designers, but I knew expensive when I saw it.
‘Thank you,’ she replied, and went back to studying her reflection in the mirror as she stretched out her calf muscles. She didn’t return the compliment. She also didn’t say anything else.
I cleared my throat and tried again. ‘How are you doing?’
Nancy smiled again, and I noticed her teeth, too perfect in their regimental alignment, almost too white. The lights of the hall reflected off them, highlighting their glossy sharpness. ‘Oh, you know,’ she replied with an airy laugh. ‘Paul and I live in Langdon Park now. The house was a bit of a wreck when we got it, but we’re slowly licking it into shape.’
‘Wow,’ I said, not even having to pretend to be impressed. Langdon Park. While not a stately home, it was one of the lovely old manor houses in the area, the kind that well-off Londoners liked to snap up for a rural retreat if they could.
And where was I? Back living at my parents’ house with its eighties dado rails and avocado bathroom suite. No husband. No kids. No accomplishments at all to speak of. I wanted to crawl away and pretend I hadn’t started this conversation, but I had. There was no choice but to tough it out. I swallowed and carried on.
‘Paul must be doing well at …’ I trailed off, belatedly realising I couldn’t remember what Nancy’s husband did. The last time we’d exchanged Christmas cards must have been more than a decade ago.
‘He’s a wine broker,’ she said.
Had someone left the door open? Because the temperature seemed to drop a few degrees.
‘And how about the kids?’
Nancy’s smile bloomed into the real thing. ‘Oh, Lilly’s off to Oxford next year, we hope, and Callum’s auditioning for Oliver! in the West End next week. We’re all very proud.’
I nodded. She had it, didn’t she? Nancy had my John Lewis Christmas ad life. Thankfully, I was saved from hearing any more about it because Miss Mimi glided into the room.
‘Good evening, ladies,’ she said loudly and theatrically. She clipped musically towards us in her high-heeled tap shoes, wearing a tailored black dress with an orange-and-red scarf tied at the back of her head so the ends trailed from under her cloud of silvery grey hair. I reckoned if you squinted hard and imagined Mimi fifty years younger, she might just pass for Jean Harlow.
Everyone scooted into line, the confident ones—Amanda, Nancy, Dolly and Victoria—in the front, which left me, Ruth (who’d arrived so silently I hadn’t even heard her) and Donna in the back. If there was one thing I remembered about Miss Mimi’s classes, whatever the dance style, it was that she liked everyone present and correct when it was time to start.
‘Right, warm-up!’ she called and we started off using toes and heel to tap simple steps, doing little travelling things from side to side, rotating our ankles and stretching our lower leg muscles.
I’m going to do it, I thought to myself as I glued my eyes to Miss Mimi’s feet and attempted to replicate everything she did. It was humiliating to be the only person getting everything wrong. I was standing out like a sore thumb. This time, I’m going to get one step right, even if it kills me.
I was fine in the early parts of the class, where we built up small step combinations, because we’d go through everything slowly first. I could just about keep up then, as long as I made sure my brain was whirring furiously, but once Miss Mimi put the music on and we did it double time, all I could do was at least try to travel in the right direction and match the rhythm of the others’ steps, and once we started travelling from the corner I got hopelessly lost. I just tried to hang at the back as much as possible, wishing fervently that I really did have the power to make myself invisible. The whole exercise would have been a whole lot less embarrassing if I could.
‘Don’t sweat it,’ Donna said in a low voice from beside me after yet another failed attempt at some shuffle-hop thing. ‘It’ll come if you let it. The key is to not think too hard about it.’
I nodded, even though I had no idea what Donna meant. How could I stop thinking? If I didn’t even try I’d make an even bigger idiot of myself than I already was.
We moved to the corner again to do riffs. Miss Mimi let me do the easiest kind, with only four beats, but even then I was always half a breath behind.
Why was this so hard? Dancing had once been so easy for me. It had given me a joy and sense of self that nothing else had. I drifted off, even as I was trying to do the steps—it didn’t matter, really, because I was going to get them wrong no matter how hard I tried—and remembered what it had once felt like to just lose myself in the movement, to be so consumed with it I’d entered a different place, lived entirely in the moment.
And then something really weird happened. Suddenly I was doing it—heel-toe, toe-heel—rhythmic and easy as that, for a few seconds anyway, and then as I tried to work out how I’d managed it, I lost it again.
I didn’t care. I done five riffs. Five! I jogged over to where Donna was waiting in line, feeling as if I was flying. Stupid, I know. It was only a tap step, and a pretty easy one at that, but my hope had swelled in that instant, like an inflatable dinghy whose cord had been pulled. This was the first thing that had gone right for me on a personal level in a long time, and if New Pippa could actually learn to tap dance, there might be no limits to what she could do.
Donna grinned back at me when I reached the other side and held her hand up for a high five. I looked at it for a couple of seconds then gave it a gentle tap with my fingers.
‘Told you,’ she said, smiling. ‘Don’t you worry. We’ll make a Ginger Rogers of you yet.’
Ücretsiz ön izlemeyi tamamladınız.
