Three Things About Elsie(86)

‘No. I don’t think so. I don’t know.’ Simon looked up at the tiny mirrors in the glitter ball.

‘Everyone can dance. Everyone. You just need to find the right song.’ Lionel waved a little baton through the air in a figure of eight.

Simon watched the baton. ‘Is there an orchestra?’

‘Cassettes, young man, cassettes.’ Lionel made the word sound interesting and Italian.

‘Tapes,’ said Miss Ambrose, as she walked past.

‘But even cassettes need a leader.’ Lionel did another flourish. ‘And dancers need to know when to whisk and when to chassé.’

‘To what?’ said Simon.

‘Watch me.’ Lionel pointed at his shoes, which shone with such enthusiasm, the entire world appeared to be reflected back in them. He did a little manoeuvre across the floor and then pointed at Simon. ‘Now you try it,’ he said.

Simon did. It was surprisingly easy.

‘Now this one,’ said Lionel. ‘Now, put them both together.’

It was odd, but Simon felt as though his feet knew exactly what they should be doing. Usually, his limbs waited for instructions from his brain, and his brain could very rarely make up its mind about things, but for some reason, a whisk and a chassé made complete sense to him.

‘See,’ said Lionel, clapping his hands. ‘You’re a natural.’

Simon grinned at him, and realised he was still holding the cake slice.

‘If you wouldn’t mind,’ said Miss Ambrose, taking it from his hand, ‘there are some Ritz crackers over there just shouting out for a tube of Primula.’





FLORENCE


We got back to the hotel, and after the central heating had warmed up our faces, Elsie and I got ready for the dance just like we used to. We held clothes up to choose, and lent each other jewellery, and did everything we could to make a space between ourselves and the conversation on the beach. When we closed the bedroom door, Jack was waiting for us on the landing.

‘I thought we’d go down together,’ he said, and offered his arm. ‘Ladies should never enter a ballroom unaccompanied.’

I put my arm through his, and the three of us slipped into the room with the music and a glitter ball, back into a world so far in the past, we had almost forgotten it existed.

There is a certain magic about a dance floor, even if no one is dancing. Perhaps it’s the smell of polished wood, or the beat of an orchestra, or perhaps it’s the remembrance of dances past. The memory of circling a room in shoes that pinched our toes but made us happy. Listening to music that wrapped itself around buried thoughts and made us feel less alone.

‘There’s a food table,’ said Elsie. ‘And free drinks. We never had that at the town hall.’

I looked over to where Miss Ambrose was supervising a tray of egg sandwiches. They were crustless, because sometimes in life, it’s better to anticipate problems and address them head-on, rather than wait for them to appear. Next to the sandwiches and Miss Ambrose, and shrouded in the darkness of a corner, Ronnie Butler stood with his hands behind his back, watching the rest of the room walk past.

‘Why now?’ Jack said, his words under cover of the music. ‘Why risk a lifetime of hiding to come back now?’

I stood beneath a spotlight. I was certain Ronnie could see me, but I’d reached a point where it didn’t seem to matter any more. I lost him occasionally, as the room began to fill with people and couples made their way to the dance floor, but he was always there, behind the crowd. Staring across the years.

‘It must have been that young man saving him from being mugged. He hid away for all those years, and then out of the blue, he was on the front page of all the newspapers,’ I said. ‘He must have been afraid someone would recognise him for who he really was, and the past would catch up with him. So he thought he’d catch up with us first.’

‘I think that’s what you call a grave mistake,’ said Jack.

We found a seat at the other side of the room and watched with plates of sandwiches on our knees as the world circled by in tangos and waltzes.

‘I remember all the steps,’ said Elsie. ‘Do you remember them, Florence?’

I did. It was strange how some things are never forgotten. Even though my feet had walked tens of thousands of miles, pulling me through the last eighty-odd years of my life. Even though they had become slower and more measured, and they faltered as time passed by, my feet hadn’t ever forgotten who I used to be. Even if my mind sometimes did.

There were people I didn’t recognise on the dance floor, strangers from other hotels who had jumped ship for an evening, locals who came just for the dancing, and mixed amongst them were all the residents of Cherry Tree, waltzing their way back to a life once lived. Handy Simon was in the thick of it, promenading and side-by-siding like a natural. Men were in short supply as it was, let alone young men, and no sooner had he finished one dance than he was being whisked away by someone else for the next.

‘Are you not dancing, Florence?’ Miss Ambrose crouched beside us. She always believed getting on the same level as other people was important, although in reality, it just gave everyone else a panoramic view of her cleavage.

‘I’d take you round the dance floor, but I’m afraid those days are long gone.’ Jack tapped his stick very gently on the floor.