Authors: Kerry Barrett
A Step In Time (16 page)
She smiled at me when I came in.
‘Darling Amy,’ she said. ‘How was the rehearsal?’
I sighed.
‘Terrible,’ I said. ‘Dreadful. Awful. Embarrassing. A disaster. Do you want me to go on?’
Cora laughed.
‘I think you’ve made your point,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry, sweetheart. You know the dance inside out. You’ll be fine tomorrow.’
‘Oh, no,’ I said, knowing I was overreacting but not caring. ‘Oh, no. I have been humiliated in public too many times recently. I can’t do it again.’
Cora gave me a knowing look.
‘Amy,’ she said. ‘Stop being dramatic.’
‘I’m not being dramatic,’ I wailed. Dramatically. ‘This is how I feel. This is crazy. I’m hurt and tired and battered after breaking up with Matty and being sacked from my dream job. I need to go away somewhere – Spain, probably – to lick my wounds and stay with my mum. I don’t want to go on national television and make a fool of myself.’
‘Will visiting your mum help?’ said Cora, who’d seen me cancel enough calls from my mother to realise we weren’t exactly best friends.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘No. Probably not. But it’ll help more than massive humiliation.’
Cora smiled in her calm way. She patted the sofa cushion next to her and I sat down. She took my hand and I looked at the difference between her lined pale skin with her perfect, shell-pink manicure, and my smooth brown hand with its raggedy nails and chipped polish.
‘I know you probably can’t imagine it but I was young once,’ Cora said. ‘Younger than you are now.’
I could imagine it, actually. Every time Cora danced the few steps she could manage now, I got a glimpse of the young woman she’d once been, but I didn’t want to put her off, so I said nothing.
‘When I was nineteen, just before the war ended, I was humiliated by someone I thought was very close. Someone very special to me. Someone I thought I could trust.’
‘Like Matty,’ I said.
‘Just like that,’ Cora said. ‘Of course that was long before celebrity magazines, or gossip columnists, but lots of people knew about it. And I was ashamed and embarrassed.’
‘What happened?’ I asked. But Cora shook her head.
‘Oh, that’s not important,’ she said. ‘What is important is how I got through it.’
‘How did you get through it?’ I said.
Cora patted my leg.
‘I danced,’ she said.
Cora was right, of course. I was beginning to realise she was always bloody right. I wondered if all old people were as wise as she was. I didn’t think so. Cora was one of a kind.
After I’d wailed all over her she gave me a stern look.
‘So go on then,’ she said.
‘Go on then, what?’
‘Dance.’
‘I don’t have the music,’ I said.
Cora gave me a shove and I almost fell off the sofa.
‘Not here,’ she said. ‘Go out. Go dancing. Phone Patrick. Phone that Phil. London is waiting for you.’
I sat up. Apart from the premiere, I’d not had a proper night out for ages. Suddenly it seemed very appealing. And, I thought, it might give me a chance to woo Bertie.
Grabbing my phone, I kissed Cora on her cheek and legged it out of the house and back to my flat, dialling Phil’s number as I ran.
‘Phil,’ I said, when he answered, ‘can I speak to Bertie?’
‘Really?’ he said, immediately suspicious. ‘Why? Please don’t tell him about those guys in Magaluf in 2006.’
‘What guys in Magaluf?’ I asked, momentarily distracted. ‘I wasn’t in Magaluf with you.’
‘Never mind,’ said Phil. ‘Bertie! Bertie! Amy wants a word.’
‘Hello, Amy.’ Bertie came on the line, sounding distant and cool. ‘You don’t want to move back in, do you?’
‘No,’ I scoffed. ‘I want you to take me dancing. All of us. Me, you, Phil and my partner, Patrick.’
There was a silence on the other end of the line.
‘Dancing?’ Bertie said eventually. ‘What kind of dancing?’
‘Your kind,’ I said.
Bertie paused again.
‘My way?’ he asked.
‘Absolutely.’
‘Right. Meet us at Leicester Square tube in an hour,’ he said briskly. ‘Wear shoes you can walk in and don’t wear too many clothes. It gets very hot in there.’
‘An hour?’ I said in alarm. ‘But …’
‘An hour,’ Bertie said firmly.
He hung up. I rang Patrick and explained what was happening, expecting him to be a bit stuffy about going out the night before the live show. But he wasn’t.
‘Awesome,’ he said. ‘I’m leaving now. Meet you there.’
I dived into the shower and out again in record time, pulled my hair up into a topknot, threw on a little black playsuit and flat sparkly sandals – now it was September, the weather was turning and there was a whiff of autumn in the air so I thought it might be the last time I got to wear my summer clothes this year – then ran out of the door.
Bertie’s kind of dancing was salsa. He was half Spanish and I knew there was a salsa club somewhere off Charing Cross Road that he went to sometimes. He led me, Phil and Patrick through the little side streets, down some iron steps and into a sweaty, heaving pounding mass of people. I stopped dead at the door and Phil and Patrick cannoned into me.
‘Come on,’ Bertie tugged my hand. ‘Let’s go.’
‘I’m nervous,’ I said, looking around. There didn’t appear to be a dance floor. People were just dancing everywhere. ‘Can’t we just sit and watch for a while?’
Bertie gave me a prod.
‘My way,’ he said.
I shrugged.
‘Go on then.’
Patrick was already twitching, his feet moving in time to the music.
‘Have you been somewhere like this before?’ I shouted in his ear.
He shook his head.
‘Not really,’ he said. ‘I’ve done some flamenco, but this is different. It’s brilliant, though. We can practise our cha-cha, too.’
He was right. It was brilliant. No one recognised me – or if they did, they didn’t care. I danced with Patrick, I danced with Phil, I even danced with Bertie, who I realised was actually very nice, if a bit sarcastic. I wiggled my hips – something Patrick had been trying to teach me how to do for weeks – I shook my shoulders and I had a bloody ball.
When we finally emerged into the London streets, much later than I’d ever intended to stay out, I was giddy with fun and desperate – honestly, desperate – to get to the studio the next day for the live show. All nerves forgotten, I just wanted to dance. Cora was a clever old stick, I had to admit.
Of course, as I was getting dressed the next day I was trembling and terrified about all the things that could go wrong. I sat in the chair in make-up shaking so violently the make-up artist had to stop and get me a cup of tea. But at the same time I was keen to get out there.
And my goodness, was it fun? I’d never, ever imagined how much fun it could be. The other competitors were all so lovely and supportive. Some of them were amazing dancers, and others not so much. But we all whooped and cheered them on. The presenters were hilarious and the judges actually really kind. I felt like I was in a family where everyone just wanted me to do really well for myself, which was kind of odd because I’d never had much of a family growing up. Unless you counted Phil’s parents – which I did, but it wasn’t the same as having your own.
We were dancing fourth, which suited me. We didn’t have to wait too long, but we weren’t first. We stood nervously at the side of the dance floor while we were announced.
‘Dancing the cha-cha, would Amy Lavender and her partner, Patrick Walker, please take to the floor …’
We got into position, I spotted Phil and Bertie in the front row of the audience, clapping furiously, the music started, and we were off.
At first it was hard not to be distracted. We’d practised on the dance floor with the band and the lights, but nothing could have prepared me for the noise of the crowd or the adrenaline that pulsed through my veins. And, inevitably, I messed up a few steps right at the start. But as the chorus began, Patrick pulled me close and whispered into my ear.
‘Relax,’ he said. ‘Breathe. Clear your mind.’
And suddenly everything clicked and all I could hear was the music, all I could feel was Patrick’s breath on my neck and the swish of the fronds on my dress, and all I could think about was what step came next.
As the music came to an end, I burst into tears.
‘Don’t cry,’ Patrick said, putting his arm round me and taking me over to the judges. ‘The audience hate whiners.’
But I wasn’t whining. I was actually happy.
‘Oh, I loved it, I loved it,’ I told the judges who all laughed.
They all pointed out the mistakes I’d made but the head judge, whose name was Frank, lowered his glasses and gave me a grin.
‘You messed it up a bit at the beginning,’ he said. ‘But you got it back and you delivered. Amy Lavender, I smell something very sweet with you.’
Overwhelmed with joy, Patrick and I rushed through the doors from the studio and jumped in delight.
‘Well done,’ he said, swinging me round. ‘She’s worked so hard,’ he told the cameras that followed us everywhere. ‘She really deserves this.’As we bounced up the stairs to join the rest of the competitors, Patrick squeezed my hand.
‘You’re a dancer now, Amy Lavender,’ he said. ‘You’re always going to be a dancer.’
We got through to the next week of the competition, and I was thrilled. Even Babs sent me a message saying congratulations and that my tears as I finished were bound to help the public want my broken heart to heal. She’d started a rumour online that I’d cried because Matty wasn’t there to see me dance, and though I wasn’t happy about it, I was too excited about our next dance to care too much.
We were dancing an American smooth. It was based on a foxtrot, had three lifts in it, and we were dancing separately for a lot of it – which made me nervous – but it was the most beautiful dance I’d ever seen. Patrick had shown me clips on YouTube of it being danced and it reminded me of old-school Hollywood movies with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. I’d even ordered some of the films from the internet, though I’d not had time to watch the DVDs yet – they were all stacked on top of my television, waiting for me to have some downtime.
And that gave me an idea.
It was the day after the live show and Patrick had given me some time off to recover before we started rehearsing again in earnest. I’d not seen Cora since yesterday morning when she’d wished me luck in the live show. I’d woken up still buzzing to find a note pushed through my letter box telling me how proud she was and saying she was out for the morning but we’d catch up this afternoon. So I hatched a plan. I dashed to the shops and bought some popcorn, and Coke in glass bottles. I wrote Cora a note asking her to join me for a special afternoon at two o’clock and stuck it to her front door. Then I spent the rest of the morning watching YouTube tutorials and trying to do my hair 1950s-style. I got there in the end; thanks to my trusty hair straighteners and a lot of hairspray, it was teased into loose waves and pulled away from my face. I added smoky eye make-up, red lips and wiggled into a pencil skirt. I felt amazing, actually – if a little overdressed for an afternoon watching films with my almost-ninety-year-old neighbour.
When Cora finally knocked at my door – at about one minute past two – I was super-excited.
‘Hi, hello, hi!’ I gabbled, showing her inside. She glanced at me, giving me a strange look as she took in my hair and make-up. I dragged her down the hall and into my living room.
‘Ta-dah!’ I said, throwing my arms out. ‘Welcome to Amy’s vintage cinema! I have popcorn, cola, and lots of Fred Astaire movies for us to watch.’
I grabbed the pile of DVDs.
‘I’ve got
Swing Time
, and
Top Hat
, and
Shall We Dance?
’ I showed her.
Cora looked … well, the only word for it was stricken. I was still holding out the DVDs but she didn’t take them.
‘Cora?’ I said. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Oh, Amy,’ she said, pushing my hand away. The DVDs fell to the floor with a clatter. ‘I can’t do this. I’m sorry.’
She spun round on her heel, remarkable quickly for a woman of her age, and left – letting the front door bang behind her.
I stood, shocked, in the middle of the room.
‘What just happened?’ I said out loud. Was Cora ill? Did she hate Fred Astaire? Did she not want to watch films all afternoon? I had no idea. But what I did know was that Natasha had asked me to look out for her gran and so I had to find out.
Hoping she was okay, I went out the back door, up the steps into her garden and into Cora’s kitchen, where I found her sitting at the table, looking very old for the first time since I’d met her.
‘Oh, Cora,’ I said, rushing over. ‘Cora. What happened?’
She looked up and shook her head.
‘I’m sorry, Amy,’ she said, taking my hand and gripping it tightly. ‘Sorry for worrying you. I’m fine.’
I dropped a kiss onto the top of her fine white hair.
‘You don’t look fine,’ I pointed out. ‘Let me make some tea and you can tell me all about it.’
Cora made to stand up but I pushed her down again.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ I said. ‘Have you any idea what you’ve done for me? I felt like an Olympic champion yesterday. I felt like I’d won at the competition that is my life – and that was because of you.’
Cora gave me a faint smile.
‘It was all down to you and Patrick,’ she said.
I waved away her protests.
‘We danced it,’ I said. ‘But I did it because you told me how. You helped me so much, Cora. Let me help you.’
She looked at me and for a minute I thought she was going to send me away, then she sighed.
‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Make the tea. There’s some cake in the tin, too.’
I bustled round the kitchen. It felt good to be looking after someone else for a change. I made the tea in a pot, poured milk into a jug and arranged some slices of cake on a plate. I put it all on the table with some cups and saucers – Cora was very particular about her tea, which I liked – and looked at her expectantly.
‘Go on then,’ I said. ‘Spill.’
‘What a horrible expression,’ Cora said, shuddering.