Out Late with Friends and Regrets (52 page)

“Hello! Girls and boys! Would you-” Even Hamish’s voice was becoming lost in the roar, and was quite smothered by
a train-wreck of a duet, wherein Ellie assured her equally untalented fellow-performer that he wasn’t sick, but JUST, IN, LUH-HUV!
Hamish promptly reappeared with a battered cone of green metal, and stood on the piano stool.

“SILENCE!” he shouted through it.
 
The clamour instantly subsided, and he announced, “I would advise everybody to get their glasses charged right now, as we’re just four minutes away from the bells-”

Fin edged away from the flow of people heading for the phalanx of opened Champagne bottles, and retired to a corner.
 
There were a couple of mouthfuls still left in her glass, enough to toast the New Year.
 
A Shhh of fresh bubbles in her glass caused her to turn; Doc was on top-up duty.
 
He winked, and moved on.

Five... four... three... two...

Pandemonium.
 
Screams, shouts of Happy New Year, streamers, balloons, a typhoon of gold and silver confetti...
 
Then an orgy of kissing.
 
Fin felt herself being swept along, kissing or being kissed by a multitude of people with blurred faces, some recognisable and some not.
 
This was what happened, year after year, the New Year Ritual.
 
It always looked so mad, on the television, in the films.
 
Jostle, drink, kiss, spill, hug, laugh, cry... move on.
 
Essentially, of course, it was all about moving on.
 
Another threshold, another year.
 
And Auld Lang Syne.
 
Somehow everyone managed to find a parking place for their drink, to free their hands for the chain of crossed arms.
 
Fin smiled, with tears in her eyes.
 
Silly, really, it was the drink.
 
And missing Marie so badly it hurt physically.
 
And thinking of Cecilia in her grotty bedsit, watching the festivities from Edinburgh or wherever on the television, if indeed she had a television.
 
Fin had made her promise to seek help in the New Year, not that making a promise guaranteed that she would.
 
So alone…

“Come on, darling,” said Hamish, sweeping her up in a bear-hug, “Doc wants you to sing.”

“Er,
what
?”

She struggled through ‘The Lady is a Tramp’ with help from the audience, and began to feel the pain subside.
 
Then Hamish and Doc performed together, being parfectleh willing to sweah, that a naightingale seng in Bahkley Squeah, which brought the house down.
 
Everything was fine, everything was going to be all right.

Birmingham was freezing, worse than Harford, and Fin was pleased she had decided to motor in early enough to do a recce on Sunday, after checking into the local Wayfarer Lodge.
 
Pinpointing the college on a website map was one thing, but trying to find it on the ground, even with directions, when it was still dark and the roads were icy, was quite another.
 
The motel and the college were only a couple of miles apart, but through a very busy part of town.
 
Half an hour should be enough; the dry run had taken fourteen minutes.
 
But with the roadworks fully activated on Monday, and the rush hour, and the weather...
 
She would allow an hour.

She ate an undistinguished but enjoyable lasagne in the motel’s restaurant, wallowed in the bath for half an hour, and sat up in bed until ten, supposedly swotting the course manual, but actually listening to Six Music on the radio.
 
Well, it was a bit late now, to try to learn all the stuff she had hoped to absorb by osmosis over the last couple of months.
 
In any case, most of the students wouldn’t even have looked at it.
 
Would they?

She turned the light off, and tried to imagine what tomorrow would be like.
 
Lectures in a room with tiered seating, she supposed, and demonstrations in front of the class, probably, with students called out to the front to show that they’d mastered various moves.
 
A prickle of fear shot down her backbone.
 
At least it would be the same for everyone. Except that they’d all be young.
 
Her tightly-wound spring of excitement, already loosened by the lack of contact from Marie, slackened further, and she wondered if she was doing the right thing.
 
No, just sleep. No negativity.
 
It would all look different in the morning.

There were no other cars in the car park.
 
Well, why would there be, at twenty past eight? The traffic had been heavy, as expected, but it had flowed reasonably well.
 
Still, it was good to be early; she could look around the building, get the lie of the land, see where the loos were, and the canteen.
 
There would probably be a security guard behind the desk, and a framed plan of the building so she could locate Room 326, where the students were to register.
 
The block didn’t look big enough to have three hundred rooms.
 
Perhaps it was Room 26 on the third floor.

She walked round the building to the front, and pushed the double doors.
 
They were locked.
 
There was a reception desk in the centre of the foyer, unmanned.
 
She peered through the glass, steaming it up.
 
Not even a cleaner in sight.

 
“You’re keen,” said a voice at her side.
 
“Are you on the Pro-Train course?”

The voice was friendly, with just a hint of a midlands accent.
 
Fin turned, and saw a fit-looking young woman with chestnut curls hitched up in a pony-tail, wearing three-quarter length sports trousers which exposed her calves, despite the cold.

“Yes.
 
I like to be early, get to know where everything is, get a seat at the back of the classroom, that sort of thing,” replied Fin with a smile.

“Be prepared, eh.
 
Bet you can recite great chunks of the manual already.”

“Well, no, actually.
 
I meant to.
 
I’ve read some of it, but I’m afraid I haven’t done nearly as much preparation as I thought I would.
 
What’s your name?”

“Nicola.
 
Call me Nicky.
 
Ah, here’s someone.”

A uniformed guard came to the doors, and unlocked with much jingling of keys and solemnity.

“You’ll have to wait in Reception until the Reception staff arrive,” he said.

“Just as long as we’re out of the cold,” said Fin, rubbing her gloved hands together.

“Want anything from the drinks machine?” asked Nicky.
 
“And you didn’t say who you were, by the way.”

“Fin.
 
Short for Fiona.
 
Does it do coffee? I could murder a coffee, even a bad one.”

“No, it’s only cold drinks, colas and stuff.
 
I’m going to have a Zapshot.”

Nicky went to buy her power drink, and a suited woman bustled past them, lifting the flap of the circular desk and settling herself behind a monitor.

“Sorry to keep you.
 
Traffic’s terrible.
 
Just give me two minutes to get the computer on and the codes in.”

Room 326 was painted pale blue, rather a chilly colour at this time of year, not relieved by the slate sky and rooftops which made up the view along one side.
 
As for the seat at the back, that was certainly a non-starter of an idea.
 
The tables and chairs were arranged in a large, inward-facing U shape, a bigger table set in the gap, in front of the whiteboard which took up most of the door wall.
 
Well, at least she had the choice of where to sit.
 
Nicky had disappeared with, “See you shortly, Fin,” somewhere on the ground floor.
 
Maybe she had needed the Ladies.

Fin chose a table on the apex of the curve facing the door, and laid out the course manuals, her new folder with virgin A4 pad, three pens and a highlighter, and a bottle of water.
 
It might be an idea to go in search of the loo herself now, while there was still time, so she hung her jacket over the back of the chair and made for the floor plan on the landing.
 
When she returned she found a blonde girl sitting next to her own place, and a bespectacled young man a little further up the straight side.

“Hello,” she said, and they hied in return.

“I’m Shelley,” said the blonde girl, as Fin sat down.

“Ron,” added the man, and another three girls trouped in.
 
After the next group of five, greetings became general, and Fin was beginning to will a few more years through the door. It was reassuring to see a man and a woman who appeared to be at least forty, a feeling slightly offset by overhearing them telling their neighbours that they worked in a dance academy.
 
The seats were filling up fast, and still Nicky hadn’t appeared. When she did she was carrying two large files, which she dropped on the front table.

Oh dear, what had Fin said to her? Something about sitting at the back, and she had certainly admitted to having done little or no preparatory reading.
 
Great first impression.

“Good morning, everyone!”
 
Nicky’s teaching voice could have been heard in the Bullring.
 
There was immediate silence, before a murmured response.

“My name’s Nicky, and I’m your tutor for the course.
 
Let me warn you folks, it’s going to be a very intensive course, needing all your focus, all your commitment, if you want to get the certificate. But,
when
you do, which I hope you all will, you will not only have a qualification recognised and respected nationwide, but also a passport to the best job in the world.
 
That’s not to say that jobs in the industry are necessarily easy to get; you may have to go solo in Church halls or keep doing auditions till you get a foot in the door.
 
But Pro-Train instructors do have a certain standing in the business, you’ll find, and with the confidence our training will give you, you will be equipped to handle almost anything your new career can sling at you-”

As pep-talks go, it was pretty good.
 
At the end of the fifteen or so minutes Fin was fired with a single-minded ambition which was surprising and new.
 
Phrases such as “It’s going to be tough” and “Some of you are going to shed tears before the end of the course” simply hardened her determination.
 
Exactly as they are intended to do, she thought with a smile, noticing the rounded eyes of some of the younger students.

“Right, we’ll work our way around the circle, and you can introduce yourselves.
 
Your name, what you do or what you’ve been doing, hobbies, what your ambitions are, anything you think might interest the others in about a minute
 
I’ll mark you off the register as we go.
 
Now, don’t I recognise someone from last year’s Easter course, Shelley isn’t it?”

Shelley seemed gratified to be remembered.

“Yes, had to drop out half way because me dad passed away.”

“Welcome back, Shelley, well done for having another go,” said Nicky, “OK, now, let’s start at this end...”

My name is Fin and I’m gay, currently suffering considerable distress as a result of being apart from my girl-friend for two weeks, and having to appease my sexual frustration in various interesting ways.
 
My hobbies are sex and snogging, and my ambition is to hold my girl-friend in my arms and deliver a long, slow shag, full of inventiveness and passion.

“-and next to Shelley, oh, it’s Fin, isn’t it, we spoke earlier – off you go.”

“Yes, thanks, Nicky. I’m Fin, I live in Harford and I’m a keen member of my local sports centre.
 
I go to lots of classes and the gym, too, although I’ve not been interested in fitness for all that long, only during the couple of years since my husband died.”