Summer Flings and Dancing Dreams (5 page)

I’m told it’s so warm in Granada they dance flamenco outside and the rhythm echoes through the streets. They live in the ‘now,’ like gypsies, free of all shackles, living only for the dance. And it’s there waiting for us my darling – we just have to reach out and take it.

Let us not be pulled back by the past... let’s move forward, I know it’s the right thing to do.

Please stay?

Yours always

Ken x

W
ow
, I thought. I never knew my dad had such passion, it was like beautiful, sad poetry. There was so much to take in, so much said in such a few words, my world, the one I thought I knew was suddenly wobbling. My tears were cold, sliding down my cheeks and dripping onto the letter, blurring the words. I tried to wipe it with my hands but that made it worse and made me cry harder. My dad was so passionate, so determined, what happened for him to change his mind about leaving everything behind to dance in Spain? And what happened in their marriage that Dad needed to send a letter like this? Who was Mum thinking about that made her unreachable to him? Was it another man? I couldn’t imagine what could possibly come between them, but Mum’s illness had never really been explained, so perhaps she’d had a breakdown. After an affair? I felt like I’d been kicked in the chest. My poor dad, betrayed by the woman he loved. All the dancing and the laughter and the love – the perfect couple – had it all been a lie? The letter sounded just like my dad, listing the things they’d do, planning a future they would never reach. He never made it to Spain, and Mum never went there either – neither of them danced the flamenco. He spoke of winning the waltz category in Blackpool, so the letter was written around 1980. I racked my brain to try and remember anything of significance between them that would give me a clue about what had happened. Mum had been ill on and off for a few years then, so if it was an affair it had happened years before. It must have put a great hole in their relationship, an unspoken rip, right through the middle of their marriage that they couldn’t even talk about it. I went back over my childhood, clawing at the past, desperately trying to recall anything, like a detective searching for clues among the endless bloody sequins. I seemed to remember a time when Mum wasn’t ill, when she laughed a lot. But then a curtain came down... when was that? She changed somewhere in my childhood – I remember the first time she went away because Dad bought me a Tiny Tears doll, so I would be about four or five years old, what had happened? Dad told me she was poorly and had to spend time in hospital... why? He’d said in his letter he couldn’t reach her, I understood that feeling and recalled the ‘faraway look’ he mentioned. What sequin-covered secrets had my mother kept hidden? Perhaps things weren’t so wonderful between them after all, because the more I thought about it I realised the only time she was really happy, when she came alive, was when she was dancing. Ironically it was dancing at the place of their imagined Waterloo where all their dreams died – at the Blackpool International Dance Championships. How cruel life could be, I thought, picking up the letter and going over the words. I was a child when I knew my dad, but reading the letter I saw him through adult eyes. It was hard to equate the happy, spontaneous, loving father I remembered, with someone filled with such pain. Almost forty years later, I could hear his voice, feel his arms around me – and learning that he’d been so badly hurt made me want to hug him so much.

I looked over the letter again. It was yellowing with age and had obviously been read so much the folds were almost worn. How could she? How could my Mum betray my father? I read and re-read his words, looking for a clue, trying desperately to remember the past and discover what had happened. I sat amongst the bin bags and the tears and the taffeta – my world had tilted slightly.

On a third reading, I could see that in spite of whatever had happened, my dad’s pain was tinged with hope. I knew about Dad’s idea to live in Spain, to learn the flamenco, but I didn’t realise it was such a serious proposition – he seemed to want that so much. He’d also wanted me to dance, had seen me as his second chance; ‘shoot for the moon,’ he’d said wanting to pass on the baton.

Then I landed with a bump, I wasn’t that baton-carrying dancing girl. Despite my father dreaming of a life of glitter on the dance floor for me I had never got round to dancing – the closest I’d ever got was watching my parents. I had never been taught the waltz, never glided elegantly across a floor in a beautiful dress or whipped up a storm in a frenzied tango. I was a Bilton’s checkout girl who stopped dreaming at the age of ten when her world came crashing down in The Empress Ballroom, Blackpool.

‘
I
knew
she had eleven items in that basket,’ Carole said, ‘I said – just admit to it and we will leave it at that. I won’t take any further action.’

I nodded as she regaled me with the story of how she’d publicly humiliated some poor woman trying to sneak into the ‘ten items or fewer’ queue with – shock horror – eleven items. Carole had been rejected when she’d applied for the police – but it didn’t stop her dishing out her own brand of police-supermarket brutality at Bilton’s. A few months before I would have loved this story, completely overreacting to the deed and declaring the shopper ‘a sneaky bitch’. This would be followed by my own sorry tales of outrageous customer behaviour in various aisles and unbidden rudeness at the checkout. But it all seemed so petty now, the daily tussles with customers had lost their drama and spark for me.

‘You’re not yourself, love,’ Carole said. ‘You okay, you seem a bit quiet?’ We were having lunch in the staff canteen and she was pouring something hot and brown from her flask into a mug.

‘Oh I’m fine, just missing Sophie and I’m worried about family stuff,’ I said and told her about Dad’s letter.

‘I don’t know what happened between them, and I can’t ask Mum. But it made me think – there was Dad making all these plans and it was futile, he never got to Spain, he never danced flamenco. I don’t want to suddenly be in my seventies and think, where did that go? I know my parents never did what they dreamed of, but at least they
had
dreams. I don’t have anything to aim for, no goals except to get through the day without verbally or physically abusing an annoying customer.. Do you know I’ve spent my life going to work, coming home, making meals and watching TV.’

‘Welcome to my world,’ Carole sighed, sipping at the foul-smelling brew now steaming from her mug.

‘Everyone needs something...’ I sighed.

‘Like what?’

‘I don’t know... I feel like I want to go to Spain... do all the stuff my parents never did. Maybe I’ll do it for them... and for me... one day.’

‘There you go... ‘one day.’ Do it. Do “Spain and stuff” now. Just ask your Sophie and I bet she’ll tell you to get on the next plane.’

I wasn’t asking Sophie anything, because I had to get used to the idea myself first and I wasn’t trying it out for size during the precious ten minutes of FaceTime we managed each week.

‘She’s the one that told you to get a bigger life...’

‘I know. I just wish it didn’t bloody hurt so much.’

It was such a big thing, and had become even bigger in my mind since she’d gone, and now Dad’s letter seemed to be warning me to make the most of life before it was too late. There was Sophie off on an adventure, telling me about amazing sunsets and scuba diving in Bali and I just sat there nodding into my phone from the sofa. No scuba diving or sunsets here. She’d been to hell and back on her ‘not-wedding’ day and I didn’t want to bring her down with, glad you’re happy – now what about me?

I didn’t have to ‘front her up’, I’d thought a lot about what she’d said and now I knew exactly what she meant. I had a little life. I had no plans to do anything daring or different, and if I didn’t do something now, nothing would change. In ten or twenty years’ time I would look at a day in my life – and it would be exactly the same as it had been since I was about twenty years old. The only difference being that my baby girl had now grown up and I was alone.

I was back there on that cold stone step of the church, and Carole patted my hand, she knew what I was feeling and was letting me know I was there for her. She was a good friend and after Sophie’s wedding then her travels and now the letter I felt she’d listened to me enough.

‘So how are you? Still doing the detox?’ I asked, trying to change the subject to something a little less heavy.

‘Yeah, but this detox tea is vile,’ she said through a mouthful of chocolate.

‘Detox?’ I looked at her chocolate questioningly.

‘Oh not this...’ she held the bar up and looked at it like someone else had put it there. ‘It’s okay, the tea cancels the chocolate out,’ she said, in all seriousness.

‘Oh. I could do with a gallon of that then,’ I smiled, unwrapping a hefty tuna mayonnaise roll that contained my calorie allowance for the next fortnight. ‘I can’t seem to stop eating at the moment. I really should make some changes, eat better, look after myself you know? I’d like to be a better “me”.’

I’d always let my weight and my confidence hold me back, I was sure there were things I would have done if only I’d had more faith in myself. Perhaps I could start now... with my weight? My mum may have hurt Dad and disappointed him but I could make it up to him by shooting for the moon in my own way... ‘Are you going to Slimming Club next Monday? I thought I might join,’ I said, attempting to take the first, faltering steps towards a new me.

‘I’m not doing slimming clubs anymore,’ Carole said. This was like Rihanna saying she wasn’t going to sing anymore and I looked at her, surprised.

‘Natalie from “World Cuisines” is doing Zumba, she goes with her mate Mandy, you know, the beauty therapist from “Curl up and Dye”?’

I nodded.

‘Natalie’s lost loads of weight, so I’m going to try it... do you fancy going?’

‘Yeah. I spotted Natalie restocking the “Asian Express” aisle yesterday, I thought she looked different... thinner. Not easy to notice under these horrific overalls,’ I added, plucking at the nasty green nylon we had to wear as what the boss Julie sarcastically referred to as ‘Bilton’s Babes’.

‘Yep. She says the teacher is fab, used to be a yoga teacher. Apparently she’s all about “female empowerment”. She’s bonkers and uses the word “vagina” in every sentence, but it’s a small price to pay for a tight arse and a tough pelvic floor.’

I’d love to lose some weight, and I’m a great believer in fate. So when in his letter my dad said he’d wanted me to learn to dance, I felt it was more than just coincidence that Carole was now inviting me to Zumba classes. Life often gives you just what you need, even if you don’t realise it at the time.

Carole was raving about Zumba; ‘The poster says;
“Ditch the workout, join the party.”
And I need me some of that.’

I was quite daunted, and if it hadn’t been for Dad’s letter I’d have gone back to Super Slinky Slimmers where you get weighed then sit down for an hour while someone talks to you about food until you’re so hungry you head for the nearest chippy when you leave. But this was the beginning of a new Laura – this was a Laura that said ‘yes!’ No more wallflower hiding away in the corner, I would take to that Zumba floor like my Dad took to the ballroom, with gusto... or more likely in my case gutso?

Carole and I had wandered out of the canteen and were now grabbing the very precious last few seconds of our twenty-minute break standing by the vending machine. As we chatted, our eyes were drawn to the chunky chocolate bars, the decking of crisps and the fountain of fizzy drinks.

‘So, Zumba... tomorrow night...?’ she said, licking her lips and gazing longingly at the stack of Snickers. ‘Mmmmm chocolate soldiers standing to attention,’ she sighed.

I was trying not to be seduced by the soldiers or the salt and vinegar crisps lined up next to them. Apart from the taste and the crunch, the obsessive in me was really getting off on the way they hung neatly behind each other, like a row of designer suits.

‘Yes, Zumba here we come,’ I said, determined to ignore the delicious temptations and focus on shedding pounds – not adding more.

‘What time?’

I was keen to try something new but quite self-conscious about throwing myself around in front of other people. I’d sometimes hear La Bamba on the radio and jerk around the living room floor pretending to be a professional Latin dancer but that was in the privacy of my own home. Vigorous Zumba in front of other, thinner, fitter humans was quite different!

Just thinking about dance steps reminded me of my parents and I wondered again what sad secret they shared. Perhaps ‘he’ whoever he was, was the reason Dad’s dreams and plans never materialised? Looking back, I could see that Dad and Mum had always put things off. ‘When we’ve got enough money’, ‘next year’, ‘tomorrow’, they had money worries, which surely played a part – but I was beginning to wonder if they both made excuses for staying here in the same life? What had they been scared of?

‘All for one and one for all,’ my Dad would say as we set off for another dance competition. I’d be in the back of the car, safe and warm the sandwiches in Tupperware containers, a flask and blankets in the back because you never knew what time you’d be home with the traffic. ‘This is going to be the one,’ he’d say. ‘With these winnings we’ll buy that villa in Spain, senorita,’ he’d nod to Mum. ‘And I will teach the dancing alfresco,’ Mum would say in a funny Spanish accent while clicking her fingers in the air flamenco-style, which always made me giggle.

Our lives and dreams were planned in that little Ford Cortina with the twisted front bumper (Dad had been overexcited one year on arrival at The Winter Gardens in Blackpool and banged it into a wall in his anticipation to get on that shiny floor). I was as excited as they were about competing, and I can see them now, laughing, the glitter ball twinkling in their eyes, numbers on their backs and hope in their hearts.

They usually won their competitions, but after a posh meal, a new dress for Mum and another doll for me, there was little left of the winnings to save up for that Spanish dance school. I remember once Mr Robinson, Dad’s boss at the shop went on holiday to Spain and he and his wife sent us a postcard while they were there, it was a photo of a woman in frills dancing. Her dress was scarlet with polka dots and I would look at it for hours. I kept the postcard under my pillow and would take it out at night just imagining the music and the heat of the dancing.

When Mr Robinson came back from his holidays, he and his wife had bought me a flamenco dancer doll in a see-through plastic box. I was speechless with joy, and I remember holding the box carefully and just gazing at her like she was behind a window. I thought she was a beautiful Spanish princess and christened her Senorita because I thought that was a Spanish name. I played with her for hours, twirling and dancing her on the furniture, the sideboard was the shiny ballroom floor and Senorita would do everything from the waltz to the Charleston. I’d never seen the flamenco danced, so Dad tried to show me; ‘It can take years to learn to dance the flamenco – one day we’ll go to Spain and learn it properly and you can teach Senorita.’

The problem was my parents were both dreamers and now I realise they were never organised or disciplined enough to save up to buy a dance school in Spain. They could barely keep their lives afloat here because of their inability to deal with money. Consequently life was a struggle and the only time we all felt relaxed and happy was when they were dancing.

And always my thoughts returned there. Blackpool – The 1980 International Ballroom Championships. Mum sweeping past in satin and tulle covered in two thousand hand-sewn sequins, bouffant hair and a toothy smile. Dad, handsome, straight and proud, his steps light, his arms strong. The perfect couple dancing through dry ice and glittering lights. I was so proud to be their little girl, breathless with awe watching them silently from the side of the dance floor. And as they disappeared into a tide of sequins and hairspray no one could have predicted how horribly the night would end.