Summer Flings and Dancing Dreams (9 page)

‘
F
eel these thighs
,’ Carole was insisting, thrusting her hand under her bum and clutching at the top of her leg.

‘No thanks I’m eating,’ I said, biting into a bacon sandwich.

‘That’s what Martha has done for me... the woman’s amazing. I wish you could see my pelvic floor.’

‘I’m glad I can’t,’ I said. She’d only been to Zumba twice and was convinced her body’s muscle mass was transformed. I didn’t say anything, who was I to disillusion my friend?

She sat down with a tray holding a plate of chips and a cream cake.

‘I thought you were on The Atkins Diet?’ I said, eyeing her cream cake.

‘Yes I
am
on Atkins... but the human body needs a few carbs or you’d die,’ she said, like she always did when she had abandoned another diet. I took a large mouthful of bacon sandwich, thinking ‘I am the kettle calling the pot.’

‘Are you staying for Tony’s ballroom class after your zumba?’ I asked.

‘No. But you should. You’re really good, amazing... you should keep at it.’

‘Oh, I don’t know about that, I’m not going to zumba again, but I’m going to give ballroom another go,’ I smiled, hoping my success the previous week wasn’t just beginner’s luck. I didn’t want to make a big fuss to Carole in case I gave it up the following week and failed again, but I was excited to get back to the Dance Centre. It felt like the only time I was free from all my worries and could really let myself go.

That evening as I stepped into class, Tony was waiting. ‘Oh thank God you came back,’ he whispered in my ear, ‘I was worried I’d put you off last week, thrusting you into the spotlight.’ He gave me a wink then went straight to the mirror and ran his hands through jet black hair. I detected a hint of eyeliner... a little tinted moisturiser too, he wasn’t like any man I’d ever met before.

‘Come on Lola, it’s showtime,’ he said, turning from the mirror and doing a little pirouette towards me. Before I had chance to object he’d grabbed my arm and I was standing in front of the class with him.

‘I’m beginning to think you’re just using me as a visual aid,’ I said. Everyone laughed.

‘Yes – ladies and gentlemen, this is Lola – my PowerPoint presentation,’ he joked, gesturing towards me. ‘Now, tonight, love is all around us...’ he looked left and right. ‘Okay perhaps not ALL around us, in fact some of us can never find it – but I’m sure it’s hiding here somewhere.’ Everyone laughed again. Dancing was a serious business for Tony, you could tell by the way he conducted himself and his thorough teaching methods, but he made it fun too. And given my last, terrible experience of ballroom dancing in Blackpool all those years before, I needed to find the fun in dancing again.

‘Anyway, there’s no better way of expressing one’s love than in a waltz,’ he said this in a posh voice and lifted his hand in the air towards me. I immediately remembered the ballroom hold, and lifted my hand up to his and clasped it while he looked out to the class. ‘And she says she hasn’t danced for years – this one’s a hoofer,’ he said, slipping his right hand onto my shoulder blade as I placed my left hand on his shoulder as I used to with my dad.

Then the music started and he was stepping towards me as I naturally stepped back. ‘Step side close, step side close,’ he was saying and I was just dancing. The music and Tony and the ghost of a dancing memory seemed to be taking me effortlessly across the floor. Where had I stored these steps? I’d never been taught to dance, but the memory of my parents dancing had lay dormant in my brain along with the ballroom dresses in Mum’s attic and all it had taken was a little memory jog. The steps and the music and the muscle memory seemed to spill from me and through me, the past and the present colliding. I lost all sense of time as I moved around that floor with Tony, it was like we’d been dancing together for years. Something inside had been stirred, a passion awoken, a need that I just knew would never go back to sleep again. And when the lesson came to an end, Tony and the rest of the group clapped me loudly and patted me on the back, telling me how great I was. It felt good. I’d never shone at anything, never been particularly good at school, avoided sports and had just settled into a quiet life. But it seemed I actually had a talent, here was something I could do well, and people were congratulating me.

‘I know we joke around, but you really are good, Lola,’ Tony said as we packed up after the lesson. I thanked him and tried not to giggle with delight as I walked home on air. It was hard not to dance up Primrose Gardens, not sure what the neighbours would make of it – but I was unable to resist a dramatic curtsy as I landed in the porch.

T
he following week
dragged until the next dance class and I thought I’d die waiting. I ached in places I didn’t know I had muscles, but it was a good ache, a reminder that I was moving, flexing, coming to life. Opening the doors of the Dance Centre the following week, I felt like I was coming home. A blast of warm air and damp bodies hit my face and Tony waved and beckoned me over urgently.

‘Come on Lola,’ he said, ‘hurry up I need you here.’

I threw off my boots, quickly put my trainers on, and as I reached him, he grabbed me, firmly taking me by the shoulders, positioning me to face him. ‘Stand there,’ he said.

‘What do you want me to do now?’ I asked, thinking it was a dance move.

‘I want you to stay there and shield me, Lola, do not move from that position. I need you in front of me so I can be spared the horror – the Zumba class are taking off their 80s spandex – I’ve already seen seven things I can’t unsee.’

How did I ever think this man was straight?

I turned to gaze at all the tiny young things stripping off their tight tops and leggings and slipping into even tighter jeans. ‘They look fine, better than I do in my big knickers,’ I offered.

‘Enough... that’s all we need, Lola talking about her big knickers,’ he rolled his eyes and addressed the little group now forming to take his class.

‘Now you know I’m always saying you have to dance your own dance?’ he shouted to the rest of the class. ‘Well tonight, me and Lola are gonna show you
our
own dance.’

He took my hand and we started a tango which segued into a waltz and being Tony he did a surprise lift, which I didn’t feel I was ready for – but apparently I was. It all came so naturally to me which gave me confidence to carry on. So as the music played we just went with it. We swivelled and strutted and spun around the room and when we landed together, me clinging to him, one leg wrapped around him, my whole body alive with movement.

‘Now you can all do that,’ he started, but they were shaking their heads and saying how they’d never be able to dance like that; ‘I’m a great grandmother,’ said one of the ladies, I can’t make my legs do that!’ At this the others laughed.

‘Yes you can – everyone’s at a different... level, but what I want to do is give you the basics and you can then dance your own dances.’

There were now five couples in the class including me and Tony. One of the couples was two older ladies who Tony called the Golden Girls. ‘Come on Blanche,’ he shouted, ‘get those legs up... you didn’t have any problem getting them up for that silver fox you were with last night did you, love?’

Blanche and her friend (Tony christened Bea after the tallest Golden Girl) would scream with laughter at his cheeky comments.

‘You should be on telly, Tony,’ Bea shouted back between giggles.

‘I am love – I’m on top of that telly when Poldark gets his shirt off!’

The other students were two married couples in their sixties and a slightly younger couple who wanted to learn to dance for their wedding. And like Tony said, they were all at different levels, but the best thing about the class was that we all loved dancing and it didn’t matter how good we were.

Tony went back to basics with the steps again, but adding more moves as we went along and turning a few simple twists and turns into a dance. He was such a brilliant dancer he made me a good dancer – and whizzing along that floor I felt light and beautiful and young again. He was funny too, and when he wasn’t addressing the rest of the class directly and making hilarious comments, he was whispering in my ear as we went. ‘Lola – I reckon the Golden Girls are lipstick lesbians, what do you think?’ he hissed.

Tony had a theory about everyone – insisting the two married couples were swingers with each other and the younger couple weren’t even in love.

‘A lavender marriage, Lola, mark my words,’ he hissed while sweeping me across the floor.

‘Really?’

‘Yes. He’s so gay he can’t drive straight!’ he sighed, twirling me around. ‘He’s only here because he wants me.’

‘Wishful thinking,’ I laughed.

O
ver the next
few weeks dancing began to seep back into my life like chocolate fudge sauce on ice cream. It melted into each day, bringing excitement and happiness I’d never known before – and I couldn’t take the smile off my face.

Dancing helped me to lift the dullness of my life, like wiping it clean and sprinkling on some glitter. I could also see how dancing helped my parents forget their problems – it was pure escapism. Dressed in their dancing finery under a glitterball, they could forget about the unpaid bills and the bailiffs at the door. If Mum ever showed concern about money, Dad just told her she was beautiful and bought her another dress. We often had no electricity – but I had beautiful toys and we dined in the finest restaurants. I learned how to say chateaubriand before I’d learned to say ‘cat’ and an ‘amuse bouche’ was something I came to expect before the beans on toast when having tea at friends’ homes after school. I remember one particular occasion that sums my Dad up - we had no food in the house and Dad had just £5 in his pocket until pay day; ‘I’ll pop out and get a loaf or something,’ he’d said. In those days £5 could have bought a couple of basic but nutritious meals for a family of three, but Dad came home with three of the finest French patisserie I’ve ever tasted and six ounces of loose Earl Grey Tea. We enjoyed this on fine china with linen napkins. ‘This is what it’s all about,’ he’d said, handing me a pastry fork as we dined by candlelight.

It was only eight weeks since that October evening when Carole and I first arrived at the zumba class, yet so much had changed for me. I suddenly felt like there were possibilities for me and after all this time I might actually have a chance of a different, bigger life. And as the frosty mornings of winter arrived stripping the trees of their leaves and plunging late afternoons into darkness I was coming alive. To me it felt like summer standing at my checkout, music in my head and steps tingling my toes. I had something more than my job now and I didn’t care about loyalty cards, or someone sneaking in the ‘ten items only’ aisle with fourteen bottles of Coke. And in the middle of winter life was sunnier, more intense. There was always something to look forward to, a new dance, a particular step, a lovely piece of music. Tony had asked if I’d be his dance partner permanently and I was delighted, and we now practiced together several times a week. I loved his dancing and enjoyed his company too – we were becoming good friends.

He gave me a playlist with music for all the different dances we were doing and each night I’d put them on at home and practice. There must have been about thirty tunes on the playlist – I samba’d to Barry Manilow’s ‘Could it be Magic?’ Tangoed to Eminem and Rihanna singing ‘Love the way You Lie’ and giggled to myself dancing the Cha Cha to Tony’s favourite song, ‘It’s Raining Men’.

I even practised at work, behind the till, with the music going through my head, my toes tapping under the checkout. I was beginning to feel my hip bones and delighted in a secret hip swivel as I passed the items through the scanner. When I was offered an extra late shift stacking shelves, I leapt at it... literally. All that shiny floor space! As soon as it was quiet, I flew down the Pet Food aisle doing the Cha Cha, with Carole being lookout and singing ‘It’s Raining Men’ at the top of her voice. The following week I called Tony and told him to come to Bilton’s so we could work on a particularly difficult lift. We still used the room at the Dance Centre, but we had to pay for that, so in between sessions this was free space – a gift for hard-training dancers. I volunteered regularly for late night stacking duties, and Tony would turn up and we’d rehearse for a couple of hours uninterrupted. The cereal aisle was perfect, it was long and wide and as Tony pointed out, ‘we can really get a run up into our lifts’. He was an amazing dancer, a wonderful teacher and had the body of an athlete and the strength to lift me up over gondolas of half price biscuits and special 2 for 1 offers on Dog Food. I even began to see Bilton’s supermarket in a better light – everything was so much livelier and lovelier when dancing was involved.