Love Letters (4 page)

‘It’s a dance. A bit like jive or rock and roll but with more moves. You’ll find out, anyway. And I didn’t tell you because I knew you wouldn’t agree to go. Now I’m here I can manhandle you into something you can move in and into the car.’

The thought of Grant manhandling her into a pair of trousers made her relax and giggle. After all, clothes were not a big part of her life and she didn’t really care what she wore. The whole Lindy Hop thing was a bit more of a jolt. Although she was perfectly happy bopping about in her kitchen, on her own, she didn’t usually do it in public. On the other hand maybe it was time to do things differently. Grant had certainly been trying to get her to do so for long enough. ‘You’d better come and look at my wardrobe then.’

‘I was hoping you’d say that. And well done for not digging your heels in.’

‘I would have done,’ Laura confessed, ‘but I’m not wearing heels.’

Grant groaned.

‘But seriously,’ Laura went on, ‘the event the other night made me realise just how boring I am. I’ve got to open myself to new experiences.’

Grant nodded, obviously totally agreeing with her. ‘But were you always boring, or is it only since you’ve been working in a bookshop?’

Refusing to be offended at his agreement that she was boring, she considered. ‘I think I’ve always been what you’d call pretty boring. I had friends at uni, of course, but I didn’t go out much, unless I was dragged.’

Grant tutted. ‘Such a waste!’

‘To be honest, it was such bliss not to be nagged at for reading so much, I just . . . well, read mostly, and wrote essays, of course.’

‘And you say you had friends?’ Sceptical didn’t cover it.

‘Yes! I was always there to take washing out of the machine, I always had milk, aspirin, and I could dictate a quick essay if one was needed at the last minute.’ She chuckled. ‘It really pissed me off if they got a better mark than I did, though.’

‘They used you!’ Grant was indignant.

‘No. Well, a bit, but I didn’t mind. And as I said, they did drag me out from time to time. We had a lot of fun together. I just mostly preferred to stay in and read than shout myself hoarse at a lot of drunk people.’

‘What about boyfriends?’

‘There were a few. They never really came to anything. Grant, I’m sure we’ve been through all this when I first came to the bookshop and you gave me your standard interrogation.’

‘Maybe, but it was obviously all so boring I’ve forgotten. And I don’t interrogate people. I’m just interested in the human condition.’

‘You mean nosy.’

‘Well, OK, nosy. Now let’s look in here.’ He pulled open the door of her small wardrobe, expecting the worst. ‘Laura, are all your clothes black or white?’

‘Pretty much. I’ve got my summer clothes in a plastic bag somewhere. Here.’ She withdrew it from the bottom of the wardrobe. Grant emptied it on to the floor as if he were sorting laundry.

‘You should really let me come round and go through all this for you,’ he muttered, tossing garments behind him like a picky burglar.

‘I would if you were more like that Gok person.’

He stopped. ‘I thought you never watched television!’

She laughed, pleased by his surprise. ‘I don’t but I went round to one of the book group women with a copy of that month’s book and she had it on. She persuaded me to stay and watch it. Very brave, all those women. Fancy sitting in a shop window naked?’

‘I can think of worse fates actually, but I can see for you it would be torture.’

In the end he found a tiered bo-ho skirt in cream broderie anglaise, a black V-necked cardigan and a tight black belt. ‘It’s quite sweet but still very monochrome,’ he said. ‘Where’s your jewellery?’

Laura opened her dressing-table drawer and revealed her few bits and pieces, mostly presents from university friends, and a pearl necklace left to her by an aunt. Grant sorted through it dismissively.

‘What about scarves, belts, things like that?’

They were stuffed in with her knickers but he rifled through them until he found a scarf that had been round a sun hat Laura had bought through necessity, the last time she’d been on holiday with her parents, several years ago.

‘Here.’ He tied it round her neck. ‘It looks nice, but your hair needs to be in a higher ponytail. And it needs an iron.’

‘What, my hair? I know, the trouble is straightening it—’

‘Not your hair! I like that curly, frizzy look, it’s cute. No, I meant your skirt! Have you got an iron?’

She nodded, and put on a smug expression. ‘Another reason I had friends in my student house was I had an iron and knew how to use it.’

‘No wonder you won Miss Congeniality three years in a row.’

Laura giggled. ‘How do you know I didn’t? I was popular. Sometimes people prefer someone who’s a bit quieter.’

‘Who could iron.’

Aware she wasn’t going to convince Grant that her university days weren’t spent reading and ironing her friends’ clothes, or if they were, she’d really enjoyed them, she said, ‘My mother used to get me to do all the ironing.’

‘It’s a useful skill,’ he said, refusing to be sympathetic to this potential tale of childhood cruelty. ‘I’ll do it while you do your hair.’

‘You’re terribly bossy,’ Laura objected, getting out the ironing board.

‘I know. It’s why I’m the manager of the shop and you’re not.’

‘I’m not sure having one full-time assistant and a couple of part-timers makes you the head of a vast empire . . .’

‘Of course it does. Now hurry up, we don’t want to miss the first set.’

Laura’s efforts with her hair meant that while the bulk of it was in a fifties-style ponytail, there was still a lot of stray hairs, giving her a dark gold aura round her head. ‘It’s not very tidy.’

‘It’s not supposed to be tidy! It’s supposed to be a bit laid-back. You don’t have to look like Sandy in
Grease
.’

Laura stopped trying to smooth her hair. ‘Grant, I don’t mind dressing the part but I’m not actually going to do Lindy Hopping. You do know that, don’t you?’

Grant smiled at her. ‘Come along. It’s going to be a great night.’

Together they walked down the road to the minicab office. Grant was going to sleep on Laura’s sofa that night so he could drink.

‘I hope it’s not the sort of place where you have to get legless just to get through the evening,’ said Laura.

‘Have you ever been legless?’ Grant demanded.

‘Not often, no,’ said Laura meekly. ‘I really am boring!’

The club was already full and buzzing when they arrived. They made their way down the steps to the basement and Grant paid. A band was playing wonderful old numbers that made Laura’s foot tap even though she’d sworn she wouldn’t dance.

Grant bought her a glass of wine and put it into her hand. ‘Let’s see if we can find somewhere to sit, before the girls come on.’

‘The girls’, he had reminded her on the way, were the band called the Sisters of Swing he’d been bending her ear about for the last couple of weeks. They sang traditional swing numbers and Grant was very keen to see them live.

Laura followed Grant as he headed for a cluster of tables and chairs, taking in what was going on around her. All sorts of people, wearing quite a variety of clothes, were dancing hugely energetically. Slipping easily into her favourite role as observer, she found the crowd fascinating. There were young men dancing with much older women and young women dancing with older men, not (she felt sure) because anything was going on between them, but because they could both dance well. Age was no barrier; dancing was all.

Grant found a couple of seats and they sat down, Laura unable to stop watching the play that was going on around them. Every so often someone from the stage issued instructions to ‘freeze’ and then say if it was the men or the women who should choose new partners. Laura was fascinated.

‘Look at the shoes!’ said Grant, indicating a pair of brown and white corespondent shoes.

Once they’d spotted the first pair, they realised women were wearing similar shoes, only with heels and T-bars. There were what even Laura knew as jazz shoes, ballet slippers (they looked a bit vulnerable), character shoes, and ordinary street shoes.

‘This is fun!’ said Laura, surprising herself.

‘Glad you can recognise “fun”!’ said Grant and then his complacency fell away. ‘Oh God, we may actually have to do this.’

Laura turned to where he was looking and saw a determined girl coming towards Grant. Highly amused at the thought of her gay friend being swept off by a young Amazon, she didn’t spot the man heading towards her. Before she knew what was happening she found herself pulled to her feet. Her potential partner was about her age, with curly hair and eyelashes to match. He was wearing baggy trousers and a striped cotton shirt, braces and a pork-pie hat on the back of his head.

‘Hi!’ he said. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Laura! But I’m only here for the band!’

‘So, dance?’

She shook her head, from habit as much as anything. ‘Oh no, I said, I’m only here for the band.’

‘Nonsense. Come on!’

Laura found herself getting to her feet at the insistence of her partner. At first she could only stand, bemused, but then some dance lessons, given by a friend of her mother’s, years ago, came back to her. She began to enjoy the feeling of flippancy and fun the music and the dancing gave her. Her partner didn’t seem to care that she was more or less making it up as she went along. She found herself whirled around, held, pushed away, brought back again, all in minutes. When she was allowed to sit down again she was exhausted. ‘Thank you so much! That was such fun.’

‘You should come more often,’ said her partner. ‘You’ve got real talent!’

‘I don’t think so. I really—’

‘—only came for the band,’ he finished for her. ‘I know. I’m Jim, by the way. I’ll look out for you next time.’ Although she eventually managed to persuade him to leave, which he did with a tip of his hat, she had enjoyed the feeling of being chosen and danced with.

‘Well, that was a turn-up for the books!’ said Grant, as they both sipped wine, wishing it was water. ‘We both pulled! And I never thought I’d see you on a dance floor, being hurled about by a strong man.’

‘Back at ya!’

‘Mine wasn’t a strong man, more’s the pity. I did tell her I was gay, but she said she knew already.’ He paused. ‘I think the band’s going to be on soon. Better get to the bar quickly.’

Laura, recognising her cue, got to her feet. ‘More of the same?’

He nodded. ‘And a pint of tap water.’

There were a few more energetic routines, which Grant and Laura sat out, mainly to give their feet a rest, and then three girls came to the front of the stage. They were wearing very full tulle skirts with tight waists and fitted bodices. They all had amazing pink beehive hairdos and the one in the middle had a huge flower behind her ear. They looked fantastic and for the first time that evening, people stopped dancing and turned towards the stage.

‘We were lucky to get a seat,’ said Grant, and then the lights went down and the singers were spotlighted.

They started with ‘The Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy’ and everyone stamped their feet and clapped in time to the music. Several upbeat numbers followed and, in spite of the fear of clapping at the wrong moment that always afflicted her, Laura cast off her inhibitions and clapped and hand-jived with the best of them.

And then the tone quietened right down and the lead singer, the girl with the flower behind her ear, began to sing ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’. She followed this with something equally sad and romantic, sending Laura into an unaccustomed mood of nostalgia. She began to think about her own love life, now long in the past. There had really only been one possible serious contender. Why hadn’t it ever got any further than a couple of drinks and a snog that didn’t go on long enough for him but was as much as Laura could stand? Either she was too young, or she just hadn’t loved him. She could barely remember his name.

While her mind was free-ranging she found herself thinking how one thing subtly changing, such as her getting notice from her job, could set in train other small changes. She still had her job, she wasn’t out on the street, but since hearing the news that she was going to lose it, she had spoken to Eleanora far more freely than she would have done normally, and she had been asked to help run a literary festival. Then, coming here with Grant, instead of just listening to the band, she had got up and danced and really enjoyed herself. There was probably a scientific name for it, like the theory that said a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil caused a hurricane somewhere else very far away. Perhaps she should just accept her fate and go with the flow, as Grant would say. Going to the festival meeting didn’t mean she actually had to agree to help run it, after all.

‘Are you all right, chook?’ asked Grant, when the band had gone back into a dance number and people took to the floor once more with abandon. She was still staring thoughtfully at the stage.

‘Oh yes. I’m fine.’

‘Another drink?’

‘Would you think I was awfully sad if I said I just wanted to go home?’

For once Grant accepted this without comment but in the cab back to her flat he said, ‘You’ve gone all thoughtful on me. Have you been thinking about the literary festival thing?’

‘Yes. Yes, I have.’

‘And?’

‘I think I’m going to go to the meeting, anyway.’

‘Good for you! You see? A bit of Lindy Hopping and you’re a changed woman!’

Chapter Three