Summer Flings and Dancing Dreams (10 page)

I
n those first
few months I cleared Mum’s house, put it up for sale and while Sophie travelled the world, Mum enjoyed life at Wisteria lodge and I had started my own journey. Tony and I worked on all our dances and I mastered most of the basic steps relatively easily. It sounds dramatic, but it felt like I was born to do this. Much of my spare time was now devoted to training and I attended classes for practice, helping Tony demonstrate steps and helping the other students if they were struggling.

However, there was one dance I just couldn’t seem to master. Tony was teaching the Argentine Tango and we’d blocked through the basics and demonstrated it to the class, but for some reason I didn’t enjoy it. I loved watching it on ‘Strictly Come Dancing,’ my favourite Argentine Tango performance had to be the wonderful Vincent Simone and Flavia Cacae. They were magical, the chemistry, the passion in the movement and the way they flowed together was just magical, mesmerising. I would watch it again and again online to try and understand the steps, the emotions, but so far the magic had eluded me. The Argentine Tango is a sensual dance, telling the passionate story of a prostitute and her lover (or customer, depending on your interpretation) and involves intimate, hip to hip contact and for the woman to open herself up to her partner physically and emotionally. I found this difficult. I didn’t know why, but I felt stiff and awkward and just couldn’t relax into it like I could the other dances.

‘Jesus Lola, you’re dancing like a bloody truck driver tonight,’ Tony said after everyone had gone home.

‘I know, I just find it really hard to let go,’ I said. So he took my arm and pushed his hips against me and I squirmed. ‘I’m really uncomfortable,’ I said, pulling away.

‘Come on Lola, you’re about to have mind-blowing sex with your punter... he’s probably paying you a fortune, if the sex isn’t working, think of the money.’

‘I’m sorry, I feel self-conscious. I find this dance so... intimate, so personal. Dancing in front of people is hard enough as it is and I can only do it in front of our class because I know them all now.

‘You won’t know your audience when you’re dancing in that ballroom girl... under that glitterball.’

‘Mmmm I don’t know about that. Doing the Argentine Tango is like foreplay – which is something I
won’t
be doing in a big ballroom with an audience - or glitterballs!’

He laughed; ‘Oh Miss Prissy, just let go of Laura and bring on Lola the showgirl.’

‘I don’t really see myself as a Lola... a sexy woman. It’s not in my nature to flaunt my sexuality in front of others...’ I explained, wondering if I still had such a thing as a ‘sexuality.’

I’d had a difficult and painful love life which started at sixteen when I met the love of my life Cameron Jackson. He was tall, blonde, and just a little wild without being dangerous. I’d loved the way he wore his school tie around his head like a bandanna (it
was
the eighties). Life was difficult for me at home and Cameron saw me through sixth form, hugging me when I felt low and providing me with a wonderful sex education. He was insatiable, but I suppose at sixteen everyone is – and there was nowhere we didn’t have sex. The back row of the cinema, his parents’ bedroom, up by the wall at the back of our house, and everywhere and anywhere in between. It was more than just lust though and even when he left to go away to university and dumped me after the first term I still thought about him. He’d been my first love and I’d been devastated at the time, which had led directly to my next traumatic encounter with love, which is why I was still single.

It was hard to explain, and I didn’t want to share it just yet with Tony, but I hadn’t had sexual contact with anyone for years. In fact, I hadn’t had much human contact, the only time I’d hugged anyone was Sophie or my mum and sometimes I even found the waltz a little overwhelming. That’s why I was able to dance easily with Tony, it wasn’t about sex, or intimacy, it was about friendship, and our mutual love of dance.

We tried the Argentine Tango many times over the next few nights, but I just found it impossible. Perhaps it was just all too much too soon, and given my history with men I wasn’t ready to flaunt myself, to see myself as a sexual being again. Perhaps I never would?

‘Okay, we don’t have to start so close, let’s try and do the leg hooks again, if we can do that the rest will fall into place,’ he said. ‘I’m going to hook my leg around yours like this,’ he slowly moved one leg under my leg and lifted it, ‘now go with it,’ he said, moving his legs around mine. And I tried, so hard – I concentrated while attempting to let myself go which was just impossible and resulted in a tangled mess of my legs... and my emotions.

‘Lola, I don’t get it. We do lifts and pivots all the time and you waltz like a dream! You can swivel your hips and your knees and your ankles for the Charleston... what is it about this tango you just can’t get?’

‘I don’t know,’ I sighed, exasperated. ‘It seems the harder I try the more impossible it becomes for me.’

‘It’s like there’s a blockage, it’s not about here,’ he said, pointing to my legs, ‘it’s what’s going on in your head. Or perhaps you just need a hot night with a passionate man... mind you don’t we all?’

I rolled my eyes and tried not to blush.

‘I know you’ve got that passion in you, it just needs to come out,’ he smiled. But I could see he was frustrated, and so was I.

After class, Tony asked if I fancied going for a drink and as I had no one to go home to and I wanted to talk dancing, I said yes.

In the pub we ordered two white wines and found a comfy seat. I was exhausted after all the dancing –it was a good feeling, but I’d ache in the morning. After Tony’s class I always felt tired, but exhilarated and energised. I wanted to talk about what we were going to do next week and I had one or two ideas to add a few turns and steps.

‘We really need to crack the Argentine Tango, Lola – and we will, you just need to open up and become the firecracker I know you are.’

‘Not tonight,’ I smiled.

‘Okay you can have a few hours off. But I want you practising tomorrow. Wrap your legs round the customers at Bilton’s, they’ll think it’s their birthdays,’ he laughed.

I giggled; ‘I find it hard enough to wrap my legs round you, god help me trying to do it with a stranger. But sometimes I wish a straight guy could make me feel like you do on the dance floor,’ I said.

‘I wish a gay guy could make me feel like you do on the dance floor,’ he sighed.

‘I’m now waiting for you to say something funny and bitchy and outrageous,’ I said, smiling.

‘Hey, Lola I can be genuine you know, and I meant that. I take the piss out of everyone, but that’s me. Some people can’t take what I have to give out, I’m honest and if I don’t like something I say it, but I’ll also say if I like something too. And I think you have a real talent – I saw it among the sweat and spandex in that twisted Zumba class. Jeesus – there’s you staggering around like an old drunk and Martha screaming about pelvic floors and women’s parts with her headband and her barrel chest. She looked the spit of Cher’s grandmother!’

I was a bit surprised again at his brutal honesty, but laughed at the thought of Martha, who took herself, her vagina and her Zumba so seriously.

‘I can see you and me dancing at Blackpool one day,’ he smiled.

‘What?’ I had no intention of doing any competitions and certainly not at Blackpool. The bad memories of that place would surely be too much for me. ‘No. I enjoy dancing but I have no ambition to compete.’

‘Mmmm. No ambition. You just said it. Love...’ he leaned forward and held my arm, ‘there’s no point dancing if you don’t want the glitterball.’ He kissed me gently on the cheek.

‘What about just dancing for the joy of it?’ I asked.

‘Well you could... I suppose, but what’s the point in that? The fun is in competing, in taking down all the other bitches,’ he laughed.

‘I don’t want to turn a lovely hobby into a pressure, something I worry about and...’

‘Too late.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘You’ve already gone over the line – I could see it tonight. It’s more than a hobby... isn’t it?’

I was amazed that Tony knew me so well and I nodded. ‘Yes, and I want to dance. I want to dance for my dad and achieve stuff he couldn’t. But I know my limitations... and I don’t want to fail.’

‘Oh limitations and failure she’s talking now... wow calm down, love, you’re on fire.’ He made a loud sizzling noise and everyone turned round.

I couldn’t help but laugh through my embarrassment. ‘Just because I’m not flaunting it around and going on about winning and sex all the time doesn’t mean I don’t have fire and...’

‘There you go, a bit of anger gets you going doesn’t it... you came alive for a minute then. Stop being so scared. So... you might fail, but you might fly too.’

He patted my knee; ‘You work it girl... and bring it to Blackpool Winter Gardens.’

‘Tony, I know how big the Blackpool competitions are, I’ve been there.’’

‘Yeah, they are huge. But we can start next year with a dance display, then work up to a competition the year after.’

‘Mmmm.’ I wasn’t sure. ‘They are international competitions and brutal, involving virtually full-time training. It’s okay for you, but I’ve got others to consider – my daughter’s travelling round the world and I’ve got a mother to visit and... oh yes and I have to keep my job because my trust fund alone won’t keep me in designer dance dresses.’

‘Yeah my trust fund’s a bit meagre too – which is why I’m Tony Griffiths working in a dress shop by day – but by night I’m “Tony Hernandez, Dance Diva”.’

‘That’s funny – my dad worked in a gentleman’s outfitters, always said he’d give it up one day and start a dancing school.’

‘Me too! Teaching this class is just the beginning for me, one day I’m going to kill Tony Griffiths, bury him under the patio and be Tony Hernandez full time. I’ll be teaching at the “The Tony Hernandez School of Dance”,’ he wrote it in the air with his fingers. ‘Like your Dad, I just do the day job to supplement the dancing, but one day that’ll change.’

‘Well, Dad never made it I’m afraid... fate had other plans.’

‘Oh, that’s a shame... what happened?’

I shook my head.

‘It’s okay,’ he said, finishing his drink, ‘just don’t let your parents’ lives decide yours. My dad was a big butch lorry driver and look at me? God only knows where I come from, but my parents always let me be me – may they rest in peace. My mum used to say, “Life is to be lived, not regretted. And I’m determined to live mine dancing”.’

‘I envy you your ambition...’

‘It’s not exclusive to me, Lola, you’re allowed some too, you know.’

‘Yes, but I don’t have the money or the training to open a dance school. As for the competitions, once you start, you just end up on the road all the time... it’s a half-life.’

‘And working in a supermarket all day and going home and worrying about your daughter who’s on the other side of the world isn’t a half life?’

I was offended, I’d known him six weeks and though I felt close to Tony I was hurt to think he thought of me this way and felt he could openly criticise me; ‘Tony, you don’t know me. You don’t know anything about my life, and yes you might get off on “telling it like it is” and letting people know what you think, but sometimes people don’t want your opinion. I’m fed up of people telling me I’m not living the “right” life, that I’m not going anywhere. It’s enough with my mother and my daughter telling me I’m a failure and now you’re telling me I need ambition and... and a... shag!’ I’d said this quite loudly, with some passion and caused a slight ripple around the snug in the King’s Head, but all the hurt I’d felt after Sophie’s comments had been bottled up until that moment. Then I started to cry.

‘I’m sorry, it’s just that everyone’s criticising me and I thought you were my friend. I thought you understood that I feel battered and bruised and... I can’t take much more,’ I said between sobs.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he said gently, ‘but just because I’m gay it doesn’t mean I get it. I sometimes find women as weird as straight men do. Tell me what I don’t understand.’

‘Look, I love dancing, I live for it. Since I started your classes my life has really changed, I can’t wait to train and I spend my days at work just thinking about dancing, it’s all about the dancing... and everything else is about the waiting.’

He nodded, encouraging me to continue.

‘I do have ambition and I do want a better, bigger life but so did my parents once but it never happened for them. You’re right – I am scared of pushing too hard because I’m scared of falling flat on my face and sometimes life’s bigger than we expect and things happen and people let you down or leave you and...

‘So tell me,’ he said gently, ‘tell me about your parents.’

‘I don’t know why my parents’ dream failed, but I’m scared if I chase the same dream I’ll fail too,’ I said, going on to tell him how despite wanting it so badly, Dad had never got to Spain. I explained about finding the letter and how it seemed there was a problem in their marriage but I didn’t know what it was.

I’d obviously been too young to understand what was happening and after Dad left us, we just got on with it. The world was a different place then, and Mum was heartbroken but never talked about it, so we just fought on, struggling for money, in a permanent state of shock in our insular little world with no outside help.

I’d been so lonely during those years. As a teenager I had friends at school but couldn’t commit to nights out or really let myself go because I was always worried about Mum. I hated leaving her and at the same time didn’t feel I could invite my friends round because our house was Mum’s sanctuary, where she’d cut herself off from the world. As for boyfriends I had only Cameron during those teen years and when he smashed my schoolgirl heart I almost gave up on loving anyone again. But I was young, and still had a little hope so when I met a handsome, twenty-four-year-old musician at a bus stop I was ripe for the picking. John was bohemian, he didn’t live by rules and he seemed to know all about the world. He smoked roll-ups, wore his hair long, his leather jacket loose and for a few months with him I felt like a rock chick.