Summer Flings and Dancing Dreams (3 page)

‘I watched the dancing last night, did you see it?’ I said the following day to my mother over tea and out of date Battenberg at the Old People’s Home she optimistically referred to as her ‘retirement apartment’. She’d moved in several months before and it had given her a new lease of life after living alone for years in our old family home. She’d always seemed so sad, but having new friends in a lovely setting had really picked her up.

‘What, love?’

Mum was deaf, but refused to acknowledge this and I sometimes wondered if she chose what she wanted to hear. And as usual she didn’t want to talk about the dancing on TV or any reminder of the dancing life she had with my dad. I would have loved to have talked about it, but it was never something I’d felt comfortable asking about. There was so much left unsaid between Mum and I because I was afraid bringing up the past might hurt her. So as I bit into my Battenberg I abandoned Strictly Come Dancing and wondered what else I could talk to her about.

I wanted to tell her what Sophie had said and ask her opinion... did Mum think I had a little life too? I suppose I wanted her approval, for her to say I was okay and my life wasn’t a failure, but I wasn’t sure she’d be quite so forgiving. As much as I tried not to say anything to hurt my mother, she was always happy to provide a brutally honest opinion on all aspects of my life.

Mum was now smiling imperiously at a group of ladies across the room, like a queen peering at her courtiers. My mother always behaved like a film star, believing she’d just missed her chance and was meant for better things. She always maintained that her life would have been quite different had Diana Dors not beaten her to a film audition for ‘a pretty blonde’ in 1942. No one was allowed to mention Diana’s name in our house while I was growing up because apparently she’d ‘ruined’ my mother’s acting career. But I reckoned even if mum had got the role my gran would have stepped in and refused to allow her to go to ‘that London.’

Even now, Mum’s still behaving like a bloody film star, I thought affectionately as she sipped her tea and nodded to her ‘fans’ Or should I say minions. Mind you, she might well have behaved like Hollywood royalty, she was living in an old people’s home costing as much as a Hollywood mansion.

After a young life of never quite reaching the dizzy heights, Mum had been left vulnerable. And when she met my dad and found out he could dance I think she poured all her hopes and dreams into him. She constantly reminded him of what she’d apparently ‘given up’ and what she hoped he would bring to her life. Looking back, the guilt trips and the constant need to keep her happy, not to disappoint her, must have weighed heavily on my dad, but he never showed it. He loved her so much he just wanted to make her happy and forgave her anything.

Now in her eighties, my Mum lived off her own hype, telling everyone in the care home that she’d lived ‘in Hollywood’. This wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the Hollywood with the hills and the film studios, it was the Hollywood in Wythall, near Birmingham. Mum had never been out of the UK.

She was sitting opposite me, legs crossed, head to one side like a confused bird.

‘It’s warm in here,’ I said, going for an easy life – I decided not to tell her what Sophie had said. I think I was scared that she’d simply agree and add to the list of things I’d failed at in life.

She was still looking at me quizzically, unable to hear what I said, but making like I was the one with the problem and wasn’t speaking up. But I was positively shouting in her face.

‘Just saying Mum... it’s hot in here. I AM HOT,’ I shouted.

‘That’s because you don’t do any exercise.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes you’re getting bigger and bigger and...’ she shouted this because, being deaf, she shouted everything. Private, personal and often acutely embarrassing information about me was regularly delivered to anyone within a ten mile radius.

‘HOT... I said, I’m really HOT Mum, not really fat,’ I shouted.

Those around us who could actually hear were weighing me up, and some were actually nodding in agreement. ‘Her mother’s right,’ I heard one of them say. ‘She should listen to her and lose some weight... letting herself go she is.’

Is everyone over the age of 70 given permission to say what they like about who they like – to their face?

‘Enormous great tummy...’ mother continued on her own, her chorus behind her. I turned away in an attempt to block out my mother’s never-ending soliloquy to my weight. ‘…you should go on that Oxford Diet.’

‘Cambridge...’

‘Whatever for?’

‘The diet... it’s called The Cambridge Diet.’

‘Yes you need to go on a diet – that’s what I’m saying.’

I’d only been there half an hour and I’d hoovered up three slices of cake and lost the will to live. Conversations with my mother usually centred on my weight, my inability to find a decent job or man and my questionable mothering skills. And after a day surrounded by rude customers at the checkout it was just what I didn’t need.

I can’t blame age or deafness for my mother’s brutal honesty, particularly when it comes to criticising me and my ‘unfortunate shape’, as she constantly referred to my body while I was growing up – and ever since. Even when I dieted down to 9 stone after Sophie was born, Mum said I needed to exercise ‘the wobbly bits’. Oh yes, in the realms of super critic my mother had achieved a certain enviable excellence over the years and was clearly aiming for a ‘lifetime achievement award’. I have always held my breath after her often used opening; ‘Do you know what I think?’ because invariably I didn’t, nor would I want to – for it invariably involved an unasked for critique of me, my life, or my weight – and on special occasions all three. But since my daughter had jumped on the bandwagon with her ‘little life’ comment and joined my mother to co-write ‘Laura’s failed life and body – the novel’, I wasn’t in the mood for mother’s remarks.

‘Exercise... that’s what you need,’ she was still banging on, ‘you need to move some of that wobbly...’

‘I said HOT... I’m HOT MUM!’

‘Hot? Oh why didn’t you say?’

‘I DID,’

I was now yelling in her face and Mrs Brown, the woman who kept an eye on ‘the ladies and gentlemen of ‘Wisteria Lodge’, was now trundling towards me.

‘Enunciate Laura, let her read your lips,’ Mrs Brown was saying.

‘Yes... I’ve told her about her hips.’

Oh God, I thought to myself, will this visit ever end?

‘No, Mum, Mrs Brown isn’t talking about my hips...’

‘Who love?’

‘Mrs Brown...

‘Oh her... do you want to know what I think about her?’ She leaned forward, asking this in a stage whisper.

‘No Mum, and neither does she,’ I muttered, standing up and suggesting we go through to Mum’s room and leave before Mum regaled the communal area with her thoughts on Mrs Brown’s shortcomings and booked her ticket out of there. Most of the residents were now gazing over at my mother’s ‘enormous’ offspring, only a handful continuing on with their own lives. I guided her through the lounge, thinking how very genteel it all was, like a David Niven film from the forties. It was right up Mum’s street, with tea and cake each afternoon and Vera Lynne and Bing Crosby on a permanent loop.

As Mum and I walked through we had to negotiate the traffic as Mr Harding attempted to dance with Mrs Saunders. He had one arm on her back and the other holding her hand and all was going well until Mrs Saunders’ arthritic hip began to give way and they both landed in a heap on the floor. What had started out as a gentle foxtrot was beginning to look like OAP porn.

‘Can somebody sort that out?’ yelled Mrs Brown, gesticulating to a staff member from behind Mr Roberts. His gnarled fingers were playing provocatively with his waistband and threatening much worse than a deconstructed fox trot.

‘Do you want to know what I think?’ Mum said, ignoring Mr Roberts and the prospect of indecent exposure over the tea and cakes.

‘I think you both need a dance lesson,’ she laughed, marching over to survey the crumpled human heap, now groaning and clinging to each other. I spotted the fire in Mum’s eyes, she was suddenly animated, brought alive by the prospect of dancing, she couldn’t stand still if she tried. Mrs Brown called for back-up and the ‘dancing’ couple were placed upright on the floor, still using each other for ballast. ‘Now hold her more tightly here Bill. Not like
that
, she’s a beautiful woman, she’s not a sack of potatoes are you Doris?’ she grabbed Mr Harding’s arm and manoeuvred it around, then she put both hands on Mrs Saunders’ hips and straightened her up. With just a tweak they now looked like they might even be able to actually foxtrot and Mum swayed along with them as they staggered. It was interesting to note that Mum was probably older than both Mr Harding and Mrs Saunders, but she still had that swing in her hips, that rhythm in her step, I smiled as Mum rejoined me, pleased with her tutoring.

‘You’ve still got it Mum,’ I said.

‘Yes I have. But Doris never had it, she dances like a bloody truck driver,’ she said, in a loud aside. I gently took her arm and guided her away before she caused any offence and before Mr Roberts dropped his trousers and did a gentleman’s excuse me.

The couple danced around us as I continued to usher mum out of the room. As she opened the door to her apartment she stood gazing around. Mum had insisted on living at Wisteria Lodge because it once featured in ‘Country Life,’ but it was expensive and my pay alone couldn’t cover the fees. So Mum and I had talked about it, and our old family home was about to go on the market. Fortunately Mum didn’t seem to miss it as much as I’d thought she would and had seemed to move on as soon as she had stepped into her room at Wisteria Lodge with its pink Laura Ashley sofa and antique coffee table.

How wonderful it would be to just turn your back on everything that made you unhappy or sad, to cast it off like an old rucksack and move on. As a single mum I’d had to make my own life. Okay, so it may not be everyone’s idea of a big successful life, but I’d managed to keep the wheels on. I had a demanding mother, a young daughter, a full-time job and no partner - so I didn’t have a lot of choice.

I suppose deep down I’d hoped something would change along the way. I’d seen it happen for other people – why not me? And for years I waited for that special someone to come into my life and make everything whole. But it never happened. I couldn’t just blame fate – I didn’t go out, I had no intention of online dating and had such a busy time juggling everything I’d have been too exhausted to notice if Mr Right was standing next to me.

And now, in what my daughter had referred to as my ‘little’ life I had suddenly become more conscious of my future, and the prospect of another twenty odd years behind the checkout. I also had the task of selling Mum’s house and was completely daunted by the prospect of clearing thirty odd years of clutter from it first. Mum had left the house as she’d lived there – with her life in overflowing cupboards stuffed with several hundred years’ worth of glossy magazines and unworn designer clothes.

I looked at Mum now perfectly made-up, well-groomed with manicured nails and blow-dried hair, all available at OAP rates at Wisteria Lodge. She was settled on her pink sofa, leafing through
Hello
and confusing soap stars with their characters.

‘I thought she was dead,’ she said, holding up a picture of someone from Coronation Street.

‘Well,
she’s
not dead. She’s the actress – she didn’t die in real life, she just left the programme.’

‘I know... she died of cancer,’ she said very sombrely.

‘Only in the programme, Mum.’

‘But how did they get those pictures?’

She held the magazine up close to her face to read more about this apparently resurrected actress and marvel at how ‘amazing it is what they can do with computers these days.’ I wasn’t sure if she was referring to the photo-shopped face or the human resurrection.

I smiled to myself, ‘I’m glad you’re happy, Mum, I haven’t seen you this happy for a long, long time.’ I said loudly.

‘Yes I am,’ she smiled, looking around. ‘I like this room, it reminds me of the ship’s cabin your father and I stayed in when we went dancing...’ She had a far away look in her eye and told me about a time before I was born when she and my father had taken work as dance teachers on a cruise ship. ‘Your Dad charmed all the ladies with his Viennese Waltz,’ she said. This was the first time she’d ever really spoken to me about the past, and I was surprised, but pleased –and I asked her what else they’d danced and how long the trip lasted. I thought the spell had finally been broken, that she was finally able to talk about the past, but then she changed the subject, so as always the past stayed hidden.

Through the veil of thick make-up, the layers of life and lipstick, I had seen a glimmer of the Mum that used to be many years ago, before that terrible night when we lost everything. The move away from the family home had taken her away from the heartache and the memories of past sadness. And I glimpsed the woman who had once danced in the kitchen, twirled around the living room and who was always laughing.

I wondered if perhaps I should be more like my mother. Should I try to make a change, be more ambitious and grab life like my parents had when they were younger? Perhaps I should have worn shocking pink instead of safe pale blue for Sophie’s wedding? Should I have stood my ground and ordered vol-au-vents instead of some tuna truffle-dribbled nonsense no one would understand – let alone eat? Should I have applied for that Junior Manager’s job with special responsibilities in Perishables? Should I leave Bilton’s? Get a career? I’d always wanted to travel, but at forty four I wasn’t exactly a ‘trolley dolly’. Perhaps I should start a campaign to employ geriatric cabin crew? I could always try Virgin Airways, Richard Branson seemed kind and up for a laugh – always ready for a challenge. But was I really ready to try something new.

Here I was for the millionth time feeling out of sorts, at odds with my life and work and wondering what the hell to do about it. I had gone over and over all the possibilities in my head since the day of Sophie’s wedding – and I still didn’t quite understand what I had done so wrong with my life that my own daughter wanted to escape from it.