The Ballroom Class (22 page)

‘We nearly
had
it then,’ she hissed into his chest, resentfully. ‘What does she want to stop for, the stupid cow?’

‘Shh,’ said Ross, knitting his brows together in a warning as he looked over her head.

Katie turned round and caught sight of Angelica’s tight expression, which was a study in furious dismay. Her dark eyes were half closed and she seemed to be breathing heavily, directing her gaze back and forth around the room.

Angelica’s been in a funny mood since the beginning of the class, thought Katie. Distracted, and snappy. It wasn’t like her to miss Chris nearly twisting Lauren’s ankle, and then she’d really had a go at Greg for not turning his phone off – although Katie had to concede that it was a bit workaholic to take business calls after eight at night. And, she thought, he could have apologised to Jo, rather than just dropping her hands and rushing out.

She cast a sidelong look at Jo, who still seemed rather pained. Katie wondered if there was a reason Greg had insisted on taking the call outside. Was there some problem with the business? It was a bit late for that, but Greg did work all hours. They were both looking daggers at each other, but that might have been because Jo had had to dance with Chloe for twenty minutes during the cha-cha-cha session.

I quite like the cha-cha, thought Katie unexpectedly. It felt do-able, all shimmying shoulders and jazz hands, simple enough to make everyone feel a little better about their abilities, after the toe-squashing complications of the social foxtrot. The music helped, for a start – the party rhythms made her feet do the cha-cha-cha side-shuffle instinctively and her knees bent as if the music was telling her what to do.

For once, the younger ones had had the advantage (‘It’s in the knees!’ as Angelica kept shouting) and Chloe’s bronzed cleavage had taken on a life of its own, especially in the low-cut pink wrap dress she was wearing to comply with Angelica’s dress-up code. Jo’s hadn’t been far behind. There were, Katie thought, as Ross twirled her around and the class spun before her, six of them in that dance: Jo, Chloe and their freestyling bosoms.

Unfortunately, as soon as they moved on to the revision session on the social foxtrot, it had become apparent that everyone bar Ross and the older couples had pretty much forgotten everything they’d learned in the previous two weeks. That was when Angelica’s mood had turned from absent-minded to positively dark.

‘Katie!’ hissed Ross, pulling her attention back to the strop unfolding on the other side of the room. ‘She’s looking at us!’

‘Oookaay,’ Katie whispered, then swallowed as she realised that the lighthouse beam of Angelica’s annoyance was indeed directed at her and Ross. This probably wasn’t the moment, she thought, to point out their ten seconds of flukey success.

‘Katie,’ said Angelica, drumming her red nails on her folded arms. ‘Be honest with me here. If this was WeightWatchers, do you think you’d bother to turn up if you’d spent the week stuffing yourself with crisps?’

‘No?’ she replied.

‘So why –
why
do you all turn up here without having
bothered
to so much as tap your
feet
from one week to the next?’ Angelica demanded, her voice rising. She uncrossed her arms so she could spread them wide in a dramatic gesture of despair. ‘How do you expect to get any better if you don’t practise? It’s not just about learning the steps, it’s about feeling the music! Feeling it guide you round the floor! I mean, you look so awkward! If you weren’t married,’ she went on, flinging her arms towards Katie and Ross, ‘I’d wonder if you so much as
held
each other from one week to the next!’

Katie felt Ross flinch next to her, and she knew her own face would be turning bright pink beneath her foundation. They hadn’t. Or rather, they didn’t.

How come Angelica could tell that instantly, whereas Peter at the counselling sessions couldn’t, she wondered. Angelica’s beady blue eyes cut straight through the happy-happy image Katie tried to keep up when she and Ross were out of the house. Presumably it came from her lifetime’s experience of couples faking chemistry competitively in these dances of pretend courtship and passion.

Fortunately, Angelica wasn’t in the mood to linger on their shortcomings. She had already moved on to poor Lauren, standing next to them.

‘And you two! Lauren! Chris!’ She put her hands to her head in despair. ‘What’s going
on
? You’re both young, you’re not married yet, so presumably there’s some chemistry
somewhere
? Right? So where does it go when you’re dancing? It’s like watching someone trying to set up a deckchair. You’re never going to learn to dance like
partners
if you don’t practise!’

‘We try!’ protested Lauren, glaring furiously at Chris. ‘But
some people
are never in of an evening! Some people don’t even call to say they’re coming to
class
.’

‘Some people have  . . . commitments in the evenings,’ retorted Chris, with a nervous glance at Bridget and Frank. ‘I’m here, aren’t I? Give me a break, Loz.’

Ross nudged Katie. ‘Eh? What’s going on there, eh? Sounds like a domestic to me. And in front of the in-laws!’

‘Shh,’ she frowned, but felt a little relief that it wasn’t just her and Ross with bickering issues. She saw Bridget’s expression twitch, as if she was struggling to keep her face neutral. What
was
going on there, she wondered?

‘Commitments? What commitments are more important than learning to dance with this beautiful girl?’ demanded Angelica, taking a step nearer Chris. He took a scared step back. ‘Because if you don’t start taking this seriously, she might as well do her wedding waltz with a life-sized cardboard cut-out of you! She’d stand less chance of falling over it!’

‘
Thank
you!’ said Lauren, crossing her own arms and glaring at Chris, who looked stunned, then sulky.

Angelica looked at Bridget and Frank and pointed between Chris and Lauren, her skinny eyebrows raised in high dudgeon. ‘Am I right? Did you two dance like you do without practising?’

‘I don’t even remember learning  . . .’ began Frank, but Bridget cut in diplomatically.

‘Well, we didn’t have much else to do. And it’s not music they’re familiar with, is it? It takes a while to get the hang of it,’ she said, patting his arm. ‘Frank was no Gene Kelly to begin with, were you, love?’

‘I bet he never nearly broke your toe, though, did he, Mum?’ demanded Lauren. ‘I bet he never—’

‘All right, Loz! Stop going on about it!’ snapped Chris, and Katie felt a flash of sympathy for his discomfort.

She’d been paired with Chris for a few songs, and although she wasn’t much better, she was beginning to have some sympathy for Lauren’s frustrated feet. Neither she nor Chris had much sense of rhythm and the overall effect was of two people in leg-irons trying to shuffle away from a chain-gang.

‘Come on!’ she protested on his behalf. ‘Not everyone picks physical things up so quickly!’

‘And no bloke likes being compared with his father-in-law,’ added Ross, but with enough of a nod to Frank to defuse the tension.

Chris smiled gratefully at her, and she gave him a twisted smile back; malcos together.

Angelica’s attitude seemed to soften a little, as if Katie’s outburst had brought her back from wherever her bad mood had taken her.

‘Well, that’s very true. But it’s why you have to practise. Now, Lauren, your mum and dad dance very well. But if you want to dance like them, you’ve got to put the hours in,’ she went on. ‘All of you!’ She turned her attention to Chloe and Trina. ‘Enthusiasm’s all very well, but if you think you’re going to impress a bloke flailing around with sloppy step sequences, then  . . .’

‘If one ever turns up,’ Trina started, belligerently, but Chloe nudged her into prudent silence.

Katie looked sideways and saw Greg looking at her. He rolled his eyes. She didn’t roll hers back. For the first time ever, she was rather unimpressed by Greg. He’d been late, even before his phone call break – ‘stuck in traffic on the ring road’ – and wasn’t exactly putting his back into it now. It was disappointing, thought Katie. Not his commitment to work – that she could understand – but his obvious air of sufferance at being here. She couldn’t even admire his suit with the enthusiasm that she would normally, knowing he was moving so woodenly inside it. She’d thought that he’d be as easily competent at dancing as he was at everything else, but she had to admit that Ross was picking this up faster than Greg.

In fact he’d picked up the cha-cha so fast she was beginning to wonder if it was on that teach-yourself-to-dance DVD. He even had the camp hand gestures right. Ross had danced with Jo, and Angelica asked the two of them to demonstrate a new spin step, which had made Jo’s handkerchief hem float up like flower petals round her curving calves. They’d moved around each other really easily, linking and dropping hands, falling in and out of the holds, and Katie had felt a tiny stab of jealousy that Jo’s relaxed swing brought out a new kind of confidence in Ross. He was leading her; she was happy to be led. Their over-the-top Latino struttings had been the performance of the evening.

Angelica’s voice cut through her thoughts. ‘You’re never going to enjoy doing it until you’re confident about where your feet are going. I want to see a bit more involvement! More passion! More instinct!’ She swept a dramatic hand around the room. ‘Please! Think of me here! At least get a Glenn Miller CD out of the library and listen to the rhythms.’

‘But it’s hard practising on my own at home,’ protested Chloe. ‘I don’t have enough room, or a partner, and I don’t know what music’s right and the people below me have been complaining about the banging on my floor  . . .’

‘Right!’ said Angelica. ‘Starting this week, you’re all coming to the Friday night social dance here.’

Everyone stared at her.

‘Yes!’ she said. ‘It’s a great chance to get dressed up and see what those steps look like when they’re done properly! Seven-thirty till eleven, four pounds a head, free orange squash. You’ll see quicksteps and waltzes and jive and foxtrots, lots of people who know what they’re doing, you’ll learn plenty just watching. Baxter and Peggy go sometimes already, don’t you? I’ve seen you two there.’

Of course they go, thought Katie, as Peggy bobbed her roller-set obediently. Baxter probably rules that dancefloor like a basking shark in built-up heels.

‘And can we dance with other people?’ asked Trina hopefully.

‘If you want to dance with Chloe all evening that’s up to you,’ said Angelica. ‘But I think you’ll find that two lovely young girls like yourselves will be in high demand. And the rest of you  . . .’ She paused and gave them a little wink. ‘You might find that seeing your partner dancing with someone else will make you want to raise your own game a bit. Just make sure you book them in for the first and last dance. Isn’t that right, Peggy?’ she added with a wink.

Peggy sighed. ‘Baxter’s a popular man, I must say.’

Chloe and Trina didn’t bother to disguise their gawps.

But Angelica’s mood had changed again, for the better, and she swung back into her teaching mode. ‘Now, let’s stay with the social foxtrot, but this time we’re going to learn a new promenade step, so concentrate, please, Christopher! I don’t want you lot showing me up at the social. Ross? Would you mind demonstrating with me, please?’

She held out her arms as Ross walked into the middle of the room.

Angelica tutted and wagged her finger at him. ‘Now, what did I say about smartness being the first rule of ballroom? Tuck that shirt in, you scruff! Do you think Gene Kelly left his shirt untucked? Or Bruce Forsyth? And for crying out loud, would you stand up straight? You’re too young for a stoop.’

Ross grinned sheepishly as he pushed his shirt into the back of his jeans, and stood up straight, pulling his shoulders back at the same time, under Angelica’s watchful eye.

‘There! That’s much better,’ she said approvingly.

Jo nudged Katie. ‘Nice arse!’ she stage-whispered.

Katie was about to demur, but actually, yes, she thought, with a flicker of surprise, Ross does have quite a nice arse. She never really noticed it, what with his baggy T-shirts normally covering it up, but there it was, quite pert in his jeans, at the top of his long legs.

A warm flower of approval began to open in her chest, and bloomed as Angelica began demonstrating the new step, and Ross fell in with her, instinctively moving alongside, his back straight and his head relaxed, as if he wasn’t even concentrating. His steps had a little bounce to them.

Ross looks like he knows what he’s doing, thought Katie, taken aback by the sudden rush of attraction she felt towards him. He’s got confidence. He’s not whingeing. He’s in charge.

Angelica and Ross danced the basic foxtrot steps as she talked, then turned so their hips were facing outwards.

‘This is how you can talk to your partner and have a look around at who you can line up for the next song at the same time,’ she said, as their feet neatly slid in unison then crossed and, for the first time, the dance started to look a little like the floating elegance of the version Katie had seen on television. Ross sailed along next to her, bemused by his own sudden shift into Fred Astaire mode.