The Ballroom Class (36 page)

Ross was standing in front of her. ‘We’ll be back on Saturday night,’ he said. ‘I’ve left contact numbers on the fridge.’

Katie heard the dismissal in his voice and realised she didn’t want to say goodbye to Hannah yet. ‘Shall I try to come on Friday afternoon? I could—’

‘No. It’s better if you don’t.’ He cleared his throat quietly, so as not to wake Jack. ‘We can talk on Sunday. Jo says Dorothy can babysit for a few hours so we can get things thrashed out.’

‘Jo says?’ Katie’s eyes narrowed, as a voice she didn’t recognise slipped out of her mouth. ‘Didn’t take you long to start discussing our private business with Jo.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. You mean you haven’t mentioned it since you’ve been here?’ Ross sounded tired, but terse. ‘She’s doing her best not to take sides – you should be grateful. I’ll put Jack to bed. You get off home.’ And he held out his arms.

Katie couldn’t let him go. ‘I want to put him down,’ she said. ‘Since I won’t be seeing him for a few days.’

Ross looked as if he was about to argue but then didn’t. ‘Whatever,’ he said and turned away.

Katie took Jack to the nursery, which had been decorated like a princess’s castle to distract Molly from Rowan’s arrival. Jo had put up the travel cot in a corner. Beneath the pink, ruffled curtains were proper black-out ones, as per Jo’s various baby instruction manuals, and her eyes took a moment to adjust to the pitch darkness. She worried for a moment that Jack would panic, waking up in a strange room, but told herself that Hannah was there. Hannah would calm him, and Ross would be next door. She stood in the baby-scented darkness for a while, unable to bring herself to put him down. Hannah was fast asleep in the spare princess bed, next to Molly’s, her thumb stuck fast in her mouth, the fingers of her other hand curled round her ear.

Katie’s heart sank at the sight of it. She’d almost got Hannah to stop thumb-sucking. Now she only did it when something was bothering her. Kids knew, Peter had said. Did Hannah already know?

She jogged Jack in her tired arms. He was such a weight. It didn’t seem like any time since he’d been a tiny baby. Like just a few minutes ago. And Ross had been so thrilled, so proud, so amazed by his family, promising to do everything in his human power to keep them happy and safe. He’d held them all in the hospital bed, her and Hannah, and Jack in the middle, and Katie had felt absolutely free from pressure for the first time in years, with Ross’s arms around her.

When did I grow up, thought Katie, silent tears spilling down her face. When did I go from being a twenty-something dating a fit designer, to suddenly being a worn-out absentee mother? And when do I get that book of mother answers, the one I’ll need when Hannah comes back on Saturday and asks me what’s going on with Daddy? And where Molly’s daddy has gone?

There’s no book, she thought. Mum never had that book. She just banked on me never asking the questions. And that’s not the way I’ve brought Hannah up. Hannah never shirked, as Katie had done, from asking the questions that made the grown-ups exchange nervous looks.

The room felt darker than ever.

21

Frank Armstrong was the sort of husband who still got up first thing on a cold, dark October morning to bring his wife a cup of tea in bed, even though he no longer had to be in the bath by half-seven and be at his desk in the post office at half-eight.

The habits of two-thirds of a lifetime were hard to break overnight, and besides, it was much easier to drag yourself downstairs when you knew you could go back and doze for as long as you wanted afterwards while the rain lashed down outside and your wife went to work.

‘Thanks, Frank,’ said Bridget sleepily, reaching a hand out from under the cosy duvet to take the mug from him.

‘There’s not much milk,’ he warned her. ‘Madam’s just about finished the last pint, with that cereal she had when we got in last night.’

‘Oh  . . . damn.’ Bridget sipped at her tea and willed her brain to get going. She had an early meeting at school, about the nativity play. It got more and more complicated every year, with the trendy variations these new teaching students liked to put in, hence having to go in at half-term. Christmas would be here before they knew it; November always seemed to speed by once the play rehearsals started.

This’ll be my last nativity, she thought, suddenly, and wasn’t sure which emotion won out: the sadness or the thrill of freedom on the horizon. By the time Lauren’s wedding came round in June, she’d be right about to retire.

Lauren’s wedding triggered less welcome thoughts. The credit-card bills. Another round had arrived yesterday and if she hadn’t whipped them out of Frank’s sight, he’d probably have opened them – and probably had some kind of cardiac arrest. Just the other day, Frank had ‘guessed’ that a wedding cake, a really fancy one, mind, might cost, what, fifty quid? No idea. Absolutely no idea.

You’re starting to sound like Lauren and Irene, Bridget thought, and her mind slid back to the overdraft. She didn’t want to, but she couldn’t help it; it was like having a hole in a tooth that you couldn’t stop poking at. They were dangerously close to their limit on that too now, thanks to that camcorder.

Bridget’s skin felt chilled beneath the duvet as she chided herself again for not reading small print properly. Her, of all people! That’s why those cards were 0% interest to begin with, obviously; they made up for it once they did start charging you. Still, she’d got the timing right; it was just what she’d spent up until now – Bridget tried not to think how much that actually was – and then it’d all be paid off in one fell swoop. That savings account had at least eight grand in it, which should clear the worst of the credit cards and even make a little dent in the overdraft as well, and she still had her eternity ring to sell, if need be  . . .

‘Ooh!’ she exclaimed, as Frank’s freezing toes came back into contact with hers. ‘You’ve got feet like ice!’

‘But warm hands. Give us a cuddle.’

Frank was a good man, thought Bridget, as the familiar arms closed around her waist, as they had done virtually every morning since she was twenty two-years old. There’s no price you can put on love like his.

She put her tea down on the bedside table, and turned to curl into him, breathing in the morning smell of his warm body and clean cotton pyjamas. He’d even bothered to brush his teeth on the way back to bed.

Then, just as he began to pull her closer into his hairy chest, greying like a grizzly bear, she thought of the debts in their name, and felt ashamed. They’d never had secrets. Not her and Frank.

I’ll sort it out this week, she thought. Get it out of the way and done. And I’ll tell Lauren she’ll have to start choosing
between
things, instead of having both, plus a spare.

Deep down she knew that’d be easier said than done, and the stiffness in her body gave her away.

‘Bridge?’ said Frank, hurt. ‘No time for a cuddle?’

‘I’ve got to get up,’ she said, throwing back the duvet. ‘Christmas play meeting.’

In her old bed next door, Lauren stared happily at the ceiling, imagining how she was going to decorate her new house. Every little thing about it was going to be so new, and fresh, with no one else’s old Blu-tack on the walls, or grime in the shower grouting, and, according to the brochure Dr Carthy had passed on, you could specify right down to your carpets and wall colours and everything, before you even moved in.

White with accents of turquoise and silver, decided Lauren, picturing herself swishing through the house in a red checked apron, carrying plates of cupcakes to Chris in the living room.

Where he’d be sprawled across the floor with Kian, playing some nasty shoot-’em-up. Lauren’s fantasy screeched to a halt.

That’s not going to happen, she reminded herself. That is the whole point of doing this.

Lovely Dad to the rescue. Like always.

Lauren decided she’d do a special display dance with him at the reception, as a thank you.

Then her alarm went off, and she leaped out of bed before her mum could get to the bathroom but, to her surprise, the door was already locked and the shower was running.

Katie was lying awake before her 7 a.m. alarm too, half listening to the rain lashing down against the window. She hadn’t slept all night, apart from one weary half-hour when her sore eyes had shut from sheer exhaustion. She’d woken too soon with a start, as if someone had shaken her, and for a blissful moment, she couldn’t remember why she was so upset. Then it all came back in painful flashes, and she wanted to be asleep again.

She got out of bed, unable to lie still, even though it was barely six o’clock. By the time Lauren was hammering on the bathroom door, reminding Bridget not to take all the hot water, Katie was on her way to the one place she knew would stop her mind going round and round: the office.

Outside Angelica’s bedroom window, early-morning ducks cruised silently by on the river while she slept on, unconscious beneath her satin eye mask. She never woke before ten in the old days: all those years spent dancing into the small hours, and training her brain to be most alive after eleven at night. The sleeping pills helped now, but while they gave her aching body some rest, they didn’t stop her dreams.

Angelica was dreaming now, of the Tower Ballroom, Blackpool, the drum-beating heart of British ballroom, where rococo banks of arched gold boxes overlooked the sprung floor, a patterned masterpiece of glowing wood. It was a dream she had at least once a month, more often since she’d opened her mother’s albums. The ballroom was massive, high ceilinged and imperious, with room for hundreds of couples beneath the crystal chandeliers, but there were only five: her competitors, already standing there, frozen in the opening pose. It was the final dance. They were waiting for her and Tony.

Angelica was standing just off the dancefloor, her hands nervously smoothing down the sequins on her foxtrot dress. She never lost a competition in this one, a glittery creation of thousands of hand-sewn sequins and red feathers that floated like powderpuffs around her calves when she paused, mid-step, as if she had all the time in the world. That was their ballroom trademark, she and Tony. They could stop, and it was as though the whole room stopped with them, holding their breath until they carried on.

Angelica’s ebony hair was slicked back in an exotic bun stuffed with unexotic hairgrips, and her feet were flexing, ready for action, in her gold shoes. She was poised on the edge, all her concentration and fear built up to a peak and if she didn’t start the routine soon, it would tip over, and be lost in the nerves that were always so close behind. When Angelica was dancing she never felt the nerves, but if she stopped, they swamped her.

Where was Tony? He’d been right by her side a moment ago. She turned and searched the crowd for that familiar foxy face with its teasing, flashing eyes, and eyebrows that checked her steps without words, but saw only blank faces, expectant faces, hostile faces.

‘And the final competitors dancing the Foxtrot, Angelica Andrews and Tony Canero!’ called the announcer.

Tony wasn’t there.

Husky drumbeats sounded, the introduction to ‘Night and Day’ – the ones that were meant to accompany their shimmy out to the spotlight. The singer waited at the microphone, her sympathetic eyes joining everyone else’s, boring into Angelica’s mind until she felt pierced, like a pincushion.

Where was Tony?

‘Angelica Andrews and Tony Canero!’ This time more impatient.

Hot dream fear crawled through her, and she was rooted to the spot as the band launched into the introduction to ‘Night and Day’, as their spotlight moved round the floor without them inside it.

This was the foxtrot! Her favourite song! The lyrics, brimming with passion and addiction, were all about them – their night and day existence.

Where was Tony?

Her eyes skittered round the room, the scary blank faces, the gold fittings, the red velvet swags, the strangers, the spotlight moving on without her. And then, as she always did, she saw her father, sitting with the stuffed-shirt judges on the centre table.

‘He’s not coming,’ he said, in his flat Midlands tone. ‘You’re not good enough for him.’

Then Angelica woke up, slick with sweat, and as the rain pummelled the windows, she counted her breaths until they were back to normal.

22

The autumn rain carried on lashing the windscreen as Katie drove to work, unable to stop imagining the scene in Jo’s Zafira.

Ross hadn’t taken her birthday presents. They were still hidden in the wardrobe. Hannah would be upset, she thought. She’d think Mummy had forgotten, when in fact Mummy hadn’t forgotten, Mummy had got her a really nice present, the thing she really wanted even though Daddy hadn’t  . . .

Stop, she told herself. There’s nothing you can do now. Worry about work instead for one day – there’s enough of it.

Katie found a pile of thick folders on her desk when she arrived, her feet soaked in her court shoes, and, for once, she was glad of the mountain of paperwork. There’d be absolutely no chance to think about anything other than planning permission and Compulsory Purchase Orders until lunchtime at the earliest.

She hung up her wet coat, put down her coffee, and laid her mobile in her in-tray, turned to silent, where she could see it. Just in case Ross rang with some emergency. Then she opened her first file.