The Ballroom Class (41 page)

‘God, no, don’t!’ He looked horrified and then Katie knew it had to be something to do with the wedding.

Like she was in a position to advise on
that
.

‘Promise,’ she said, in what she hoped was a big-sisterly way.

‘Did you look at the twenty-five-year-term thing, and think, God, when this is paid off, we’ll be forty-eight! And we’ll have been together longer than I’ve been alive now?’ The words poured out of him as tiny beads of sweat formed on his forehead. ‘And we’ll probably have kids? Twenty-five years! I mean, it’s a hell of a long time! Like, 2032! I don’t even know what I’ll be doing in
five
years from now!’

‘Um, well, I was a little bit older than you,’ said Katie, taken aback by the force of Chris’s panic. ‘You’re still quite young to be taking on a mortgage, but  . . .’ She looked him firmly in the eye. ‘Chris, have you and Lauren been to pre-marriage counselling? To discuss the vows and everything?’

He nodded, a bit wildly. ‘Yeah, but to be honest, it was just the usual guff about listening and compromising, but this mortgage business kind of brought it home  . . .’ His eyes skated nervously over her head towards the class table where Lauren was chatting animatedly to Bridget, who was in turn staring out into space. ‘I’ve had a ton of emotional stuff from my mum about what my dad would have wanted, and then Lauren’s dad had to match the deposit money, because I don’t think he thinks I can look after his little princess, and Kian reckons  . . .’ Chris dragged a smile up from somewhere but it didn’t reach his eyes. ‘It’s getting out of hand. And the only thing anyone ever tells me about the wedding is how my crap dancing is going to spoil the whole reception.’

‘Marriages aren’t just about the wedding,’ said Katie, wearily. ‘It’s what comes after that that you need some proper advice on. No one ever tells you about that.’

They’d come to a sort of halt now, doing boxes in a corner while the more proficient dancers swirled and sashayed past them. Katie found she was able to do boxes and talk at the same time, which came as a pleasant surprise. Although they were holding each other with an intimacy that would lead to kissing anywhere other than a dancefloor, there was a matter-of-factness about their steps, danced so many times in practice with Angelica yelling at them about heartbeats and knee-flexing, that made frank conversation quite easy.

It was a bit like being in a confessional, thought Katie. You felt you could say things within the privacy of one song, while it was just the two of you, experiencing that particular song and dance together.

‘I  . . . I had to call off an engagement,’ she heard herself say. ‘It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, because it was a gut feeling, not a rational one. It wasn’t like me. But now I know it was the right thing to do, because I’d have married the wrong man.’

She looked up and met Chris’s eyes, not feeling as awkward as she’d expected. He looked surprised, but curious.

‘That must have been  . . .’ He pulled a face. ‘Tricky.’

‘Listen, I’m not saying you should. But don’t ignore your instincts. You’re agreeing to share your life with someone,’ she went on. ‘Through everything – good and bad. That’s a big promise.’

‘But Lauren  . . .’ he began, his shoulders slumping.

‘Lauren loves you, she’ll want to sort this out.
Now
. Chris, this is the happiest time,’ she added, trying to smile so it wouldn’t sound so depressing. ‘When you add children and money worries and everything else to the mix it gets even tougher.’

‘I know,’ said Chris, and chewed his lip.

Katie didn’t want to drag anything else out of him if he didn’t want to talk but the poor lad looked about as stricken as a blond rugby player ever got.

‘I’m no expert, but talk to Lauren,’ she said, gently. ‘Forget about in-laws and mates and other people’s advice. She’s the one you’ll be waking up with for  . . .’ She was about to say ‘for the next fifty years’ but realised that would probably make him sprint for the door. ‘But talk to her
now
, so you’ve got time to work things through. The longer you leave it, the harder it’ll get.’

‘I’m not having
doubts
,’ Chris protested rather too emphatically. ‘I just feel  . . . like it’s going a bit quick. It’s not about me and Lauren, it’s about her getting a dress out of Cinderella, and my mum making a big deal about a stupid cake.’ His eyes hooded. ‘But if I say anything I’m going to look like a real bastard, like I don’t want to get married.’

‘Do you want to get married?’ asked Katie, with a directness that surprised even her.

Come on, she thought, it’s not like he can tell anyone else. And it had been Peter’s direct questions that had brought her own true feelings out from under a rock.

Chris looked stricken; clearly the ambush tactic was having similar effects. ‘I think I do  . . . And then  . . . I don’t. But no, I do. I do.’

‘If I asked Lauren the same thing and she gave me that reply, would you be happy with it?’ asked Katie.

‘Nnnnno?’ He stumbled in his step and they had to stop. It broke the tension that had built up between them and they had to look each other in the face so Chris could start them off again.

‘And two, three, four, and  . . .’ said Katie, stepping back.

‘You’re leading,’ said Chris.

‘That’s what marriage does to you,’ she replied without thinking. ‘Sorry,’ she added, smiling wryly.

Chris gave her a more confident look from under his thick row of dark eyelashes, and suddenly Katie felt ancient: she could see exactly why he was a heartbreaker – and just out of his teens.

‘You’re very young to be settling down with a mortgage at your age, Chris,’ she said, as non-patronisingly as she could. ‘Don’t you want to travel? Work abroad?’

‘That’s what Kian says.’ Then his glum expression switched into one of panic, as the music changed to a slower song that Katie didn’t recognise, and Frank’s broad figure loomed up behind them as the singer (Ella Fitzgerald? Julie London?) started warbling about her broken heart.

‘Gentleman’s excuse me!’ said Frank, cheerily. ‘I think Katie’s seen about enough of that corner, Christopher! Katie? May I?’

Chris looked crestfallen as Frank swept her back out into the main current of dancers, and she watched as his beady-eyed mother swooped down on him like a seagull on a sprat, her French-manicured nails just missing his eye as she grabbed him in a close hold and started counting aloud, her mouth exaggerating each word.

‘He’s a nice lad,’ said Katie, feeling a sudden need to defend Chris.

‘Nice enough,’ said Frank, turning her capably, his knee moving inside hers to guide her around. Frank’s hold was more reassuring than Chris’s had been. He would, Katie thought, make a good Santa Claus. ‘Bit of growing up to do, I reckon, though, between you and me.’

‘He is only twenty-three.’

‘When I was twenty-three I’d a wife and baby. But things were different in those days.’ Frank spun Katie in a series of reverse turns, swinging her as if she was light as the feathers on a ballgown. The lights glittered in front of her eyes, and she caught sight of a pair of old dears in fabulous peppermint-green dresses, sitting the dance out. When had those dresses first seen the mirrorball? The sixties? Earlier? Were they part of Longhampton’s formation team, still wearing their gowns out?

He smiled down at her. ‘That’s the trouble about being a dad – you know what twenty-three-year-old lads are like, because you were one yourself once. You wait! Ross’ll be the same with your little girl when the time comes. Where’s he tonight, then? We all missed you on Wednesday.’ He winked. ‘It’s much harder work without you and Jo to partner! Don’t tell Trina, but it’s not the same.’

If he hadn’t said it so kindly, his words wouldn’t have cut through Katie so sharply, and she pleaded the need to concentrate on her steps to avoid any more explanations.

The hands on the big Hall clock swept round the hour in a whirl of Cole Porter and Frank Sinatra, as the Hall got hotter and hotter, and the chatter rose above the slow dances, then stopped as the quicksteps filled the floor and left everyone gasping for breath. The orange-squash cups piled up on the tables as, one by one, each of the ballroom-class dancers were whisked off, sometimes with each other, sometimes with friendly strangers.

Even Trina was kept busy, although each time she flopped back into her seat it was with a fresh critique of some poor bloke’s personal hygiene or a devastating remark about the need for support tights.

‘I should tell her – as a friend to fashion,’ she kept saying, and Chloe kept squeaking in panic, and flapping her to quiet down. Before long, Katie and Lauren had joined in the ringside judging, awarding marks to ‘Mr and Mrs Jive Bunny’ or ‘Mr Action Man Gripping-Hands’, and passing on key information about the smartly turned-out men who paid the charming old-fashioned courtesy of asking for dances.

‘Oooh, watch out for Mr Sunbed, girls,’ observed Lauren, as she sank back gratefully between Katie and Chloe, wriggling a finger in her left ear. ‘He’s a Singer-Along. Mrs Sunbed must be deaf, or if she isn’t, I bet she wishes she was.’

In the odd moment when she wasn’t besieged with dance partners, Angelica would drop by the table, glorious in her lipstick-red dress and shining jet chignon. She seemed to come alive even more when the music was loud and catchy, and no part of her was still. She rippled around the floor like a flame, illuminating whoever was leading her until they seemed to be dancing in their own spotlight. Even Chris.

‘I never know whether to be inspired by Angelica, or whether just to give up now,’ sighed Chloe enviously, as Angelica and Baxter shimmered past in a flawless pattern of complicated turns and locksteps, their feet moving with swift precision, punctuated by pauses that seemed to hang, suspended in the air. The fact that Angelica’s pale forehead was clearly visible above Baxter’s own Brylcreemed head didn’t stop them looking like the only proper dancers in the room; he led and she followed with a skill that made it look like the most natural thing in the world.

‘Mum says she was a professional for years,’ said Lauren.

‘She was a world champion,’ said Peggy, gazing out at them. ‘Best dancer I’ve ever seen.’ They turned, surprised to hear her speak without Baxter. Katie had almost forgotten Peggy was sitting there with them.

‘Her mum and dad were in the formation team, weren’t they?’ she asked, thinking of the archive pictures. That would explain where she got it from.

Lauren nudged her, nodding at Peggy’s unwavering eyes, following Baxter’s effortless motion across the floor. ‘Sweet, isn’t it? After all this time, she still can’t take her eyes off him.’

‘Peggy?’ Katie repeated. ‘Were Angelica’s parents on the formation team?’

Peggy’s attention seemed to snap back. ‘Yes,’ she said, nodding. ‘They were, yes. Very good.’

Katie felt her energy dive at about ten, when she’d normally be slumped in front of the telly, and for a few songs in succession, she waved away a couple of offers, pleading sore feet and exhaustion.

Surreptitiously, she checked her phone, in case Ross had called. She didn’t think she wanted him to, but at the same time  . . . she sort of did.

‘Care for the next dance?’

Katie glanced up and realised a man had been standing there waiting for her to finish with her phone. The slinky introduction to ‘Fever’ was almost through, and Lauren and Trina had both been whisked away by partners, leaving her and Chloe guarding the handbags.

She tried to arrange her face into a polite putting-off smile, so the man wouldn’t feel too offended. He wasn’t bad looking – dark hair, clean-shaven, thirties. Some distant part of her brain registered surprise that young guys like that went to evenings like this.

He’s probably here to meet women, she thought. Divorced, probably. And if you divorce Ross, you’ll have to start meeting men somewhere. You’ll be on the dating scene, like Trina and Chloe are.

And so will Ross. Finding someone new. Finding someone who loves him more than you do.

A sudden plunging dread took Katie’s breath away.

‘I’m sorry, I’m  . . . sitting this one out,’ she stammered. ‘Blisters!’

He angled his head regretfully. ‘Maybe later, then?’

‘Um, yes, yes,’ said Katie. ‘Maybe later.’

‘How about me, then?’ asked Chloe, with a boldness that surprised Katie. She was on her feet before he could reply. ‘I’m trying out partners for an exhibition!’

He smiled, nervously, and nodded.

‘Don’t tell Trina,’ Chloe mouthed, as she followed him to the floor.

‘Now then, Miss Picky, I hope you’ve got a good excuse for turning Rod Coward away – he’s an excellent lead,’ said Angelica, materialising next to Katie. ‘You can’t just turn men down because you don’t like the look of them – it’s the height of bad dancing manners! Word gets round, you know.’

Katie shoved her phone back in her bag with trembling fingers. Did Angelica know
everyone
? And see
everything
?

‘Will you let me do this?’ she went on, reaching into her own bag and pulling out a big red silk flower. ‘I’ve been wanting to do this all night, put some pizzazz on that black dress of yours. I know you’re not a girlie girl,’ she went on, pinning it deftly to Katie’s shoulder strap, ‘but you have to think of the dancefloor as a
stage
, where you can play a
role
for the evening. Imagine yourself as Scarlett O’Hara on the floor, or Liz Taylor. Let yourself go! Be someone else!’