The Ballroom Class (61 page)

That was true, too, in a way, she thought, as she cut around the photograph from the newspaper and stuck it carefully in the last page of her mother’s last album. A whole history of myself, sitting here in a box in my parents’ old house, while I went round the world trying to get away from it. And now here I am, adding to it.

She looked approvingly at the final picture. Angelica, at home. Happy. For good measure, she stuck her wedding photo of Jerry in there too, but took out a picture for herself: one of her and Tony at the National Championships in 1977, mid-air in some complicated jive move, eyes black with liner and fixed entirely on one another.

Angelica didn’t even remember seeing it at the time, and now it could have been someone else.

Maybe it was better that way, remembering Tony as he was then, dark and sleek and handsome. She had no idea what he’d look like now – gone to seed, probably, with a string of divorces and a clapped-out Porsche.

She looked at herself in the photograph again, curled up on the sofa, raising her chin to the photographer as the light fell on her cheekbones, and shadowed her long slanting eyes. It had been weeks now since she’d needed a sleeping pill to get through the night; even her creaky old knees seemed to be loosening up again.

I’ve done all right, though, she thought, and allowed herself a gentle smile.

In the days before Christmas, Angelica decided two things: she would get a new puppy, whom she’d love, housetrain, and not treat as a substitute baby-husband, and secondly, it was time to put 34 Sydney Street on the market.

In her truthful moments, she wasn’t really sure that she wanted to sell, but she believed in setting things in motion and seeing what happened.

If someone offers and I’m sad, then I’ll stay, she reasoned. But with house prices in Longhampton getting to what they were, she’d be mad not to take what she could and get back to her lovely white house in Islington, and her friends, and the cafés, and the life she’d put on hold.

Yet, to her surprise, she found herself thinking, I could always keep it going. It’s not like it would cost much to run. I could come up for weekly lessons, keep Peggy and Baxter company at the social nights. Maybe get the formation team going again, if there was enough interest. And Jo and Katie were still on at her about children’s lessons – that was something to think about.

It made her smile that she could even be bothered to tell white lies to herself about it, when she was honest about so many other things now.

While everyone else was scurrying round the precinct doing their last-minute Christmas shopping, Angelica tidied what little there was in the house, ready for the estate agent to come round to value it. She’d made a pot of coffee and put croissants on to warm, as Jo had advised. She was pouring cream into her mother’s saved-for-best milk-jug when there was a knock at the door, and, straightening her skirt, she went to answer it.

Whatever’s to be will be, she thought.

‘Hello!’ she said, with a warm smile for the estate agent on the front step, and her smile broadened as she thought, he’s not the spotty youth I spoke to on the high street. So there
are
attractive older men in Longhampton after all.

And then her smile wavered, and broadened, and wavered again as slowly old memories clicked together in her head, waking up from a long, long sleep.

She swallowed, suddenly conscious of her hair, her feet, her posture, everything. Surely it couldn’t be? Really?

‘Hello?’ she said again, this time with a touch of disbelief, as the man standing in front of her gave her a slow, appreciative smile that reached all the way up to his jet-black eyes.

If it was who she thought it was, he hadn’t gone to seed. He’d just matured, his youthful swagger mellowed into a rakish older charm. The red scarf hanging round his neck, over the cashmere coat, didn’t say multiple divorce, and neither did the lack of silver in the dark, swept-back hair.

‘Saw you in the papers, and I found you at last,’ said Tony Canero. He extended a tanned hand, with one gold signet ring on the little finger and no pale tan line on his wedding finger. ‘You’re a difficult woman to track down, Angie.’

The gesture was so poised and balanced, so redolent of his perfect timing, that Angelica felt her feet go light, as well as her head.

She didn’t miss the irony that he’d eventually found her here, the place she’d been running away from all the time she’d known him.

That wasn’t irony, though. It was right.

‘Well, here I am,’ she said.

‘And you look as beautiful as ever,’ he said. ‘Are you dancing?’

‘If you’re asking,’ said Angelica Andrews, and he took her hand, the promise of many dances in one easy motion, and kissed it, never letting his dark eyes leave hers.