Let's Dance (6 page)

H
ome, sweet home. People are looking at me.

George felt the cold sweat of panic. Not the rage of his claustrophobia, the panic of guilty conscience.

I wanted a friend, he told himself; someone to talk to, but people like Derek can only be enemies. Who loves ya, George?

George knew he should not have left those letters in his room, not for a minute. Nothing could be left in the hostel rooms, unless it was old clothing no one else would want. Dirty socks, even underwear, walked away from the washing machine in the basement. The laces from George's training shoes had gone. And so had the letters, probably for the sake of the first-class stamps. Inside prison walls there had been some code of manners. Here there was none. He could see Derek, laughing.

But then anything, even a piece of paper, was currency to small, skinny Derek. George found the envelopes, less the stamps and the contents, in the
waste bin under the kitchen sink, along with the remnants of Chinese takeaways and polystyrene containers for hamburgers. Derek might return the letters, but he would want to barter, and any material that he could glean from the letters, such as the address from where they were written, would already have been absorbed. George hoped against hope that Derek's erratic concentration did not make any connection between the address in the letters and his own daily destination. He also hoped the information had not been shared. Derek had the morals and the curiosity of a cat. George had befriended him before realizing the pathetic mewing was the preliminary to a scratch.

The prevailing smell in the kitchen was soap and nicotine. George did not drink or smoke, the others' single largest expenditures, and he cooked proper food. They called him Miss Tiggy Winkle. He was the only one who brought inside what he called proper food, namely the raw materials, meat and vegetables, bread that failed to stick to the roof of the mouth, ingredients that required preparation. The length of time he took making his evening meal made him the object of some derision, deflected in part by the element of admiration maintained for anyone who persisted in eccentricities, and the fact that he left what he did not eat, including apple pies and cakes, which were more popular than stew made from scrag-end of lamb or vegetable soup. George earned himself peace and an element of anonymity with the deliberate leftovers of his solid, nutritious food. He flexed his
muscles round the kitchen sink, just to let them see he was guarding his back.

The kitchen was as far removed from Serena's as any kitchen could be. Galvanized steel cupboards, an industrial cooker with eight stern gas rings, an oven big enough to roast an ox. Two sets of utilitarian formica-topped tables flanked by stacking chairs, set on a grey-and-white lino floor, always indifferently clean. Bright neon lights to illuminate the spartan comfort and show up all the faces as they set about the business of eating. Attempts had been made towards homeliness, such as posters on the walls and two plastic plants, but the room remained, at best, like a school canteen, at worst, when the day was grey and the smell was bad, a miserable basement room, always warm.

Warmth drew Derek here, away from the loneliness of his own room, which always smelled vaguely of bodily fluid – sperm, sweat, blood and urine – masked with disinfectant and deodorant, as did all upper three corridors of the hostel for otherwise homeless men, some
en route
between prison and the real world. The smell of sperm came first, like the wafted emissions from a factory making glue. The scent of fifteen loveless men was undisguisable, even when they showered, dressed and stole each other's toiletries. It was an unreal rite of passage to the real world.

‘Hey up, George. How've you been?'

‘All right, thanks. And you?'

‘Oh, fine. I won the lottery again, did I tell you?'

George was a freak: he shone with cleanliness in
poor clothes, he kept his room anonymous and he did not cry in the night. Derek, a resident for six months now, had adored him. George did unheard-of things; he ran a self-serviced car, often up on bricks (someone must have given him that car: Serena had given him that car); he had somewhere to go every day, from where he returned, refreshed and fulfilled; he fried mushrooms which he collected himself because he knew how; and last week he made a pie, for nothing, out of blackberries. That made him rich and, in the hinterland of people with nothing to lose and no idea of what they stood to gain, enormously enviable. George had a secret. George was happy. That was something that had to be fixed. People liked George: that would have to be fixed, too. Derek, small and sweet, skinny little runt with a handsome face, everybody's gofer, with just enough sense not to turn tricks in public loos in a small town like this, admired the stockiness of George and the muscles on his arms, fancied himself in love. All George wanted was to keep his bum clean, but he had been flattered and loved the easy flow of words and jokes. Derek had made him laugh.

‘There was a bit of a fight in here, dinner time,' said the man who had greeted him and watched, hungrily, as he peeled potatoes.

‘Oh dear,' said George, not inviting further particulars. There were often squabbles. It was dangerous to be a one-eyed man in the country of the blind, perilous to be in possession of his own particular source of peace. He knew he had to watch it.

He should never have talked to Derek. Have let Derek take him to the old furniture place to sell stuff, as if he was a fellow thief. Have let Derek find out, from his own, unguarded, tongue, what there was to envy.

‘W
e've lost the letters,' Serena said next morning.

‘George took them,' said Isabel for the tenth time.

‘I want them back.'

‘You can't have them back. Never mind, you've written some more.'

Which she had. Two, three letters a day. Or pieces of paper stuck into envelopes that bore addresses Isabel could not read and doubted if any postman could, either. Isabel was not going to point this out. Letters were therapy and Serena was entitled to whatever secret life she wished to lead behind those scratched glasses.

‘I want to go to town
now.'

‘Come on, then.'

‘I'm driving, aren't I?'

‘No, Mummy, you know you can't. Be a good girl.'

It horrified Isabel the way she had so quickly got into the habit of talking to her mother as if her mother were a child. It seemed to rob them both of dignity. Mother was a petulant child this morning. Isabel had been craving a child of her own for the last few years, her body had been crying out for such a burden, but not a child like this.

Isabel's car, which Serena loved and envied, to the
extent that Isabel locked it out of sight in the ramshackle garage, was the vital link between town and home. There had been three or four fairly successful forays to the shops: today they would try the market. Isabel had grown accustomed to the rutted track, knew how to avoid the worst of the holes without dipping over into the fields, even enjoyed the challenge. There was nothing between this small, powerful bullet of movement and the sky, nothing at the end of the track but the church and the graveyard, the farm and the cottage and then five miles more to civilization. A party, Isabel thought again, suddenly longing for company. She shivered slightly. However many times she had visited her mother here, she had never done more than nod at the neighbours. Makers of hay and tillers of the earth, nothing in common with either of her parents. She shivered again. How exclusive they had been.

‘Are you warm enough, Mum?'

‘What?'

Of course she was warm enough. Serena wore an ancient fur coat, a hat suitable for a wedding, with a scarf tied beneath it, huge earrings, shiny black boots. She needed no help with washing and dressing, although the end result was alarming. Her eyebrows were painted black; the remainder of her face pale with thick powder. She was docile in the car as long as music was played.

They both watched with pleasure and curiosity as countryside gave way to the outskirts of town, the
sight of people inspiring Serena to point and squawk as if she had never seen people before, while the presence of populace made Isabel homesick. The pointing and gesturing was fine inside the privacy of the car, less so when she guided Serena into the marketplace. Years before there had been some pleasure in shopping with her mother. Isabel looked forward to it, failed to comprehend how different it could be now.

‘I want lots of things!' Serena yelled.

‘Shh, not so loud. What sorts of things? We need soap and tights and fruit…'

‘Things!' Serena yelled again, waving her arms about, hitting a man in the chest. He staggered to one side and swore. She darted to a stall, where autumn apples lay in polished splendour next to glowing oranges and bright bananas. The day was grey: the colour of the fruit, artfully assembled in serried rows, beckoned invitingly. Mother wanted the grapefruit at the back, scrabbled at the display, clawed and pawed until the careful symmetry was destroyed and oranges bounced on the cobbled floor of the market square, apples fell in dull successive thumps, plums softer in their quiet bruising. The woman behind the stall was shouting before Isabel pulled Serena away, amazed at the strength she needed to shift her from this orgy of desecration. The shouting made Serena pause; the restraint made her wild until she stopped as suddenly as she had begun. She stood back, looked at the plump owner of the spilled fruit, pointed at the double chins and
cawed with laughter. It was a loud, abrasive sound, cutting into the silence.

‘Fat!' Serena screamed between her laughter. ‘Fat, fat! Oh yes, very fat!'

There was no right reaction. A child can be slapped for bad behaviour. Slapped and made to cry in public, but not a seventy-five-year-old woman. Isabel placed herself between her gesturing mother and the stall, blushing with shame, murmuring apologies, picking up the fruit. A plum squashed beneath her heel: money changed hands as the woman, too, realized that she could not shriek at senior citizens, or at least not for long.

Behind her daughter Serena clicked her tongue and stamped her feet impatiently, as if she were cold and there was nothing more important. ‘Hurry up, hurry up,' she was chanting. ‘Hurry up. Got to get things.'

The stallholder watched, fury transformed into contemptuous pity. The outburst had a calming effect on Serena. Fear, Isabel told herself, seeking an explanation to suppress her own anger. Surely that was all it was when Mother was faced with crowds of people, colour and choice becoming mingled into one mad abstract canvas, violent in impact. The aggression of frustration.

‘What was all that about, Mum?' Her voice cooed. She hated her voice for having to make that cooing sound: she loathed the stallholder for the final benediction of her pity. Mother was marching on, carving a path for herself. She was gazing into the faces of shoppers, smiling widely at each with startled recognition,
as if they were long-lost acquaintances, greeted with delight. People avoided her gaze as Mrs Burley sailed down the central aisle of stalls, giving away smiles like presents, Isabel following like a bag carrier, suffused with misery, catching up without wanting to catch up.

‘Why did you do that to that stall, Mum?' It was a pointless question for a piece of petulance already forgotten.

Serena stopped. She took her hands out of the pockets of her coat, looked at them slowly. Made fists of them, then let the fingers uncurl, one by one, counting under her breath.

‘One, two three … I wanted five thingies, Issy. Only I don't know what they are.'

‘You wrote them down, darling.'

Serena looked puzzled, then definite, shook her head. ‘No, I didn't.'

‘Yes, you did. In your pocket?'

‘No, I didn't. I don't do that.'

Was that what all that fury was about? A forgotten list in her cramped script? Was that all?

Isabel cooed like a pigeon. ‘Don't worry, I can remember what it was you wanted.'

Serena looked at her with the same pity she had herself received from the stallholder, the glance given to a lunatic.

‘Of course you don't know what I want. You can't possibly have any idea. I want to go home, is what I want. I want George. Now.'

The voice had risen a pitch. Serena rubbed her eyes,
smeared the blackened eyebrows, making her look like a clown.

So they set off towards the multi-storey car park, Serena giggling and pointing again, forgetting the imperative of haste. A ludicrous progress, akin to a pair of drunks, Serena clutching then pulling away, as the mood struck, Isabel embarrassed to restrain her. At one point Serena darted away to stroke the blond hair of a teenage boy: he reacted as if she had slapped him. Isabel hated him, too. Then Serena homed in on a posse of women, engaged them in earnest conversation until they fled in various directions. Then she sabotaged a group of children: she stood by the exit of Tesco, pulling faces, crossing her eyes, putting her fingers in her ears. The youngest child did not object, the eldest giggled with shifty embarrassment. By the time they were back at the car, Isabel had learned to keep a firm hold on her mother's arm and maintain an adamant, insincere flow of loud chat. Serena refused to get into the car, claiming it was not hers, hers was bigger. Persuaded, finally, she slumped into a sulk in the passenger seat until Isabel remembered the music. Pausing to pay at the booth, Isabel aware, for the fiftieth time, of the now familiar glance of pity from the attendant.

‘When are we going to have this party?' Serena asked, suddenly sane again.

‘Never. Not ever.'

There was a pain throbbing at Isabel's temples: she wanted either to weep or to sleep. It was wrong to feel
thus, the opposite of virtuous or forgiving. Wrong to feel this dreadful shame.

T
hey were turning into the homeward stretch at the beginning of the fields by the church, Mother twitching and humming and finally unearthing from her pocket the shopping list which she greeted with a crow of pleasure. She wanted to go back, she announced.